The Tunguska Event: Explosion over Siberia

On the 30th of June, 1908, in Siberia, the peaceful morning was shattered by an object flashing across the sky.

This incredible event, related by this Russian witness, took place on the morning of June 30, 1908 in a remote area of Siberia called Tunguska. And exactly what happened there is still unknown. The site was centered on 101 E by 62 N near the Stony Tunguska River 92 kilometers north of Vanavara. According to calculations, the object shattered at an altitude of 7.6 kilometers and became the first such cosmic visitor to strike Earth in the life time of civilized man. There are several theories as to what caused the great explosion in the sparsely populated forest at Tungus, but there is no definitive proof for any of them. Ninety years later, the debate about the Tunguska event continues.

Those Tungus tribesmen and Russian fur traders who happened to glance into the southeastern Siberian sky that fateful morning must have been startled to see a fireball streaking through the atmosphere toward their trading post of Vanavara and leaving a trail of light some 800 kilometers long. The object, whatever its nature, was approaching from an azimuth of 115 degrees and descending at an entry angle of 30 to 35 degrees above the horizon. Their gaze followed the bright fireball as it continued along a northwestward trajectory until it seemed about to disappear over the horizon. Then it shattered in a rapid series of cataclysmic explosions lasting about half a second over a distance of 15 to 20 kilometers.

At the point of impact, hurricane-force winds ripped through the forest, uprooting every tree within miles, ripping roofs off houses, and shattering windows. The Angara river flooded, the blast forcing huge waves over its banks. Over 500,000 acres of pine forest were vaporized, along with whole herds of reindeer and several nomadic villages.The explosions were heard in the early morning hours of June 30, 1908. It was a drama that has occurred countless times in Earth's history, and that is sure to play again.

Four hundred miles away, the conductor of the Trans-Siberian Railway train saw the tracks ripple and slowed the train to a halt. Passengers came out of their coaches and talked of a cylinder of white light, with a fiery tail that fell with a tremendous flame and explosion. It started raining smoldering rocks. Some of the passengers tried to move the rocks with sticks, but the white heat engulfed the sticks with flames. In the skies, a huge black cloud had risen, and a black, tar-like rain started to fall. The passengers ran for the train covers and wondered, was the world coming to an end? The conductor pushed the throttle forward: the tracks were serviceable and he wanted to leave the cursed place as soon as possible.

On the other side of the planet a sea going freighter equipped with the new amplified radio from Marconi was transmitting position information. The radio operator suffered minor burns as the antenna wires nearly exploded in flames. The radio indicator lights went dim, and then out. The expensive triode tube looked as if the glass has melted around the insides.

All over the world instruments told their watchers that something big took place in Russia. In 1992, it had been calculated that a blast approaching 40 megatons had occurred. Nothing of this magnitude has ever happened before in recorded history, until the mind of man found the destructive power of the fusion bomb 50 years later. The great crater in Arizona created by an asteroid 50,000 years ago was only 3.5 megatons.

The fires burned for weeks, destroying an area of 1,000 square kilometers. Ash and powdered tundra fragments sucked skyward by the fiery vortex were caught up in the global air circulation and carried around the world. Meanwhile, bursts of thunder echoed across the land to a distance of some 800 kilometers.

The mass of the object has been estimated at about 100,000 tons and the force of the explosion at 40 megatons of TNT, 2,000 times the force of the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. (By comparison, the explosive force of the Arizona asteroid that struck some 50,000 years ago, has been estimated at 3.5 megatons.6)

Following the Tunguska explosion, unusually colorful sunsets and sunrises caught the world's attention and were reported from many countries, including Western Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and Western Siberia. The climax of visual displays occurred on the night of June 30th. Although they continued, they weakened exponentially over several weeks until they died away.

The New York Times of July 3, 1908 reported "remarkable lights" being "observed in the northern heavens on Tuesday and Wednesday nights." Scientists mistakenly attributed the dazzling displays to solar outbursts causing electrical disturbances in the atmosphere. Similar light displays had been reported in 1883 at the time of the Krakatoa volcanic explosion in the Sunda Strait, said the Times.

These "optical fireworks" and "light nights" were most prominent over Eastern Siberia and Middle Asia. They included a night sky bright enough to read a watch or newspaper by. Dust in the air at heights of from 40 to 70 kilometers caused high-altitude noctiluscent, or "night-shining," clouds that illuminated much of the visible sky. And there were halos around the Sun. A marked decrease of the air's transparency was recorded in the United States by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and California's Mount Wilson Observatory.

