WEBVTT - S05 Episode 15: It Came From Above 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.240 We need only look up at the Moon to its 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.960 violently pock marked surface to be reminded of the sheer 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.960 number of loose celestial bodies that are hurtling through space 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.360 at any one time, liable to collide with us at 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.800 any moment. The number of craters covering the Moon's exposed 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.880 silvery crust is estimated to be nine thousand, one hundred 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.159 and thirty seven, with many clearly visible to the naked 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.160 eye and many others long since buried by later impacts. 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.720 Considering the Moon's surface is only seven point four percent 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.880 the size of the Earths, that gives you some indication 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.199 of just how many comets, asteroids, and more often meteorites 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.160 are likely to have collided with this planet since it 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.400 was first formed over four point five billion years ago. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:03.640 Back in October seventeen, astronomer Robert Werick of the University 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.399 of Hawaii was stationed at the Haliakala Observatory on the 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:11.240 summit of the Island of Maui's Haliakala Volcano when he 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:17.360 spotted something unusual close to the Sun. The observatory utilizes 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.600 a panoramic survey telescope and rapid response system known as 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.320 the pan Star's one telescope to scan the Solar System 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.880 for any dangerously large celestial bodies that stray a little 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.280 too close for comfort through it. On that extraordinary day 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.319 in October, Werick observed a small trail of light moving 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.639 away from the Sun, which he immediately assumed at first 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.080 was simply a passing comet. However, when he checked back 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:50.240 at the previous night's data, something was amiss. The object, 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.400 which was moving at a speed of one hundred and 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.120 ninety six thousand miles per hour, wasn't where it should 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:01.040 have been according to the data. Jumping onto the Werick 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.280 contacted his friend Marco mcklly at the European Space Agency 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.760 and explained his predicament. A few days later, with the 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.840 help of the essay's optical ground station telescope in Tenerif, 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.560 the pair began to watch the object more closely, and 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:22.640 the rest, as they say, is history. The object, first 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:27.359 named Rama after the Arthur C. Clark novel Rendezvous with Rama, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.919 was later named a Muamua, a Hawaiian word that translates 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.040 to English as the first messenger or scout from the 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.800 distant past to reach out. Because what Werick had discovered 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.920 was the first known object to ever have entered our 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:56.760 Solar System from deep interstellar space. But that wasn't all with. 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.760 Though Muamua found to be accelerating away from the through 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.600 some kind of non gravitational propulsion, astronomers first classified it 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.480 as a comet, since, unlike an asteroid, a comet is 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.840 comprised partly of frozen gas. The frozen gas helps to 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.080 propel the object through space when it gets released by 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.760 the heat of any star it happens to be passing, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.040 which in turn creates the comet's distinctive tail and coma, 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.560 the fuzzy glow made of ice and dust that forms 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.799 around its nucleus when it's heated up. Only when the 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.840 astronomers were able to get a closer look at a Muamua, 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.440 they were surprised to find it didn't have a tail 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:42.920 or a coma, resulting in it being reclassified as an asteroid. However, 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.680 it didn't quite fit the characteristics of the average asteroid either, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.880 being oddly long and flat in shape, while its unusual 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.320 trajectory and rate of acceleration was also difficult to reconcile 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.680 with this new classification. In the end, it was given 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.400 an entirely new designation, with astronomers agreeing to call it 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:09.840 simply an interstellar object. The following year, two Harvard University 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.960 researchers shmoy Or Biali and Abraham Loebe made a startling suggestion. 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.800 Could it be? They thought that the reason scientists were 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.560 struggling to account for the object's peculiar behavior was because, 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.680 unlike the celestial bodies they were seeking to compare it to, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:31.520 this one was entirely artificial in nature. In other words, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.520 as they put it, maybe umu Amoah wasn't either a 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:40.040 comet or an asteroid, but rather a fully operational probe 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.440 deliberately sent to the vicinity of Earth by an alien civilization. 