Thirty Years of Cults and Comets

[transdimensiona l]

I can show people evidence of real strikes inflicting local and regional damage less than a century ago. Even more compelling are the frequent kiloton-level detonations our early warning satellites see in the earth's atmosphere. ... Within the United States space community there is a growing concern over "space situational awareness."
The general was writing back in 2000. "Less than a century ago." That would be after 1900. He said that there were "real strikes inflicting local and regional damage" since 1900?!
Did I miss something? Did all of us miss something?
(...)
Note: If anybody can find any clues on the event the general was referring to at the beginning of this article, please forward it to sott!

Personally, I think the general may be referring to the Tunguska Catastrophic Event (TCO), description in Bobrowsky & Rickmann (2007) p. 303ff.
But he could also be referring to other events that could easily be overlooked because they were not observed/survived or their effects were not linked with a cosmic object (like marine impacts), or effects occured that have not yet been thoroughly studied, such as ionospheric and magnetospheric disturbances.

Following is a quotation from
Vitaly Adushkin & Ivan Nemchinov (2008): Catastrophic Events Caused by Cosmic Objects, p.228 (ISBN 978-1-4020-6451-7)

There were attempts to attribute an event that happened on 13 August 1930 in
Brazil to an impact of a large cosmic body (Kulik 1931; Bronshten 2000), although
serious grounds for such a suggestion were absent. This suggestion about the impact
was based on eyewitness reports collected by a Catholic missionary who came to
the place some time after the incident (Bailey et al. 1995). The interpretation of
these reports was made very arbitrarily, whereas the descriptions of the event are
quite similar to a forest fire. After all, according to eyewitnesses, the event began
from dustiness and smoke generation in the atmosphere and the fall of ash (the sun
turned red, darkness covered everything, reddish dust appeared), which are clear
evidence of the beginning of a large fire. Only some time after this were sounds and
explosions heard, which could have been caused, for example, by the detonation
of a mixture of natural gases and air initiated by the fire, or by electric discharges
connected with powerful flows of dusty air supported by the fire. In the Brazilian
stories there was not one word about the action of a shock wave. Ash continued
to fall and darkness remained for several hours, and the fire lasted several months,
as was written in a newspaper report. There is no way to link the impact of a
cosmic body with the ash fall and appearance of dust long before the impact. Some
attempts to connect a depression found in the region, ∼1 km in size, with the event,
suggesting that the depression is an impact crater formed in 1930, are rather naïve
(Bronshten 2000). The impact energy commensurate with a 1-km-diameter crater
must be so big that the impact inevitably would register over the whole terrestrial
globe. Meanwhile, as is reported in Bronshten (2000) an observatory located only
about 1,300 km from the scene of action has not registered any seismic waves that
could correspond to the impact event in time and distance from the source.
The falls of cosmic bodies observed and registered in the twentieth century had
energies by several orders of magnitude lower than the TCO. Deceleration and
energy release (flashes) during such smaller falls with average energy ∼1 kt TNT
usually occur in the atmosphere at altitudes >25 km. (The number of the falls
is about 25 per year over the whole Earth’s surface.) As a rule, among small
objects only iron bodies reach the Earth’s surface with a speed sufficient for crater
formation. This happened when a relatively small iron meteoroid about 3 m in size
produced the Sikhote-Alin meteorite shower on 12 February 1947. The shower left
a strewn crater field with a large quantity of holes and craters, the largest of which
was ∼25 m in diameter.

Many greetings, t.

[Laura]

He wasn't referring to Tunguska because he mentioned Tunguska as a well-known event.  Read his entire commentary which is linked from the main article.  

An "Amazon Basin Impact" has been mentioned as well as one in Turkey.  Information on those events would be much appreciated if anyone can dig up details.

[transdimensiona l]

The so called "Amazon Basin Impact" can only be the doubtful/doubted event that happened on 13 August 1930 in Brazil (Curuçá) which I quoted from Adushkin & Nemchinov.

