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Fact check

Is it true: Tunguska event: 1908 Siberia meteor vs Tesla-weapon vs comet?

Debunked5% confidence

No — this has been debunked.

Multiple scientific expeditions (1927 Kulik, 1961 Sedov, 1976 Soviet, 2009 Anfinogenov spheres, 2013 Kvasnytsya nanodiamonds) consistently support a stony asteroid/comet air burst of 10-15 megatons at altitude. The absence of a crater is explained by the air burst model. Tesla-weapon hypothesis has no documentary, physical, or technical basis. Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower was never completed as a functional directed-energy system.

The claim

On 30 June 1908, a massive explosion flattened approximately 2,150 square kilometres of Siberian taiga near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. The blast, estimated at 10-15 megatons TNT equivalent, left

Key evidence

Tesla-weapon claim: circulates as alternative to accepted science

2,150 sq km of taiga flattened in radial pattern

Read the full evidence file

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