Tunguska event in fiction explained

The Tunguska event—an enormous explosion in a remote region of Siberia on 30 June 1908—has appeared in many works of fiction.

History

The event had a long-lasting influence on disaster stories featuring comets.[1]

Cause

While the event is generally held to have been caused by a meteor air burst, several alternative explanations have been proposed both in scientific circles and in fiction.[2] [3] [4] A popular one in fiction is that it was caused by an alien spaceship, possibly first put forth in Ed Earl Repp's 1930 short story "The Second Missile".[5] It gained prominence following the publication of Russian science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev's 1946 short story "Explosion";[6] inspired by the similarities between the event and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Kazantsev's story posits that a nuclear explosion in the engine of a spacecraft was responsible.[7] [8] An alien spacecraft is also the explanation in Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem's 1951 novel The Astronauts and its 1960 film adaptation The Silent Star,[9] while a human-made one is to blame in Ian Watson's 1983 novel Chekhov's Journey. Additional variations on the spaceship theme appear in Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling's 1985 short story "Storming the Cosmos" and Algis Budrys's 1993 novel Hard Landing, among others. Another proposed explanation is that the cause was the impact of a micro black hole, as in Larry Niven's 1975 short story "The Borderland of Sol" and Bill DeSmedt's 2004 novel Singularity.[10]

Effect

In Donald R. Bensen's 1978 novel And Having Writ..., the course of history is altered by the arrival of aliens to Earth in 1908, which also causes the Tunguska event.[11] The 1996 The X-Files episode "Tunguska" revolves around the impact possibly having introduced alien microbial life to Earth. Ice from the impact turns out to have peculiar properties in Vladimir Sorokin's 2002 novel Ice and Jacek Dukaj's 2007 novel likewise titled Ice.[12]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: Caryad . . Wanderer am Himmel: Die Welt der Planeten in Astronomie und Mythologie . Römer . Thomas . . Zingsem . Vera . 2014 . Springer-Verlag . 978-3-642-55343-1 . 308 . de . Wanderers in the Sky: The World of the Planets in Astronomy and Mythology . Moderne Mythen zu Kometen . Modern Myths about Comets . https://books.google.com/books?id=y_WJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA308.
  2. Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide . 1996 . Carlton . 1-85868-188-X . Pringle . David . David Pringle . 39–40 . en . Cosmic collisions . 38373691 . https://archive.org/details/ultimateencyclop0000unse_a8c7/page/39/mode/2up.
  3. Book: Stableford, Brian . Brian Stableford . . 2006 . Taylor & Francis . 978-0-415-97460-8 . 301–303 . en . Meteorite . https://books.google.com/books?id=uefwmdROKTAC&pg=PA301.
  4. Book: May, Andrew . . Pseudoscience and Science Fiction . 2017 . Springer International Publishing . 978-3-319-42604-4 . Science and Fiction . Cham . 32–35 . en . Tunguska . 10.1007/978-3-319-42605-1_2 . https://books.google.com/books?id=2O0QDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA32.
  5. Book: Bleiler, Everett Franklin . E. F. Bleiler . . Bleiler . Richard . Richard Bleiler . 1998 . Kent State University Press . 978-0-87338-604-3 . 340 . en . Repp, Ed[ward] Earl (1900 or 1901–1979) . https://books.google.com/books?id=PbMdeizaCNcC&pg=PA340.
  6. Book: Determann, Jörg Matthias . Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World . 2020 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-0-7556-0129-5 . 68–69 . en . Missions and Mars . https://books.google.com/books?id=k1_xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68.
  7. Web site: Britt . Robert Roy . 2004-08-12 . Russian Alien Spaceship Claims Raise Eyebrows, Skepticism . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20231205224219/https://www.space.com/250-russian-alien-spaceship-claims-raise-eyebrows-skepticism.html . 2023-12-05 . 2024-04-04 . . en.
  8. Book: Randles, Jenny . Jenny Randles . UFO Retrievals: The Recovery of Alien Spacecraft . 1995 . Blandford . 978-0-7137-2493-6 . London . 21 . en . 1908: The Siberian Spacefall . Post-World War 2, aerial photos of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were compared with photos of the flattened Siberian taiga. They were stunningly similar. It took less than six months for someone to draw the obvious conclusion. A. Kasantsev, a science-fiction author, published a short story in January 1946 in which he offered serious speculation that an alien spacecraft powered by nuclear motors had blown up above Tunguska..
  9. Encyclopedia: 2023 . Schweigende Stern, Der . . 2024-04-04 . 4th . Westfahl . Gary . Gary Westfahl . Stevens . Geoffrey . . Clute . John . John Clute . Langford . David . David Langford . Sleight . Graham . Graham Sleight.
  10. Encyclopedia: 2022 . DeSmedt, Bill . . 2024-04-05 . 4th . Clute . John . John Clute . Clute . John . John Clute . Langford . David . David Langford . Sleight . Graham . Graham Sleight.
  11. Encyclopedia: 2022 . Bensen, D R . . 2024-04-05 . 4th . Clute . John . John Clute . Clute . John . John Clute . Langford . David . David Langford . Sleight . Graham . Graham Sleight.
  12. Petzer . Tatjana . September 2013 . Re-Writing the Tunguska Event: The icy imagination of Vladimir Sorokin and Jacek Dukaj . Archives of the Arctic. Ice, Entropy and Memory.

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