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Tunguska Mystery Blast Solved? 247

Posted by michael from the fire-in-the-sky dept.
mfarah writes: "This BBC article informs that an Italian scientist team has determined that the 1908 blast in Tunguska was in fact caused by a low density asteroid - that's why no crater was ever found. The article mentions that had the asteroid fallen into a populated area, instead of remote Siberia, hundreds of thousands of casualties would have been the result. Fortunately this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" fad has faded from Hollywood..."
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Tunguska Mystery Blast Solved? More

Tunguska Mystery Blast Solved?

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  • And for many years ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Troed ( 102527 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @07:08AM (#2501964) Homepage Journal
    ... that blast was considered by some a reason why nuclear bomb testing should be researched more in the US since there was a possibility that the Russians had the technology already back then.


    However, the credibility of that claim was a bit low since it was von Däniken who said it ;)

    • Re:And for many years ... (Score:2, Informative)

      by sh4de ( 93527 )
      Certainly a far fetched idea, given that Hahn and Strassman discovered uranium fission in 1938, which was a prerequirement for a fission-type nuclear bomb. Fusion bombs weren't tested until 1952 either.

      Speculation of Russia having fission technology three decades prior to that is quite a quantum leap indeed.

      • Re:And for many years ... (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Magnetic energy has yes been able to de feet nukes but that is stone age logic fried in a wok of logic of source code. Or some song like that ago, the hobbit said wu to fu dropped ring around hear.
    • The moderators seem to think that Troed is serious!
  • Curses i thought that documentary the x-files said some oily aliens were there

  • Reality check (Score:3, Funny)

    by ScumBiker ( 64143 ) <scumbiker.jwenger@org> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @07:12AM (#2501973) Homepage Journal
    I was always under the impression that it was a mini-blackhole that wandered through our planet. that easily explains the lack of crater and the tree patterning. The worst part is, did I read this in a Larry Niven novel or watch it on Discovery channel? Ahh, the joys of waking up and feeling the Mountain Dew bubble it's way through my synapses.

    • Re:Reality check (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wangi ( 16741 )
      I was always under the impression that it was a mini-blackhole that wandered through our planet. that easily explains the lack of crater and the tree patterning. The worst part is, did I read this in a Larry Niven novel or watch it on Discovery channel?
      Nah, David Brin's Earth.

      • Benford's "Artifact [berkeley.edu]"

        No, wait.

        Wheeler's "The Krone Experiment" [thekroneexperiment.com] (now a major motion picture!)

        Ah never mind.. This one's probably been done to death.

      • Re:Reality check (Score:2, Insightful)

        by lobsterGun ( 415085 )
        The black hole theory has always confused me. If it was a black hole, why were all the trees pushed away from the center of the impact?

        • Re:Reality check (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Dyolf Knip ( 165446 )
          A mini-black hole would do interesting things to the atmosphere but would not mass enough to suck everything for miles around into it. The shock wave would beat out its gravity. Its event horizon could be anywhere from a few millimeters to a few meters across.

          Of course, I don't really know enough about it. Can someone explain to me exactly what would make a mini black hole create a shock wave?
    • i still dont understand why a mini black hole would pass through the earth without making a hole or crater of some sort. Arent mini black holes supposed to suck up matter that gets in their way? Then it really should puncture earth while going through it, not?
      Guess I dont know squat about mini black holes...

    • Re:Reality check (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:05AM (#2502064) Journal
      The worst part is, did I read this in a Larry Niven novel or watch it on Discovery channel?

      Both have roughly the same amount of truth to them. Larry, however, knows he's writing fiction.
        • Larry, however, knows he's writing fiction.

        Good fiction too. Isn't it in Lucifer's Hammer that Larry postulates a planet killer with the consistency of a hot fudge sundae? Lovely imagery.

        • Yep. The Hammer fell on Hot Fudge Tuesdae.

          Actually, it wasn't the comet with that consistency, the Caltech scientist in the novel came up with that as an explanation of the energies/masses involved.

          Can you imagine a cubic mile of hot fudge sundae?
    • The worst part is, did I read this in a Larry Niven novel or watch it on Discovery channel?

