Region of Impact
The Tunguska Event is one of the largest unsolved mysteries of the early
20th century which has prompted theories of everything from alien activities
(such as an exploding space craft), the
impact of a tiny black hole, to earth’s contact with a small chunk of
antimatter from deep space. Although such
ideas sound fascinating to some degree, a more recent theory may be more
realistic. That being the idea that Nikola
Tesla’s “Death Ray” was responsible.
Needless to say the Tunguska Event has never been
fully or adequately explained; because so little is known for sure, perhaps due
in large part to the remoteness of the incident. What is known for sure is that there was an
enormous fireball in the sky near the Tunguska River in the Western Siberian
region of Russia, at about 07:14 AM Local Time (00:14 Universal Time) on June
30 , 1908 (Gregorian Calendar).
Nearly 25 years later a few eye witness reports were documented as
follows: At a few minutes past 7:00 local time, Evenks / Evenki natives (Indigenous
peoples of the Russian North) and Russian settlers in the hills northwest of
Lake Baikal located in the southern region of Siberia observed a column of
bluish light, nearly as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky. Nearly 10 minutes later, a flash and a sound
similar to artillery fire was reported.
The incredible explosion flattened 2,000 sq. km
(770 sq. miles) of forest. The only good news is that due to the remoteness of
the “impact” area, only one casualty or death was reported; the vast majority
of the damage was the knocking over of tens of millions of trees. A shock wave followed
that upended people from their feet and broke windows hundreds of kilometers
away. Had seismic devices been available in the region, it has been determined
that the blast would have reached 5.0 on the earthquake Richter scale. The explosion
produced fluctuations in atmospheric pressure strong enough to be measured as
far away as Great Britain and was heard 620 miles away from the epicenter. For
the next few nights, skies in Asia and Europe were reported to be “aglow”.
Most theories during the years since have revolved around a meteor
or a comet from beyond earth. Such notions have settled on the explanation that
whatever passed over Siberia must have exploded high enough in the air to prevent
the creation of an impact crater, which by all rights should have been the
mother of all impact craters.
A couple of other theories include a 1941
report in which Lincoln LaPaz, and later in 1965, Clyde Cowan, Chandra R.
Atluri, and Willard F. Libby suggested that the Tunguska Event was caused by
the obliteration of a chunk of antimatter falling from space. Then in 1973,
Albert A. Jackson and Michael P. Ryan (physicists at the University of Texas), suggested
that the Tunguska Event was caused by a small stray black hole passing through
the Earth. However such a theory seems
even less probable than the antimatter theory because based on the direction of
the impact, their should have been evidence of an “exit event” which would have
occurred somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, whereby the black hole would
have exited the earth, returning to the great beyond. However, no such evidence exists.
As has been noted above, there was no crater to account for what
appears by most accounts to have been some sort of incredible cosmic impact, so
what really happened? One theory suggests that a “mad” scientist / inventor
named Nikola Tesla was behind it.
If you don’t remember just who Nikola Tesla
was, bar none, he may have been the single greatest inventive mind of the late
19th and early 20th century; he was so far ahead of the invention
curve that as you might expect he died alone and ridiculed just like so many other
people who are noted for progressive ideas born before their time. You may recall that when he first arrived in
the US (he was born in the Smiljan, Lika province, which was a part of the
expiring Empire of Austro-Hungary in 1856); as a young adult he migrated to the
United States where he initially worked for Thomas Edison until he elected to
leave when Edison failed to acknowledge the merits of Alternating Current over
his own “brain child” Direct Current.
How could Nikola Tesla’s Death Ray (which was ridiculed beyond the
point of reason at the time), have been behind the devastation in Russia in
1908?
Tesla Tower (1904) Long Island, New York
You see, the “Death Ray” was an apparatus by
which Tesla vowed he could send incredible amounts of energy over vast distances. As the story goes, on the very eve of the
Tunguska explosion, Tesla was preparing to show off his so-called “Death Ray”
to Rear Admiral Robert Peary who was on his second expedition to the North Pole;
Tesla was located on Long Island in New York and Peary was near the North Pole on the
morning of June 30, 1908; it was Tesla’s plan to create what would amount to
an enormous beam of light that Admiral Peary and his expedition members would
be able to see from their location in the North Arctic region. When Tesla conducted his experiment, he aimed his Death Ray towards
the arctic, to a spot which he calculated was west of the Peary expedition;
Peary neither heard nor saw anything.
Tesla advocates insist he was about ready to acknowledge failure
when news arrived of the strange event in Siberia. In short, when Tesla heard
about the devastation that took place that would become known as the Tunguska
Event, he was convinced that his Death Ray had “overshot” or “skip-over” its
intended target and destroyed Tunguska that is literally located on the “far
side” of the North Artic Region. Having realized he was responsible for the
devastation, he reportedly dismantled the Death Ray machine concluding it far too
dangerous.
Just to be sure that you do not conclude that
Nikola Tesla really was some “Mad Scientist” that was out to destroy the world,
you might consider a few of his highly acclaimed accomplishments:
·
Tesla is the creator of things like florescent lights, x-rays, the
Tesla coil, the Tesla induction motor, and the alternating current system still
used today for delivering electric power. You might say that this one innovation
(AC Current) is the most significant invention that anyone has ever conceived
when it comes to making our modern life style feasible. AC power makes it
possible to operate large centrally located electrical generating plants that
keep power flowing to millions of homes & businesses, and transports energy
over power lines for great distances without complications. You see, DC Power (Edison’s plan) can only be
effectively transmitted via copper wire for about two (2) miles.
Tesla accumulated over 300 patents in his lifetime; before his demise
in January of 1943 he was working on a Nikola Tesla free energy project. He was
convinced that there is latent electricity all around us, due to the
interactions between the Earth and Sun. He had reportedly developed some ideas
about how this could be harnessed in such a way that everyone could “collect”
all of the power that they could possibly need at no cost. Wouldn’t you know it,
when it became apparent that he was working on this type of project; potential investors
who relied heavily on the existing electricity industry withdrew their support and
he in turn lost the monetary means necessary to pursue building such a device.
In the end game of his genius, perhaps the
concept of “free power” is just naïve, especially in a capitalistic economy. It’s of little wonder that only recently are
such Tesla concepts / theories being re-visited.
Sources:
http://voices.yahoo.com/was-nikola-tesla-responsible-tunguska-explosion-2300504.html?cat=7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_tesla1.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower http://www.howstuffworks.com/innovation/famous-inventors/famous-nikola-tesla-inventions.htm