The fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908 gave rise to a large number of guesses, versions and hypotheses, but none of them can give a clear answer to the question about the nature of the phenomenon of the Tunguska catastrophe. In a number of publications, one can find mention of 120 hypotheses that offer one or another explanation for the events of June 30, 1908, but a significant part of them are unfounded, contradicting modern science and do not allow the possibility of modeling and testing the proposed hypothesis.
Thus, there are no more than 3 - 4 serious hypotheses in the problem of the Tunguska meteorite (meteorite fall, comet fall, tectonic or volcanic manifestations). All other hypotheses are variants of the basic, or unprofessional and fantastic assumptions.
Zotkin I. T. (employee of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences), based on the analysis of 10 monographs, 390 articles, 180 reports and 550 popular publications, identified 77 main hypotheses, of which technogenic - 14, associated with antimatter - 8, religious - 3, geophysical - 10, meteorite - 28, comet - 11 and synthetic - 3.
The book by A. Voitsekhovsky and V. Romeiko "The Tunguska Meteorite: 100 Years of the Great Mystery" (2008) presents a catalog of 66 versions of a different plan, classified into 10 groups: from meteorite to religious.
Various hypotheses of the Tunguska phenomenon
Descent of the god Agda or the beginning of the Second Coming
Probably the first explanation of the events of 1908 belonging to the Evenks. Local residents told the members of L. A. Kulik's expedition that Agdy was an iron bird, spewing fire and thunder, throwing fiery arrows in order to punish the unrighteous people. The Old Believers were of the opinion that the Second Coming had begun. For obvious reasons, it has not received development.
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War with Japan
The version did not have a specific author, it was circulated on the day of the disaster in the form of rumors in the Kansk district, Yeniseisk, in gold mines and other places close to the Trans-Siberian Railway. Has not received development.
Dust cloud
The hypothesis was put forward three times. F. de Roy (France) in 1908 suggested that on June 30, 1908, the Earth collided with a cloud of cosmic dust. In 1932, V. I. Vernadsky expressed a similar version. In 1961, the biophysicist GF Plekhanov, the founder of the KSE movement (Complex Amateur Expeditions), transformed this version. According to Plekhanov, the Earth crossed the cloud of interstellar matter, one of its conglomerates was what was called the Tunguska meteorite. Only the northern hemisphere of the Earth collided with the cloud of matter.
Comet collision
The version was first put forward in July 1908 by L. Ya. Apostolov, a meteorologist from Stavropol, without specifying the size of the comet and its binding to the existing ones.
In 1910, independently of him, a hypothesis was put forward by M. Wolf, director of the Heidelberg Observatory (Germany). He also did not specify which comet it was. In the 1930s. a similar version was put forward in the USA and Great Britain, and was thoroughly revised by V. G. Fesenkov.
The cometary hypothesis explains the absence of matter at the site of the explosion, as well as the optical anomalies observed before and after the disaster.
Comet Pons - Winnecke
L. A. Kulik, consistently defending the meteoric nature of the Tunguska phenomenon, proceeding from the calculations published in 1927 by V. A. Maltsev and B. V. Okunev, stated that a swarm of debris of an iron meteorite could be associated with comet Pons-Winnecke. In 1929 IS Astapovich refuted this version.
Comet Encke - Backlund
In 1969, I. T. Zotkin, together with Yu. P. Pskovskii (GAISh), tested the hypothesis of a connection between meteor showers and the radiant of the Tunguska body. The result was a hypothesis about the connection between the Tunguska catastrophe and the Taurid stream associated with the short-period comet Encke - Backlund. However, already in 1971 Zotkin abandoned this idea. In 1978, however, it was supported by the Czechoslovak astronomer L. Kresak.
Halley's comet
This version was put forward by A. Voitsekhovsky in 1988. The Tunguska body could be a fragment of Halley's comet or some of its fellow travelers.