The Turkey impact you mean could be this one:

Dogubayazid (Turkey): 39°32'N  44°14'E
pretended 1920 fall of meteorite
diameter/depth: 35m/30m


source:
Title: Catalogue of 230 certain, probable, possible, and doubtful impact structures
Authors: Classen, J.
Journal: Meteoritics, vol. 12, Mar. 31, 1977, p. 61-78.

online (!) here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1977Metic..12...61C

Addendum: A detailed list of more than 500 assumed impact sites can be downloaded here:
http://web.eps.utk.edu/ifsg_files/SEIS/SEIS_database.xls

[Puck]

Found this: _http://www.xtec.es/recursos/astronom/craters/anecdotese.htm

Daytime meteor startles West Texans
A radar weathermap reportedly shows a meteor travelling west to east

A midday meteor streaking above West Texas and New Mexico on Thursday sent residents scurrying to their phones to report what many feared was an airplane exploding or some kind of aerial collision.

Robert Simpson saw it from his home near Fort Davis and was delighted. But then, he had a better idea of what it was.

"It always kind of floors you," said Simpson, a spokesman for McDonald Observatory, 175 miles southeast of El Paso.

The meteor appeared at 12:47 p.m. as a flash about as bright as the surface of a setting sun, he said.

The reports -- of the light, an explosive blast and a smoke trail -- are all consistent with the appearance of a daytime meteor, also known as a fireball or bolide.

"If it had happened at night it would have lit up the countryside as bright as day," said Bill Wren, another observatory spokesman.

From CNN Interactive
October 10, 1997

February 12, 1947: A rain of around 70 tons of iron
This week marks the golden anniversary of what is arguably the most spectacular meteorite fall ever seen. At 10:40 a.m. on February 12, 1947, a incredibly bright fireball seared its way across the sky of eastern Siberia and rained around 70 tons of iron meteorites onto the rugged landscape. Because it was so well documented, the Sikhote-Alin fall proved a great boon to meteorite science.

The 1947 Siberian event is considered in most literature as one of the two most significant events this century where the earth has encountered objects from space. It was an iron meteorite that broke up only about 5 miles above the earth. It produced over 100 craters with the largest being around 85 feet in diameter. The strewnfield covered an area of about 1 mile by a half mile. There were no fires or similar destruction like that found at Tunguska. Shredded trees and broken branches mostly. A total of 23 tons of meteorites were recovered and it's been estimated it's total mass was around 70 tons when it broke up.

November 22, 1996: A Large Ball of Fire
Date: Sun, Dec 15, 1996 6:39 PM PST
The Associated Press
By FREDDY CUEVAS Associated Press Writer

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- A meteorite slammed into a sparsely populated area of Honduras last month, terrifying residents and leaving a 165-foot-wide crater, scientists confirmed Sunday.

Villagers reported seeing a fireball crash and break into small red and yellow pieces on Nov. 22 near San Luis, in the western province of Santa Barbara. But Sunday's statement was the first official word that the object was a meteorite.

Maria Cristina Pineda, a physicist from the National Autonomous University of Honduras, said Sunday that the meteorite was composed of materials that were 4 billion years old, Pineda said.

There was no word on the dimensions of the meteorite, but it was much smaller than the size of the crater. Some 50,000 years ago, a meteorite 180 feet wide smashed into northern Arizona and dug a crater 4,000 feet wide. And a 300-foot meteorite struck in Siberia in 1908, leveling trees for miles.

Residents of San Luis, 125 miles west of the capital, were terrified by the meteorite's crash, which sparked a fire that destroyed several acres of coffee plants and damaged a main highway.

"We saw a large ball of fire, with a long tail that rapidly descended from the sky and fell near San Luis, before our incredulous eyes," said Elmer Adan Rivera, a teacher from the region.

"I arrived almost immediately to the site of the explosion," said peasant Francisco Aguilar Sabillon. "There were enormous flames, and everything was destroyed. Because of that I fled from the place, frightened."

