Siberia, in:

- aglow’ with

For the pleasant T ungus of
northeastern
Russia, the morning of June
30, 1908, must have seemed
like the end of the world.

‘They felt the earth tremble
and shake, saw their tents
and buildings tossed down,
saw the forest crushed as if
by a giant invisible hand, felt
a searing hot blast of air and

heard the roar of thunder. |

They saw fires raging and
watched a great black ‘cloud
rise miles high into the sky.
Later they were terrified

when black rain fell. In that.

terrifying morning, the out-
side ‘world also received
evidence of some cataclysmic
but unknown event. Seismo-
graphs in Moscow, in Ger-
many, and even in Washing-
ton were activated by an
immense earth-shudder.

Within five hours of the
impact, sudden atmospheric
pressure fluctuations lasting.
twenty ‘Minutes were
recorded by many meteor-

_ Oligical stations in England,

leaving weather researchers
completely baffled. The air
wave circled the globe twice
and during the first week of
July the night skies across
Russia and Europe were
*‘remarkable
lights and sunsets of excep-
tional beauty’’. Photographs

taken in Russia during this _

period show vivid atmos-
pheric displays created by
glowing ionized air particles.

But as to the cause of all
this remarkable phenomenon
no one knew.

The first theory to take
hold was that a_ huge
meteorite had collided with
the earth somewhere. Even-
tually, in 1921, meteorologist
Leonid Kulik began collect-
ing newspaper accounts from
the major towns of that
Siberian region. One report
stated that ‘'peasants to the
North saw a body shining
very brightly, too bright for
the naked eye with a bluish
white light. It moved vertic-
ally downward for about ten
minutes and was in the form
of a pipe that is, — cylindri-
cal’’.

Kulik was puzzled by
this, meteorites were not
‘pipeshaped’. Arodther puzzl-
ing report... ‘‘when the
flying object touched the
horizon a huge flame shot up
that cut the sky in two...”’
The scientist: stuck by his
meteorite theory however. At
that time, with no other
frames of reference at hand,
it was the only theory
possible.

Several expeditions to the
area were set up and finally
in 1928 the actual centre of
the explosion was located.
The devastation that met the
cyes of the first explorers
was incredible. A great areca
of permafrost tundra had
been thawed out to a depth of
several fect and it was now a
swamp. Thousands of trees
lay felled in a fan shaped
design, charred and black.
Only one group of trees had

_ remained “upright,
centre of; the blast area,
stripped of every branch, a

at. the

veritable
forest. The. scientists con-
cludéd that the. blast. had

* taken place about two miles

above the-earth, not at

. ground level. And as for the

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_ ‘huge meteori
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‘telegraph pole’ |

our mysterious world

by George Cunningham-Tee

absolutely no signs.

The mystery remained
unsolved. Until 1946... and

the atomic. bomb. On August.
6th of that year, at 8:15.a.m., :

the Japanese city of. Hiro-

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shima. was obliterated. The

uranium. 235 bomb created’
- the
destruction ever known, kill- .
'ing and’ maiming multi-

thousands i in ‘seconds.

‘greatest: man-made. .

‘Leaving aside the moral
implications of this event, it

- was the aftermath of the
"Hiroshima explosion that led

to a re-evaluation of the
Russian tunguska mystery. |
One didn’t have to look too
hard to discern many striking

.. Similarities. between the two

and awesome though the
Hiroshima devastation had_

’ been, it was obvious that the ~
. explosion of 1908 had been

many times greater.

The destroyed area in
Hiroshima totalled 18 square

. estimated-. that
explosion was at least’ 100.

TH a hen

“a

sete s we Fee B sh

Page 35, Apr 4, 1979 - North Shore News

miles, that on 1 the tunguska

‘200 square milés. Wood was

ignited in the Japanese city

ata distance of one mile from _

-the ‘blast’. while on the
tunguska plateau, trees had.
_been burned at a distance of

eight to ten miles from the
fall point. Japanese. -naval
students felt: a hot breeze
from. thé-Hiroshima blast 60
miles away! It has been
the . 1908

laboratory, testing and small" 7
particles of extra-te
matter were discovered. |

In 1962, a surveying team
using a helicopter was able to

‘chart. the pattern of the

explosion’s scattering ellipse

_ and more soil samples were

times more powerful that the

‘one in 1946. But it was still a

mystery as to .what had

-caused. it.

Inthe late fifties, soil

samples from the Siberian
blast area were subjected to
extreme magnification and

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-gathered. Trees and plants»

were also-examined and here
they found thousands of tiny
brilliant spheres imbedded in
them. A detailed analysis
revealed small’ amounts of
cobalt and nickel, and traces

of. copper and geranium. the

discovery of -these metallic
elements supported: a theory
that had been put forward
previously by a respected

CONTINUED ON PAGE 46

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