1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,080 Speaker 1: I want you to try a little visualization with me, 2 00:00:02,279 --> 00:00:05,080 just for a second. Close your eyes unless you're driving, 3 00:00:05,080 --> 00:00:08,320 of course, then please don't, but block out the room 4 00:00:08,320 --> 00:00:11,800 you're in. I want you to imagine you're in the 5 00:00:11,839 --> 00:00:17,480 middle of the Siberian Taiga. It's the morning of June thirtieth, 6 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:21,359 nineteen oh eight. It's quiet, yeah, you know, ancient, the 7 00:00:21,440 --> 00:00:24,120 kind of silence you only get hundreds of miles from 8 00:00:24,199 --> 00:00:25,079 anything Man made. 9 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 2: A very peaceful image, a landscape that I mean, it 10 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:30,440 hasn't changed in thousands of years exactly. 11 00:00:30,559 --> 00:00:33,719 Speaker 1: It's serene. You can smell the pine, the damp earth. 12 00:00:34,039 --> 00:00:36,759 Maybe you hear wind in the trees, a twig snapping 13 00:00:37,039 --> 00:00:41,560 right until at seven seventeen am, the sky literally splits 14 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,719 in two wow. And I don't mean a crack of thunder. 15 00:00:43,759 --> 00:00:46,359 I mean the heaven's tear open. There is an explosion 16 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:50,880 so violent, so blindingly powerful, releases the energy of what 17 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,840 was it one hundred and eighty five Hiroshima bombs simultaneously. 18 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,399 Speaker 2: It's that is a terrifying number to even comprehend. 19 00:00:57,479 --> 00:00:59,479 Speaker 1: The heat is so intense that if you were standing 20 00:00:59,479 --> 00:01:01,679 thirty miles away, it would feel like your skin was. 21 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:03,799 Speaker 2: On fire, like a shirt made of flame, just wrapped 22 00:01:03,799 --> 00:01:04,239 around you. 23 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:05,519 Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. 24 00:01:05,879 --> 00:01:09,359 Speaker 1: And then comes the shockwave. It flattens eighty million trees. 25 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:13,480 It smashes them flat against the permafrost like they're just toothpicks. 26 00:01:13,959 --> 00:01:16,040 We're talking about a forest the size. 27 00:01:15,799 --> 00:01:18,120 Speaker 2: Of a major city, like a New York or a London. 28 00:01:18,239 --> 00:01:21,359 Speaker 1: Yeah, just wiped clean, wiped off the map in a 29 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:24,000 single breath. It sounds like a movie, doesn't it. 30 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:25,959 Speaker 2: It sounds like the opening scene of some high budget 31 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:26,799 apocalypse film. 32 00:01:26,959 --> 00:01:27,439 Speaker 3: It does. 33 00:01:27,719 --> 00:01:30,799 Speaker 1: But here's the hook, here's the thing that has kept 34 00:01:30,799 --> 00:01:33,680 people up at night for over a century. When the 35 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,840 dust finally settles and the smoke clears, and the first 36 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,040 brave souls trek into that wasteland to find the weapon, 37 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:42,079 to find the crater. 38 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:42,879 Speaker 2: There isn't one. 39 00:01:43,079 --> 00:01:47,040 Speaker 1: There isn't one nothing zero, no crater, no asteroid fragment, 40 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:50,280 no bomb casing, just eight hundred square miles of flattened 41 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:53,560 forests and a silence that is just screaming Welcome to 42 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:54,400 thrilling threads. 43 00:01:54,439 --> 00:01:57,079 Speaker 2: It is great to be here. And that visualization is 44 00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:01,159 it's hauntingly accurate. You've basically described the ultimate locker room mystery, right, 45 00:02:01,439 --> 00:02:03,519 except the room is the size of a small country, 46 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:05,560 and the victim is the landscape itself. 47 00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:07,200 Speaker 3: That is the perfect way to put it. 48 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:09,800 Speaker 1: Today we are pulling out a thread that starts in 49 00:02:10,240 --> 00:02:13,759 you know, the frozen swamps of Russia, and it ends 50 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:18,319 incredibly in a living room in Newfoundland, Canada, seventy years. 51 00:02:18,199 --> 00:02:19,719 Speaker 2: Later, the seventy year gap. 52 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:24,120 Speaker 1: We are dissecting the Tenguska event. It's widely called Russia's 53 00:02:24,159 --> 00:02:26,319 greatest unsolved explosion. 54 00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:29,080 Speaker 2: And unsolved really is the key word there. In physics, 55 00:02:29,719 --> 00:02:32,360 we love cause and effect. It's the basis of everything. Sure, 56 00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:34,400 you see a bruise, you look for the fist. See 57 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,120 a shattered window, you look for the baseball, see a crater, 58 00:02:37,639 --> 00:02:38,960 you look for the rock from space. 59 00:02:39,479 --> 00:02:41,080 Speaker 3: But Tagiska gives us the bruise. 60 00:02:41,319 --> 00:02:45,000 Speaker 2: Oh, it gives you a massive planetary scale bruise. But 61 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:47,840 the fist is just gone, it vanished. 62 00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:50,879 Speaker 1: So to help us navigate this hole maze, we're looking 63 00:02:50,919 --> 00:02:54,360 at transcripts regarding the Unexplained series. Our mission today is 64 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:56,639 to try and figure out how the laws of physics 65 00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:59,639 just seem to have taken a vacation that day. We're 66 00:02:59,639 --> 00:03:03,280 going to talk about trees that disappeared blue fire shooting 67 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:05,759 out of wall sockets, and a theory that connects it 68 00:03:05,759 --> 00:03:07,280 all in a way I. 69 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:08,000 Speaker 3: Never saw coming. 70 00:03:08,199 --> 00:03:11,120 Speaker 2: It's a journey that really forces us to confront the 71 00:03:11,199 --> 00:03:14,080 limits of what we actually understand about our own planet, 72 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:17,280 our own atmosphere. How so well we think we know 73 00:03:17,319 --> 00:03:20,080 how weather works, right, we think we know how space works. 74 00:03:20,759 --> 00:03:23,960 Taguska suggests we might be missing a page in the manual. 75 00:03:24,319 --> 00:03:26,759 Speaker 1: I have to admit, reading through the source material, I 76 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:30,639 felt this mix of like excitement and just genuine fear. 77 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:33,159 I can see that because the reality of this story, 78 00:03:33,199 --> 00:03:35,439 it just feels like sci fi. It feels like something 79 00:03:35,479 --> 00:03:37,080 that shouldn't actually be possible. 80 00:03:37,159 --> 00:03:39,000 Speaker 2: It does. And my job today is to, you know, 81 00:03:39,400 --> 00:03:41,919 try and keep us grounded in the physics of it all. Okay, 82 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:44,919 fair enough, because as strange as it all seems, there 83 00:03:44,919 --> 00:03:48,919 are scientific principles at play here, even if they're extreme outliers. 