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BOOK REVIEW THREE NEW BOOKS ON THE TUNGUSKA
PROBLEM G. F. Plekhanov. The Tunguska Meteorite: Memoirs and Meditations. Tomsk:
University Publishing House, 2000. Hardcover, 276 pages., ills., n.p., ISBN 5-7511-1232-6, in Russian. These three books are concerned with the same subject matter—the problem of the Tunguska meteorite that is more
properly referred to as the problem of the Tunguska space body (TSB)—since the term "meteorite"
may be used here metaphorically, rather than in its literal sense. However this problem should be designated, the
authors elucidate it from very different points of view. That is why the books effectively supplement each other—even
when their authors' opinions on the nature of the TSB and history of the Tunguska studies are directly opposite.
Plekhanov's book is mainly memoirs of the people and events of the initial period of activities of the IITE—the
Interdisciplinary Independent Tunguska Expedition, an informal scientific research institute on the Tunguska problem
that in fact took on the main weight of research work in this field (for details see RB, Vol. 1, No. 3-4, p. 2).
These personal memoirs are supplemented with a summary both of firmly-established (in the author's view) empirical
facts dealing with the Tunguska catastrophe and "anti-facts" (sometimes associated with it, but factually
having no bearing on the event).
In the late 1950's—early 1960's Gennadiy Plekhanov was one of the small group of scientists, scholars and engineers
who created the IITE and for a few years he remained its official head. As a matter of fact, this organization
was conceived for the purpose of solving one question only: whether or not the TSB was an extraterrestrial spacecraft
that perished at the final stage of its flight to our planet. This hypothesis alone, proposed by Alexander Kazantsev
in 1946, formed both the research strategy and the first practical steps of the founding fathers of the IITE. Half-
(but only half-) jokingly they said: "We must find a nozzle from the spacecraft!"
Soon, however, Plekhanov convinced himself that the empirical information obtained in several expeditions to the
Tunguska explosion site does not confirm this hypothesis (there was found no "nozzle", so to speak) and
he left his post of the IITE head—still actively participating during all the following years in its research and
organizing work. In the course of subsequent investigations he gradually reassured himself that anomalies discovered
in the Tunguska explosion area could not be explained by any "natural" (that is, assuming that the TSB
was a natural minor body from the Solar System) conception and therefore it could be neither a meteorite, nor an
asteroid, nor a comet (p. 180).
Plekhanov himself is a doctor of biology and in particular has made a great contribution to the study of genetic
mutations in this area. After the recent premature passing of the long-standing (from 1963 till 2001) IITE head
Dr. Nikolay Vasilyev, Dr. Gennadiy Plekhanov, being one of the most experienced and competent Tunguska specialists,
naturally enough returned to management of IITE. Evolution of his views has gone so far that he accepts "true
UFOs" (p. 266) and is modelling a possible strategy of behavior of an extraterrestrial probe (p. 267). "By
definition", this strategy may be "only a research one". The TSB might be such a probe: it descended
to the Earth's surface, took some samples and flew away. Which place in this model is occupied by the Tunguska
explosion, remains somewhat vague, but Plekhanov does not seem to be insisting on its validity—perpetually
returning to the (previously rejected) "natural" approach to the problem. Nevertheless, at the end of
the book he is appealing to his readers to look for a "container" with information that could be left
in the Tunguska area by extraterrestrials. As a whole, there remains a definite impression that Gennadiy Plekhanov
has on the rational level returned to the "artificial" (the TSB as an ET spacecraft) conception
of the Tunguska event, but he feels somewhat uncomfortable about this and therefore finds it difficult openly to
admit his return (cf. pp. 241, 250-251, 253).
Very interesting is the story (for the first time, as far as I can judge, presented on printed pages) of how the
Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences (KMET) quarreled with the IITE (pp. 159-165). After the
joint expedition of KMET and IITE of 1961 the specialists in meteoritics asserted categorically in science periodicals
and the mass media that the problem of the Tunguska meteorite had been solved and the TSB was a comet. Of course,
everyone has the right to proclaim what he or she believes correct. But the spicy detail is that this outstanding
scientific result was planned to be presented for a State Prize of the USSR, among the nominees there must have
been, together with KMET people, also some IITE members. The title "Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR"
after the name of a scientist carried great weight in Soviet times, but in this case any prospects for serious
Tunguska studies would have been, most probably, closed for many years to come. Not wishing to agree with such
a "solution", the IITE members promised Kirill Florensky (a noted geochemist and the head of academic
Tunguska expeditions) to raise hell in the newspapers. The meteor specialists have had to retreat, but there certainly
could be no further joint work.
