A mysterious explosion with the power of two thousand nuclear bombs!

Over time, the mystery of the Tunguska explosion remained unsolved, which led to the emergence of strange stories, including one about the explosion of a huge cloud of mosquitoes, and another about the explosion of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

At a quarter past seven in the morning on July 30, 1908, an explosion was heard in the Lower Tunguska region in central Siberia. The unknown object, before the explosion, left behind amazing sound and light effects.

This unique explosion occurred in the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin, located in the Evenki region of the Krasnoyarsk Region, Russia, and likely occurred overhead at an altitude of between 7 and 10 kilometers.

Testimonies of local residents reported that the flight of the unknown object, which looked like a very bright ball in the sky, was accompanied by a sound resembling a thunderclap, and that it left behind a strong dust cloud that was visible in the territory of Eastern Siberia in a very wide circle for several hours.  

The energy of this mysterious explosion is estimated to be between 10 and 40 megatons of TNT, equivalent to the energy of 2,000 nuclear bombs like the one dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.

This explosion, which remains mysterious until now, despite the passage of 116 years since the incident, was witnessed by nomadic residents who were fishing in the area near the site of the explosion.

In seconds, the massive blast wave toppled forest trees in a radius of 40 kilometers, leaving them stripped of their branches and leaves bent in one direction. Animals were exterminated, a number of residents were killed, others were injured, and a long-lasting light radiance shone.

 The impact of the explosion was felt far and wide, with many remote villages feeling the shaking of the soil and houses, the shattering of window glass, and the falling of pots from shelves.

Semyon Semyonov, a resident of the village of Vanavara, 70 kilometres from the epicentre of the explosion, described what happened: “Suddenly the sky split open, there was a fire with intense heat, and then there was a terrible, deafening roar.” Other witnesses gave the same description.

There was also talk of strange phenomena that affected most of the Northern Hemisphere through an unusual aurora in its brightness and color, the glow of darkness in the sky during so-called bright nights, and glowing silver clouds, in addition to daytime visual effects represented by halos and crowns around the sun.

The Soviet mineralogist Leonid Kulik led an exploratory mission to the region in 1921, but he was unable to find any remains of the meteorite and no trace of its fall to Earth. This scientist assumed in 1927 that a large iron meteorite fell in central Siberia.

The same scientist led two other missions, but the mystery of the mysterious explosion remained unsolved. A theory later emerged that suggested the explosion was caused by a comet.

This possibility is described by the Russian academic and member of the Meteorite Committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Grokhovsky, as the most realistic story, noting that “comets are mostly composed of ice covered with patches of solid matter,” and after the explosion there is no point in searching for remains.

Grokhovsky pointed out in a newspaper interview that there is a story that the Tunguska meteorite was filled with diamonds, and some claim that minerals characteristic of diamond-bearing meteorites have been found in the Siberian forests where the explosion occurred.

The most ridiculous stories put forward to explain the mysterious Siberian explosion, according to the Russian scientist, are those that claimed that the Tunguska incident was the result of an explosion of a cloud of mosquitoes, in addition to a story that placed responsibility for the explosion on Nikola Tesla, the American scientist who was conducting experiments at the time on transmitting electricity over long distances in the air.

More than a century later, the forests of central Siberia still hold the secret of a mysterious explosion that has challenged the minds of scientists for decades. There are still various stories, some of which are considered myths, while scientists continue their tireless efforts to solve the mystery. Everything depends on its timing, and then the forests of Siberia will reveal their secrets.