Meteor falling
According to the results of a survey of eyewitnesses, L. A. Kulik made a conclusion about the fall of a meteorite in the area of Podkamennaya Tunguska.
Fall of a group of meteorites
The version was put forward by the director of the Irkutsk Astronomical Observatory A. V. Voznesensky, who held this position in 1908. After finishing the processing of materials in 1925, he announced that a group of meteorites had fallen in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, moving in an azimuth of 15 ° from the south south-west to north-north-east.
Terrestrial events
A number of members of L. A. Kulik's expeditions claimed that the felling of trees and burns were caused by a strong hurricane and forest fire.
Meteorite transformation
In 1927, a version of the transformation of a meteorite into jets of debris and gas was first proposed.
Tangential meteorite
1929 The body fell at a low angle to the horizon, without reaching the Earth, split and experienced a ricochet, rising a hundred kilometers up. The fragments, having lost speed, fell out in a completely different place. She explained the absence of material evidence, white nights and so on, but the calculations did not confirm her.
Stone meteorite
In 1930, in the absence of the chief, a member of the Kulik expedition, KD Yankovsky, discovered a dark stone in the Churgim tract. This message became the basis for the hypothesis about the fall of a stone meteorite or its fragments. In the 1990s, V. I. Voronov claimed that during hunting trips, he again discovered this stone, which is most likely of glacial origin.
Comet nucleus explosion
In 1930, F. Whipple put forward the idea that the Earth collided with a small comet (comet nucleus - "a lump of dirty snow"), which completely evaporated in the atmosphere, leaving no trace. Problems: How could a comet sneak up unnoticed? The comet could not penetrate that deep into the atmosphere.
Comet Tail Impact
In 1934, another cometary hypothesis was put forward - the collision of the Earth with a cometary tail.
The death of a spaceship
It was first put forward by A. P. Kazantsev in the story-hypothesis "Explosion" in the January issue of the magazine "Vokrug Sveta" for 1946. Later, the story was redone into the story "Guest from Space" and used in the next edition of the novel "The Burning Island". The story was staged at the Moscow Planetarium by F. Yu. Siegel. Stanislav Lem (1951 novel Astronauts) also used this idea.
In the 1980s. A. P. Kazantsev corrected his initial version, based on the alleged observations of 10-12 Earth satellites with anomalous trajectories that took place in 1969. Kazantsev suggested that the aliens in distress took the ship away from the Earth and it exploded in space, and the Tunguska meteorite was the landing (successful or unsuccessful) of the orbital module.
Trajectory maneuver
The hypothesis was put forward in 1959 by F. Yu. Siegel ("Knowledge is power", No. 6, 1959) and was further developed by him in publications in the magazines "Smena" and "Technics - Youth". If in 1959 Siegel believed that a UFO crashed over Tunguska, then in the 1960s. argued that the difference in the estimates of the trajectories of the Tunguska body (in the direction of the felling of the forest and in the testimony of eyewitnesses) is explained by the fact that it maneuvered. The hypothesis is a continuation of the ideas of A. P. Kazantsev.
Nuclear explosion
The hypothesis was put forward by AV Zolotov, who developed the theory of the natural nuclear explosion of the Tunguska body, published in the "Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR" (T. 136, No. 1, 1961). In 1970 the monograph "Problems of the Tunguska Catastrophe of 1908" was published based on the materials of the dissertation for the degree of candidate of physical and mathematical sciences.
Antimatter explosion
The hypothesis was put forward by Lincoln La Paz (USA) in 1948 in Popular Astronomy magazine, but the author expressed the idea behind the scenes in the early 1940s.
In 1965 the hypothesis was developed by W. Libby, K. Cohen and K. Etluri. According to them, annihilation caused the release of nuclear energy, which explains the increased content of the C14 isotope in the wood material. In the USSR, the hypothesis was supported by BP Konstantinov, who introduced the concept of a comet from antimatter.