Authorities have asked those living nearby to stay away from the crash site. The meteorite did not appear to have any properties that would pose a threat to humans, they said.

There's some additional material there, with Unsolved cases being discussed in some detail. Worth checking out imho.

There's also this: _http://www.tldm.org/misc/meteorite.htm which has some heavy christian slant to it.

News Flash! A meteorite hits Honduras and makes a 165-foot-wide crater.

This story was discovered on the CNN web site. No other information or stories could be found about this crash. The news media kept this story a secret for 23 days. Our Lady has told us many times the news medias are controlled.

A meteorite slammed into a sparsely populated area of Honduras last month, terrifying residents and leaving a 165-foot-wide crater, scientists confirmed Sunday, December 15, 1996.

Villagers reported seeing a fireball crash and break into small red and yellow pieces on November 22 near San Luis, in the western province of Santa Barbara. But Sunday's statement was the first official word that the object was a meteorite.

Residents were terrified by the meteorite's crash, which sparked a fire that destroyed several acres of coffee plants and damaged a main highway.

"We saw a large ball of fire, with a long tail that rapidly descended from the sky and fell near San Luis, before our incredulous eyes," said Elmer Rivera, a teacher from the region.

"I arrived almost immediately to the site of the explosion," said peasant Francisco Sabillon. "There were enormous flames, and everything was destroyed. Because of that I fled from the place, frightened."

There was no word on the dimensions of the meteorite, but it was much smaller than the 165 foot size of the crater. Some 50,000 years ago, a meteorite 180 feet wide smashed into northern Arizona and dug a crater 4,000 feet wide. And a 300-foot meteorite struck in Siberia in 1908, leveling trees for miles.

This is another warning from God. Will we wake up and stop offending God?

Crucifix upon their doors...
Veronica - I see a road. I see people fleeing, their clothes are ragged. It seems as though they had been hit by some kind of shrapnel, or something that's tearing the clothes off their bodies. But the worst part of all is that beyond the roads I see bodies, dead bodies strewn all over, in the streets, through the houses, in the lots. And I see the waters aflame. And I see waters churning and churning, and rising higher and higher, as they wash onto the shores that border the seas.

Fwiw

edit: there's also this:  A Catalogue of Meteorites and Fireballs, from A.D. 2 to A.D. 1860 which seems to have some sort of access restriction. the URL is here: _http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/bookman/meteorites/GREG.HTM

edit2: also found a PDF describing a bolide (exploding meteor) that fell over the iberian (spanish) pennisula in 2004: _http://tierra.rediris.es/publipapers/Fireball.pdf

[stardust]

A little one in Jilin (China) in 1976 . Diameter of the hole : 2 m. Depth : 6 m

[Ottershrew]

He wasn't referring to Tunguska because he mentioned Tunguska as a well-known event.  Read his entire commentary which is linked from the main article.  

An "Amazon Basin Impact" has been mentioned as well as one in Turkey.  Information on those events would be much appreciated if anyone can dig up details.

Here's a link to a table of major 20th century asteroid/cometary impacts.

This gives the approximate yields of each explosion in equivalent tonnage of TNT, and covers the better-known Cando (Spain), Vitim (Russia) and Eastern Mediterranean Events, as well as several lesser-known events.

Very, very disturbing survey ...

See also:

Sikhote-Alin Meteorite
Cando Event
Eastern Mediterranean Event
Vitim Event
Vela Incident

Lots of amazing stuff here as well on modern impact events.

[Vulcan59]

Well here is another link to impact events entitled "FREQUENCY OF THE METEORITICAL EVENTS OF MEGATONIC CLASS" by a Roberto Gorelli.  Seems like a major difference between Wikipedia and what Roberto found.

