The Tunguska Event

I read about this today, doing a critically reading for SAT-prep in English Class.

I found it really intriguing, and decided to do more research when I got home. The only site I found that didn't seem to be written by a total nutcase, was of course, the ever-reliable wikipedia!

The Article Can Be Found Here

For those of you that don't want to read through all of that, basically what happened is on June 30, 1908, a large, bright object with a HUEG tail was seen in the sky over Tunguska, Siberia. The object crossed the sky for several seconds before exploding.

The explosion was massive (Sources disagree how powerful, I've seen a range from 50-300 megatons.) And a mushroom cloud was observed afterwards, as well as all symptoms of radiation poisoning in those that survived the initial explosion. The problem with this is that the first nuclear bomb would not be tested for another forty years.

Several theories have been put forth, from a comet impact to an alien attack. There is a little evidence for this, and a little for that, but there's almost no evidence to DISPROVE anything.

So I want to ask what you guys think, and also if you could post some better articles on the event, please do.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Fjordor

The Tunguska incident has had many specials run on TLC, The Discovery Channel, and The History Channel. I have watched most of them, and I do not even remotely remember any mention of radioactive fallout.

Yes, I'm beginning to doubt the truth of that myself, too. So far that one article from English class is the only one I've seen that mentioned fallout. In fact, one of the articles I've now read an article that specifically says "Claims that suriviors later died from radiation poisoning are blatantly false." They instead attribute the boils and other "symptoms" to a case of smallpox that was circulating BEFORE the explosiong happened.

Guess I shoulda done better checking of my sources.

There's nowhere I can't reach.