      It's Larry Niven. The Borderland of Sol, 1975 , winner of the 1976 Hugo Best Novelette Award.

  • its behaviour (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shd99004 ( 317968 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @07:15AM (#2501978) Homepage
    I remember when I first read about the Tunguska blast several years ago. Many stories told us that some eye witnesses had seen the object make strange turns, for example flying in an S-shaped path. Are these stories completely wrong, or can a low density asteroid behave like that in the athmosphere?
    • Keep in mind, this happened in very remote Siberia. No one who saw it had ever seen an airplane or likely even a baloon. Although several observers did report a turn, the number of smaller particles was inconsistently reported (either two or three.)
    • The reports that I've seen suggest one sudden turn of approx 20 degress. This could easily have happened due to a heat explosion on one side of the asteroid.

    • wind speeds (Score:2, Informative)

      by DiveX ( 322721 )
      While the flying rock isn't going to be able to do turns like a plane, what witnessses would likely see, and this is a guess, may be a snaking smoke trail. As a skydiver, I have been hit with varying air speeds someimes going different directions. The smoke given off from the object buring off through friction could then catch seperate drafts. With the area being Siberia and all, I would suspect the air to be quite clear, especially during winter, and the trail to be able to be seen for quite a distance. Watch the shuttle launch sometime and notice how after about 5 minutes the smoke trail is still visable except that it has drifted for a fair way.
      • Yes, the Germans noted this with the first V2 launches. The rocket appeared to zigzag all over the sky, but (usually) it was just the winds pushing the smoke trail in different directions.

    • Re:its behaviour (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation&gmail,com> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:12AM (#2502231)
      Keep in mind that these witnesses were a bunch of Russians out in the middle of nowhere. For them, the room was probably moving around in an S-shaped path, if you know what I mean.

  • Near-Earth Asteroid / impact info (Score:5, Informative)

    by rakerman ( 409507 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @07:16AM (#2501979) Homepage Journal
    http://www.nearearthobjects.co.uk/ [nearearthobjects.co.uk]
    White Paper on Comet/Asteroid Impact Hazard [swri.edu]
    NEAT - NASA Near Earth Asteroid Tracking [nasa.gov]
    Now if someone would only resurrect old USENET news, so I could dig out the posting I wrote about Tunguska circa 1990.

  • Old old old news (Score:5, Informative)

    by warmcat ( 3545 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @07:17AM (#2501983)
    There's a great article on the myths surrounding Tunguska at http://www.jamesoberg.com/ufo/tungus.html [jamesoberg.com]. A Russian scientist in the sixties used a model with matchsticks for trees to compute the height and angle of the explosion from the pattern of damage of the trees. From the website:

    ''Aerodynamics experts in Moscow conducted an experiment about twenty years ago in an effort to simulate Tunguska's blast patterns. The scientists used a charge of explosives suspended over a board covered with miniature "trees" represented by matchsticks. In addition to the single blast point a string of smaller charges were added to reproduce the hypersonic shock wave of the object's ballistic passage through the upper atmosphere.

    When the explosives were triggered, a blast pattern strikingly similar to the "butterfly" pattern of the actual Tunguska site was created in the matchstick forest. Although this experiment conclusively demonstrated that the strange pattern was due entirely to a large object that exploded naturally, the experiment's results were still being misinterpreted or misquoted years afterward.''
    • I saw that a while back on BBC documentary about Tunguska. They showed photos from that Russian scientist's exteriments, and they also showed aerial photos of the actual are. The similarity was indeed amazing. I can imagine things would be different now: there would be a computer model of the whole sequence, and if enough time and detail was put into it, I'm sure it'll give similar results.
      Maybe one of those nuclear simulation super comuters?
      Also, for those who know,how does the meteor explode in mid air? I can understand an impact explosion, but how does a "light" meteor explode without impact?

      • Re:Old old old news (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        how does a "light" meteor explode without impact?
        It doesn't! It impacts on the atmosphere, and that's enough to cause the explosion.

        • Re:Old old old news (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          For some feeling of why impacting a fluid (such as air) at high speed when you're not particularly aerodynamic can be as bad as impacting a solid, try doing a bellyflop from a high diving board.