LIST OF THE METEORITICAL EVENTS OF MEGATONIC CLASS
THAT OCCURED IN THE LAST 2 CENTURIES

1) april 5, 1800
   North America
   fall of a big meteorite with an earthquake and overthrow of forest
   that appeared as upseted
   energy release: ?
   source proceeding  from: E. Howard in Transactions philosophiq. ann.
   1802, n. 23, chapter 338 (Izarn, 1803)

2) november 9 or 19, 1819
   Canada and North of U.S.A.
   black rain jointed with bolids, shakes of earthquake and obscuration
   of the sky
   energy release: ?
   sources proceeding from: a) Zurcher, Meteors, pag 238; b) Edinburgh
   philosophical journal 2-381; c) F.G. Plummer on U.S. Forest Service
   bulletin n. 117 (Fort, 1973)

3) february 24, 1885
   37° North - 170° East, Pacific Ocean
   red inflamed sky, blinding mass fell on the ocean and lifting a big
   mass of water
   energy release: ?
   source proceeding from a report of brigantine Innerwich trasmitted at
   the Hydrographic Office in Washington by the San Francisco filial and
   published on Science, 5-242 (Fort, 1973)

4)may 3, 1892
   Sweden, Norway, Denmark and neighbouring territories
   fall of 500 tn of dust
   energy release: ?

5)june 30, 1908
   Tunguska, Siberia, Russia
   energy release: 12,5 megatons
   (Tempesti, 1978)

6) August 13, 1930
   Rio Curuça, Amazonia, Brazil
   energy release: 0,1 - 1 megatons
   (Gorelli, 1992)

7) December 11, 1935
   2° 10' North - 59° 10' West
   Marudi Mountain, British Guyana
   energy release: higher to 10 megatons ?
   source proceeding from: The Sky, september 1939, from a report of S.
   A. Korff of Bartol Research Foundation, Franklin Institute (Delaware,
   U.S.A.). Adjointed sources: W.H. Holden and D. Holdridge (Steel, 1995)

[Vulcan59]

Found a link to a research paper written by some military personnel and presented to a body called Airforce 2025. This research paper was presented in October of 1996 and was titled "Planetary Defense:Catastrophic Health Insurance for Planet Earth". Interestingly they had a table entitled "Injuries and Deaths Caused by ECO Impacts". I wonder where they got the data from.

[Ottershrew]

Here's another listing of meteorites that have hit humans, animals and/or man-made objects.

Astonishing reading - there's been an awful lot going on that doesn't quite make it into the MSM, and just stays in local news reports. The suppression seems to have been going on for quite some time ...

edit: updated hyperlink

[Endymion]

Regarding the 'FREQUENCY OF THE METEORITICAL EVENTS OF MEGATONIC CLASS' I decided to put the dates into a visual format to get a better idea of their frequency. Here it is:



One can clearly see that the frequency of events increased towards 1935.

Using 'meteoritic events since 1930' as a search term, some interesting material popped up:

The Day The Earth Trembled by John McFarland, a page from the Armagh Observatory, has an account of the 13 August 1930 Brazil event, with information that is different from that quoted by Vitaly Adushkin & Ivan Nemchinov.

Here is a pdf document entitled 'Brazilian Impact Craters': _http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1546.pdf

At this url: _http://www.xtec.es/recursos/astronom/craters/amazonase.htm is an article entitled: 'Two "Tunguskas" in South America in the 1930's?' Originally printed in IMO's December 1995 edition of the WGN Journal. It was written by Duncan Steel of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, with references.

From the last mentioned page, the following is the wording of a Newspaper article printed in The Daily Herald on March 6, 1931:

+ MENACE OF METEORS LIKE HUGE BOMBS FROM SPACE
+ HURRICANE OF FLAME
+ BLAZING BOLTS FIRE FORESTS
+ MANKIND'S LUCK

Another colossal bombardment of the earth from outerspace has just been revealed.

Three great meteors, falling in Brazil, fired and depopulated hundreds of miles of jungle.

News of this catastrophe has only now reached civilization because the meteors fell in the remote S. American wilderness.

It was yet another lucky escape of mankind from an appalling and unrealized peril.