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.680 It certainly makes you wonder about some of the many 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:53.240 things that have fallen to Earth over the years. You're 0:04:53.320 --> 0:05:05.280 listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McClane smith. Right at 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.800 the far eastern fringes of Russia, in the Primorsky Kraie region, 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.520 close to the Sea of Japan, lies the sparse mining 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.799 town of down A, Gorsk. Just like the name implies, 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.599 which translates in English to far in the mountains, the 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.720 town sits at the bottom of a narrow valley formed 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.719 by the Rudnaya River, surrounded on all sides by sprawling 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.719 forests of Korean pine and vast stretches of low lying 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.559 pyramid shaped mountains, having first been established as a small 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.800 mining settlement in eighteen ninety seven due to the rich 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.279 concentration of lead and zinc in the area. Today it 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.440 is home to just under forty thousand people, many of 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.560 whom serve the commercial mining industry, and it was there 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.080 late one clear night in January nineteen eighty six that 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.560 an object was seen moving across the sky at speed 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.719 before smashing in the side of isfest Kovaya Mountain, a 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.599 large peak that overshadows the town to the north, also 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.159 known locally as Height six one one on account of 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:14.960 its height in meters. The object, described by witnesses as 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.160 being a near perfect sphere with a reddish hue like 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.040 burning steel, was said to have moved completely silently through 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.359 the air as it veered toward the mountain, only for 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.560 it to jerk up suddenly, then stop before dropping out 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.719 of the sky. Two girls who saw it from the 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.080 street described hearing a thud as it crashed into the 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.440 mountain's dense forest covering then watched with alarm as a 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.919 small fire blossom out of the darkness at the base 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.719 of a cliff on the mountain's southern side. As news 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.599 of the event began to spread around the region, it 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.359 eventually made its way to doctor Valerie Vardzilni from what 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.200 was then known as the Soviet Union Academy of Sciences 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:05.960 Far East Department of the Investigation Committee for Anomalous Aerial Phenomena. 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:11.240 Five days later, Dvardzilney arrived in down A Gorsk to investigate. 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.080 Setting off on the morning of February third, vards Vilney's 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.520 team headed up into the snow covered mountains with only 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.480 a vague sense of where exactly the object had crashed. 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.880 It wasn't long before one of the team spotted a 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.720 large area of exposed rock and dirt surrounded by an 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.480 otherwise thick carpet of snow, where something had clearly been burning. 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:46.000 And Scattered throughout the area were multiple metallic looking fragments 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.800 of something reported to have appeared artificial that had recently 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.840 smashed on the ground. Some of the fragments were said 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.840 to resemble splintered pieces of silica, while others were little 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.600 balls of a dull, silvery metal. Most peculiar of all 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.280 were the pieces of some kind of bire netting comprised 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.640 of tiny metallic fibers. On the edge of the site, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.600 they found a tree stump that had a potent chemical 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.480 odor that appeared to be coated in varnish. It was 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.360 only when they got closer that they saw the stump 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.600 had in fact melted something that wasn't possible at less 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.960 than three thousand degrees celsius. A pile of light gray 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.320 ash was also found in the middle of the site, 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.480 which was bagged up along with the rest of the material. 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:40.000 After taking numerous pictures of their discovery, Dward Zilney had 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.360 all of it flown six thousand kilometers to the Siberian 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.359 branch of the Academy of Sciences in Omsk for further analysis. 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.200 According to Paul Stonehill, who wrote about the incident along 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:56.240 with fellow UFO researcher Philip Mantel in their twenty seventeen 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:01.200 book Russia's Roswell Incident, what the scientists found left them 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:12.160 completely baffled. Looking first at the metal spheres, they found 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:19.080 them to be comprised of a combination of iron, manganese, nickel, chromium, tungsten, cobalt, 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:24.760 silica dioxide, and molybdenum. Though not especially startling in and 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.120 of itself, the combination of materials revealed the objects to 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.880 be an alloy that had most likely been manufactured. Next, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.960 they turned to the strange mesh like material. After placing 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.880 it under the microscope, it was found to be comprised 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.360 of a series of threads, each measuring at mere seventeen 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:48.880 microns wide, that had been platted together, a micron being 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:53.160 equivalent to one thousandth of a millimeter. Within many of 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.760 the threads, a single gold