      • Re:Old old old news (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:06AM (#2502068)
        Erm, though the air one is kinda on the right track, its not what is seen to be what causes the explosion. Most of the hypothesis I've seen describe a meteorite that is say, a hard, rocky outer shell surrounding a frozen core of water, or ammonia or some other easily frozen gas/fluid. Drop it into the atmosphere, and as it falls it heats up, slowly building up the interior pressure. Sooner or later that pressure gets high enough so that it 'explodes' when the outer shell finally fails. Do some Google searches on 'airburst' meteorites and you should find some more information. (If you want a demo, you could try nuking a cough drop with a liquid center for like 5-10 minutes, or a hot dog).
  • Completely disintegrated? One would think there would be at least a couple of small craters laying around. Its hard to imagine a fast-moving cloud of fine dust particles causing such damage.
    • It didn't disintegrate.. it exploded just above the ground with enough force to flatten the trees for miles around. Even a smaller-sized asteroid can cause a lot of damage when it explodes, as shown in the matchstick forest experiments.
      • The article claims that the meteor did completely disintigrate. In any case, I've never read or heard of even the smallest pock-marks indicating an explosion of solid matter. Not in the ground, not in the tree-trunks, and not on the heads of the poor farmers.
    • My guess is that the kinetic energy of the asteroid was converted to thermal and blast energy when it hit the dense part of the atmosphere. A nuclear weapon produces most of its effects by emitting soft x-rays (black body radiation) that heat the air around the device to extremely high temperatures.

    • > Its hard to imagine a fast-moving cloud of fine dust particles causing such damage.

      Never been on the wrong end of a sandblasting machine, have you?
  • And you all X-files fans thought that Tunguska was another Roswell. Haa haa!!!

    • Re:Haa haa (Score:3, Informative)

      by iainl ( 136759 )
      But it was another Roswell!

      As in, its an event with a perfectly rational but rather interesting explanation that has been distorted by the saucerheads to support their belief structure. There was a cover up at Roswell, but the documents show thats because they were upper-atmosphere experiments to detect USSR nuclear testing; not something they fancied talking about at the time. One dumb army person thought that a UFO crash would make a good cover story, without realising just how good it would be. When they retracted that, people just believed it more.

      Anyway, enough ranting from me...
  • Imagine if it had hit a major populated area. The results could have been devastating.

    I wonder if there is any possibility of harnessing these things as weapons. Maybe you could blow one off course using a nuclear tipped missile, and cause it to land on one of your enemies cities. I expect the DoD are investigating this concept!

    • I wonder if there is any possibility of harnessing these things as weapons. Maybe you could blow one off course using a nuclear tipped missile, and cause it to land on one of your enemies cities. I expect the DoD are investigating this concept!

      Surely it would make more sense to just use your nuclear-tipped missile and fire that at your enemies cities? Or am I missing something?

      • If you throw a nuclear missile at your enemy's city, then you get nuked in return, start World War III, and generally make a mess of things.

        If you can change the course of an asteroid, then you can cause the same magnitude of destruction without it being traceable to you, and indeed without it being a proveably unnatural event. So you got to destroy a city or an ultrahardened target free from retaliation. Of course, this is only useful for an unprovoked attack, so it requires a level of "rat bastard" thinking that's probably too much for the DoD. CIA, maybe.

        Or am I missing something?

        Sort of, but don't feel bad about it - at least you didn't make an ass of yourself like the AC a few posts below you.
    • Didn't they use moon-based mass-driver to hurl asteroids on the invading aliens in David Gerrold's "War Against the Chtorr"-books?
    • Erm, the most obvious problem would be the extreme scarcity of suitable asteroids. Only one good hit in hundreds of years, ergo unlikely that there's any more lurking close enough to be used. Plus the problems of targetting the enemy's city, given that outgassing could affect the course of the asteroid by 20 degrees (see other posts) - you'd look a bit bloody stupid if it went off course and landed on you instead!

      Grab.

  • Tone of piece.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'd just like to note the article is written as a "Strong possiblity" as opposed to the posting which is made out as a definite.
    • Well, the posting is titled with the question "Tunguska Mytery Blast Solved?" wich doesn't sound that definite to me.