84 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:52,120 We aren't dealing with magic, but we are dealing with 85 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:55,199 forces on a scale that humans just go a west 86 00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:57,360 we really get to witness. 87 00:03:57,479 --> 00:03:59,639 Speaker 3: So let's go back in time. Let's set the scene properly. 88 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,800 Speaker 1: Take us back the morning of June thirtieth, nineteen oh eight, 89 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:04,479 where are we exactly. 90 00:04:04,599 --> 00:04:07,439 Speaker 2: We're deep in Siberia, specifically the podkam and I at 91 00:04:07,439 --> 00:04:12,199 Tagusca River basin. The transcripts describe it as an inhospitable landscape. 92 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:13,520 Speaker 1: That sounds like an understatement. 93 00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:17,199 Speaker 2: It is. It's a polite way of saying it's incredibly 94 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:20,639 difficult to survive there. We are talking about over two 95 00:04:20,759 --> 00:04:22,600 million square miles of forest. 96 00:04:22,959 --> 00:04:25,639 Speaker 1: The source calls it the largest forest on Earth. I mean, 97 00:04:25,639 --> 00:04:27,879 that's hard to even wrap your head around this. I 98 00:04:27,879 --> 00:04:30,519 think when we hear forest, we picture a state park. 99 00:04:30,639 --> 00:04:33,240 You know, you hike for a few hours and you 100 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,560 hit a road. This is this is a whole different beast. 101 00:04:36,399 --> 00:04:40,199 Speaker 2: Completely different. This is the Taiga. It's an ocean of trees. 102 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:45,160 It is vast, it's swampy in the summer, frozen solid 103 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,199 in the winter. And in nineteen oh eight it was 104 00:04:48,319 --> 00:04:52,920 so incredibly remote, no roads, no real infrastructure. 105 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:54,720 Speaker 3: But it wasn't completely empty, was it. 106 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:57,720 Speaker 2: No, And this part is crucial to the whole story. 107 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:00,480 The area was inhabited by the iven Tp people. 108 00:05:00,439 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: The even Key Okay, I want to focus on them 109 00:05:02,079 --> 00:05:04,519 for a minute. These are the indigenous people of the area, 110 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:06,680 and they're the only reason we really know what it 111 00:05:06,759 --> 00:05:08,439 felt like to be there exactly. 112 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 2: They're traditional reindeer herders. They've lived in harmony with this 113 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:16,120 incredibly harsh environment for generations. They know this land, they 114 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:17,399 know the weather patterns. 115 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:18,160 Speaker 3: They know what normal looks like. 116 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,639 Speaker 2: They are experts in reading the sky in the wind. 117 00:05:21,519 --> 00:05:23,800 So these are not people who would be easily spooked 118 00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:24,680 by a thunderstorm. 119 00:05:24,759 --> 00:05:25,279 Speaker 3: Far from it. 120 00:05:25,439 --> 00:05:28,120 Speaker 2: They live outdoors, they know what a storm is. But 121 00:05:28,199 --> 00:05:31,480 on June thirtieth, nineteen oh eight, they experienced something that 122 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:35,199 was just completely outside the realm of normal. 123 00:05:35,439 --> 00:05:37,680 Speaker 1: The source notes that some of them are actually pretty 124 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:39,639 close to what we now call ground. 125 00:05:39,439 --> 00:05:41,120 Speaker 2: Zero, terrifyingly close. 126 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:43,560 Speaker 1: I just can't even imagine what that must have been like. 127 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:46,959 So what did they see? What did they actually report? 128 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:50,519 Speaker 2: This is where the accounts get truly harrowing, and we 129 00:05:50,639 --> 00:05:54,680 have to rely on oral histories, on interviews conducted years later. 130 00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:58,040 Of course, the Evening Khaki witnesses all describe seeing a 131 00:05:58,079 --> 00:06:03,399 bright object in the sky. But bright is It's just 132 00:06:03,399 --> 00:06:06,240 such an understatement. They described it being brighter than the sun. 133 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:08,319 Speaker 1: Okay, let's just pause on that. Brighter than the sun. 134 00:06:08,399 --> 00:06:12,040 The sun is our absolute biological baseline for too bright. Right, 135 00:06:12,079 --> 00:06:14,240 If you look at the sun, your body forces you 136 00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:14,800 to look away. 137 00:06:14,879 --> 00:06:15,399 Speaker 3: It hurts. 138 00:06:15,839 --> 00:06:19,160 Speaker 1: Imagine looking up and seeing something that overpowers the actual sun. 139 00:06:19,519 --> 00:06:23,079 Speaker 2: It would be completely visually overwhelming. It would almost certainly 140 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:24,720 cause temporary blindness. 141 00:06:24,959 --> 00:06:25,560 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. 142 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:28,079 Speaker 2: One of the experts in the source, Ben McGee. He 143 00:06:28,199 --> 00:06:33,839 describes the Evenki account as just nightmarish. He says, suddenly 144 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:36,279 another sun appears in the sky. 145 00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:37,279 Speaker 3: Another sun. 146 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:39,839 Speaker 1: That phrase just kiss me chills. It's so primal, it's 147 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:41,240 almost biblical. 148 00:06:41,319 --> 00:06:41,639 Speaker 2: It is. 149 00:06:41,759 --> 00:06:43,920 Speaker 1: It feels like the laws of the universe just shattered. 150 00:06:43,959 --> 00:06:46,959 You wake up, you're tending your reindeer, and suddenly the 151 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:48,040 sky has betrayed you. 152 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:51,360 Speaker 2: And that visual horror was immediately followed by a physical one. 153 00:06:51,439 --> 00:06:54,959 First the light, then the sound. They heard these loud booms. 154 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:57,399 Speaker 3: They compared them to gunshots, didn't They Yes. 155 00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:01,879 Speaker 2: Like artillery fire or massive gunshots, but louder, much much louder. 156 00:07:02,279 --> 00:07:07,399 And then the air itself attacked them, the shockwave shockwave. 157 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:10,720 The transcripts mentioned that people were physically blasted off their feet, 158 00:07:10,839 --> 00:07:12,279 thrown the distance throne. 159 00:07:12,519 --> 00:07:16,480 Speaker 1: Imagine that you're standing on solid ground and an invisible 160 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:18,800 wall of air just picks you up and hurls you 161 00:07:18,839 --> 00:07:21,680 across a clearing. The amount of pressure that requires is 162 00:07:22,079 --> 00:07:23,720 just it's immense. 163 00:07:23,439 --> 00:07:25,600 Speaker 2: It is. And remember the context here, This is nineteen 164 00:07:25,639 --> 00:07:26,480 oh eight, right. 