Problems: Annihilation should have occurred in the upper atmosphere. Annihilation products (neutrons and gamma quanta) were not found. “The whole Universe is material” (AD Sakharov).
Electrical breakdown during the passage of a charged meteorite in the Earth's atmosphere
The theory was put forward by VF Solyanik in 1951 and summarized in the 1980 monograph. He believed that the Tunguska meteorite was an iron-nickel positively charged body that was discharged at an altitude of 15-20 km and fell far from the explosion site.
In 1963, A. P. Nevsky considered the problem of the positive electric charge of meteorites flying in the atmosphere at a hypersonic speed. Nevsky's work was published in the Astronomical Bulletin of the USSR Academy of Sciences (T. 12, No. 4, 1978).
Decay of cometary matter
The hypothesis was put forward by K. P. Florensky in 1959 based on the materials of the expedition to the disaster site. According to him, unstable compounds entering the comet's head could react with atmospheric oxygen.
GI Petrov, having considered the problem of deceleration of bodies in an atmosphere with a low mass density, revealed a new, explosive, form of entry into the atmosphere of a space object, which, unlike the case of ordinary meteorites, does not give visible traces of a disintegrated body.
Progressive destruction
Nominated in 1960 by MA Tsikulin, in 1966 revised by GI Pokrovsky (article "On the explosions of meteoric bodies moving in the atmosphere" // Meteoritika, issue 27, 1966). Pokrovsky calculated that the debris of a space body when moving in the atmosphere will behave like a single body, having the properties of a liquid
Thermal explosion
Professor KP Stanyukovich published an article in Meteoritics in 1961 in which he argued that the Tunguska explosion is explained by the transition of kinetic energy into thermal energy when a cosmic body decelerates in the atmosphere.
Disintegration of a flying saucer
In 1961, another alien hypothesis was put forward - the disintegration of a flying saucer.
Comet ricochet hypothesis
First formulated by IS Astapovich in the article "The failure of the hypothesis of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite on the Earth on June 30, 1908" (1963). The author believed that the Tunguska body was a comet, with parameters close to the comet of 1874 (Winnicke-Borelli-Tempel). Having invaded the atmosphere along a gentle trajectory, the comet lost all shells in 13 seconds, but the nucleus entered space along a hyperbolic trajectory.
In 1984 the hypothesis was corrected by E. Iordanishvili, in his view, the Tunguska body was a meteorite, not a comet.
Fall of a superdense piece of a white dwarf
In 1966, another meteorite hypothesis was put forward - the fall of a superdense piece of a white dwarf.
Local earthquake
In 1967, V. A. Epifanov put forward another natural hypothesis. Due to a local earthquake or geological displacement of the earth's strata, a crack formed in the crust, into which dust, a fine suspension of oil and methane hydrates burst out mixed with "blue fuel" and ignited from lightning.
UFO explosion
1967 D. Bigby, having discovered ten small moons with strange trajectories, concluded: in 1908 a UFO flew in, a capsule with a crew separated from it and exploded over the taiga, the ship was in earth orbit until 1955, the crew was waiting and losing altitude, finally, "the automatic machines went off" and an explosion occurred.
Detonating gas explosion
In 1968, another natural hypothesis appeared - the dissociation of water and the explosion of an oxyhydrogen gas.
Crypto-historical version
The version of N. A. Savelyeva-Novoselova and A. V. Savelyev provides for the testing of nuclear weapons in Russia in 1908, with the delivery of a bomb on a zeppelin.
Black hole
The hypothesis was put forward in 1973 by the staff of the University of Texas (USA) A. Jackson and M. Ryan. According to them, the Tunguska meteorite was a black microhole with a mass of about 1020 - 1022 g, which is comparable to the mass of an asteroid. The black hole collided with the Earth in Central Siberia and went right through it, emerging in the Central Atlantic (Between Newfoundland and Greenland). This was accompanied by atmospheric phenomena and a shock wave.