wire was found, said to 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.880 have a concentration of one thousand, one hundred grams permetric ton, 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.400 far higher than anything found in the region, where a 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.280 concentration of only four grams per metric ton is considered 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:14.400 enough to make gold deposits economically viable. Other materials said 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.680 to have been found in the threads were silver, nickel, 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:24.920 alpha titanium, molybdenum, and marillium. According to Stonehill, when placed 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.760 in a vacuum and melted, some of the elements are 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.240 reported to have completely disappeared, leaving only molybdenum, which had 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.480 not been present in the chamber. At the beginning of 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:40.040 the experiment, one scientist, doctor Kulikoff of the Academy of 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.680 Sciences Chemistry Institute, is said to have described the nature 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.280 of the mesh as being impossible to understand, with another, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:53.560 doctor Vizzotski, allegedly stating he was convinced the fibers had 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.240 not been manufactured on Earth. The strange pile of ash 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.200 was also analyzed to be the remains of an unidentified 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.160 animal that has thought to have been incinerated when the 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:10.479 object crashed into the mountain, or, perhaps, as others have suggested, 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.200 it was the remains of something that had been traveling 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:24.120 inside the object when it crashed. A few days after 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.160 of a. Zilne's expedition, doctor Skovinsky of the Academy of 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.199 Science's Institute of Geology and Geophysics led a follow up 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.559 expedition to the apparent crash site on Height six one one. 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.920 According to UFO investigator Leonard Stringfield, Skovinsky's team made yet 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:47.080 another startling discovery, a remarkable similarity between the composition of 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.440 steel alloy and iron fragments found at the site and 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.880 material found in Peat in the aftermath of one of 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.559 Siberia and the world's most mysterious events involving the impact 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:03.720 of something falling to Earth from space. It was early 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.400 in the morning of June thirtieth, nineteen o eight, when 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.800 residents of a village in North Krolinski in central Siberia 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.280 looked up to see a bright, bluish white cylindrical object 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:21.160 falling from the sky. Together they watched it in awe 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.600 as over the course of almost ten minutes, it fell 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:30.560 steadily closer and closer to the ground. Four hundred kilometers 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.640 to the northwest, at a trading post in Vanavara, surrounded 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:39.680 by huge swathes of forest, local farmer Semen Semenoff was 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:44.760 sitting outside his house eating breakfast. Moments later, he looked 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.920 up in horror when, high above the trees to the north, 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.520 the sky appeared to rip in two, and a great 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.679 fire emerged from within it. The rip in the sky 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.040 grew larger until it seemed as though the entire northern 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.960 side of it was on fire. Just then, a great 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.439 surge of heat tore through the air and a tremendous 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.400 thump was hurt, after which the tear in the sky 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.600 appeared to close up. This was followed by a second 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.280 blast of hot air, lifting Semenov off his feet and 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.480 throwing him back against the front of the house, knocking 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:25.240 him out cold. Semenov came round to find his wife 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:29.400 anxiously looking over him. After quickly hauling him up from 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.640 the floor, she just managed to get him inside when 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.040 they were suddenly pummeled by a deafening sound, as if 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.840 a whole barrage of cannons were firing down on them 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.920 from above. As the ground then began to shake, the 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.440 couple threw themselves to the floor, fearing an imminent hail 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:51.800 of projectiles that never came. Moments later it was over. 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.679 Getting back to their feet, the couple stepped from their 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.800 cabin in a daze, looking about at all the glass 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.959 that had been completely blown from the windows, and at 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.720 the peculiar streaks of flattened crops that had suddenly appeared 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:11.320 in the fields around them. Some who also witnessed the 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.600 extraordinary event are said to run into the streets in 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:19.560 wild panic, believing the end of the world was upon them. 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.920 It is said that for days after, an eerie, purplish 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.360 glow lingered in the sky, with many across western Siberia 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.560 and even Europe observing it even as far as London 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.680 in England. The glow was so bright the use of 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.240 street lights was completely unnecessary for the next three days. 