165 00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:27,600 Speaker 3: I keep coming back to that. 166 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:31,319 Speaker 1: If this happened today, our first thought is nuclear bomb, 167 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:32,959 we have that cultural reference point. 168 00:07:33,319 --> 00:07:36,079 Speaker 2: But in nineteen oh eight, the atomic bomb wouldn't be 169 00:07:36,079 --> 00:07:39,959 invented for another thirty seven years. Aerial bombardment from planes 170 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:43,439 was barely even a concept for the Avinki. There was 171 00:07:43,519 --> 00:07:45,399 no technological frame of reference at. 172 00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,920 Speaker 1: All, so they couldn't say, oh, a missile silo must 173 00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:48,480 have blown up. 174 00:07:48,639 --> 00:07:52,639 Speaker 2: No, so their interpretation it had to be supernatural. 175 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:53,879 Speaker 3: So how did they explain it? 176 00:07:54,199 --> 00:07:57,439 Speaker 2: Many believed it was their god Ogdi coming down to 177 00:07:57,439 --> 00:07:59,839 punish the land. It was really the only way to 178 00:07:59,879 --> 00:08:04,360 makes sense of a violent, incomprehensible assault by the sky itself. 179 00:08:04,439 --> 00:08:07,319 Speaker 1: And then the source says it just it ends. It 180 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:09,600 fades away almost as fast as it started. The second 181 00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:12,120 sun vanishes, the boom stop, and you're just left there, 182 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:14,040 ringing ears, total confusion. 183 00:08:14,199 --> 00:08:15,279 Speaker 3: Just what happened? 184 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:18,360 Speaker 2: And that question what happened is what we are still 185 00:08:18,399 --> 00:08:22,160 asking over a century later, because once that initial shockwave 186 00:08:22,279 --> 00:08:26,120 passed the true scale of the destruction became visible, and 187 00:08:26,199 --> 00:08:27,639 it was it was catastrophic. 188 00:08:27,959 --> 00:08:30,240 Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the numbers here, because they are 189 00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:31,160 just staggering. 190 00:08:31,199 --> 00:08:32,240 Speaker 3: We talked about the forest. 191 00:08:32,519 --> 00:08:35,039 Speaker 1: The blast didn't just you know, knock over a few 192 00:08:35,039 --> 00:08:36,600 trees or break some branches. No. 193 00:08:37,159 --> 00:08:40,679 Speaker 2: According to Tony McMahon and the source material, the explosion 194 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:43,519 flattened approximately eighty million trees. 195 00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:48,360 Speaker 3: See eighty million. That is, that's roughly the population in Germany. 196 00:08:48,399 --> 00:08:50,159 If every single person was a tree. 197 00:08:50,279 --> 00:08:53,440 Speaker 2: It's a good comparison. Oh, it helps visualize it. And 198 00:08:53,480 --> 00:08:57,440 this destruction covered an area of roughly eight hundred square miles. 199 00:08:57,519 --> 00:09:00,279 Speaker 1: Okay, let's try to picture that eight hundred square miles else. 200 00:09:00,679 --> 00:09:03,639 That is bigger than the city of London. It's bigger 201 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:06,679 than all five burrows of New York City put together. Right. 202 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:09,840 Imagine getting in your car and driving for an hour, 203 00:09:10,279 --> 00:09:13,720 and for that entire hour you see nothing but flattened, 204 00:09:13,759 --> 00:09:16,240 apocalyptic devastation on both sides of the road. 205 00:09:16,559 --> 00:09:17,759 Speaker 3: That's the scale we're talking about. 206 00:09:17,799 --> 00:09:20,720 Speaker 2: And it wasn't chaotic destruction either. That's a really key 207 00:09:20,759 --> 00:09:23,279 detail mentioned by Paul Grond in the transcripts. 208 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:23,799 Speaker 1: What do you mean? 209 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:26,639 Speaker 2: He notes, that every single one of those eighty million 210 00:09:26,679 --> 00:09:29,039 trees was flattened in the exact same direction. 211 00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:32,039 Speaker 1: That's such a haunting visual. It's not like a tornado 212 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:35,440 where things are just twisted and thrown everywhere. This was uniform, 213 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:37,679 like a giant hand just came down from the sky 214 00:09:37,799 --> 00:09:38,960 and swept the board clean. 215 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:43,399 Speaker 2: Precisely. It creates what's called a radial pattern when you 216 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:46,200 see it from above. They call it the butterfly. All 217 00:09:46,279 --> 00:09:49,440 the trees point away from a central epicenter. 218 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:52,000 Speaker 3: So it proves it was one single blast. 219 00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:56,919 Speaker 2: A singular directional blast wave of immense power, all coming 220 00:09:56,919 --> 00:09:58,639 from a specific point in the sky. 221 00:09:59,039 --> 00:10:01,840 Speaker 1: And the condition of the trees themselves that's also telling, right. 222 00:10:01,879 --> 00:10:03,840 They weren't just knocked over, correct, They. 223 00:10:03,679 --> 00:10:07,879 Speaker 2: Were completely scorched, devoid of branches, devoid of leaves, just 224 00:10:08,039 --> 00:10:10,600 bare trunks laid out flat on the ground. 225 00:10:10,679 --> 00:10:12,320 Speaker 3: So there was intense heat. 226 00:10:12,279 --> 00:10:15,960 Speaker 2: An intense pulse of thermal radiation that must have accompanied 227 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:16,720 the blast wave. 228 00:10:16,879 --> 00:10:20,240 Speaker 1: It sounds like a graveyard of telephone poles, just miles 229 00:10:20,279 --> 00:10:24,360 and miles of dead, scorched wood. The source poses the question, 230 00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:28,559 what kind of explosive force had the power to annihilate 231 00:10:28,639 --> 00:10:29,879 an eight hundred square. 232 00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:32,360 Speaker 2: Mile area and they give an estimate that just it's 233 00:10:32,399 --> 00:10:33,080 hard to process. 234 00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:34,279 Speaker 3: Yeah, it broke my brain a little. 235 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:37,679 Speaker 2: The energy equivalent of one thousand atomic bombs. 236 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:40,679 Speaker 1: One thousand, not one, not ten a thousand. 237 00:10:40,759 --> 00:10:42,559 Speaker 2: No, we had to be a little careful with that comparison. 238 00:10:42,639 --> 00:10:45,399 Atomic bombs vary in yields. Yeah, okay, but usually when 239 00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:47,759 that metric is used in this context, we're comparing it 240 00:10:47,799 --> 00:10:51,240 to the Hiroshma bomb, which is about fifteen kilotons, So we're. 241 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:54,879 Speaker 1: Talking about what ten to fifteen megatons of T and T. 242 00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:58,240 Speaker 2: It's a colossal amount of energy. It puts the Tunguska 243 00:10:58,279 --> 00:11:01,519 event in the same range as the largest thermonuclear devices 244 00:11:01,559 --> 00:11:04,000 ever tested by humans decades later. 245 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:07,080 Speaker 1: But this happened naturally in nineteen oh eight, in nineteen 246 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:09,159 oh eight, and again, the only reason this isn't the 247 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:13,000 most famous, most terrifying day in human history is its location. 