Plekhanov's book does contain other really interesting and new to the reader information as well (in particular,
that about mutual relations between the IITE and the KGB—pp. 30, 107ff., 116ff.—as well as between the IITE and
the USSR Academy of Sciences that was not at all unanimously reluctant towards the "alternative" Tunguska
studies—p. 71ff.), etc., etc. True, the book's structure looks a little chaotic—but again, these are memoirs, rather
than a scholarly monograph. The book is really informative, it is written vividly and interestingly, casting a
new light on many sides of history of the Tunguska problem. It is definitely well worth reading.
Vitaliy Bronshten's book, as distinct from Gennadiy Plekhanov's one, has been written without any vacillations
between the "natural" and "artificial" conceptions. Its author's approach is utterly explicit:
only "natural" models of the TSB are scientific, acceptable, and correct.
Indeed, as soon as the discussion touches mathematical models of the motion of meteor bodies through the atmosphere,
the author's logic and calculations are very accurate. Dr. Bronshten is a true specialist in this field; it is
a pleasure to follow his logical considerations and effective mathematics when he is analyzing various details
of this complicated process. Whether or not these considerations have anything to do with the Tunguska event is
a different question, though. On page 136 Bronshten remarks: "Mathematical calculations can shade the gist
of the matter". Certainly so.
Bronshten works within a very limited set of "acceptable" models only. The nuclear hypothesis of the
Tunguska explosion appears to him a priori unscientific; instead of examining it, he simply scolds its supporters,
accusing them of a bent for an "idee fixe" and ad hoc hypotheses (not well comprehending the true
meaning of the latter term, used in works on methodology of science). And against all historical truth, Bronshten
states that the only scientific path of development of Tunguska studies was the "cometary" one, whereas
the nuclear (or artificial) hypothesis dragged out its miserable existence on the verge of this path at best. In fact, the "natural" models of the Tunguska event could never go ahead of the "artificial" one in predictions, having a sad inclination to ad hoc (really ad hoc, in the strict sense of this term) hypotheses. Put very simply, their supporters have constantly patched up "holes" in their constructions with the help of additional suppositions making initial schemes much more complicated and, sorry, artificial. Those empirical facts that could not be assimilated by these models at all (such as the geomagnetic storm after the Tunguska explosion) were simply ignored. (Bronshten, to his credit, mentions this effect on pages 72-74 of his book and frankly makes a helpless gesture regarding it.)
Unfortunately, in another important question he is much less frank—not wishing to admit that it was the nuclear
hypothesis of Kazantsev's (later developed by Zolotov) that gave the impetus for serious work on the Tunguska
problem. In fact, it was the competition between the "artificial" and "natural" models alone
that directed the entire development of Tunguska studies during the last 50, or so years. I can suppose that Dr.
Vitaliy Bronshten is quite well aware of this fact, but still cannot believe it.
To some extent Bronshten's book is also a book of memoirs of an experienced scientist, quite an intelligent—and
nevertheless a very biased against direct interstellar contacts—man who for all his life in science was in the
camp of the "natural" hypotheses not only "ideologically", but first of all "administratively".
He feels himself (not without reason, one should admit) a representative of true science and a defender of scientific
truth. (There was such a section in the Soviet academical popular science journal Priroda, in which serious—in
their own fields of study—scientists published from time to time rather superficial papers criticizing non-traditional
subjects—such as UFOs, paleovisits, psi-phenomena, etc.) It is even the late Vice-President of the USSR Academy
of Sciences Dr. B. P. Konstantinov whose scientific integrity can be put in doubt, in Bronshten's opinion (see
pp. 134-135). Why? Because, in particular, he supported Zolotov's work. Thanks God, Vitaliy Bronshten has spared
Academicians L. A. Artsimovich, E. K. Fedorov, and M. A. Leontovich who did the same. From this one can conclude,
by the way, that the demarcation line separating two "camps" in the Tunguska studies runs not between
"skeptics" and "enthusiasts", or "official science" and "alternative science"
(cf.: V. K. Zhuravlev, F. Y. Zigel. The Tunguska Miracle, p. 147), nor even between "bureaucratic pseudoscience"
and "normal science", but rather simply between science and pseudoscience. Professionally made calculations
of parameters of a comet core's flight and explosion in the atmosphere are certainly good science; blinking at
the impossibility to reconcile any variant of the cometary model of the TSB with all empirical facts collected
by now at the area of the Tunguska explosion is pseudoscience. When the latter is due to a sincere misunderstanding
of the real state of affairs, when due to the unwillingness to think better, and when due to more mundane reasons,
is a purely rhetorical question.
