From mcgrew@porthos.rutgers.edu (Charles Mcgrew) Mon Oct 7 22:50:58 1991 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!porthos.rutgers.edu!mcgrew From: mcgrew@porthos.rutgers.edu (Charles Mcgrew) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Siberian space catastrophe Message-ID: Date: 8 Oct 91 02:50:58 GMT References: <9219@gara.une.oz.au> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 73 Cc: mcgrew I got this from "The Encyclopedia of UFO's", Ronald Story, ed. June 30, 1908, shortly after 7am observers at the Central Siberian Plateau near the Stony Tunuska River first saw a "ball of fire" coming over the southern horizon heading almost due north. Suddenly a "pillar of fire" short upward into the sky, which could be seen for several hundred miles. Enourmous black clouds rose 12 miles into the air, followed by a "black rain". On the following day, strange glowing clouds could be seen, at extremely high altitudes over Asia and Europe. Various explainations for the explosion, which devastated several hundred square miles of (furtunately unpopulated) pine forest have been put forward. * The original one, that of a meteor, was shot down due to there being no physical meteoric evidence to be found. * An alternative explaination was that of a comet entering the atmosphere and then violently vaporizing due to the increased heat. (The EoU calls this "the accepted, conservative view"). Since coments haven't been observed striking the earth before (or since) this event, it remains a possibility. * In 1947, the "spaceship theory" was put forward, that a spaceship's powerplant detonation had caused the devastation. (Or, alternatively, that the aliens detonated a nuclear device on purpose, for reasons of their own - I've even heard tell of "the war of the aliens", and such.) * Although not mentioned in EoU, another theory surfaced in the mid-1970's, that of a "mini-blackhole" (described by someone else in an earlier message), that actually passed through the earth. Unfortunately, no effects on the far side of the earth (waterspouts, or whatever) were witnessed (to my knowledge), so there's no extra evidence for this one. The EoU goes on in some detail, I'll just hit the high points: Points against the "spaceship" theory: * The fireball was far too brief, in comparison with what we know now about nuclear explosions, to be one. * approach trajectory of the object has been determined to be head-on with earth, which isn't really a great idea to do with a spaceship, so it seems unlikely that any self-respecting alien would do so. * there is no increase in carbon-14 in tree-rings that would account for a nuclear explosion in 1908 (this was asserted by William Libby, the 'father of the carbon-14 test', in 1976). * The recollections of witnesses was 20 years old before it was obtained by researchers. * spectrographic analysis (by astronomers) in 1908 showed that the "glowing cloud" was just dust, reflecting sunlight. * There had been a forest fire in 1888 in the same region, which accounts for descriptions of "rapid growth" in plants after the explosion; rather than being radiation-related, it was just due to nutrient-enhancement that happens to soil after a forest fire (and that the regions of "rapid growth" were in the areas of forest-fire, and not in other areas.) ... there's more, discussing further problems with "meteor" and "comet" theories, but this is a.a.v, and besides, you should find this book for yourself - try the library... I'll end with last line from the entry: "Whatever the actual cause of the Tunguska event, it has maintained a powerful grip on the popular imagination." Hope this helps, Charles From KHATCH@130.187.183.15 (Kellan Hatch) Tue Oct 8 12:25:56 1991 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!orca!javelin.sim.es.com!news From: KHATCH@130.187.183.15 (Kellan Hatch) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Siberian space catastrophe Message-ID: <1991Oct8.162556.29693@javelin.sim.es.com> Date: 8 Oct 91 16:25:56 GMT References: <9219@gara.une.oz.au> <1991Oct6.191302.9403@anasaz> <1991Oct7.030819.12901@uwm.edu> Sender: news@javelin.sim.es.com Organization: Evans & Sutherland Lines: 17 In-Reply-To: anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu's message of Mon, 7 Oct 1991 03:08:19 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: taurus X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11 In <1991Oct7.030819.12901@uwm.edu> anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu writes: > Another theory (I think in Science News), is that it was a small > quantum black hole. These are black holes created about the time of > the Big Bang, and can be of substellar mass. Such a black hole could > range from mere atoms of mass up to any size. As it happens, black > holes this small tend to evaporate, smaller ones evaporating faster. > So there is a lower limit on the size of the black hole. It still > could be of a mass of a planetoid and still be quite small, about > subatomic diameters. If it was a black hole, it would have passed > right through the Earth, and out the other side. Presumably, it's > velocity was low enough that it wasn't captured. There is one piece of evidence to support this. At the same time on the opposite side of the globe, a sea captain reported seeing a huge spout of water towering into the sky. An extremely dense object passing through the earth would be likely to pull some material along with it at the exit point. From hhw@osf.org Tue Oct 8 17:00:35 1991 Flags: 000000000001 Received: from postman.osf.org by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA12003; Tue, 8 Oct 91 17:00:30 EDT Received: from katana.osf.org by postman.osf.org (5.64+/OSF 1.0) id AA15202; Tue, 8 Oct 91 17:00:19 -0400 Received: by katana (5.57/4.7) id AA07577; Tue, 8 Oct 91 16:59:51 -0400 Date: Tue, 8 Oct 91 16:59:51 -0400 From: hhw@osf.org Message-Id: <9110082059.AA07577@katana> To: mcgrew@porthos.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: Siberian space catastrophe Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors In-Reply-To: References: <9219@gara.une.oz.au> Organization: Open Software Foundation Cc: I thought this one had been put to rest over 20 years ago. The tektites in the area were the strongest evidence for the blast being the result of a bolide (a meteor that explodes before impact). The pattern of the falling of the trees, however, made an air burst of that sort unlikely. Testing of the results of air bursts, however, reproduced the same patterns in models. Accordingly, all the evidence points to a bolide, and no more unusual theory is necessary to explain the known facts.