      But I agree with you that mfarah's summary of the article is misleading/wrong ("...an italian scientist team determined that... was in fact ...") since the articles states "italian researchers believe they may have the definitive answer".

  • Quote from Guiness Book of Records, 1994 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lemmus ( 414090 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:00AM (#2502049)
    "There was a mysterious explosion of 10-15 megatons (high explosive equivalent at ..." [specific location/time follows] "...The explosion devasted an area of 1,500 miles^2 and the shock was felt as far away as 625 miles. The cause was variously attributed to a meteorite (1927), a comet (1930), a nuclear explosion (1961), antimatter (1965), a small black hole (1973) and an exploding flying saucer (1976). Although the meteorite theory was initiall rejected, a new assessment in 1992 suggest that the explosion can be accounted for by the energy released following a total disintegration at an altitude of 33,000 ft of a 98-ft-diameter common type stony asteroid traveling at hypersonic velocity at an incoming angle of 45 degrees."

    Besides the obvious point that there have previously been many theories, but still no prrof (not even with the new theory), I think the more interesting fact is the sociological significance of the various theories. In each case, a theory presented taps into the buzzwords of the day.

    While the idea that scientific theories are more media buzzwords than provable facts will hardly come as news to any frequent reader of slashdot, it raises the idea that modern scientists might be well served to learn a bit of history.

    • Re:Quote from Guiness Book of Records, 1994 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by forgoil ( 104808 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @10:12AM (#2502454) Homepage
      Couldn't it be the other way around? The media will bring forth anything containing the buzzwords of the time. As I understood it, there are a bunch of people with radically different theories, all claiming they are correct, yet we don't see all of their theories in the media.

      I figure the media figures out what it wants, and then wraps the truth and lies around it. And add a HUGE portion of ignorance and lack of knowledge to this... Just make a little experiment, take something you have very good knowledge about and check that against anything you find in the media today. Could it be that they are horribly wrong sometimes?

      So basically the post above says it all...
    • In each case, a theory presented taps into the buzzwords of the day

      I should point out that antimatter has been known and around for a lot longer than 1965. It was first theorized in 1928 by Paul Dirac. Got him a Nobel Prize.

  • Tesla giggling in his grave (Score:3, Interesting)

    by imrdkl ( 302224 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:03AM (#2502056) Homepage Journal
    I read somewhere that one of his experiments got a field to resonating inside the core of the earth and then it "popped out" in Siberia.

    Still my favorite. And yes, the military is (still) pursuing this option... :-)

    • I read this too, and while it seem the most incredible, it's the one I think might actually be true.

      All the factors were there... Tesla was being forced to prove that his product worked, he was faced with a potential lack of funding, and he was basically driven a bit insane by these. And in a last ditch effort, he wanted to prove once and for all that his power generator worked.

      If he did manage this, it would certainly explain the super-bright reflection in the atmosphere that thousands of people reported seeing from the event.

      But then again, maybe I'm just *wanting* that to be true.

    • I was wondering when someone was going to mention that...

      I have a friend that seriously claims to a be reincarnation of Tesla, and she will "authoritatively" tell you that he never meant to cause as much damage as he did. Needless to say, I don't think she will be looking to seriously at any new asteroid or comet evidence.
    • Here's a link [germano.com] to a great account of what may have happened

  • Comet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tbone1 ( 309237 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:06AM (#2502067) Homepage
    I'd always thought that a small comet nucleus met the case. Being mostly ice, it would have a lot of chemicals (methane, ammonia) that are volatile in the earth's atmosphere. The jets of escaping gas would act like rocket exhaust and cause the odd motions that were reported by eye-witnesses. And the explosion from the volatiles would be impressive. Plus, since there was no impact crater, and no piece of the object was found, the ice would make sense. It does tend to melt, you know.
    • Yesh, but everything that would be in range to see the smoke trail, is either dead or on fire.
    • If it was a comet that exploded over Tunguska, I think way, way more people would have seen the comet trail heading towards Earth before it exploded.

