The Tunguska Event: Eyewitness Account

Ye. Ye. Sarychev, Kansk

interviewed by D. F. Landsberg in Kansk, 11 October 1921:

I was a master tanner. In the summer (it was closer to spring) around eight o’clock (in the morning), I and my workers were washing wool on the shore of the Kana river when suddenly I heard at first a noise, as from the wings of a frightened bird, coming from the south toward the east, toward the village of Antsyr’, and a wave like a ripple went up the river in the direction of the current. After that there followed one sharp crash, and after it, hollow, seemingly subterranean rumbles. The crash was so strong that one of the workers, Yegor Stepanovich Vlasov (he is now dead) fell into the water. With the noise, there appeared in the air a radiance, circular in form, with nearly half the dimensions of the moon, with a bluish hue, flying quickly in the direction from Filimonov toward Irkutsk. After the radiance there remained behind a trace, in the form of a blue-gray streak, stretching along almost the whole way and then gradually disappearing from its end. The radiance, without breaking up, vanished behind the mountain. I didn’t notice the duration of the phenomenon, but it was very brief. The weather was completely clear and it was calm.

— translated by Bill DeSmedt

[Notes]

[Top of Page]

copyright (c) 2004 by amber productions, inc.