[meteorite-list] Tunguska Explosion 'Linked' to UFO

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Aug 23 14:04:14 2004
Message-ID: <200408231803.LAA20672_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20040823/siberiaufo.html

Siberia Explosion Linked to UFO
AFP
August 23, 2004

A Russian researcher into the paranormal has reopened
the controversy over a gigantic explosion almost 100 years ago in
Siberia with a claim that he has found debris from a UFO that collided
with a comet.

But the scientific establishment remains unconvinced.

On June 30, 1908, a colossal flash lit up the sky over Siberia, followed
by an explosion with the power of a thousand atom bombs.

The explosion obliterated the taiga, or forest, for hundreds of square
kilometres in the basin of the river Podkamennaya Tunguska in the
Krasnoyarsk region.

People living in the villages of Siberia thought there had been an
earthquake. Humans and animals were thrown to the ground by the
shockwave and windows were blown in.

No meteorite debris was found and scientists concluded that the core of
a comet or an asteroid had exploded.

Researcher Yuri Lavbin has spent 12 years researching the mystery of the
"Tunguska meteorite" and believes he has found the key to one of the
great scientific enigmas of the last century, though many scientists
remain sceptical.

He is president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation in
Krasnoyarsk, made up of some 15 enthusiasts, among them geologists,
chemists, physicists and mineralogists, who have been organising regular
expeditions to the area since 1994.

Lavbin's theory is that a comet and a mysterious flying machine collided
10 kilometres above the Earth's surface causing the explosion.

He and his team say that on an expedition to the Podkamannaya Tunguska
river in July they found two strange black stones between two villages.

The stones were regular cubes with their sides measuring a metre and a
half.

These stones "are manifestly not of natural origin," Lavbin said.

They appear to have been fired and "their material recalls an alloy used
to make space rockets, while at the beginning of the 20th century only
planes made of plywood existed."

He claimed that the cubes were the remains of a flying machine, perhaps
an extraterrestrial spaceship, while admitting that an analysis of the
stones had yet to be undertaken.

He had also found a huge white stone "the size of a peasant's hut" stuck
in the top of a crag in the middle of the devastated forest.

"Local people call it the 'reindeer stone.' It is made of a crystalline
matter which is not typical of this region," Lavbin said.

He suggested it was part of the core of a comet. The scientific
establishment has another explanation.

"There are plenty of amateurs who organise trips to the site of the
Tunguska cataclysm," said Anna Skripnik of the meteorites committee of
the Russian Academy of Sciences. "In Siberia where oil geologists
regularly work you can find a heap of fragments of various machines."

Lavbin is not deterred. To back his theory, he produced satellite photos
of the region that show the "footprints" of the spaceship (long marshes
and lakes) and of the comet (devastated forests, charred trees and
smashed rocks).
Received on Mon 23 Aug 2004 02:03:50 PM PDT