Disturbances in earth's magnetic field were reported 900 kilometers southeast of the epicenter by the Irkutsk Observatory. These were magnetic "storms" similar to the ones produced by nuclear test explosions in the atmosphere. The seismograph station some 4,000 kilometers west in St. Petersburg recorded tremors produced by the blast, as did more distant stations around the world.

But no one, except observers in Central Siberia, was aware that an enormous explosion of a cosmic body had occurred. It was generally believed that an earthquake, somewhere, had taken place. And little more was thought about the matter in scientific circles.

Several eyewitnesses described it as an oval-shaped object leaving a trail of light hundreds of kilometers long. It was seen to weave and drastically change course, before it crashed into the ground and exploded with a thunderous noise, an explosion estimated to be equivalent to a 10-15 megaton nuclear detonation. Witnesses in the nearby village of Vanovara reported a mushroom shaped cloud rising over the impact point. Over 800 kilometers away, in the village of Kansk, the noise was so loud that a train engineer stopped his train, thinking one of the freight cars had exploded. The shockwave was recorded as far away as London.

Whatever happened, the resulting devastation was enormous. As already mentioned above, a fireball as bright as the sun was seen streaking across the sky. Observers 300 miles away heard deafening bangs. Trees were flattened in a radial pattern over an area of 850 square miles. Seismic vibrations were recorded by instruments as far away as 600 miles. Fires burned for weeks. Forty miles from ground zero, people were thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious. One man was hurled into a tree and killed. Scientists examining the area calculated that the explosion was equivalent to 40 megatons of TNT - 2,000 times the force of the atomic bomb released on Hiroshima in 1945. Yet there was no crater.

Other, more enigmatic, effects were recorded: disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field; a local geomagnetic storm; a reversal of soil magnetization; an electromagnetic pulse, similar to what would be created by a nuclear explosion; aurora displays before and after the event; unusually bright nights seen before and after the event; genetic mutations in plants and animals; accelerated growth of plants afterward; radiation-like burns and deaths of exposed people.

For a trained eye, evidence of the blast is not difficult to identify, even after 90 years. The power of the blast felled trees outward in a radial pattern over an area of 2,150 square kilometers, more than half the size of Rhode Island. In the hot central region of the epicenter the forest flashed into an ascending column of flame visible several hundred kilometers away. To this day the vast Tunguska region remains a desolate area of mosquito-infested bogs and swamps amid the beautiful hilly taiga. To reach the epicenter you are dropped off by helicopter. Or you hike in.

Eyewitness Accounts

"The sky split apart and a great fire appeared. It became so hot that one couldn't stand it. There was a deafening explosion [and my friend] S. Semenov was blown over the ground across a distance of three sazhens [six meters]. As the hot wind passed by, the ground and the huts trembled. Sod was shaken loose from our ceilings and glass was splintered out of the window frames."

Vasiliy got up from his bed and pulled the sheet from the calendar. It is June 30, 1908. "I am thirty seven years old today", he mumbles to himself. I feel ninety. He stumbles to the steps of the cabin and sits down to drink his thick coffee. Examining a map of his traps in his mind, he contemplates the day's work. Suddenly, a blinding flash surrounds him. Looking up, Vasiliy sees a tree burst into flames, and he covers his eyes. He feels scorched. The shirt on his back seems on fire. Then he hears the rumble of a thousand cannons. It overtakes him from behind and blows his house down and over him. He is thrown to the ground and looses consciousness for several minutes.

Recovering his senses, Vasiliy stands up and looks around. Behind him, forty miles away, a huge cloud like a mushroom penetrates the heavens. It glows iridescent like a jewel. Looking downward, he sees the wealth of his life: 200 reindeer, tents, furs, stores and supplies, charred and burned. The smell is overwhelming. Unknown to Vasiliy, he will die in two weeks. He will vomit up his stomach and writhe in pain for the last three days of his life. The chief of the Evenk people will declare the area forbidden and enchanted forever. Many of his people have died similarly, just by walking near the explosion area. Houses were destroyed 200 miles away from the blast. The gods have been displeased, and they have smitten the land.