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.360 In a Kutzk, eight hundred kilometers to the south at 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:49.600 the town's observatory, observatory director dogged Arcady Voznisenski registered the 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.560 violent event as an earthquake and placed its epicenter at 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:59.440 somewhere between the Nizniaya and Podkomenia Tunguska rivers. Though he 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.760 may have been right about the epicenter, whatever it was 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:14.960 that had taken place was no earthquake. In nineteen fourteen, Russia, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.280 Czar Nicholas the Second took Russia into the First World War. 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.160 The conflict caught the already weakening Czarist regime on the 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.240 back foot, and with deaths mounting and food shortages back home, 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:33.160 many of the people began to revolt. In March nineteen seventeen, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.000 with many in the army by then also turning on 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:41.359 the ruling powers. A revolution had begun that quickly descended 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.560 into civil war. Due to this political upheaval and the 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:49.320 sheer remoteness of where the peculiar blast had occurred, an 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.160 area that was also surrounded by miles of forest and swamplant. 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.080 It wouldn't be until nineteen twenty one that an expedition 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.200 was finally put together in the hope of establishing what 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:05.280 had actually taken place. The expedition was led by famed 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:10.120 Russian mineralogist Lenoid Kulik. Though his team were unable to 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:15.320 reach the blasts epicenter, after collating a number of eyewitness accounts, 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.960 he was left in no doubt that a meteor had 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.400 smashed into the region, believing they would find the impact 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:26.000 crater somewhere nearby to prove it. It would be another 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.000 six years, however, before the government to what was then 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.120 the Soviet Union allowed him to return to the region. 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.880 Helped by hunters and trackers from the local Yvank tribe, 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.600 Kulik's expedition was able to venture much further than they 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:45.200 had before, and soon they came across a harrowing site. 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.800 Hundreds of scorched and fallen trees flattened outwards, surrounding a 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.000 central area comprised of more trees that, despite being blackened 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:59.560 and completely stripped of branches, had somehow been left standing 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:05.800 like telegraph poles. As Kulik described it, Kulik knew instinctively 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.359 they'd found the epicenter of the blast, only there was 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:15.680 no crater to be seen anywhere. In its absence, Kulik 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:20.120 maintained his original theory, suggesting that the swampy environment had 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.440 been too soft for a crater to form in it. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:29.560 Kulik named the peculiar incident the Philiminovo meteorite. However, today 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.719 it is more widely known as the Tunguska event. Without 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.160 an impact crater to back up the meteorite theory, however, 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.280 scientists were left scratching their heads as to what exactly 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.040 took place, and as more and more eyewitness accounts began 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:57.440 to emerge, things only seemed to get murkier. While some 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.159 described the object as being cylindrical, others claimed it was 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.359 oval shaped. Some also claimed they'd seen the object not 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.560 only changed trajectory during its fall, but also slowed down 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.879 prior to the explosion. Some saw it as a white, 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.800 bluish thing that moved slowly east to west, others that 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.479 it was reddish in color and moving at incredible speed 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:26.200 from south to north. The many discrepancies in the eyewitness 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.639 accounts has led some to speculate that the main fact 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:35.520 have been not one object involved, but two. Then, in 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.840 the aftermath of the devastating nuclear bombs dropped over Hiroshima 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:45.000 and Nagasaki in Japan in nineteen forty five, writer Alexander 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.679 Katzantsev went as far as to suggest that the Tunguska 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:53.200 blast was actually a UFO crash, or perhaps the detonation 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:58.200 of some kind of interplanetary weapon. In an intriguing twist, 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.320 geomagnetic recordings made at Urkut's observatory of the event were 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.160 found to be similar to what you might find after 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:11.200 a nuclear blast. But perhaps even more startling was an 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.800 idea proposed in nineteen seventy three that the event was 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.880 the result of matter and antimatter colliding, a theoretically calamitous 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.280 possibility which some belief could result in an explosion of 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:28.560 such magnitude. In the nineteen sixties, the size of the 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.080 impacted area was estimated to have covered eight hundred and 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.280 thirty square miles of forest and was shaped in an 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.080 unusual pattern similar to a huge pair of butterfly wings, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.600 with somewhere in the region of eighty million trees having 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:49.199 been flattened. Today, most scientists believed the Tunguska event was 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.679 caused by some