Gas-mud emission
The hypothesis was put forward in 1981 by N. Kudryavtseva and developed in 1986 by N. S. Snigirevskaya. In the Vanavara region, there are manifestations of paleovolcanism, thus, first there was an explosion, and then - atmospheric phenomena, which were mistaken for a fireball.
Natural gas explosion
These assumptions were published on the pages of the newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya in 1984-1989. According to D. Timofeev's calculations, the explosion, comparable in power to the Tunguska, required about 2.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Interest in the hypothesis increased after the explosion of a gas pipeline in Bashkiria on June 3, 1989.
Comet breakthrough of the ozone layer
The hypothesis was put forward by G. Ivanov (1991) in the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" to explain the increased growth of trees after the Tunguska catastrophe. According to his opinion, there was a breakthrough of the ozone layer, as a result of which the taiga was exposed to intense cosmic radiation, ammonia fertilizers were formed, which influenced the growth rate of the taiga.
Falling asteroid
The version was put forward in 1983 by Z. Sekanina (USA), who came to the conclusion that the Tunguska space body was an asteroid from the Apollo group.
Ball lightning
Some other eyewitnesses of 1908 suggested a giant ball lightning, but this version became popular in the 1980s. According to this idea (L. Mukharev, B. German, V. Salnikov), the Tunguska explosion was a kind of ball lightning or a consequence of fluctuations of the earth's magnetic field.
Solar plasmoid
In 1984, A. N. Dmitriev (Novosibirsk), together with V. K. Zhuravlev, published a paper in which they proved the possibility of the formation of microtransients, that is, microscopic plasma bodies that can be captured by the Earth's magnetic field and drift along its gradients.
Dmitriev and Zhuravlev applied mathematical methods to the testimony of eyewitnesses (in 1981, a catalog of eyewitness testimonies was published in Tomsk, including the testimonies of 720 people), as a result of which they found out that the observers on June 30, 1908 saw two different objects: one was walking along the eastern trajectory, the second - along the southern one, and the observation time was also sharply different. Thus, according to the Novosibirsk researchers, there were two plasmoids.
Undermining an explosive mixture with lightning or fireball
In 1984 Timofeev D. V. put forward a hypothesis that there was an explosion of 0.25-2.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. A plume of gas, bursting out of the bowels of the Earth in the area of the Southern Swamp on June 30, 1908, formed an explosive mixture. It was set on fire by lightning or a fireball.
A meteorite composed of metallic hydrogen
In 1986 Tsynbal N. V. hypothesized that it was a meteorite composed of metallic hydrogen. A block of metallic hydrogen weighing 400,000 tons, instantly atomized, combined with oxygen, created an explosive mixture of large volume.
A comet from gas hydrate compounds
In the early 90s M. V. Tolkachev put forward a hypothesis that the Tunguska comet could consist of gas hydrate compounds that were instantly released under the influence of a sharp change in temperature.
Sodium meteorite
In the early 90s V. G. Polyakov put forward a hypothesis that the Tunguska meteorite consisted of sodium of cosmic origin. Penetrating into the dense layers of the atmosphere containing water vapor, the meteorite entered into a chemical reaction with it. A chemical explosion occurred in the region of critical saturation.
Tectonic forces
In 1991, A. Yu. Olkhovatov published the first article in Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the provisions of which were developed in the monographs of 1997 and 1999. According to A. Yu. Olkhovatov, the Tunguska explosion was a manifestation of the tectonic energy of the belt of ancient explosive formations - astroblems located near the East Siberian geomagnetic anomaly. Thus, the Tunguska explosion was only a local manifestation of processes on a global scale.
Methane cloud explosion
Vladimir Epifanov and Wolfgang Kundt suggested that the Tunguska event could have been caused by an explosion of a methane cloud released as a result of volcanic activity (something similar, but on a much smaller scale, happened in 1994 near the village of Kando in Spain). The gas outburst hypothesis does not explain the observation of the fireball and does not agree well with the absence of gas outflow channels in the epicenter. It should be noted that there were other "gas" hypotheses explaining the "flight of the bolide" by the movement of the flame front along a plume of natural gas carried by a weak wind from the place of outflow.