248 00:11:13,679 --> 00:11:16,639 If this had happened over London or Paris. 249 00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:19,799 Speaker 2: Or millions would have died instantly. History would be completely different. 250 00:11:19,919 --> 00:11:22,679 The only reason it remains this fascinating mystery and not 251 00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:25,840 a global tragedy is because it happened over the empty Tie. 252 00:11:25,759 --> 00:11:26,840 Speaker 3: Guess so naturally. 253 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:29,799 Speaker 1: The early twentieth century scientists, they put. 254 00:11:29,639 --> 00:11:30,759 Speaker 3: On their detective hats. 255 00:11:30,799 --> 00:11:33,919 Speaker 1: They look at the evidence, a massive explosion, fire from 256 00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,240 the sky, shock wave, and they say. 257 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:39,000 Speaker 2: Okay, we know what this is. It seemed obvious a 258 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:42,240 meteor The scientific consensus at the time was that a 259 00:11:42,279 --> 00:11:47,000 massive physical object from space had struck the Earth, a meteor, 260 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:48,159 a meteorite. 261 00:11:48,399 --> 00:11:51,960 Speaker 1: It makes sense, big boom fire from the sky, rock 262 00:11:52,039 --> 00:11:54,559 hits ground case closed. 263 00:11:54,279 --> 00:11:56,000 Speaker 2: Right, That was absolutely the assumption. 264 00:11:56,200 --> 00:11:56,679 Speaker 3: Uh huh. 265 00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,039 Speaker 2: But because of all the political turmoil in Russia at 266 00:11:59,039 --> 00:12:01,960 the time, you have World War One, the Russian Revolution, 267 00:12:02,159 --> 00:12:05,120 the Civil War, science basically had to wait. 268 00:12:05,399 --> 00:12:06,440 Speaker 3: That explains the delay. 269 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:09,320 Speaker 1: I was wondering why nobody just rushed out there immediately. 270 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:11,440 They were a little busy with the complete collapse of 271 00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:12,039 their government. 272 00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:16,240 Speaker 2: Precisely, it wasn't until nineteen twenty seven, nearly twenty years 273 00:12:16,279 --> 00:12:19,320 after the event, that an expedition was finally mounted. 274 00:12:19,120 --> 00:12:22,120 Speaker 3: Under Leonid Kulick. And I feel for this guy. 275 00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:25,000 Speaker 1: He is the protagonist of the first act of this mystery, 276 00:12:25,039 --> 00:12:27,200 and frankly, he's kind of a tragic figure. 277 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:30,039 Speaker 2: He really is. Kulik was a mineralogist with the Soviet 278 00:12:30,039 --> 00:12:32,840 Academy of Sciences. He was obsessed with Tenguska. 279 00:12:32,919 --> 00:12:34,279 Speaker 3: He'd heard the stories, We'd. 280 00:12:34,159 --> 00:12:37,639 Speaker 2: Heard the stories, and he fought for funding, he fought 281 00:12:37,639 --> 00:12:41,000 for resources. He was completely convinced that a massive iron 282 00:12:41,039 --> 00:12:42,759 meteorite had hit Siberia. 283 00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:45,639 Speaker 1: And we should stress this wasn't a weekend camping trip. 284 00:12:45,919 --> 00:12:49,120 This is nineteen twenty seven Siberia. 285 00:12:48,799 --> 00:12:50,960 Speaker 2: No GPS, no satellite phones. 286 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,240 Speaker 1: No helicopters, just dropping you in. This was a serious track. 287 00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:57,200 Speaker 2: An incredibly difficult journey. They had to travel by river 288 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:00,960 and trek overland through these mosquito infested swamps. They had 289 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,960 to hire local guides, the even Dankees, who were terrified 290 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:07,919 to go anywhere near there. Why they believe the land 291 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:09,759 was cursed by the god Ogdy, of. 292 00:13:09,759 --> 00:13:12,600 Speaker 3: Course, so Koolik had to push them, keep them going. 293 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:15,399 Speaker 2: He did, and he was driven by this one very 294 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:19,759 specific expectation. As the source material notes, the thinking in 295 00:13:19,799 --> 00:13:22,360 the late nineteen twenties was that this had to be 296 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:24,840 one of the largest meteorite events in modern history. 297 00:13:24,879 --> 00:13:27,720 Speaker 1: So he went there expecting to find a massive crater. 298 00:13:27,879 --> 00:13:30,720 Speaker 2: He was probably already imagining the museum exhibit in his head. 299 00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:32,720 He thought he was going to find a big chunk 300 00:13:32,759 --> 00:13:35,639 of metal, a meteorite he could bring back to Moscow. 301 00:13:35,279 --> 00:13:37,039 Speaker 1: And become famous, a smoking gun. 302 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:39,759 Speaker 2: He expected a hole in the ground, maybe a mile wide, 303 00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:41,840 with a mountain of iron sitting in the middle. 304 00:13:42,039 --> 00:13:46,039 Speaker 1: So he gets there after this brutal journey, he crusts 305 00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:49,960 the final ridge. He sees the devastation, the flattened trees, 306 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,840 all pointing away from the center. He knows he's close. 307 00:13:52,919 --> 00:13:55,840 He rushes to the epicenter and what does he find? 308 00:13:56,039 --> 00:13:56,399 Speaker 2: Nothing? 309 00:13:56,440 --> 00:13:58,000 Speaker 3: The ultimate anti climax. 310 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:02,000 Speaker 2: He found no crater, found no mediorite, He found no metal. 311 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:04,000 Speaker 1: And this is the twist with a capital T. How 312 00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:07,240 is that possible? We just talked about one thousand atomic 313 00:14:07,279 --> 00:14:09,679 bombs worth of force, We talked about a second Sun 314 00:14:09,759 --> 00:14:13,080 in the sky. How does that leave zero physical trace 315 00:14:13,159 --> 00:14:14,360 of the object itself? 316 00:14:14,639 --> 00:14:17,200 Speaker 2: That is the enigma that the source describes so well. 317 00:14:17,679 --> 00:14:20,279 How do you have the damage of an asteroid impact 318 00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:23,759 without the asteroid. Usually when a rock from space hits 319 00:14:23,759 --> 00:14:25,720 the Earth, it leaves a very clear. 320 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:27,480 Speaker 1: Signature, like meteor Crater in Arizona. 321 00:14:27,519 --> 00:14:28,120 Speaker 3: I've been there. 322 00:14:28,159 --> 00:14:30,440 Speaker 1: It's huge. You can't miss it, as a giant hole 323 00:14:30,480 --> 00:14:31,080 in the desert. 324 00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:34,720 Speaker 2: Exactly the transcripts used meteor crater as the perfect counter example. 325 00:14:34,919 --> 00:14:37,159 When a kinetic impact or a rock hits the ground, 326 00:14:37,159 --> 00:14:40,519 it displaces earth, it throws up debris, it leaves a crater. 327 00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:41,399 Speaker 3: And Tungeska defies that. 328 00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:47,639 Speaker 2: Tunguska defies that classic physics. Kulik found peat bogs. He 329 00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:50,600 found some standing trees that had been stripped of their branches. 