The last great meteor fell in Siberia in 1908. In a district so remote that only last year were details of it's destruction given to the world. Had either of these two meteor falls chanced to strike a city in a densely populated country, frightful loss of life and damage would have been cuased. "A Meteor", Mr. C.J.P. Cave an ex-president of the Royal meteorological Society stated recently "carries in front of it a mass of compressed and incandescent air.

When it strikes the earth, this air "splashes" in a hurricane of fire...The Brazilian meteors are reported (says the Central News) by Father Fidello of Aviano. writing from San Paulo de Alivencia in the state of Amazonas, to the papal newspaper, "Osservatore Romano".

BLAZING FOREST The meteors fell almost simultaneously during an amazing storm. Terrific heat was engendered. Immediately they struck the ground the whole forest was ablaze.

The fire continued uninterrupted for some months, depopulating a large area. The fall of the meteor was preceded by remarkable atmospheric disturbances. At 8 o'clock in the morning the sun became blood-red and a penumbra spread all over the sky, producing the effect of a solar eclipse. Then an immense cloud of reddish powder filled the air and it looked as if the whole world was going to blaze up.

WHISTLING SOUND The powder was succeeded by fine cinders which covered trees and vegetation with a blanket of white. There followed a whistling sound that pierced the air with car-breaking intensity, then another and another.

Three great explosions were heard and the earth trembled. The Siberian meteor of 1908 completely destroyed the forest over an area of 70 miles in diameter. It's roar was heard 600 miles away and it's glare maintained twilight all night even in England.

Reading the article I was struck by this:

The fire continued uninterrupted for some months, depopulating a large area.

Which reminded me of this:

A: Well, the burning fragmentary shower ignited much of the land areas in what you now refer to as Western Europe. This had the results you can imagine, causing the resulting societal breakdown you now refer to as "The Dark Ages."

I can understand how a fire continues uninterrupted for months in the Brazilian rain forest. The heat dries out the trees and the ground and renders everything inflammable. But how did the burning fragmentary shower ignite much of the land areas in what you now refer to as Western Europe? Maybe the land was more heavily forested at that time? Do comets/meteors release some inflammable substance when they explode which adheres to anything with which it comes into contact, and burns slowly?

[Endymion]

Another document just found:

On Events Possibly Related to the ‘‘Brazil Magnesium’’ by Pierre Kaufmann and Peter A Sturrock, in pdf format, can be found here: _http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/18.2_kaufmann_sturrock.pdf

The document discusses several events involving objects coming from the sky; part 4 has information about a possible meteorite impact in 1993 or 1934; and Part 5 discusses an event in 1957.

[PopHistorian]

The idea of comet impact being popularized:  FYI, Discover magazine has published an article in the December issue called, Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?.  

_http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov/did-a-comet-cause-the-great-flood

[Snow]

Maybe the land was more heavily forested at that time?

I say yes. Before the Middle Ages (Early Middle Ages) large parts of Europe were still covered in vast forests. After around 1250 AD people started to deforest Europe in earnest.

[JamesP]

About Comets and earth changes:

There is the good old Immanuel Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, Earth in Upheaval, Ages in Chaos.

You wouldn't miss James McCanney's hard science, electric discharge comet model:  
www.jmccsci.com

You will have to study, listen to the "science hours" from the very beginning or read the books: Planet x, comets and earth changes and others.
Physicist Ark may be interested to check.

regards,
JamesP

[Laura]

About Comets and earth changes:

There is the good old Immanuel Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, Earth in Upheaval, Ages in Chaos.

You wouldn't miss James McCanney's hard science, electric discharge comet model:  
www.jmccsci.com

You will have to study, listen to the "science hours" from the very beginning or read the books: Planet x, comets and earth changes and others.
Physicist Ark may be interested to check.

Thanks.

I've got/read all the Velikovsky books.  Clube points out that Velikovsky was pretty much on the money if he hadn't gone off on the "Venus" thing and claimed it was a "one off" event.

I've also got McCanney's book on the stack here, just haven't gotten to it yet!  I'm reading as fast as I can!