      The light meteor theory makes way more sense, since there was no visible signs from astronomers of such a small meteor heading our way back in 1908. Besides, the speed of the that meteor relative to Earth when it finally hit the Earth's atmosphere was probably around 40,000 mph, and the friction of the atmosphere at that speed is way higher than the temperatures encountered on the heat shield of the Apollo Command Module when it re-entered the atmosphere at 25,000 mph after a Moon mission.

      It's no small wonder why the meteor exploded, given the high atmospheric friction of its entry.
      • If it was a comet that exploded over Tunguska, I think way, way more people would have seen the comet trail heading towards Earth before it exploded.

        Only if it had already gone past the sun. If it was on its way there there would be no cauda.

    • Question: What's the difference between a comet nucleus and a low density asteroid? The only real difference is that comets have tails, and asteroids don't.

  • Why is it fortunate? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Knunov ( 158076 ) <eat@my.ass> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:12AM (#2502081) Homepage
    "Fortunately this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" fad has faded from Hollywood..."

    I'm not sure why that would be fortunate. If nothing else, the Tunguska incident shows that asteroids are a real threat. If Hollywood can help convince Joe/Jane Taxpayer that funneling money into government programs designed to increase the number of dishes we have monitoring the skies, that's a good thing.

    Knunov
    • Actually, that such an event happened in the past century indicates that we have a bit more time than otherwise. If one Tunguska-size event happens every 1000 years or so, then we've got a few years before we can expect another one. As opposed to if it had happened in 1400 in which case we'd be approaching due or if around 1000 we'd be coming up due.

      • Re:Why is it fortunate? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ishark ( 245915 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:30AM (#2502118)
        This is the same mistake of thinking that since you ust rolled a 6 on a dice, then the probability of rolling another 6 "is less than 1/6". It doesn't work like this. If there's a 1/1000 chance of being hit by a meteorite per year, this does not mean that there'll be one hit every 1000 years..... only that *the average on a large number of hits* will be 1/1000 years. The next one could be tomorrow...

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Actually you just spoke of the gamblers falicy. Since the impact of an asteriod is an entirely binomial event, it either happens or it does not happen. Since the random variable (impact of asteriod) is independent (the fact that an asteriod hit yesterday has no bering on the fact that it will hit today) and mutually exclusive (an asteriod cannot hit and not hit), the fact that a asteriod hit years ago has no bearing on the probability that one will hit tommorow, the probability is always the same. If you are confused about this pick up a first year undergrad stats book.
      • Hmm. Not sure about your use of probability there. Do you owe lots of money to casinos by any chance?
        It landed on black last time, so it's a mathematical certainty that it'll land on red this time!
      • You are wrong.

        Lets take the simple example of a six sided die.

        Thus roling a 6 happens on average once every 6 roles.

        If the first number I role is a six. How many roles would it take before I can expect another 6.

        The answer is that you can't answer that question.

        I could role 6 6's in succession or I could role the die one hundred more times before rolling another 6.

        All the statistics show is the average, it does not show how many roles, or in your case, years between any 2 events.
      • Ummm. Don't probabilities and stuff not rely on past effects? So if you have a 1/1000 chance of a major asteroid strike per year, and haven't had one for a while doesn't mean that probability changes. And if you had one last year, this year's chances are still 1/1000. (On the other hand if asteroid strikes were tied to some periodic 1000 year event my statement's aren't relevant.)
        -cpd

      • Re:Why is it fortunate? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by smillie ( 30605 )
        You need to work on your random number theory. For true randomness each happening is totally independent of the others. Because one meteor hit recently does not influence when the next will hit. It could be tomorrow or 10,000 years from now. The only difference is a few mathamtitions will have to recalc the "average" impact time.
      • Actually when the last one happened has no bearing on when then next will happen because the events are not interdependent. Take for example rolling two dice. What are the chances of both dice rolling 1? 1 in 36. So I roll the first die, and it comes up as a 1. What is the chance that the other die is going to come up as a 1? The knee jerk reaction is that it is 1 in 36, but that is not the case. Die #2 is not dependent on die #1 so the chance that it will be a 1 is a remarkable 1 in 6.
      • Don't you just love slash dot. One measly mistake and 7 people jump up to correct you :-)

  • Not news... (Score:5, Informative)

    by aallan ( 68633 ) <alasdair@bab[ ]m.co.uk ['ili' in gap]> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:16AM (#2502088) Homepage

    This isn't news, this theory has been around for some time. There have been many papers published on this, recent journal papers include...