330 00:14:50,679 --> 00:14:53,639 They called them the telegraph poles, right at the very center. 331 00:14:53,879 --> 00:14:57,000 Speaker 1: Wait, wait, standing trees at the center. I thought everything 332 00:14:57,080 --> 00:14:57,759 was flattened. 333 00:14:57,919 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 2: That's actually consistent with an explosion direct overhead. If the 334 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:04,720 blast wave comes straight down, the trees don't get pushed over, 335 00:15:04,759 --> 00:15:07,360 They just get their branches sheared off. H Okay, But 336 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:11,080 the complete lack of a crater that just broke Coolick. 337 00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:14,240 Speaker 1: So he's standing there in the mud, completely baffled. 338 00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:17,279 Speaker 2: He spent years trying to drain the swamps. He was 339 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:20,440 convinced the meteorite was just buried really, really deep. He 340 00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:23,399 couldn't accept the possibility that there was no rock to find. 341 00:15:23,519 --> 00:15:26,039 Speaker 1: It's like a phantom punch. You see the knockout, but 342 00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:27,360 you never saw the fist connect. 343 00:15:27,639 --> 00:15:30,840 Speaker 2: And that absence of evidence, that void, as the source 344 00:15:30,879 --> 00:15:34,080 calls It is what drove scientists and Culick absolutely crazy 345 00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:36,960 because the damage is so real. The trees are flat, 346 00:15:37,279 --> 00:15:39,600 but the cause is it's missing. 347 00:15:39,919 --> 00:15:42,519 Speaker 1: So we've got a crime scene with eighty million victims 348 00:15:42,519 --> 00:15:46,039 the trees, but the murder weapon has completely vanished into 349 00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:46,559 thin air. 350 00:15:46,879 --> 00:15:50,240 Speaker 2: Vanished might be the right word, because even today, as 351 00:15:50,279 --> 00:15:54,360 the source highlights, no material that can be clearly traced 352 00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:57,120 to a cosmic origin from nineteen oh eight has been 353 00:15:57,120 --> 00:15:59,159 definitively found at the site. 354 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:01,840 Speaker 1: Now, before we get to the threads part of Thrilling Threads, 355 00:16:01,879 --> 00:16:05,200 I want to ask about the prevailing theory, because surely 356 00:16:05,279 --> 00:16:08,440 scientists didn't just shrug and give up. If it wasn't 357 00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:11,879 a classic crater forming impact, what do most scientists think 358 00:16:11,879 --> 00:16:12,200 it was. 359 00:16:12,759 --> 00:16:15,639 Speaker 2: Well, the leading theory for decades has been the air 360 00:16:15,679 --> 00:16:18,840 burst air burst. The idea is that a stony meteor 361 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,080 or maybe a comet entered the atmosphere, but the atmospheric 362 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:24,879 pressure was so intense, the friction was so great that 363 00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:26,960 it exploded before it hit the ground, like a. 364 00:16:26,919 --> 00:16:28,519 Speaker 3: Bomb going off at a high altitude. 365 00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:31,679 Speaker 2: Exactly, it explodes maybe three to six miles up. That 366 00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:34,440 creates the shockwave and the thermal pulse but because the 367 00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:38,159 object itself vaporizes into dust, there's no big rock to 368 00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:38,840 find on the ground. 369 00:16:38,879 --> 00:16:42,120 Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense, that seems logical. But if it vaporized, 370 00:16:42,159 --> 00:16:44,759 wouldn't there be you know, dust, wouldn't there be chemical 371 00:16:44,799 --> 00:16:45,679 traces in the soil. 372 00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:48,759 Speaker 2: There should be, And that is the nagging problem with 373 00:16:48,799 --> 00:16:52,440 the theory. We have found microscopic spheres in the soil, 374 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:56,679 some with extraterrestrial signatures, but connecting them definitively to the 375 00:16:56,759 --> 00:17:00,679 nineteen oh eight event has been incredibly difficult. It's not 376 00:17:00,759 --> 00:17:02,200 the slam dunk evidence you'd. 377 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:04,559 Speaker 1: Want, so they're still wiggle room, a lot of wiggleroom. 378 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:07,960 And this void of hard evidence is where things get really, 379 00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:10,920 really wild. And I love this about human nature. When 380 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:13,799 science can't give us a simple answer like here is 381 00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:17,400 the rock, our brains just go okay, let's get weird 382 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:17,759 with it. 383 00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:21,319 Speaker 2: We abhor a vacuum. If the simple meteorite theory doesn't 384 00:17:21,319 --> 00:17:24,680 fit perfectly, we try to shove other, more complex theories 385 00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:27,119 into that hole. The source mentioned some of the more 386 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:29,160 creative explanations. 387 00:17:28,559 --> 00:17:32,240 Speaker 1: At a popcast were They're fantastic. The transcripts mentioned black holes, 388 00:17:32,519 --> 00:17:35,839 the theory that a tiny microscopic black hole just passed 389 00:17:35,839 --> 00:17:37,039 straight through the Earth. 390 00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:40,599 Speaker 2: Which was actually proposed by legitimate physicists in the nineteen seventies. 391 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:41,079 Speaker 3: Serious. 392 00:17:41,319 --> 00:17:44,839 Speaker 2: Yes, the idea was that a primordial black hole entered 393 00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:47,960 through Siberia and exited somewhere in the Atlantic. It would 394 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:50,279 explain the lack of debris it just passed right through. 395 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,400 Speaker 1: But wouldn't that, I don't know, destroy the entire planet. 396 00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:55,759 Speaker 2: Well, at the very least, it would create a massive 397 00:17:55,839 --> 00:17:59,240 exit wound, which we never found, so that theory kind 398 00:17:59,240 --> 00:17:59,920 of died out. 399 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:00,640 Speaker 3: Okay, what else? 400 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:04,599 Speaker 1: Then there's the WMD theory weapons of mass destruction, which 401 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:05,599 is anachronistic. 402 00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,319 Speaker 2: Of course, in nineteen oh eight we barely had airplanes. 403 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:10,759 The Wright brothers had only flown a few years earlier. 404 00:18:11,279 --> 00:18:14,559 But in the Cold War era, looking back, people started 405 00:18:14,599 --> 00:18:18,000 to wonder was it some secret test? Was it something 406 00:18:18,039 --> 00:18:19,759 man made that we don't know about? 