23 thoughts on “Life imitates science”

  2. Invariably, some will claim it was caused by a tiny black hole, or by aliens. Of course it was aliens that landed a spaceship on a comet.

    2. That is one of the less bat-shit insane ideas that people have put forward for the explosion.
      More recent work on airbursts (and observed examples, such as Chelyabinsk, last year) have pretty much nailed the explanation there. Sadly, it will probably take centuries for the hard-of-thinking to get the idea of a black hole out of their communal heads, because it is sexy!

  3. When the meteor went over Russia in 2013, I saw some comments: In Russia, space explore you!

    1. Ah, yes. antimatter. Aliens with space ship powered by a black hole made out of antimatter. They were fixing to do some anal probing, when Blammo!, their “Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator” broke because of budget cuts.
      I knows this is true! I feel my amygdala throbbing, so it must be right!
      Just because I am paranoid does not mean they are not out to get me!

      1. The crash occurred because they were unable to reverse the polarity in time. Also, repair efforts were hampered by the deaths of several crew members when their control panels spontaneously overloaded and exploded.

        1. It wasn’t spontaneous, one of the crew must have just asked the computer either “Why?” or “Do you know why I like tea?”.

      2. Depressingly I saw at least one comment going past about “WTF didn’t they use an antimatter battery to power Philae” in the middle of a “Google Hangout” with the lander science team.
        Really, I shouldn’t have such high hopes of people being able to separate reality from fiction. It just leads to disappointment.
        The questions about using RTGs were positively benign by comparison.

    2. Templeton winner Paul Davies went with the antimatter explanation in his first and only novel (Fireball, 1987).

    1. That episode was really … pathetic. I see that there is at least one kickstarter-type thing to arrange a “Sorry” from the internet – or at least several thousand denizens, but to be honest, I think that’ll just stir up more flying excrement.

  7. There are people who believe that the Tunguska explosion was caused by the detonation of a malfunctioning interstellar drive on a UFO that was attempting an emergency landing.

    1. There are people that believe that the [name varies] Bridge is for sale.
      There were probably people touring Rome from the backwoods (back-deserts?) of the Empire. and getting sold the Pontifex Maximus bridge over the Tiber.

  8. Clearly the Tungaska event was the result of a CIA plot. The fact that the CIA concealed its very existence for another forty years or so only goes to prove that this is the only possible explanation.

  9. Since Pynchon’s “Against the Day” we all should know by now, that Tunguska was the result of an electricity experiment by Nikola Tesla gone haywire. Or aliens. Or a meteorite. It’s not actually made clear.

  10. I always liked the idea of it being a natural gas explosion. Many problems with that too, of course, but definitely better than aliens.

  11. I think the well-documented Chelyabinsk meteorite (praise our awful driving customs for dashcams) made Tunguska mystery considerably less mysterious. I mean, were it a few times larger, the effects would have been practically identical.

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