Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

3 Ton Meteorite Stolen

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-in-frat-boys-basement dept.

morpheus83 writes "Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that thieves have stolen a three-ton meteorite from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908. The massive three tonne rock was bought to Krasnoyarsk after an 2004 expedition to the site of the so-called Tunguska event- a mysterious mid air explosion over Siberia in 1908 was 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The foundation's director Yury Lavbin claimed to have discovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft during the expedition."

3 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. BadAstronomy has covered it already... by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Informative

    In short, this news is bullshit. Not a single meteorite remain from Tunguska event has been found.

    http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/08/12/thie ves-steal-giant-rock/

    1. Re:BadAstronomy has covered it already... by Al+Al+Cool+J · · Score: 4, Informative

      Covered? The "coverage" consists of:

      • the claim that no meteorite remain from Tunguska has ever been found (proof by bold assertion)
      • a comment that the writer couldn't find the foundation's website. Gee, I wonder if the writer was searching for websites in Russian?
      • mockery and sarcasm as soon as the subject of aliens arises. After all, scientists know that aliens can't be visisting the earth, because the Fermi Paradox says so.

      I don't think that's particularly good coverage

      Anyway, here is a 2004 story from what looks to be a reputable science website on the discovery of the meteorite, with photo

    2. Re:BadAstronomy has covered it already... by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Informative

      1. That's a well known-fact. Several expeditions conducted by USSR have not found any remains except for small spheres of molten glass and rock (consistent with aerial explosion).

      2. Ok, Russian is my native language, so I searched for this 'foundation'. Here is the original news: http://www.radiomayak.ru/tvp.html?id=87757&cid=

      This foundation is called 'Fond Tungusskogo Kosmicheskogo Fenomena' in Russian. So I've searched information about it in the most popular Russian search engine (it understands Russian morphology and works much better than Google): http://www.yandex.ru/yandsearch?text=%D2%F3%ED%E3% F3%F1%F1%EA%E8%E9+%EA%EE%F1%EC%E8%F7%E5%F1%EA%E8%E 9+%F4%E5%ED%EE%EC%E5%ED+%F4%EE%ED%E4

      This is the report about the initial "discovery" of this stone: http://www.membrana.ru/articles/misinterpretation/ 2004/08/10/223900.html

      One of the first entries: http://www.newslab.ru/news/174070/print - basically, this "foundation" was being kicked out of a museum.

      After that, there was exactly ZERO publications in reliable magazines about this discovery. For me, this smells of pseudoscience.