407 00:18:19,799 --> 00:18:22,079 Speaker 1: And of course, the one that's always implied by the 408 00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:26,880 unexplained source context aliens UFOs. 409 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:29,799 Speaker 2: The unnatural event framing always leads there, doesn't it. If 410 00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:32,240 it wasn't a rock and it wasn't a human bomb, 411 00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:36,359 maybe it was a crashing starship, a nuclear drive exploding again, 412 00:18:36,559 --> 00:18:39,640 it's an attempt to solve that locked room mystery of Tenguska. 413 00:18:39,799 --> 00:18:41,880 Speaker 1: If the physics don't make sense, maybe the physics were 414 00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:43,400 alien exactly. 415 00:18:43,519 --> 00:18:44,720 Speaker 3: It really is the perfect mystery. 416 00:18:44,759 --> 00:18:46,799 Speaker 1: We have the explosion, we have the eyewitnesses, we have 417 00:18:46,839 --> 00:18:49,359 the Flatten Forest, but the culprit. 418 00:18:49,039 --> 00:18:49,960 Speaker 3: Just ghosted us. 419 00:18:50,359 --> 00:18:54,279 Speaker 2: And so for seventy years that's where the thread just dangled, 420 00:18:54,599 --> 00:18:58,200 a giant loose end in Siberia, a question mark carved 421 00:18:58,240 --> 00:18:59,559 into the forest floor. 422 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,759 Speaker 1: Until nineteen seventy eight. And this is where the story 423 00:19:02,799 --> 00:19:05,400 takes a turn. I just did not see coming. We're 424 00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:08,359 leaving the swamps of Siberia and we're jumping across the 425 00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:10,599 globe to Newfoundland. 426 00:19:10,039 --> 00:19:14,319 Speaker 2: Canada, specifically to a small community called Bell Island, right 427 00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:15,400 on the edge of the Atlantic. 428 00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:19,039 Speaker 1: Okay, set the scene for US. April two, nineteen seventy eight. 429 00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,559 Disco is big, bell bottoms are in. What happens on 430 00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:23,240 Bell Island? 431 00:19:23,279 --> 00:19:27,400 Speaker 2: It's quiet morning, but suddenly about five thousand residents witnessed 432 00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:30,400 something that echoes those even d accounts from nineteen oh eight. 433 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:31,200 Speaker 3: Oh wow. 434 00:19:31,319 --> 00:19:33,799 Speaker 2: They see an enormous spontaneous flash. 435 00:19:33,599 --> 00:19:35,200 Speaker 3: Of light lultureflight Okay, followed by. 436 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:37,960 Speaker 2: An explosion a boom so loud it was heard eighty 437 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:38,960 to ninety miles away. 438 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:41,440 Speaker 1: Eighty to ninety miles that's a serious boom. That is 439 00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:43,279 not a car backfiring. That's earthshaking. 440 00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:46,519 Speaker 2: It absolutely was. The explosion caused damage to almost every 441 00:19:46,519 --> 00:19:49,640 single building in the town, every building, almost everyone. We're 442 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:54,599 talking structural damage, broken windows, cracked foundations, livestock work killed 443 00:19:54,599 --> 00:19:57,119 in the fields. It was a violent, destructive event. 444 00:19:57,519 --> 00:20:00,960 Speaker 1: But there was one specific detail in the transcripts that 445 00:20:01,039 --> 00:20:02,119 I know caught your eye. 446 00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:04,319 Speaker 2: Oh you know it did gouts of. 447 00:20:04,319 --> 00:20:08,279 Speaker 1: Blue fire erupt from power outlets. Yes, that is straight 448 00:20:08,319 --> 00:20:10,960 out of a horror movie. You're sitting in your living room, 449 00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:15,720 maybe watching TV, and suddenly blue fire shoots out of 450 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:17,039 the wall socket at you. 451 00:20:17,359 --> 00:20:18,319 Speaker 3: That's terrifying. 452 00:20:18,519 --> 00:20:22,119 Speaker 2: It is terrifying, and it's also highly specific. It creates 453 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:23,799 a kind of forensic signature. 454 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:25,119 Speaker 3: What do you mean by that? 455 00:20:25,599 --> 00:20:28,039 Speaker 2: If a bomb goes off down the street, fire doesn't 456 00:20:28,039 --> 00:20:32,279 shoot out of your electrical sockets. That detail strongly suggests 457 00:20:32,319 --> 00:20:36,599 a massive electrical phenomenon. It implies that a huge electrical 458 00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,559 surge was induced in the power lines across the island. 459 00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:42,000 Speaker 1: So naturally, the people of Bell Island are freaking out. 460 00:20:42,039 --> 00:20:44,599 They investigate, they look around, and what do they find. 461 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:48,440 Speaker 2: Well, initially, just like in Teagasca seventy years prior, the 462 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,960 immediate thought was meteor impact. Something must have hit the island. 463 00:20:52,599 --> 00:20:53,200 Speaker 1: Let me guess. 464 00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:56,519 Speaker 2: No crater, of course not, and no impact to breathe nothing. 465 00:20:56,559 --> 00:20:58,279 Speaker 1: The plot thickens exactly. 466 00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:02,240 Speaker 2: You have a massive explosion, blinding flash of light, widespread 467 00:21:02,279 --> 00:21:07,440 structural damage, and no rock. The parallels to Tenguska were 468 00:21:07,519 --> 00:21:09,920 immediately apparent to researchers who looked into it. 469 00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:12,960 Speaker 1: It's like a mini Tumbuska, a pocket Tenguska, if you will, 470 00:21:13,079 --> 00:21:13,480 in a way. 471 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:16,559 Speaker 2: Yes, And because it happened in nineteen seventy eight in 472 00:21:16,599 --> 00:21:19,960 a populated area with modern infrastructure like power lines, we 473 00:21:20,079 --> 00:21:23,000 had more data points. Right That blue fire from the 474 00:21:23,039 --> 00:21:25,640 outlets was a clue that the even Key in nineteen 475 00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:28,200 oh eight couldn't possibly have given us because they didn't 476 00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:29,200 have electrical outlets. 477 00:21:29,279 --> 00:21:31,440 Speaker 3: WHOA, That is a fantastic point. 478 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:34,400 Speaker 1: If the Evenki had had electricity, would they have seen 479 00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:35,240 bluefire too. 480 00:21:35,799 --> 00:21:38,440 Speaker 2: It's a very very strong possibility if there had been 481 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,759 an electrical grid anywhere near the Tunguska epicenter in nineteen 482 00:21:41,799 --> 00:21:44,440 oh eight, it almost certainly would have been completely fried. 483 00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:47,079 Speaker 1: So this leads us to the scientific theory that ties 484 00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:49,640 these two threads together, the one the source calls the. 485 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:51,599 Speaker 2: Super bolt the super bolt. 486 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:54,880 Speaker 1: It sounds like a superhero name, or maybe a gatorade flavor, 487 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:56,880 But I have a feeling it's a lot more dangerous 488 00:21:56,920 --> 00:21:59,640 than that. What exactly is a super bowlt And how's 489 00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:01,960 it different from just regular lightning? 