'in the village of Nizhne-Karelinsk in the northwest high above the horizon, the peasants saw a body shining very brightly - (too bright for the naked eye) with a bluish white light. It moved vertically down-wards for about ten minutes. The body was in the form of a 'pipe' (i.e. cylindrical). The sky was cloudless, except that low down on the horizon in the direction in which this glowing body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticed. It was hot and dry and when the shining body approached the ground it seemed to be pulverized and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke was formed and a loud crash, not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones, or from gunfire, was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time, a forked tongue of flame broke through the cloud. The old women wept, everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching.'

Nizhne-Karelinsk is 200 miles from the event ground zero. People heard the explosion from 500 miles away.

The Expeditions

Before we delve into the theories for the causes of the Tunguska Event, a little information on the expedition by Kulik and those that followed him is suitable here.

It wasn't until 1927 (following the Russian Revolution) that an expedition, led by the Russian scientist L. A. Kulik, could finally be mounted to investigate the actual impact site. Leonid Kulik was a dedicated Russian scientist, the founder of meteorite science in Russia. But it wasn't until 1927 that Kulik managed to organize the first expedition in search of the site, and cause of the event. There had been reports from Tungus nomads of a vast area of fallen trees and evidence of much burning. Kulik suspected that a large meteorite had fallen, and he was determined to find it.

The shaman-chief of the Tungus people, or Evenks, had for years virtually sealed off the region, proclaiming it "enchanted." The Evenk people had long been fearful of further enraging the gods whose wrath they believed had been responsible for 1908 explosion. Funded by the then Soviet Academy of Sciences, Kulik and his group penetrated the "enchanted" region in June. His party was to hack its way through some 100 kilometers of taiga, cross rivers and streams, and plod through bogs and swamps. Perhaps worst of all, they had to endure endless and dense swarms--"walls" is more descriptive--of mosquitoes.

In March, 1927, Kulik stepped of the Trans-Siberian Railway at Tayshet and headed to the village of Vanavara. The village is an old one, unlike Bratsk which seemed to be composed of 30 year olds transplanted from the Moscow area. He recruited a guide named Il'ya Potapovich, whose brother had felt the effects of the explosion 19 years before by having his tent blown away at 75 miles from the epicenter.By mid April Kulik and his guide had reached the Merkirta River and he saw the first signs of devastation. From the river small hillocks could be seen, completely stripped of trees. Kulik climbed up one of the higher hills and saw for at least 12 miles in front of him trees knocked down, all facing one direction. The harsh winter prevented him from pressing on. The devastation had taken some time to dawn on him. He wrote down in his diary:
"ruin as far as the eye could see, what if this had been St. Petersburg?..."

In June, Kulik returned and followed the line of devastated trees to finally reach what he was to call the "cauldron". Here the trees fell radially outward. He was standing in a low depression with an irregular diameter of about a mile. From here the burned and flattened forest stretched 20 miles behind him, and 37 miles in a fan in front of him. Familiar with the great crater in Arizona, he looked in vain for the meteorite core. He saw many little flat holes, but unknown to him at the time they are a natural feature of the land.

Kulik would make three more trips before he died in world war II, defending his country from the Germans. He never found any sign of impact or fragments. Whatever it was seemed to explode in the air and disappear into nothingness.

The outcome of his expedition was that Kulik found the epicenter and mapped the area of fallen trees. He then puzzled over several neat oval areas which he presumed to be old meteorite craters that had been filled in by time. He supposed that the bulk of the meteorite lay embedded somewhere within the nearby Great Southern Swamp in the central epicenter. But magnetic probes and drilling over the years failed to detect a single gram of metal either in the Great Southern Swamp or in those neat oval patches of tundra. Subsequent searches for a meteoric body also have failed

The expedition did not find a crater. They assumed that the crater, and the meteorite that caused the explosion, had been buried in the swampy ground. However, a geologic survey 20 years later proved that there was no crater anywhere near the impact point.

What the searchers did find was extensive devastation. Trees were ripped from the ground and laid outwards from the center of the explosion, while at ground zero, there were still some trees standing, indicating an explosion directly overhead.

World War II interrupted further expeditions. It wasn't until 1958 that expeditions headed by Kirill Florensky were resumed and carried out by the Committee on Meteorites of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1959 Tomsk University joined research efforts under the guidance of Gennadiy Plekhanov. In 1963 the scientific investigations probing the Tunguska event gained new vigor under the leadership of Nickolai Vasiliev, of the (now) Russian Academy of Sciences. He has coordinated the scientific research of the past 29 consecutive expeditions over that many years.