The most interesting pages in Bronshten's book are those, on which the author is neatly describing rather special
details of various variants of the cometary model (pp. 141-150, 196-218); polemics with alternative conceptions
looks much less convincing. Generally, while Bronshten remains inside the limits of pure meteoritics, one can only
envy his common sense and discipline of thought, but as soon as he touches some "alien" to him fields
of research, there happens a kind of complete transformation. On page 231 Bronshten states that the TSB could not
be an extraterrestrial spacecraft since... interstellar flights are impossible. Why not read some special literature
(say, publications of the British Interplanetary Society) before making such a strange statement?...
Summing up, one should admit that Bronshten's book is not so much a history of the Tunguska problem, but mainly
a good history of the cometary model of the TSB. As such, it is certainly interesting and useful. Besides,
the book is well structured and having a very good apparatus including not only a rich bibliography on the problem
of the Tunguska meteorite, but also a very useful list of researchers involved in Tunguska studies. Occasional
misprints do not weaken this impression.
Now, let us go to the book by Victor Zhuravlev and Felix Zigel. Its authors made a great contribution to the development
of the Tunguska problem. The late Dr. Felix Zigel was an Assistant Professor at Moscow Aviation Institute and,
as is generally acknowledged, the "father of Soviet ufology". For many years he was publicizing A. P.
Kazantsev's hypothesis about an artificial extraterrestrial nature of the TSB, being the first researcher who posed
the question about a possible maneuver of the TSB before its explosion. Dr. Victor Zhuravlev—a noted specialist
in physical chemistry—is one of the founding fathers and leaders of the IITE.
Although the authors do not hide their sympathy towards the "artificial" hypothesis, this book is much
more interdisciplinary and objective than Bronshten's one and much more comprehensive than Plekhanov's book (this
is, of course, not an accusation of the latter: its tasks are simply different). Zhuravlev and Zigel do not dismiss
the cometary hypothesis as a "so-called" hypothesis, presenting the history of the problem impartially
and describing successes and failures of the both competitive research programs.
The spacecraft research program started from a science-fiction story by Alexander Kazantsev and a lecture at the
Moscow Planetarium. Interestingly enough, at first the Committee on Meteorites supported and approved the lecture
(believing it would attract public attention to meteoritics in general) and only having grasped that Kazantsev
saw in his hypothesis a real explanation of the Tunguska event did they radically change their position.
The fuss about the Tunguska problem raised by the mass media irritated the USSR Academy of Sciences and it was
therefore decided to find out which of the equally "obvious" pictures of the catastrophe was correct.
In 1953 K. P. Florensky made a reconnaissance flight to this area, while in 1957 A. A. Yavnel discovered in the
samples of Tunguska soil, collected by L. A. Kulik and preserved at KMET, particles of meteoritic iron. This discovery
did evidently point to the normal meteorite nature of the TSB and in 1958 the first post-war academical expedition
went to the Podkamennaya Tunguska river. The expedition ascertained and admitted (not referring to Kazantsev's
idea, of course) that the explosion had happened at an altitude of several kilometers over the Earth's surface.
Then it was found that Yavnel's "discovery" had been due to the contamination of the Tunguska samples
by meteorite iron from those taken at the place of the Sikhote Alin meteorite fall.
The situation suddenly became more complicated than had been anticipated by the KMET when it opened up a new stage
in academical Tunguska investigations, and a real competition between the "natural" and "artificial"
approaches began. The basic hypothesis of the "natural" research program may be formulated rather simply:
the TSB was not an ET spacecraft and the Tunguska explosion was not nuclear, period.
Zhuravlev and Zigel write on page 44 in a very reserved manner that K. P. Florensky in a publication of his "made
evident errors and even twisted facts". The authors' attempt to find an excuse for that do them credit indeed,
not fully convincing the reader, though. Contrary to what they are writing, there can be no "compromise with
logic", there may be only compromise with conscience.
...And there came the IITE, and declined the State Prize, and said honestly: "We do not know what is the nature
of the TSB." Really serious interdisciplinary investigations of the Tunguska problem have at last started.
This was not an easy task at all. Although the reality and importance of the "phenomenon of interdisciplinarity"
in modern science are quite evident, the scientist is still favoring "disciplinarity" and "disciplinary
values" above others.
Zhuravlev and Zigel present in their book both the history of Tunguska studies and the results obtained. The IITE
team tried not only to verify and refine existing models of the event, but first of all to look for real traces
of the Tunguska catastrophe, interpret them and build a model that would give the best fit to all empirical
data, and not to a "preferable" subset of them. In other words, it has been a search for the solution
of the problem, not just "games with formulas".
