WHAT LIES BEHIND THE TUNGUSKA EXPLOSION?
Four years from now, 30 June 2008, will be the 100th anniversary of one of the most mysterious catastrophes: the explosion of a body from space near the Podkamennaya (or Stony) Tunguska River in Siberia. There can scarcely have been another event in the past century to compare with it. The total power of the explosion exceeded the combined power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than 2,000 times over! Apart from that, the Tunguska explosion caused: an anomalous glow in the sky that was observed as late as 10 days afterwards, and the intense appearance of silvery clouds; massive radiation of light and heat; disruption of the normal functioning of meteorological instruments and the appearance of surface earth tremors; a tremendous sound wave that travelled twice around the globe; the felling of trees over an enormous area of over 2,000 square kilometres; weak traces of radioactivity, detected in tree samples and the polar ice layers dating from 1908; anomalous pr
