First Tunguska Meteorite Fragments Discovered
The Tunguska impact event is one of the great mysteries of modern history. The basic facts are well known. On 30 June 1908, a vast and powerful explosion engulfed an isolated region of Siberia near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.
The blast was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, registered 5 on the Richter scale and is thought to have knocked down some 80 million trees over an area of 2000 square kilometres. The region is so isolated, however, that historians recorded only one death and just handful of eyewitness reports from nearby.
But the most mysterious aspect of this explosion is that it left no crater and scientists have long argued over what could have caused it.
The generally accepted theory is that the explosion was the result of a meteorite or comet exploding in the Earth’s atmosphere. That could have caused an explosion of this magnitude without leaving a crater. Such an event would almost certainly have showered the region in fragments of the parent body but no convincing evidence has ever emerged.
In the 1930s, an expedition to the region led by the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik returned with a sample of melted glassy rock containing bubbles. Kulik considered this evidence of an impact event. But the sample was somehow lost and has never undergone modern analysis. As such, there is no current evidence of an impact in the form of meteorites.
That changes today with the extraordinary announcement by Andrei Zlobin from the Russian Academy of Sciences that he has found three rocks from the Tunguska region with the telltale characteristics of meteorites. If he is right, these rocks could finally help solve once and for all what kind of object struck Earth all those years ago.
Zlobin’s story is remarkable in a number of ways. The area of greatest interest for meteor scientists is called the Suslov depression, which lies directly beneath the location of the air blast and is the place where meteorite debris was most likely to fall.
Dig into the peat bogs here and you can easily find layers that show clear evidence of the explosion. Zlobin said he dug more than ten prospect holes in the hope of finding meteorite fragments, but without success.
However, he had more luck exploring the bed of the local Khushmo River, where stones are likely to collect over a long period of time. He collected around 100 interesting specimens and returned to Moscow with them.
This expedition took place in 1988 and for some unexplained reason, Zlobin waited 20 years to examine his haul in detail. But in 2008, he sorted the collection and found three stones with clear evidence of melting and regmalypts, thumblike impressions found on the surface of meteorites which are caused by ablation as the hot rock falls through the atmosphere at high speed.
Zlobin and others have used tree ring evidence to estimate the temperatures that the blast created on the ground and says that these were not high enough to melt rocks on the surface. However, the fireball in the Earth’s atmosphere would have been hot enough for this.
So Zlobin concludes that the rocks must be fragments of whatever body collided with Earth that day.
Zlobin has not yet carried out a detailed chemical analysis of the rocks that would reveal their chemical and isotopic composition. So the world will have to wait for this to get a better idea of the nature of the body.
However, the stony fragments do not rule out a comet since the nucleus could easily contain rock fragments, says Zlobin. Indeed he has calculated that the density of the impactor must have been about 0.6 grams per cubic centimetre, which is about the same as nucleus of Halley’s comet. Zlobin says that together the evidence seems “excellent confirmation of cometary origin of the Tunguska impact.”
Clearly there is more work to be done here, particularly the chemical analysis perhaps with international cooperation and corroboration.
Then there is also the puzzle of why Zlobin has waited so long to analyse his samples. It’s not hard to imagine that the political changes that engulfed the Soviet Union in the year after his expedition may have played a role in this, but it still requires some explaining.
Nevertheless, this has the potential to help clear up one of the outstanding mysteries of the 20th century and finally determine the origin of the largest Earth impact in recorded history. - Technology Review
Tunguska - Impact in Siberia 1908, Comets, Asteroids, and Near-Earth Object Threats, NASA Programs to Survey and Study Asteroids and Comets (CD-ROM)
Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky: A History of Famous Incidents, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups
Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us
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University Spectre?
My buddy Pete got this from his Foreman - he took this picture today on the job where they are working with his cell phone. Makes you think twice....scary a bit. Look on the left side of the stage. Nobody else saw the ghost on the job site but him - this was taken today at Margery Reed Hall (University of Denver). All I have to say is wow! Do a search in Google for haunted DU Margery Reed Hall – this is one of the most haunted campuses around. Tim
NOTE: I agree with Tim...the University of Denver has had it's share of haunting experiences. As for this photo...I'm afraid this is a ruse using an a cellphone application. Take a look and LMK what you think...Lon
Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses
America's Haunted Universities: Ghosts that Roam Hallowed Halls
Creepy Colleges And Haunted Universities: True Ghost Stories
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Finders Keepers
A man accused of taking items from a Derry, NH store is trying to clear his name, saying that he was confused by the name of the store: Finders Keepers.
Police said Ruben Pavon was shown on surveillance video taking a grill from the porch of the Finders Keepers thrift shop.
"I grabbed the box," Pavon said. "It was a fire pit, something like that. It turned into a grill, and I took it home."
Pavon admitted that it wasn't the first time he had taken something from there, but he said he thought the items were free.
"I just grabbed one. I thought it was there for the taking," he said. "The sign did say 'Finders Keepers.' So I took that DVD player, took it home. A couple of weeks later, the stuff is still there on the porch, so I'm thinking to myself, 'Finders Keepers. They probably just put stuff out there for people to take.'"
The store's owner, Laura Barker, said she doesn't buy Pavon's claim.
"I don't know of any stores where there's free stuff," she said. "It would be nice if there were. I'd be there on a regular basis myself."
Barker said Pavon could have asked to verify his assumptions.
"I've never seen him in the store," she said. "He didn't appear to try and open the door to see if we were open, if anybody was there, if anyone was even there to help him load it. Because the lights were off. So I assume he knew that nobody was there."
The video also shows a child helping Pavon carry the box off the porch, police said. Pavon said he's not a bad person. - WCVB
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A Chorus of Angels
Baltimore, MD - 8/11/2005 - unedited: I was in my 1st floor apt. in a house in Baltimore, MD laying on my bed which was very near to the front of the house. I had an audio recorder on because of noises that I began hearing in the house especially at night.
I had been attacked by several unknown entities and severely so I was laying on my bed saying the names of several entities or beings from the Bible hoping an angel or somebody would come to help. I fell asleep calmly for the first time in a while and immediately as I entered the dream state an entity began to speak to me and I could feel the reverb in my skull. It asked if I wanted to go with "them" though I didnt see any being. I felt as if the entity was good and so I said yes. I got the feeling to look up and I did and I saw a cloud form out of nothing near above the street in front of my apt. (I was then standing outside... in the dream state). I saw a cloud form out of nothing about 100 ft. or less approx. above the street. Then a round silver craft appeared out of the cloud. For some reason I asked if I could take somebody with me to see the space ship and then the craft disappeared, but the cloud was dragged towards the south east. Then I went into another dream and I woke up (approx. 8 hours later).
After I woke up I remembered the space craft and quickly grabbed my digital recorder and uploaded the data to my computer. After I did I noticed large wave patterns which meant a lot of noise. I checked it out and I heard several entities speaking and what sounded like a conduit opening. Too a word that spoken by the entities in unison and then the sound of an electromagnetic oscillation shortly after I can be heard saying, "Jesus Christ Jesus Christ". So it was REAL! Something did happen and actual living entities or beings were there and were speaking and conducting some type activity. - MUFON CMS
Audio - Calling Jesus Christ
The Angel Therapy Handbook
Angels All Around Us: A Sightseeing Guide to the Invisible World
