Phil Plait The Bad Astronomer is sceptical.
For those who don't know nearly 100 years ago back in 1908, something exploded at a height of 6 miles over a remote region of Siberia. The blast released 15 megatons of energy—about a thousand times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima—and flattened 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest.
It was thought to be caused by an asteroid, but no crater was found. As a result the so called Tunguska event became a set piece in all sorts of crack pot crazy theories after that. It got used on xfiles a few times and at one point was blamed on a black hole.
Now some scientists have found what they think may be a crater consistent with the blast.
Comments
There is probably a very reasonable explanation for it.
The reason is that if it was truly something earth shattering then the world governments would not let it into the public domain.
Oh for sure, it's only mysterious because no one has yet got an explanation. It was almost certainly some kind of asteroid but the lack of a large crater makes it something odd and given the magnitude of the blast you would expect at least a dent.
Conspiracies are fairly silly since world governments are notoriously bad at keeping secrets, that they can keep everyone quiet for such extended lengths of time is somewhat laughable, it's where all the stupid 9/11 conspiracies fall down beyond the ridiculous "steel doesn't melt" bollocks.
The thing is, they didn't really have a choice about letting it into the public domain. Firstly, it was about a hundred years ago, so governments were a little less practiced at secret keeping. Secondly, the explosion was visible from London, so it's not like they could pretend it didn't happen. :) But no, I'm not buying the conspiracy theory either. It would be cool if it was some form of space-craft blowing up, but the chances of that are so small as to be not worth discussing.
As for what it was... I never thought the lack of crater was that odd with a 6 mile high detonation. It's the lack of debris that I think is interesting. For whatever it was to go up without littering the area with chunks suggests it was something unusual.
I like Phil's idea of a body composed of mostly ice, myself.
Some kind of ice golem you mean?
An international conspiracy involving space ice golems! Of course it's all so clear now why didn't I see it before. It explains everything! EVERYTHING!
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Including creationism.