On June 30th, 1908, an astronomer working in Ireland wrote down an unusual observation.

The astronomer recorded that there was, quote, a nocturnal glow that night, that it was

bright enough to read a newspaper by.

But on that night, there was hardly any moon, it was a waxing crescent just barely visible.

The nocturnal glow that the astronomer was seeing was the effect of an incident that occurred

half a world away.

More than 3,000 miles away in northern Siberia, 80 million trees had been flattened to

the ground, and they laid out in a circular radius pattern.

At the very center of the radius, the trees still stood straight up.

They were burnt to a crisp, their bark stripped away.

It was like a forest of telephone poles.

After this incident, the landscape of that place would never be the same.

I'm Dylan Thoris, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange incredible

and wondrous places.

And today, we head to a very remote region of Russia, the epicenter of what would become

known as the Tunguska event, an event that may seem unfathomable, except we have first

hand accounts from people who witnessed it.

More.

After this.

On that day, back in 1908, at 717 AM in northern Siberia, there was a great flash and

a huge boom.

Tremors shook the ground, windows shattered, and flattened trees left a clearing larger

...