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Tunguska (t¢ng-g¡´ske, t¡n-)
The name of three rivers of Siberian U.S.S.R. The Upper Tunguska is the lower course of the Angara River. The Lower Tunguska flows about 3,218 km (2,000 mi) north and west to the Yenisei River. The Stony Tunguska, about 1,609 km (1,000 mi) long, flows generally west-northwest to the Yenisei.

  1.A "local" magnetic storm began about 6 minutes after the explosion (If that is what it really  was.) and lasted for more than 4 hours. These magnetic perturbations resembled those following nuclear atmospheric explosions.
  2.The Tunguska object left no smoky trail like many fireballs, but rather irridescent bands that looked like a rainbow.
  3.Following the "explosion," at least part of the object continued on in the same direction but  veered upwards. [Meteors sometimes skip out of the atmosphere on trajectories like this.]
  4.Although the Tunguska event occurred on June 30, 1908, optical anomalies appeared all across northern Europe as early as June 23. These included mesospheric, silvery clouds,  very bright nights, colorful twilight afterglows [something like those following the Krakatoa  eruption], and remarkably intense and long-lasting solar halos. Some of these effects persisted until late July.
  5.Neither craters nor meteoric debris have been discovered so far, despite assiduous searches.
  6.The explosion created a shock wave that leveled 2150 km2 of taiga and a flash that singed  about 200 km2.

(Vasilyev, N.V.; "The Tunguska Meteorite: A Dead-Lock or the Start of a New Stage of Inquiry?" RIAP Bulletin, 1;3, nos. 3-4, July-December 1994, and 2:1, no. 1, January-March 1995. RIAP = Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena, P.O. Box 4684, 310022 Kharkov-22, UKRAINE)

"The shamans will point the way because they are visionaries, poets, cultural architects, forecasters - all these roles that we understand in more conventional terms rolled into one and raised to the nth power.  They are cultural models for the rest of us.  It has always been true that the shaman has access to a superhuman dimension and a superhuman condition and thereby affirms the potential for transcendence in all people.  The shaman is an exemplar, if you will, and I see the new attention that's being given to these things signaling a sense on the part of society that we need to return to these models.  This is why, for instance, in the _Star Wars_ phenomenon Skywalker, the name of a major character, is a direct translation of the word "shaman" out of the Tungusic, which is where Siberian shamanism comes from.  So these heroes; they control a force that is bigger than everybody and holds the galaxy together;  this is true, as a matter of fact.  As we explore how true this is, the limitations of our previous worldview will be exposed for all to see.  I think it was J.B.S. Haldane who said, 'The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose."
  -Terence McKenna - _Archaic Revival_

"The Tungus tribesmen of Siberia say that when the shaman goes into his trance and raves  incoherent syllables, he learns the entire language of Nature."

     "The Language of Nature."

     "Yes, sir. The Sukuma people of Africa say that the language is kinaturu, the tongue of the  ancestors of all magicians, who are thought to have descended from one particular tribe."

     "What causes it?"

     "If mystical explanations are ruled out, then it seems that glossolalia comes from structures buried deep within the brain, common to all people."

- _Snow Crash_   by Neal Stephenson

• cover of _Stomach/Pink Frost_ 7" by Babyland on Flipside depicts 1908 Tunguska explosion
• post punk track _Tunguska_ MP3 (vK) by Prolapse off of _The Italian Flag_ on Radar (1998)
• video (vhs/ntsc) _Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterous World - The Great Siberian Explosion_ re: Tunguska, things falling from the sky

first mention of Tunguska in Usenet:

From: rigney@uokvax.UUCP (rigney@uokvax.UUCP)
Subject: Re: Accidental war - (nf)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Date: 1983-12-04 20:00:51 PST

#R:tekig:-166800:uokvax:5000034:000:1377
uokvax!rigney    Dec  3 10:02:00 1983

The most probable cause of the Tunguska incident was a strike by a small comet.  Yes, our radars are good enough to tell the difference between a comet and a missile.

By the way, there seems to be a general thought that if war is more likely to occur by accident or mishap than deliberately, i.e. one side launches a missile unintentionally, and the other side retaliates with a full scale attack, causing the first side to launch all its forces.

Doesn't this strike anyone as pretty farfetched?  If just one (or a few) missiles were spotted incoming, they couldn't possibly have any major effect on the retaliatory capability, so there's no immediate need to launch a counterstrike.  Forces would be placed on full alert, of course, but until many more tracks were spotted, or the first missiles hit without any word from the other side, there seems to be no reason to strike back.  And I assume that if a missile were launched accidentally (although I can't imagine how the launch codes got from the football to the missile, or whatever the Russian equivalent is), both sides  would be on the hotline very fast, to clear it up.

Does anyone know if the Pershing II's have the accuracy and size to be effective against silos, and what  percentage of the Soviet missiles they can destroy?
Or is all this talk about Soviet fears just rhetoric?

        Carl
        ..!ctvax!uokvax!rigney

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