    I could go on, but a quick search on ADS [u-strasbg.fr] gives 219 [u-strasbg.fr] relevant papers.

    Al.
  • I have it on good authority - Spider Robinson in his latest Callahan book, Callahan's Key - that the Tunguska blast was caused by Nikola Tesla testing a new super radio. It turns out that the super radio is actually the oft speculated upon Tesla Death Ray.

    So, there you are. Mystery solved!
  • Well, thats what alot of Nikoli Telsa fans will tell you. His DEATH Ray skipped under the Ionosphere missing its target in the Artic Bryd was supposed to be on the look out for. Supposedly in a direct line from that location.

    Before one more ASS@@@ mod hit me on a troll , Im not joking look it up......

  • An asteroid, eh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Leave it to science to take the easy way out. I mean, come on! Every good, Bible-unbelieving atheist knows that's where God exploded.

  • There are problems with the asteroid hypothesis (Score:5, Interesting)

    by D. J. Keenan ( 524557 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:46AM (#2502161) Homepage
    The stony-asteroid hypothesis has been around for a long time. It has been questioned for several reasons. In particular, (i) there were bright/white nights before the event, and (ii) debris has been found in crash sites from meteorites 10000 times lighter, whereas absolutely none has been found at Tunguska.

    For more details and an alternative explanation, see the following.

    Dr. Kundt is at the University of Bonn. I don't know enough to comment on his paper in detail. It seems, though, that the Italian researchers, whose work is reported by the BBC, have not considered things as well as they should have.
    • What Dr. Kundt describes, the Tunguska event being the result of an explosion of naturally outflowing natural gas accumulating in ancient volcanic craters, was reproduced on a much smaller scale, and by accident, on April 7, 1992 near Welcome, Texas (about 90 miles northwest of Houston).

      An underground "salt dome" in the area was being used to store natural gas, a fairly common practice in the Gulf Coast area. The dome was reportedly overfilled beyond its approved capacity. Highly volitile liquids began to seep from the underground storage facility, causing a heavier-than-air cloud of highly combustable gas to form in the valley over the salt dome. An unknown ignition source caused the accumulated gas to explode killing three people in the area and blowing out windows in churches and houses ten miles away. The explosion registered at 4+ on the Richter scale and the concussion was felt as far away as Houston.

      I drove through the area not long after the explosion and the effect was startlingly like Tunguska. The trees were all flattened in the immediate area; the tops of trees that were partly protected by hills had been shorn off; and yet there was no crater to be seen. One of the strangest sights I've ever seen.

  • I always knew (Score:3, Funny)

    by BLAMM! ( 301082 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `mmalar'> on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @08:50AM (#2502174)
    that it was the saucer section from the Enterprise J, that had crashed after time traveling into the past to kill grampa Berman before he could procreate. Of course nothing was ever found because the Division 6 of the Department of Temporal Correctness sent a clean-up crew. I've known this for years. How come nobody ever listens to me?
  • Ever read Timeline, by Michael Crichton?
    I can see Tunguska as a great place to send people from the future, if you want them to be executed. Tunguska and Pompeii, Hiroshima....

  • AC Death Ray (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:34AM (#2502308) Journal
    Im sorry to bring this up, im almost embarrassed to ask.

    I was at a party this past weekend, we ate and drank very well.. sushi and absinthe ;) and as party conversation happens, we talked about allot of interesting things.

    Somehow, in all of this up comes the Tunguska blast. Now, one of the other guests was from Croatia and was a fan of Tesla. The conversation began discussing the most important invention in modern history (he argued AC(betraying his Tesla bias...)) but I argued the industrial revolution began without it, and that AC wasnt the end-all-be-all he suggested... ANYWAY: In this conversation up comes Tunguska. He asserts, with the corroboration of other guests, that the blast was a display of a some top-secret AC weapon that was Tesla's brainchild.