490 00:22:02,319 --> 00:22:04,279 Speaker 2: We need to be clear here. We are not just 491 00:22:04,319 --> 00:22:08,000 talking about a big lightning bolt. A standard bolt of lightning, 492 00:22:08,039 --> 00:22:10,200 the kind you see in a summer storm is usually 493 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:13,000 negatively charged. Okay, it travels from the bottom of the 494 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:17,720 cloud down to the ground. It's powerful, for sure, about 495 00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:19,279 a billion wants of power. 496 00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:21,640 Speaker 3: A billion watts is nothing to sneeze at. 497 00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,640 Speaker 2: No, it is not. But a super bolt is a 498 00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:29,039 different beast entirely. They are often what we call positive lightning. 499 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:31,839 They originate from the very top of the storm cloud, 500 00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:33,559 where all the positive charge builds. 501 00:22:33,319 --> 00:22:35,440 Speaker 3: Up, so they have to travel much farther to reach 502 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:36,039 the ground. 503 00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,920 Speaker 2: Sow way farther, and because of that immense distance, the 504 00:22:39,039 --> 00:22:42,559 voltage required to make that jump is exponentially higher. 505 00:22:42,319 --> 00:22:44,720 Speaker 1: So It's like stretching a rubber band until it's just 506 00:22:44,759 --> 00:22:47,039 about to snap, but the rubber band is made of 507 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:48,200 pure electricity. 508 00:22:48,319 --> 00:22:51,440 Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy. And when it finally snaps, it 509 00:22:51,519 --> 00:22:56,880 releases trillions of watts of energy instantaneously, trillions, trillions with 510 00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,920 a t It is one of the most powerful natural 511 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,240 phenomena on Earth. They are very rare, but when they happen, 512 00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:05,039 they are catastrophic. 513 00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,799 Speaker 1: So the theory is that Bell Island wasn't hit by 514 00:23:08,799 --> 00:23:12,039 a bomb, It wasn't hit by a rock, It was 515 00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:14,480 hit by a monster lightning bolt from the heaven. 516 00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:18,160 Speaker 2: Correct. And this solves the void evidence problem. 517 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:20,640 Speaker 1: Perfectly, because lightning doesn't leave a crater exactly. 518 00:23:20,759 --> 00:23:24,599 Speaker 2: Lightning strikes, it releases immense heat. It superheats the air 519 00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:27,680 around it to fifty thousand degrees fahrenheit, which is hotter 520 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,039 than the surface of the sun wo and that rapid 521 00:23:30,079 --> 00:23:33,680 heating creates a massive shockwave. That's what thunder is. Thunder 522 00:23:33,839 --> 00:23:36,400 is just the sound of the air exploding from the 523 00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:37,559 intense heat of lightning. 524 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:42,519 Speaker 1: So a superbolt creates. 525 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:44,240 Speaker 2: A a shockwave capable of knocking down buildings, or if 526 00:23:44,279 --> 00:23:47,559 it's big enough, flattening eighty million trees. But once that 527 00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:52,440 energy dissipates, there's no rock, there's no metal, just scorched 528 00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:54,880 earth and maybe some magnetic anomolies in the soil. 529 00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,920 Speaker 1: And it fits the blue fire detail too perfectly. If 530 00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,000 you get hit by a massive electrical surve from the atmosphere, 531 00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:03,920 your man made electrical grid is going to overload to 532 00:24:04,079 --> 00:24:05,680 hence fire shooting out of the socket. 533 00:24:05,759 --> 00:24:09,240 Speaker 2: Pcisely, it explains the electromagnetic effects that were reported at 534 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:11,079 Bell Island. It all clicks into place. 535 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:15,039 Speaker 1: So scientists looked at Bell Island and said, Okay, if 536 00:24:15,079 --> 00:24:18,759 a super bolt caused this boom and this damage without 537 00:24:18,839 --> 00:24:24,440 leaving a crater, could a massive, historic scale atmospheric electrical 538 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,480 event explain Tunguska? 539 00:24:26,519 --> 00:24:29,359 Speaker 2: Could tung Guska have been the mother of all super bowlts, 540 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:30,799 the biggest one ever recorded? 541 00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:34,480 Speaker 1: I mean, could it is lightning really capable of equaling 542 00:24:34,519 --> 00:24:37,279 one thousand atomic bombs? That seems like a huge jump 543 00:24:37,319 --> 00:24:39,039 even from what happened at Bell Island. 544 00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:41,440 Speaker 2: And that is the main criticism of the theory. Scaling 545 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,079 it up that high is very difficult. But we have 546 00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,720 to remember we've only been scientifically measuring lightning for tiny, 547 00:24:47,799 --> 00:24:51,119 tiny fraction of Earth's history. We simply do not know 548 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,400 the absolute upper limits of what the atmosphere is capable 549 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:54,839 of doing. 550 00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:56,640 Speaker 3: So, if the conditions were just perfect. 551 00:24:56,519 --> 00:24:59,480 Speaker 2: If the atmospheric charge built up to an unprecedented level 552 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,160 over that spar Pacific part of Siberia, yes, it creates 553 00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:03,400 a very compelling synthesis. 554 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:04,960 Speaker 1: It takes all the boxes it does. 555 00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,640 Speaker 2: It explains the flash brighter than the sun. It explains 556 00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,640 the loud booms, It explains the scorching of the trees 557 00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,000 from the intense heat. It explains the shockwave, which is 558 00:25:15,279 --> 00:25:19,240 just thunder on a massive scale. And most importantly, it 559 00:25:19,279 --> 00:25:23,559 explains why poor Landed Kulick spent years wading through swamps 560 00:25:23,599 --> 00:25:25,559 and never ever found a. 561 00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:27,680 Speaker 1: Rock, because there never was a rock to begin with. 562 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:29,039 It was pure energy. 563 00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,920 Speaker 2: It shifts the culprit from geology a rock from space 564 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,319 to meteorology a storm. 