form of cosmic body entering the atmosphere 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.640 that disintegrated before impact, although some have suggested that whatever 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.720 it was possibly came in at such a shallow angle 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:05.560 that had veered back off into space. Either way, over 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:09.320 a hundred years after the event, there remains no definitive 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:19.800 explanation for it. Back and down a Gorsk, things were 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:24.480 getting even stranger with echoes of the Stragatsky Brothers story 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.560 Roadside Picnic, in which a strange, anomalous zone is created 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.639 on Earth in the wake of a mysterious visitation from 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:35.520 an alien species. The area around the apparent crash site 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.439 at height six one one also developed a peculiar reputation. 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.520 It was said that no insects populated the area in 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.520 the wake of the crash, and that anyone who ventured 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.320 there was quickly overwhelmed by a stifling sense of dread, 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.080 causing their heart rate to increase and a near total 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:59.680 loss of coordination or Mechanical and electronic equipment used there 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.840 was said to fail. Members of one expedition team who 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.280 went there apparently reported that all their tortures failed to 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:11.440 work the moment they arrived, only discovering later when they 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.720 returned home, that many of the wires inside had been damaged. 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.000 When the results of the tests conducted on the strange 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.919 material found at the site began to circulate, one journalist 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.760 suggested there was nothing unusual about it at all, believing 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.000 it was simply a top secret spy probe or space 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.600 junk that had been manufactured in the USSR with regular 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:39.280 materials that had long been known to exist. Others speculated 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.359 it actually belonged to the United States government. However, in 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.679 nineteen ninety one, Colonel Jerry Felder of the USA's Space 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.000 Command at Peterson Air Force Space in Colorado, irresponding to 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.680 a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the materials, stated 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.399 that no large objects with ground paths were found to 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.320 have crossed eastern USSR near down A Gorsk at the 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.879 time in question. One other explanation for the event was 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.480 that the object was a fragment of the Space Shuttle 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.119 Challenger that had exploded high up in the atmosphere only 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:20.320 the day before. Despite the extraordinary coincidence, this theory has 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:24.400 been dismissed since the Challenger shuttle disintegrated at forty six 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.760 thousand feet above the Atlantic. For any piece of it 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:29.880 to have made it as far as down a Gorsk, 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:34.120 over eleven thousand kilometers away, it is estimated it would 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:37.160 have to have reached sixty five thousand feet in height. 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.760 After a series of subsequent UFO sightings in the region 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:52.240 following the nineteen eighty six incident, in two thousand, Russian 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:57.359 newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that Russian Air Force generals were 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.720 so alarmed by the growing number of sightings they invited 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.359 UFO researchers to work with them in trying to establish 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:08.600 what was going on. In twenty twelve, at the National 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:12.320 Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, an affiliate at the 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:17.080 Smithsonian Institute, a number of mysterious items were put on display, 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:19.920 said to have been taken from the crash site. At 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.400 height six one one inside a large glass case where 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:28.119 a series of glassy looking metallic spheres and pieces of 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:34.400 metal in vials. A description read. Three Soviet academic centers 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:39.720 and eleven research institutes analyzed the objects from this UFO crash. 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:45.119 The distance between atoms is different from ordinary iron radar 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:49.680 cannot be reflected from the material elements in the material 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:55.040 may disappear and new ones appear after heating. One piece 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:59.639 disappeared completely in front of four witnesses. The core of 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:04.680 the material is composed of a substance with anti gravitational properties. 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:10.760 Despite pieces of the material being examined at institutions from 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:15.480 Vladivostok to Munich and Liage, their true provenance is a 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:25.640 mystery that remains to this day unexplained. If you enjoy 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:28.360 Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:32.240 do so via Patreon. To receive access to add free episodes, 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:36.000 just go to patron dot com, forward Slash Unexplained Pod 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:38.480 to sign up, or if you'd like to make a 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:41.840 one time donation, you can go to Unexplained podcast dot 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:46.040 com forward Slash Support. 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