# Tunguska blast was caused by an alien device (according to Russian scientists) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 12, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494 "2004-08-12T05:09:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/1 "2004-08-12T05:09:42Z")
[This article](http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/12/1092102569108.html) claims that Russian scientists have found an “alien device” at the site of the 1908 Tunguska blast. What might it be? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/2 "2004-08-12T05:14:23Z")
Um, a creative way to get some hard western currency? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/3 "2004-08-12T05:52:15Z")
> [@Cunctator](#): > > [This article](http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/12/1092102569108.html) claims that Russian scientists have found an “alien device” at the site of the 1908 Tunguska blast. What might it be? 😕 A 1900’s-style death ray? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/4 "2004-08-12T06:04:51Z")
Damn Russian supermarket tabloids! ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/5 "2004-08-12T07:04:07Z")
Hasn’t anyone seen Hellboy? It was the gate sent by the gods of chaos to let them into the world. There’s a deleted scene on the DVD that explains this. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/6 "2004-08-12T07:21:46Z")
Of \*course \*it was caused by aliens. It’s all explained in _Strangers From the Sky_. The comet was originally headed for the densely populated continent of Europe but a nearby ship of Vulcans that happened to be in the solar system deflected it enough so that it hit Siberia instead. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/7 "2004-08-12T11:35:40Z")
Yeah, right. If Leonid Alexeyevich Kulik missed a 50 kg rock of extraterrestrial origin during his many expeditions to the site in the 1920s or 1930s, I’d be amazed. The man went over the site with a fine-tooth comb, even going so far as to drain swamps. Various efforts to declare this event as due to extraterrestrials have been floating about since the 1950s. My favorite effort was one in the 1960s blaming it on inhabitants of a planet around Cygnus 61 who sent a blast from an energy beam in response to radio signals from the eruption of Krakatoa (an 1890s-style Death Beam?) that somehow triggered the explosion. There are so many improbabilities in that scenario that it’s irresistable. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/8 "2004-08-12T15:05:38Z")
OK, let’s think about this. The Tunguska blast was estimated to be the equivalent of about a 40 megaton explosion (here’s one [cite](http://www.halexandria.org/dward232.htm) that starts out sane and devolves into utter weirdness, giving the natal chart of the Tunguska event). So aside from being a magnet for total nutcases, the blast was equivalent to a large H-Bomb. Just what kind of alien wreckage is going to be left? I suppose it’s possible that if it were a meteorite and it disintegrated on the way down, they might have found a rock that’s identifiably extraterrestrial. But it’s more likely that it’s just a rock. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/9 "2004-08-12T16:02:58Z")
Everyone knows it was caused accidently by **Nikola Tesla**. Attempting to send a message to his friend, Robert Peary, with a new device of his own design, Nikola Tesla overshoots the mark - the myseterious explosion at Tunguska is the result. Stunned and frightened by the device’s destructive potential, Tesla spends much of the rest of his life deliberately trying to appear to be a charlatan, so that no one will think to look at his work. Jeez, don’t y’all read Spider Robinson. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/10 "2004-08-12T21:07:18Z")
Forgot the [link.](http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Callahan.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tunguska-blast-was-caused-by-an-alien-device-according-to-russian-scientists/259494/11 "2004-08-12T22:16:16Z")
This was also mentioned on Space Daily, but also with a suspicious lack of details. The news release was attributed to an organization no one has ever heard of, and said that “Russian Scientists” rather than a named person made the discovery. I don’t know what to make of Space Daily anymore. They carry hard science news reports AND tabloid fodder.