It wasn't until 1989 that foreign scientists were invited to join Russian investigators. For 10 years the Japanese had tried to gain access to the Tunguska region, and in 1989 managed to do so, but only through the personal involvement of Michael Gorbachev

There have been a series of interesting biological consequences of the explosion. Following the blast there was accelerated growth of biomass in the region of the epicenter, and the accelerated growth had continued. There also was an increase in the rate of biological mutations, not only within the epicenter but along the trajectory of the object over Tunguska. For example, abnormalities in the Rh blood factor of local Evenk groups have been found. Genetic variation in certain local ant species is now being studied. And genetic abnormalities in the seeds and needle clusters of at least one species of pine have been discovered.

Around 1995, an Italian group of scientists led by M. Galli analyzed the resin of trees felled by the explosion. Galli suspected that cosmic matter embedded in the trees from the force of the blast might help identify the Tunguska object. Preliminary findings indeed did identify such cosmic matter--among which were particles of calcium, iron-nickel, silicates, cobalt-wolfram, and lead. Since certain asteroids contain such matter, Galli has breathed new life into the old asteroid theory. (We shall get to the many theories later in this article)

If it was an asteroid, where's the crater and large asteroid fragments? It has been suggested that part of the asteroid might have been pulverized on exploding while a portion remaining intact skipped off in a new direction and back out of the atmosphere.

To complicate matters, investigators of the 1960s identified four smaller epicenters within the larger one of a 60-kilometer diameter. Each of the smaller epicenters has its own radial tree-fall pattern, and each presumably was caused by individual explosions during the half-second burst.

Theories

Some have suggested it was a black hole. Others have wondered if it was a piece of anti-matter. A Japanese UFO group (Sakura), headed by Kozo Kowai, are convinced that it was the explosion of the nuclear power plant of an errant vehicle belonging to extraterrestrials. A number of science-fiction accounts have degraded the event to fantasy. Some critics hold that the entire history of nearly five decades of field work represents little more than a chain of mistakes. Most scientists disagree and point to a comet or an asteroid being the cosmic culprit.

Of the several theories, they include:

A fragmentary asteroid or meteorite that exploded in the atmosphere.
The nucleus of a comet that likewise exploded in the atmosphere.
A tiny black hole that entered the Earth's atmosphere from outer space and imploded.
A chunk of antimatter that reacted with the matter of our planet.
A crashed UFO, the propulsion drive of which exploded.
A deliberate attack by extraterrestrials.
The result of a test of Nikola Tesla's wireless power transmitter.

Again, there's no definitive proof for any of these ideas, but let's consider each.

Asteroid - This and the comet theory are favored by scientists, of course - mainly because they can't conceive of any other explanation. I'd have to agree that it's the most likely. But because there is no crater and little debris, there's only circumstantial evidence. Before Tunguska, scientists rarely considered that an asteroid would explode in the atmosphere before striking the ground. Yet, because there is no crater, they reason, that must be what happened. So where are all the fragments of the asteroid that they estimate must have weighed some 100,000 tons? Vaporized, they say - pulverized into dust and tiny gravel. The only fragments found thus far have been tiny glass nodules embedded in the fallen trees, which are consistent in makeup with stony asteroid fragments that have been super heated.

Comet - This is the prevailing theory today - that it was a 100,000-ton fragment of Encke's Comet. Since there is little debris, the explosion might be consistent with a comet, which generally is a loose mixture of stone and ice. Upon explosion, very little debris would remain as evidence. Ironically, it is the very lack of evidence that boosts the credibility of the comet theory.

A number of scientists favor a comet theory. The leading investigator in this area is the geochemist Yevgeniy Kolesnikov, of Moscow University. Over the years he has dug out large blocks of peat samples from various locations over the epicenter and analyzed them for isotopic anomalies. The 1908 layer in his many peat samples contains high concentrations of a number of volatiles that also occur in the upper atmosphere and are presumed to be cometary dust.

Black hole - This idea isn't taken very seriously by mainstream scientists, simply because it's not known whether such small black holes even exist. And if they did, what the result would be upon one entering our atmosphere is completely unknown.

Antimatter - This idea is also readily dismissed, since it is unlikely that antimatter would be able to transverse space and reach our planet without already encountering some matter and annihilating.

Crashed UFO - There's no evidence whatever of this idea, of course. No fragments of the spacecraft or piece of an alien's intergalactic map. If it were the explosion of the UFO's propulsion system - nuclear or whatever - it might have vaporized all traces of the ship, but come on....

