Customer Reviews

The Mystery of the Tunguska Fireball

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I thought that the Tunguska event had been solved a number of years ago. It is clear from this book that it is not. The author has done a commendable job of presenting the history of the Tunguska devastation in 1908 and of the work that has been done since then in trying to identify what caused it. Theories abound, from the plausible, i.e., a comet or asteroid, to the absurd, e.g., an alien spaceship. This author writes extremely well and weaves a most intriguing yarn - at times funny, at times tongue-in-cheek, mostly serious but always absolutely fascinating. This is a great book that is impossible to put down. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in whodunits or scientific mysteries.

In the early morning of June 30, 1908, a fireball flew across the Siberian sky and exploded in a 15 megaton blast that flattened 2,150 acres of Siberian forest. In the years that followed, scientists correlated atmospheric pressure readings, reports of unusually bright sunsets and "night glows" in the skies over northern Europe, recordings of seismic waves, and eyewitness accounts, concluding that the cause was probably a stony asteroid that entered the earth's atmosphere and broke up explosively 8 kilometers above the Earth at 7:14 am local time.

Verma's story doesn't end there, of course, or "The Tunguska Fireball" would be a fairly short book. As it is, Verma uses the Tunguska event to embark on an entertaining discussion of how scientists came to understand what had probably happened in the skies over Siberia. The investigations into this remote area were difficult and the findings yielded many interesting theories, ranging from fairly plausible ideas about the arrival of a stony asteroid or comet, to more exotic hypotheses involving black holes, antimatter, mirror matter, volcanoes, ball lightning, and "geometeors," to really bizarre notions about crippled alien spaceships, laser beams from other planets and death rays secretly invented by Nikola Tesla (really). The Tunguska event offers a great excuse to digress among a number of interesting ideas, although I confess that I find Verma's explanations of the underlying science to be a tad murky at times.

When the dust settles (so to speak), I'll place my bets on the stony asteroid theory, with a sentimental vote for the killer comet--the other hypotheses seem to require too much special pleading to be a compelling way to think about the event, at least based on the information we have in hand today. That said, the most sobering revelation in Verma's book is his report of the "mini-Tunguska" event of September 24, 2002. A US satellite spotted an object that entered the earth's atmosphere, but lost it as it fell below 30 kilometers; a few moments later, another satellite reported a fireball exploding in the cloudy skies above Siberia. The explosion flattened 100 square kilometers of forest with the energy of a small atomic bomb, but no one witnessed the fireball and, as far as we know, no one was killed or injured. The story would have been very different if the object, whatever it was, had exploded above a populated area.

Verma's books makes entertaining and sobering reading. "The Tunguska Fireball" will make you wonder how many more objects are floating around in the void with Earth's name on them.

"At 7.14 a.m. on 30 June 1908 a huge fireball exploded in the Siberian sky. A thousand times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, it flattened an area of remote Tunguska forest bigger than Greater London, forming a mushroom cloud that almost reached into space. Six hundred kilometres away, the Trans-Siberian Express rattled wildly on its newly built tracks. Tremors registered in distant St. Petersburg, and the unusually bright night skies seen across England over the next few nights prompted letters to The Times."

So writes Surendra Verma in the introduction to The Tunguska Fireball: Solving One of the Great Mysteries of the 20th Century. I first learned of the Tunguska explosion in a TV program many years ago and have found it fascinating to research.

This book analyzes possible causes for the explosion, and includes photos taken of the vast destruction, including the odd occurrence of both flattened forests as well as forests of tree trunks standing as bare as telephone poles. Something catastrophic happened in Siberia, yet over a century later, we still don't know what burned through the morning sky.

The two main theories are that a comet disintegrated in the atmosphere or an asteroid exploded about eight kilometres above the Earth. No impact crater has been found so there is a lack of extraterrestrial physical evidence. The author spends a good portion analyzing these theories and the scientific talk gets quite techy and over-my-head at times. The tech talk is countered by the oddball theories that always abound whenever a scientific mystery remains unsolved; one chapter is entitled "Opening the X-Files" wherein Verma devotes a fair share to crazy talk about exploding alien spaceships, Tesla's death ray and aliens beaming lasers at us.

Verma bored me with his scientific talk, but I suppose such talk is necessary in order to explain the physics behind certain theories. I read and reread these passages in an attempt to understand them, yet since I do not have a background in astronomy or physics in many cases I just had to read what he wrote, accept it, and move on. (I like to understand everything I read before I go further ahead, yet in some books, especially with fiction, I can't always do this.) Verma's mock trial in the final "Whodunit?" chapter, where he weighs all the theories with witty lawyerly defences, was just plain annoying.

I liked the bibliography and sources for further reading, and will be sure to check out the scientific and academic web sites on the Tunguska explosion.

The scientific community is very much like organised religion in one very disquieting way;it thrives on conformity,and does not like or appreciate individuality in any way shape or form...
In writing about the still unexplained devastation that took place in russia onjune 30th 1908 Surendra Verma presents every possible viewpoint that has been put forth since that event,however the author makes no bones about the fact that conformist scientific theory is much preferred to non scientific "speculation".
Science begins with speculation,with "why",and "what if",and builds from there..Alas the scientific community,having learned much from the structure of organised religion(and all of it bad) then decides upon one answer and carves it in stone..Despite any other advances in knowledge and/or any future "Why" and "What if" notions,however reasonable or logical,the existing scientific model remains in place,usually until the majority within the scientific community say otherwise,but if they do not it does not matter that thier model may be flawed,it will remain in place..
In writing about the sudden devastating incident at Tunguska,in Siberia,in 1908,Verma first goes through the "most likely" scientificly accepted models in order to explain the catastrophe;A comet,A meteroite,a"black hole",ect,showing the possibilities,the way in which the scientific community has accepted some and rejected others based mainly,it would seem on consensus rather than on any solid factual evidence...Later in the book Verma addresses the more"speculative" notions,such as ETs,and the like,but in a more scornful tone,as if any answer to the Tunguska mystery that does not conform to current scientific"truths" cannot possibly have any real merit...This then is where Verma's book suffers,for as stated earlier,even Verma concedes that as yet there is no real explaination as to what did cause the "fireball" at Tunguska,and,therefore,all possibilities,however unorthodox scientificly ought to have equal merit.
Interesting reading but weakened greatly by Verma's scientificly conformist bent.

the first two-thirds of this book is well written. mr. verma offers a variety of theories on the tunguska incident. the book is well researched from a scientific point of view. where the book falls apart for me, is in the alternative theory section which he labels x-files. here mr. verma ridicules and basically insults any ufo type of explanation. to know where mr. verma is coming from, he gives the history of roswell in a page and a half, concluding it was a weather balloon with dummies. clearly, in my opinion, mr. verma threw the baby, bathwater and tub out in his research. and as anyone should know, debunkers of any theory use ridicule first. so, if you are a right-winged conservative, scientific purist, this book is for you, and should be on your shelf. if you're looking for a book that objectively looks at all theories in a balanced, well-respected manner, skip this book. mr. verma has his biased agenda and presents it well. the tunguska topic is interesting and i look forward to reading more interesting books on it.