Top 5 Tunguska Event explinaions

On June 30, 1908 something happened in Siberia that resulted in 830 square miles of forest to be completely flattened. This mysterious event came to be known as "the Tunguska event". It is still unclear what exactly happened that day. Witnesses describe seeing a ball of flame and hearing an explosion from as far as 250 miles away. There have been more than a few explanations from more than a few interesting sources. Here are my top 5.

5. meteorite/comet impact

The most main stream explanation is of course the meteorite impact. The main problem for this is a lack of a giant crater that would be left from this impact. Scientists of course say that it was probably a "stony meteorite" (as opposed to one mainly composed of heavy metals) which would explode due to the heat of impact.

A comet seems to be more plausible because a comet is made up mainly of ice and would probably explode high in the atmosphere due to the heat. This is the most accepted theory by scientist but the least fun.

4. the Tesla death ray

Of all the legendary inventions of Nikoli Tesla, the death ray has probably created the most mythology. Officially, the death ray was never built but believers in this theory point to the Wardenclyffe tower. As Tesla's great unfinished project, the Wardenclyffe tower was designed for the wireless transmission of power. The project came to a halt when JP Morgan pulled funding for the project due to the fact that Tesla wanted to make electricity free to everyone. Many people believe, however, that the tower had secret functions such as an invisible force field to protect America and of course the death ray. The story goes that Tesla was testing his death ray by aiming it at the north pole. After the disastrous attempt the death ray was scrapped until it was rebuilt by the US government in the form of HAARP.3. Aliens.

Aliens have gotten credit for a lot of human history. They've been said to have built the pyramids, killed Kennedy, and even created modern man through genetic manipulation. Not to be left out of the fun, researchers studying the Tunguska event have of their own alien hypothesis. How exactly the aliens did this is up for debate. While most UFO experts say it was a crash, some believe it was a weapon, or aliens saving mankind from an asteroid.

2. Dark matter

Another explanation is that a tiny piece of dark matter floating thorough space hit our atmosphere. This cause not only an explosion a fireball and radiation. This explanation was put forth by Nobel Prize winning chemist, Willard F Libby. Libby was the inventor of radio-carbon dating and proposed that any normal matter explosion would cause a spike in carbon-14 in the year 1909. Because none could be found he concluded the Tunguska event must have been caused by dark matter.

1. a black hole

In the 70's black holes where at the height of their popularity in mainstream science as well as in fortean and esoteric circles. Black holes caught the imagination of the time in America and even a Disney movie came out about traveling into one. Around this time Stephen Hawking came up with the theory of the mini black hole. Hawking was talking about a phenomena that occurred shortly after the big bang. This didn't stop Nature magazine from publishing the theory that a spontaneous mini black hole caused the Tunguska event.