Authors of any hypothesis about the Tunguska phenomenon should understand: if their hypothesis does not
explain such well-established empirical facts as the geomagnetic storm after the explosion, anomalies of the thermoluminescence,
radiation burn of trees, mutations in pines, etc.—it does not explain the Tunguska event. The cometary model
is one of these; therefore, it deserves to be designated as a so-called hypothesis much more than the nuclear
one. The latter has its own weak points, but it can convincingly explain much more facts than the cometary hypothesis,
and many facts are predicted by it. It is no mere chance that the "natural" research program,
having detached itself from the idea of an iron meteorite, has for many years vacillated between a stony asteroid—a
carbonaceous chondrite—a cloud of cosmic dust—and a comet, being unable to select even the most plausible (not
to mention the correct) variant.
The book under review is a comprehensive exposition of all the fundamental facts that are known about the Tunguska
catastrophe and all essential traces of the event discovered by the beginning of the 21st century. Paradoxically
enough, the main part of these traces was found as far back as the early 1960's. In the following decades their
reality and importance have been convincingly proved and a few "additional" traces have been discovered.
These traces include: the overground character of the Tunguska explosion (pp. 22, 30-31: A. P. Kazantsev, 1946;
K. P. Florensky, 1958); the geomagnetic storm that followed the explosion, identical to such storms occurring after
high-altitude thermonuclear explosions (pp. 51-52, 83-84: K. G. Ivanov, 1961); mutations in pines (pp. 57, 98ff.:
G. F. Plekhanov, 1963); increased level of radioactivity at the epicenter (p. 40: the first IITE expedition to
the Tunguska area, 1959); the Rare Earths anomaly (p. 39: the IITE expeditions of 1959 and 1960); the radiation
burn of trees (pp. 100-104: the IITE expedition of 1961). All these facts are well explained by the nuclear model
of the Tunguska explosion and not explained by any variant of the cometary model. Later there were discovered
the abundance of 14C (radiocarbon) in the area (p. 93) and anomalies of thermoluminescence (pp. 94-97;
for details see: RB, 1998, Vol. 4, No. 1-2, pp. 11-12).
In practice, the only evidence against the nuclear nature of the Tunguska explosion is the lack of 39Ar—the
radioactive isotope argon-39—in
the area (p. 90), but under certain conditions such a contamination might not have occurred (p. 91).
There exist, however, a number of anomalies that are not easily explained by the nuclear/artificial model of the
Tunguska event. These are, in particular, the paleomagnetic anomaly and the very fast restoration of taiga after
the catastrophe. Association between the set of optical atmospheric anomalies and the nuclear hypothesis is also
rather ambiguous: in principle, they may be explained by the penetration of space dust into the atmosphere, but
the presence of an "ionizing agent" cannot be ruled out either.
In a final section of the book (pp. 137-139) its authors describe the "heliophysical" model of the Tunguska
phenomenon, proposed by V. K. Zhuravlev and A. N. Dmitriev in 1984. According to it, the TSB was a plasmoid ejected
from the Sun—a sort of "magnetic bottle" containing a considerable amount of plasma and surrounded by
an external magnetosphere. Here the present reviewer shares the opinion by V. A. Bronshten (The Tunguska Meteorite:
History of Investigations, p. 242): this attempt to build an object, "intermediate" between a natural
space body and a spacecraft, looks unconvincing. At best, it resembles a scheme of an alien spacecraft "disguised"
as a "container with plasma". Pity indeed that Tunguska researchers did not pay any special attention
to the paper "UFOs as Objects of Study by Terrestrial Physics" by Dr. Valeriy Buerakov, published in
RB, 1994, Vol. 1, No. 1 (although some of them did read it). It would probably pay to compare Buerakov's model
of the electromagnetic "cocoon" (both natural and artificial) with the Tunguska factual evidence—the
more so that this model has been derived from a logical and mathematically justified extension of Maxwell's theory
to the realm of strong and superstrong electromagnetic fields. To sum up, one should admit that all the three books reviewed above are interesting, informative, and worthy of translation into foreign languages. But being ranked according to their relative values for the foreign reader, the first place would be certainly occupied by the book by Zhuravlev and Zigel. This book, if and when translated into English (and/or other languages), would give the foreign reader a sufficiently comprehensive, exact, and many-sided view of the problem of the Tunguska meteorite. By now there exists no publication in book form in the English language that would be to any degree comparable to this work.
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