565 00:25:35,039 --> 00:25:38,400 Speaker 1: That is fascinating and also slightly more terrifying. How so 566 00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,839 well we can track asteroids. We have telescopes and nassas 567 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,480 watching the sky. If a big rock is coming our way, 568 00:25:44,519 --> 00:25:46,880 we might get some warning, that's true, But a super 569 00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:49,599 Bowl that feels like it could just happen out. 570 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,960 Speaker 2: Of nowhere it certainly as a layer of unpredictability to nature, 571 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:55,960 doesn't it It suggests that our atmosphere is capable of 572 00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,319 releasing energy on a scale that rivals our most destructive 573 00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,039 weapons completely without warning. 574 00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,200 Speaker 1: It definitely puts the thrilling in thrilling threads, that's for sure. 575 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,920 It's the idea that the sky isn't just a backdrop, 576 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:08,160 it's a loaded gun. 577 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,359 Speaker 2: That's a very poetic and a very frightening way to 578 00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:11,680 put it. 579 00:26:12,079 --> 00:26:15,000 Speaker 1: So let's just recap this journey, because we have covered 580 00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,200 a lot of ground. We started in the remote Siberian 581 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,119 wilderness of nineteen oh eight. We stood with the even 582 00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,640 Key herders as they watched the second Son literally tear 583 00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:25,480 the sky apart. 584 00:26:25,759 --> 00:26:28,920 Speaker 2: We walked through the eight hundred square miles of flattened forest, 585 00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:33,359 eighty million trees wiped out by what seemed to be 586 00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:33,880 a ghost. 587 00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,240 Speaker 1: We followed the heartbroken Leonid Koulik, who searched for a 588 00:26:37,279 --> 00:26:41,799 crater that didn't exist, finding only mud and just questions. 589 00:26:41,839 --> 00:26:45,519 Speaker 2: And then we fast forwarded seventy years to Bell Island, Canada, 590 00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,839 where bluefire and a massive boon gave us the potential 591 00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:51,839 key to unlock the whole mystery the super bowlt It. 592 00:26:51,759 --> 00:26:52,680 Speaker 3: Connects all the dots. 593 00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:55,200 Speaker 1: It moves us from these wild theories about aliens or 594 00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,759 black holes to a plausible, albeit terrifying, natural phenomenon. 595 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,240 Speaker 2: It offers a solution that respects the physics of the 596 00:27:01,319 --> 00:27:04,240 damage while perfectly accounting for the lack of debris. 597 00:27:04,319 --> 00:27:07,400 Speaker 1: But, and there's always a but, do we have definitive proof? 598 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,559 Can we say case closed? Timgusca was lightning and. 599 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,079 Speaker 2: That's the beauty and I guess the frustration of science 600 00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:17,680 and history. We have a very very strong theory. The 601 00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,240 super Bowl fits the facts better than anything else. But 602 00:27:21,319 --> 00:27:23,680 without a time machine, can we say with one hundred 603 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,559 percent certainty that Tunguska wasn't just a very strange icy 604 00:27:27,599 --> 00:27:31,599 comet that completely melted and vaporized on entry. So not entirely, 605 00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,039 Not entirely, But the Bell Island connection makes the electrical 606 00:27:35,079 --> 00:27:37,559 theory much much stronger than it ever was before. 607 00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:39,200 Speaker 3: It shows us that nature can do this. 608 00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,839 Speaker 1: We've seen it happen on a smaller scale exactly. 609 00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,839 Speaker 2: It validates the mechanism. Anomalies like Bell Island are so 610 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,240 crucial because they help us solve the cold cases of history. 611 00:27:48,599 --> 00:27:51,480 They give us a modern Rosetta stone to help translate 612 00:27:51,519 --> 00:27:52,440 the events of the past. 613 00:27:52,559 --> 00:27:55,000 Speaker 3: I love that using the present to solve the past. 614 00:27:55,079 --> 00:27:57,920 Speaker 2: It really helps create a complete picture of what's possible. 615 00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,759 Speaker 1: This has been on it's been mind blowing. The idea 616 00:28:01,799 --> 00:28:04,839 that the sky can just decide to drop one thousand 617 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,799 atomic bombs worth of electricity on us is something I'm 618 00:28:07,839 --> 00:28:09,640 going to be thinking about for a long long time. 619 00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,880 Speaker 2: It's a humbling reminder of how powerful our planet really is. 620 00:28:13,319 --> 00:28:15,960 We live in a very dynamic system. We often feel 621 00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:19,119 like we've tamed nature, but events like this come along 622 00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,640 and remind us that we are just guests here. 623 00:28:21,759 --> 00:28:22,519 Speaker 3: We certainly are. 624 00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,359 Speaker 1: And now we want to turn this thread over to you, 625 00:28:25,599 --> 00:28:28,480 the listener. We've laid out the evidence we have, the 626 00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:32,039 missing crater, the Flatten trees, the nightmarish reports from the 627 00:28:32,039 --> 00:28:35,359 even Key, and that blue fire connection to Canada. 628 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,839 Speaker 2: So the question we have for you is what do 629 00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:39,799 you think happened in Tinguska. 630 00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,119 Speaker 1: Are you team Asteroid believing a rock just completely vaporized. 631 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,519 Are you team super Bowl thinking the sky itself attacked? 632 00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,160 Or do you have another theory entirely? Maybe you're on 633 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,240 team Mini black Hole, or you want to argue for 634 00:28:52,279 --> 00:28:53,960 the UFO angle, we want to hear it. 635 00:28:54,079 --> 00:28:55,640 Speaker 2: Leave a comment, let us know what your theory is. 636 00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,039 Critical thinking is all about weighing the evidence, so tell 637 00:28:58,079 --> 00:28:58,880 us how you weigh it. 638 00:28:58,920 --> 00:28:59,920 Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on this. 639 00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,319 Speaker 1: It's been a wild ride from Siberia to Canada and 640 00:29:03,359 --> 00:29:06,440 back again. Keep pulling at the loose ends everyone, You 641 00:29:06,519 --> 00:29:09,440 never know what you might unravel. Goodbye for now, see 642 00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,400 you next time on thrilling Threads.