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Tunguska

As the anniversary of one hundred years approaches, a re-examination of the events of 1908 in the Tunguska region of Siberia may once again raise questions as to what occurred there in June of that year. Many explanations have been offered, but no definitive answer to the question of what happened there that year has yet been obtained.

It was the time of the summer solstice, during the summer of 1908, a day with the most hours of daylight for all the lands north of the equator.

The hours of daylight would become longer at this time of year as one moved further north, a fact usually celebrated by those in Russia, who embraced the seemingly endless summer light, knowing that winter would, in time, bring equal darkness. The summer solstice arrived and then was gone. Now light would slowly fade until the time of the winter solstice, the day of the year with the least hours of daylight for all who live north of the equator.

Almost immediately after the summer solstice in 1908, beginning on June 23, the night skies began to glow with new light. The clouds seemed bright and full of light and the sky included the bright colors of a volcano. During the daytime, the sun seemed to have a halo around it. People in Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, the European part of Russia and those in western Siberia, notice the unusual characteristics in the sky. (In the far-off United States, scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and California's Mount Wilson Observatory noticed that the air did not seem clear. Later, others would think that dust, high in the air, had caused the halo and the clouds to shine in June of that year.)

The evening sky grew brighter each evening until it was the most glowing and colorful on June 29, 1908. After June 30, the night sky would become less colorful, although some after-effects would linger until late July. The sky, during this time, was brightest over eastern Siberia and middle Asia. People, in some places, remarked that they were able to easily discern a non-illuminated watch or read a newspaper at night under the brightly lit sky.

Early on the morning of June 30, 1908, a glowing and rapidly moving object appeared in the sky over western China. The object was headed north and, as it passed over Russia, seemed to turn and head west, according to one eyewitness. The roar frightened people in central Russia. In Siberia, the Tungus people (the Evenks) were to later think that this was a sign that the gods

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