    Now, they didnt guarantee that it was absolute truth, but they all had received this meme and could neither confirm nor deny its truth - just that it had been suggested.
    Can ANYONE provide some information on this theory? I recognize fanatical theories are often just those - this might be as big a flight of fancy as the Freemasons or alien-butt probes, the latter being more fancy to some i 'spose, but does anyone have information on this gem of a meme?

    • Here's the story! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Syriloth ( 525273 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @09:00PM (#2505330)
      I'm doing a project on Tesla in my Creative Imaging II class, so if you'll permit a highschool student to do a little educating, I'll try to remember what I read about this incident.

      The story, as I remember it, goes like this:

      Nikola Tesla, being the eccentric, quixotic type of genius that he was, had created at his Wardenclyffe Laboratory a large tower which he called a Death Ray. His plan was to use these rays (sort of similar in concept to particle beam weapons, I believe) to create an impenetrable defensive perimiter around the country -- around all countries actually -- thus eliminating all war. Tesla was always coming up with things like this...he also came up with a (possible viable) plan for the free transmission of energy throughout the world, but that's a different story.

      So anyway, he had this death ray. It had never been tested, but of course it would have to be. He gets word of an upcoming expedition to the North Pole headed by Robert Peary, and he notified the leader that he was going to signal him on a specific night (June 30, 1908) but refrained from mentioning exactly what sort of a signal it would be. His idea was to fire a death-ray-blast "over the heads" so to speak of the exploration party, hitting the ground somewhere relatively nearby, and creating a blast that they could see.

      So, the exploration goes out, and he does his thing. On the night of the test, he fires off the death ray. It hums...it crackles...after about twenty minutes or so, an owl flies across the almost-invisible path of the beam, and instantly disintegrates. A few minutes later, Tesla shuts it off.

      Tesla eventually recieved word that Peary's party had seen nothing. He was disappointed.

      A few weeks later, news comes to the U.S. of a massive explosion in central Siberia (The Tunguska blast) and is instantly convinced that this was caused by his death ray, just slightly off target. He was mortified by the destruction it wrought, and promptly scrapped his plans for the implementation of his design.

      That's what I remember...I think it's fairly close to the original story, which I'm sure can be found on the web somewhere...actually, I can take care of that... this [parascope.com] should do it. Of course, this story is not to be taken as gospel, as it's well known that a: Nikola Tesla was slightly crazy (though incredibly brilliant) and b: unconfirmed web sources from web pages that specialize in the paranormal, conspiracies, and similar things are suspect at best. However, I think it makes for at least an interesting story.

      Oh, and by the way, if you haven't looked up Tesla himself, I highly reccomend that you do so. Incredibly interesting stuff.

      Well, that's all,
      ~Syriloth
  • Now we know that (and where) Maniac Mansion existed - and Bernard finally managed to blow up Dr. Fred's home reactor.
  • This has been theorized for years and years and years.. it's still the most plausible explanation.
  • I remembering reading someplace that many at the time attributed this to an experiment N.Tesla was running in the US; Trying to transmit usable electric current through the air. It was a theory of some that this experiment caused the damage on the other side of the planet. This along with utility companies realizing the downfall that would result if electricity was free to anyone who wanted to grab it out of air killed Tesla's final masterpiece of a project.

    or something like that
  • See, that's what happens when you have those low quality asteroids imported from god knows where. Always look for the "Made in the USA" sticker.

  • News? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Veritan Drelor ( 468345 )
    The asteroid hypothesis has been around for years. I recall an aricle in Sky & Telescope several years ago which said much the same thing. The blast was caused by atmospheric disruption of a carbonaceous chondrite; a low density asteroid.

    As for the lack of physical material, we shouldn't be particularly surprised about that. It took more than two decades for an expedition to reach the site, and it's a pretty swampy area as well. For comparison, a similar, though much smaller (basically just a fireball) event near Revelstoke in the 1960's left nothing to be found on the ground, even though people were in the area within hours. After twenty years, the chances of finding anything physical would be, pardon the pun, astronomical.

    Anywho, back to my original point: -1 to the Italians for redundancy.

    Per Ardua Ad Astra

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