"On June 30th, 1908, an extraterrestrial flying object dived towards the earth, from space to attempt a landing. Because of
some accident abroad, its situation was critical. Having succeeded in entering the atmosphere, it flew in a wide arc, and
began its manoeuvres for touchdown. But it was too late. Two miles above Siberia, the atomic fuel which powered it became
heated to a point above the critical threshold and set off a nuclear explosion of about 30 megatons - equivalent to 30
million tonnes of dynamite. This turned 25 miles of the earth's surface into molten rock, and burned people as far away as
400 miles away from the center of the explosion. What sort of people were in the crippled spaceship? Where could they have
come from? What could they have looked like? These are other mysteries lost in the debris of the Tungus."

Extraterrestrial attack - If they were going to attack, why would they choose an unpopulated region, unless their intelligence was bad? Or unless it was meant as just a warning. And it it was just a warning, where was the follow-up or contact?

Nikola Tesla's experiment - Granted, this idea is far more unlikely than an asteroid or comet strike, but I find it quite a bit more interesting. A lot of myth has grown around the mysterious, dark and temperamental figure of Tesla. Although known as the discoverer of the principals of alternating current and other inventions, he is also credited in some quarters with far more notorious inventions, including a death ray. Some say the controversial HAARP array in Alaska is a continuation of Tesla's experiments that used electricity to create super weapons. The Tunguska event, they say, was the result of a test of such a weapon - a test that didn't go exactly as planned.

The Tesla Connection

Oliver Nichelson has a very interesting web site entitled, "Tesla Wireless and the Tunguska Explosion" that advocates this theory, with some very compelling information about the background and secret experiments of the Serbian-born American inventor. "Tesla's writings have many references to the use of his wireless power transmission technology as a directed energy weapon," says Nichelson. "The Tunguska explosion of 1908 may have been a test firing of Tesla's energy weapon."

Nichelson details many of the experiments with electricity conducted by Tesla in many areas of the United States. He relates one such experiment at his Colorado Springs laboratory where he erected a 200-foot pole topped by a large copper sphere that discharged lighting bolts up to 135 feet long. "People along the streets were amazed to see sparks jumping between their feet and the ground," Nichelson writes. "Flames of electricity would spring from a tap when anyone turned them on for a drink of water. Light bulbs within 100 feet of the experimental tower glowed when they were turned off."

Nichelson then chronicles the evolution of Tesla's method of the wireless transmission of electrical energy, and how it led up to the secret test in 1908. Apparently, Tesla had proved that directed electrical energy could be used as a beneficial or destructive force. "Beset by financial problems and spurned by the scientific establishment, Tesla was in a desperate situation by mid-decade... and, according to Tesla's biographers, he suffered an emotional collapse. In order to make a final effort to have his grand scheme recognized, he may have tried one high-power test of his transmitter to show off its destructive potential. This would have been in 1908."

In fact, perhaps Tesla was confessing in 1915 when he wrote: "It is perfectly practical to transmit electrical energy without wires and produce destructive effects at a distance. I have already constructed a wireless transmitter which makes this possible. But when unavoidable [it] may be used to destroy property and life. The art is already so far developed that the great destructive effects can be produced at any point on the globe, defined beforehand with great accuracy."

The Tesla experiment might also account for the enigmatic aspects of the Tunguska event, according to Nichelson: the lack of a crater; the disturbances in the planet's magnetic field; the odd glow in the sky seen before and after the event; the radiation-like burns; and the electromagnetic pulse.

The test, however, may not have been a complete success, says Nichelson. Tesla may have been aiming for the completely uninhabited region of the north pole. He may have overshot his target.

Continuation of Research

Scientists continue to research the Tunguska event and debate its causes. As recently as 1996, they gathered in Bologna, Italy for the Tunguska International Workshop. More than 65 participants attended the conference, mostly Russians and Americans, but no consensus was reached. The scientists remained divided between those who favor the meteorite hypothesis and those who favor the comet hypothesis. Why is it important to study Tunguska? Because it may have been the most recent occurrence of a major meteor or comet impact on our planet. If it had struck over a major city instead of an isolated forest, hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed.

But no one at the conference, it seemed, was seriously interested in the Tesla theory, nor in the suggestion raised that the explosion was actually caused by an errant, 2,000-year-old Japanese nuclear spacecraft returning home... but missing the runway.

