The Tunguska Event

###The Tunguska Event

Central Siberia, 1908 — A blinding fireball streaked across the Siberian sky and unleashed a massive explosion that instantly flattened 80 million trees.

Early on June 30, 1908, witnesses in remote Siberia saw a blinding white-blue fireball streak across the cloudless morning sky. Seconds later, it detonated five to ten kilometers above the earth with a thunderous roar.

The mid-air explosion was catastrophically huge. A massive shockwave slammed into the ground, instantly flattening roughly 80 million trees in a giant outward butterfly pattern. The blast knocked people off their feet forty miles away and sent pressure waves around the entire globe.

For days afterward, folks across Eurasia experienced bizarre "bright nights" because high-altitude ice clouds reflected the sun. Decades of wild rumors blamed crashing alien spaceships, but modern science confirms it was a massive, stony meteor blowing up from extreme atmospheric friction.

How It Went Down
Blindingfireball appearsJune 30, 1908Mid-airdetonation7:14 AM80 milliontrees flattenedSeconds laterShockwavecircles the globeEurasiaexperiences bright nightsDays later
Crazy-o-Meter
Certified bananas
No.10
A cartoon of a wide-eyed Siberian man getting comically blown completely out of his fur boots by a colossal gust of wind from above. High in the sky, a blinding, glowing rock violently explodes in a massive starburst. On the ground below, millions of green pine trees are snapping and flattening against the earth in a perfect outward circle like dropped matchsticks, while a startled reindeer floats horizontally in the air, frantically paddling its legs against the immense shockwave.

The Tunguska Event — Central Siberia, 1908