Induced earthquake hypothesis
Suggested by A. D. Belkin and S. M. Kuznetsov. One of the fragments of the Tunguska meteorite ("John's stone") fell on Mount Stoykovich (in the fault zone) and caused an earthquake. The Rayleigh surface seismic wave that arose in the permafrost layer knocked down trees in the zone of the meteorite impact. Also in the zone of the Tunguska catastrophe, 5 groups of fused gravel-sandstones were found by geologists and marked on geological maps, and when A. D. Belkin mapped their locations, all of them (together with John's stone) fell on one line, exactly coinciding with the trajectory of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Thus, there are real fragments of the Tunguska meteorite and the mechanism of forest felling in the zone of its fall is explained. The main paradigm of meteorites - that fragments of terrestrial rocks cannot be meteorites, prevented from finding fragments of the Tunguska meteorite. A repeated petrological analysis of the John's stone fragment was made and it was found that this fused gravel-sandstone was twice subjected to ultra-high pressures. The first time, when it was knocked out by a large meteorite from the earth's surface (presumably from the northern side of the Popigai crater) and the second - during the fall in 1908.
Ice meteorite
The fall of an icy meteorite, which, having discharged the electric charge accumulated on its surface, flew back into space.
Formation of Lake Cheko after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite
A group of Italian geologists from the University of Bologna, led by Luca Gasperini, back in 1994 put forward a hypothesis that the crater of the Tunguska meteorite could be Lake Cheko on the Kimchu River, located just 8 kilometers northwest of the well-known epicenter of the explosion … This lake is almost a perfect circle in shape, has a depth of up to 50 m and a conical bottom. This morphology, different from other Siberian lakes, cannot be explained by the usual processes of erosion and deposition, they argue. Their research was presented in the articles of 2007 "Found crater as a possible result of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908" ("A possible impact crater for the 1908 Tunguska Event") and 2008 "Tunguska meteorite and Lake Cheko: a causal relationship or lack of it?" (“Lake Cheko and the Tunguska Event:impact or non-impact? "). In 2008, the Italians carried out a test drilling of the lake bottom. There they applied hydroacoustic, radar, biological and chemical methods. In the course of the work, a stratigraphic model of the lake bottom, its bathymetric map, and chemical analysis of lake sediments were carried out. The age of adjacent trees was studied using the tree ring method. All data indicated that the age of Lake Cheko should not exceed 100 years, which is consistent with the hypothesis that it was formed in 1908 as a result of the fall of a celestial body. The age of adjacent trees was studied using the tree ring method. All data indicated that the age of Lake Cheko should not exceed 100 years, which is consistent with the hypothesis that it was formed in 1908 as a result of the fall of a celestial body. The age of adjacent trees was studied using the tree ring method. All data indicated that the age of Lake Cheko should not exceed 100 years, which is consistent with the hypothesis that it was formed in 1908 as a result of the fall of a celestial body.
In May 2012, information appeared that Italian scientists still managed to find a fragment of the legendary meteorite at the bottom of Lake Cheko, in the form of a huge piece of rock up to 20 meters in size at its bottom. However, the data has not been confirmed, and, moreover, there are studies that, in principle, refute the theory of the Italians (the presence of trees on the shore of the lake over 100 years old).
Aether gravity fireball
In 1995 Chernyaev A. F. suggested that the meteorite did not fall to the Earth, but, on the contrary, flew out of its depths, turning out to be an ether graviobolide. The "etherogravitational fireball" is a superdense boulder, like an underground meteorite, oversaturated with compressed ether.
