The ground shook, plaster crumbled in houses, horses fell on the roads. Engineers stopped trains, fearing that the trains would derail. But most of all went to local residents in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. Their plague fell, people were stunned, deer were scattered. Many died, and those who miraculously survived, waking up, saw with horror that the forest around was charred and tumbled to one side.
It seemed to many that the end of the world had come. And the seismograph of the Irkutsk Observatory registered a surface earthquake in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area, 900 km from Irkutsk. Seismic stations in Europe and America also recorded the shaking of the earth's crust. This meant that the blast wave circled the globe. In Russia and Europe, a special glow of the sky was also noted, which continued for several more days, white nights in those parts where they should not be … Of course, at that time there were no instruments capable of giving comprehensive information about the phenomenon. And therefore, earthlings could not know that an explosion occurred on their planet, equal to almost 20 megatons and in its energy a thousand times, or even two times exceeding the effect of the explosion of an atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
First expedition
Witnesses to the disaster spent the rest of their lives under the impression of what they saw. And when, many years later, the geophysicist LA Kulik began to collect information from eyewitnesses, people described in detail and color what they experienced that terrible morning.
Leonid Alekseevich realized that he needed to get to the crash site. In 1927, on rafts along the taiga rivers, accompanied by local guides, he made his way to the "land of the dead forest" to find the remains of a meteorite. What he saw made a stunning impression on the scientist.
For almost two weeks the expedition moved through the fallen forest. The treetops all pointed to the southeast from where the meteorite was flying. And when he approached the place of the fall, they all suddenly lay down radially. It was here that the members of the expedition hoped to find a crater. Imagine their surprise when in the center of the hollow they saw only a few small craters filled with water - and that's it …
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Where is the crater?
Other scientists followed Kulik's example. Expeditions followed expeditions. They dug and plowed everything around - and no traces of the collision of a celestial body with the Earth. So where did the cosmic body go?
Maybe the meteorite turned into gas during the explosion? At first, the analysis of soils in the disaster area was encouraging. Microscopic frozen drops of cosmic origin were found in them. However, later it turned out that almost the entire surface of the earth was strewn with this kind of meteorite dust and the Tunguska dust had nothing to do with the fall of that huge meteorite.
But what if it's not a meteorite, but a comet, or rather, its core? The comet's core is a mixture of frozen gases, ice and refractory elements. Once in the dense layers of the atmosphere, they lose their speed and turn into a kind of "drops". With sharp braking, the energy of the movement turns into heat, and an explosion occurs. As a result, a shock wave appears, which tumbled down the Tunguska forest …
Versions, versions …
In 1984, the version of Novosibirsk scientists V. Zhuravlev and A. Dmitriev appeared. They processed numerous eyewitness accounts, documents and press reports on the computer, and the machine brain came up with an amazing guess. That morning, not one, but three bodies flew in the sky. They moved from different points to converge at one - at the epicenter. And it coincided with the place where the sleeping volcano was. Moreover, there is also one of the world's largest magnetic anomalies - the East Siberian. The magnetic field, extending far up from the earth, forms a trap that could attract a space alien. Scientists also found a magnetogram, preserved from those ancient times. It shows that the recorders in Irkutsk recorded a strong magnetic storm, which broke out 6 minutes after the explosion and lasted about five hours. What,if it was a clot of plasma ejected by the sun? Or was the plasma body not cosmic, but terrestrial in origin and resembled ball lightning?
The controversy has been going on for a century
And if space really has nothing to do with it? There is a natural gas field in that area. On the morning of the Tunguska disaster, an earthquake occurred, the epicenter of which coincided with this field. Gas escaped from the crack, which, when it came into contact with air, exploded. A fiery tornado formed, and the flames engulfed everything around. But what about the bodies flying in the sky? Scientists refer to the fact that eyewitness testimony is very different: someone saw a rushing ball, someone - a fire tornado. By the way, the pictures taken from space confirmed that the path along which the meteorite flew coincides with a fault in the earth's crust.
Over the 100 years that have passed since the explosion in the Tunguska area, dozens of versions have been put forward. Why are there no pieces left? Or maybe this is a monstrous result of experiments that were conducted by the American researcher Nikola Tesla at that time? Or did a celestial body hit the ground and ricochet back into space? Or maybe it was an explosion of antimatter (after all, only matter leaves traces)?
Only one thing can be said with certainty: there was no nuclear explosion. During the survey of the area, it turned out that the radiation level was not exceeded …
Italian discovery
Last summer, the hope of solving the puzzle dawned again. Italian scientists (expedition Giuseppe Longo) said they found a crater! This is Lake Cheko, which is located 8 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. According to their version, a breakaway piece of a meteorite crashed into a swamp and went deep under the water, and a funnel was formed at the site of the fall, which was filled with water. Researchers “probed” the bottom of the lake with instruments and found that it was too dense. Most likely, there is a space alien. But how to get him out of there? True, after the discovery was made public, many experts rejected this version. After all, nowhere around there are no stones melted on impact. What a funnel it is! And while the Italians were soaking in the swamps, the Americans sat in front of their computers and watched how the electronic brain simulates the events of 100 years ago.
And at the end of last year, the press reported that, according to the computer, there really was a collision with the Earth, but the meteorite itself was not at all as terrible as it was "painted". Therefore, he alone could not produce such destruction. So something else happened at the same time? The computer showed that the body exploded over the Earth and continued to fly at supersonic speed, turning into a hot gas stream. A blast wave rushed along with him, which swept away everything in its path. However, the very power of the explosion turned out to be much less than previously assumed - "only" 3-5 megatons instead of 10-20. When will research come to an end? Only when the main evidence is presented - the meteorite itself. That is why Italians are again torn into the Siberian swamps and are looking for sponsors. But so far everything says that a mystery,most likely, it will become an eternal …