Observations

After reading hundreds of eyewitness accounts and scientific reports, here are some of the observations:

The object looked like a shaft or cylinder of light, white, and brighter than the sun.
It had a 500 mile long trail that was not smoky but looked like bright, iridescent, multicolored bands.
A magnetic storm began a few minutes after the explosion. A compass was useless in Irkutsk, 600 miles away.
Electromagnetic pulse like anomalies (EMP) were reported on the opposite side of the planet.
In Antarctica unusual aurora displays were observed before and after the Tunguska event.
Part of the object appeared to veer upwards, like it bounced up.
A week before, and for a month afterward, very bright nights were experienced world wide. In some places you could read a newspaper at night.
No meteorite pieces have been found, nor has a crater.
Both plant and animal life have been affected genetically, trees and plants have an accelerated growth rate. This effect was at the epicenter and along the trajectory.
People were burned and died unusual deaths that are similar to radiation exposure. The chief of the Tungus (Evenk) people declared the area enchanted and sealed off. A few people had touched rocks laying on the ground and became sick.
The RH blood factors of several groups of Evenk people are abnormal, as well as several abnormal insect species and plant species.
The large epicenter, where the trees fall radially outward, has within it four smaller swirls having their own radial pattern - observed in 1960. The object probably exploded at 5 mi up by calculations.
Abnormal levels of radioactive carbon 14 were reported and then later declared to be incorrect. Other radio-isotopes were searched for but not found.
A pillar of smoke and bright fire was seen from 250 miles away. Horses were thrown down 400 miles away. A sound like thunder claps came four in succession and was heard 500 miles away.
One side of trees were burned as far as 40 miles away.
Tiny green globules of melted dust called trinitites were discovered in the area, similar to those produced at the Trinity site of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico.

Menotti Galli, Giuseppe Longo, and Romano Serra of the University of Bologna have been looking for carbon 14 and other materials. One thought in the U.S.A. is that some hydrogen would compress and heat up to create a fusion reaction. This would produce neutrons that would be absorbed by the nitrogen in the air and form carbon 14. No carbon 14 was found, but captured in the resin of surviving trees was unusual concentrations of "high Z" metals. These metals have a large number of protons (copper, gold, and nickel), and were present in quantities ten times more near the time of the explosion than before or after.

The present accepted candidate for the object that exploded over Russia is an asteroid; perhaps stony in nature, with ice, and weighing about 100,000 tons. Personally I can't accept this. The magnetic, EMP, and radiation effects disturb me. Most of the data supports something more like a nuclear explosion. The effects on the local biology, and the human deaths also support radiation exposure. Since residual radiation and isotope data seems to be lacking the nuclear approach is discounted. I do not think that the heated plasma from a comet / asteroid could account for radiation exposure at 40 miles. Heat yes, radiation, no.

Why is it important to find the answer?

According to Academician Vasiliev, "Had such a cosmic body exploded over Europe instead of the desolate region of Siberia, the number of human victims would have been 500,000 or more, not to mention the ensuing ecological catastrophe. Two years ago an asteroid of probably several hundred yards diameter passed Earth at a distance of only 700,000 kilometers. On an astronomical scale that is very close. The Tunguska episode marks the only event in the history of civilized man when Earth has collided with a truly large celestial object, although innumerable such collisions have occurred in the geological past. And many more are bound to occur."

Vasiliev stresses that is why continued investigations of the Tunguska event are important--because it will happen again,
sometime. Only by knowing what the object was, and by knowing its devastating biological consequences, will the scientific
and medical communities be in a position to deal with such a 40-megaton, or greater, cataclysm in the future. It is not
necessary to remind this group that there are 23 Apollo objects in orbit out there in our back yard. And there are 500,000
asteroids with adiameter in excess of 1 kilometer; and those objects are continually colliding, fragmenting, and flying off
into erratic orbits.

Vasiliev and his colleagues have managed to save 4,000 square kilometers of the Tunguska region as a national reserve for the next 20 years. "But we think this is not enough for scientific research," he says, "and that is why our initiative now is to protect the reserve under the supervision of UNESCO, because this is not only a matter of concern to Russia, but of the whole world."

He also stresses the importance of American and other foreign investigative teams with sophisticated technology joining the ongoing Tunguska international expeditions. "We need your advanced technology and your well-equipped laboratories, which we lack," he said.

"And to enhance our preparedness for such a catastrophe," Vasiliev adds, "programs such as the American military program of Star Wars could be used not as a means of nations mutually threatening each other but as a united effort to survey the vicinity of space near our planet to be on the lookout for new cosmic invaders."