Destruction of a stone asteroid
In 1996 Svetsov V. V. suggested that a stone asteroid with a diameter of 60 meters, weighing 15 Mt, entered the atmosphere at an angle of 45 degrees, penetrated deep into the atmosphere. Not dropping enough speed, and in dense layers experienced huge aerodynamic loads, which completely destroyed it, turning it into a swarm of small (no more than 1 cm in diameter) fragments immersed in a high-intensity radiation field.
Extraterrestrial matter
In 1996, it was suggested that extraterrestrial matter in the Earth's atmosphere may be planets with a high content of iridium.
Ball lightning collision
In 1997 Ignatov B. N. suggested that the Tunguska explosion was caused by "the collision and detonation of 3 fireballs with a diameter of more than one meter each."
Explosion of hypothetical linear matter
In 1998, Rodionov B. U. suggested that there was an explosion of hypothetical linear matter enclosed within each thread of a magnetic flux quantum.
Yuri Lavbin's version
AeroMaster magazine (No. 9 - 10, 2005) published an exotic version of Y. Lavbin, according to which a comet with a mass of about 200 million tons invaded the Earth's atmosphere over the territory of France, and over the territory of Evenkia it was destroyed by an alien spacecraft, which itself crashed while landing. Thus, the main traces of the disaster should be looked for at least 400 km from the modern epicenter.
In 2004, on the banks of the Podkamennaya Tunguska, the scientist discovered materials belonging to a technical device of extraterrestrial origin. According to preliminary analyzes, the metal is an alloy of iron and silicon (iron silicide) with the addition of other elements, unknown in such a composition on Earth and with a very high melting point.
Fantastic assumptions, hypotheses and parodies
Extraterrestrial laser signal
Fantastic assumption made in the article by G. Altov and V. Zhuravleva "Journey to the epicenter of polemics" (Collection "Science Fiction. 1964"). The Tunguska explosion was allegedly a laser signal sent from planetary system 61 Cygnus
Spaceship launch
In the story by A. and B. Strugatskikh "Monday begins on Saturday" put forward a comic idea about aliens-counterpoints, immigrants from the universe, where time flows in the direction opposite to ours. Thus, the events of June 30, 1908 were not the landing of the spacecraft, but its launch.
Wooden meteorite made of special space wood
In 1966, young participants in another CSE suggested, based on the testimony of witnesses in 1908 ("flying sheaf", "fiery broom", "burning log"), that the meteorite was wooden, possibly made of special space wood. In addition, in 1929, at the bottom of the supposed meteorite crater, L. A. Kulik discovered a stump.
A cloud of mosquitoes
GF Plekhanov - the founder of the KSE movement, in the 1960s, suffering from the summer abundance of midges in the taiga, proposed the idea that on June 30, 1908, a cloud of mosquitoes with a volume of at least 5 km³ gathered, as a result of which a volumetric thermal explosion occurred, entailed the felling of the forest.
Purposeful action of extraterrestrial intelligence
The assumption was made by ufologists and mystics A. Kuzovkin and A. Priyma in 1983-1984. on the pages of the journal "Technology for Youth". They suggested that some eyewitness reports from 1908 indicate that the trajectories of the Tunguska space body were not two, but three, which means, allegedly, that the aliens arranged a man-made catastrophe of three "information containers". When the earthly civilization reaches the proper level of development, the contents of the "containers" will become available to humanity.
UFO movement backward in time
The version was put forward by the ufologist V. A. Chernobrov in 1993 (the journal "Technics for Youth"). The content of this version is similar to that described in the story "Monday Starts on Saturday", but without a shadow of irony.
Nikola Tesla's Experiments
Nikola Tesla's experiments with wireless power transmission. This version was first voiced in one of A. Gordon's TV programs around 2000. A variety of assumptions have been made about the motives of this experiment, up to the clearing of the path to the North Pole for Robert Peary.
Thousands of researchers are trying to understand what happened on June 30, 1908 in the Siberian taiga. Various research expeditions are regularly sent to the area of the Tunguska disaster.