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So I've always had this (entirely crackpot) idea that the Tunguska Event is actually the place and time in space/history that you'd want to test the first time-

So I've always had this (entirely crackpot) idea that the Tunguska Event is actually the place and time in space/history that you'd want to test the first time-travel device to. From a 'test system' design perspective: - You'd want it to be somewhere isolated to avoid casualties, especially if there was a radiation risk (which you wouldn't know). - You wouldn't want people to be able to analyze the immediate wreckage with any kind of high fidelity because there might be signatures of whatever you sent back (or however you sent it) that might change the course of history/technology. - You'd want there to be fairly detailed recordings (ideally photos), and for it to persist into modern history, not just be a weird anomaly of 'the past'. - You wouldn't want it be interpreted as some kind of military action. To be very clear, I don't actually believe this is what happened, but I quite like the idea...

CaptSpify 10y ago
I love stories based on these premises. It's so much fun to take a weird mysterious event, and put a conspiracy behind it. Why? I dunno. Some part of human nature, I guess. Also: https://www.comixology.com/Atomic-Robo-The-Shadow-From-Beyond-Time/digital-comic/197604 https://www.comixology.com/Atomic-Robo-The-Shadow-From-Beyon...
powertower 10y ago
That's actually one of the theories of crop circles... That they are signs being used to gauge how the time-line has been effected. http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/fringe2015c.html http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/fringe2015c.html
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- 467568985476 10y ago
  Wow! If "a group of remote viewers" concluded that, it must be true!
- FreeFull 10y ago
  I'd say crop circles are made by bored people, using planks with rope tied to them, and markers so they know which way to flatten the crops.
  - bashinator 10y ago
    There's no way humanity could master that kind of technology!!! /s
funkyy 10y ago
Maybe Tunguska event was first time travel that failed badly...
- wybiral 10y ago
  Maybe it was a success. Maybe we didn't send a person back, we just created an explosion in the past for the purpose of verifying that it altered history. Success! Now we just have to find Nelson Mandela and the creator of the Berenstein Bears... (Okay, I'm done being a crackpot now, it was fun though)
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    How many timelines are there? Or is there just a single timeline and the act of sending this event back in time has always existed, the timelines conjoined at some quantum level.
    - wybiral 10y ago
      It feels paradoxical either way to me, but maybe the multiverse is cool with there being universes that are paradoxical. Perhaps there's a dimension beyond time, and just as information changes in space across time, the entirety of our timeline changes within this upper dimension. The timeline that we once thought was straight and obvious turns out to be wiggling around and looping through itself in this "time of times". Now, where did I put all of my tin foil...
  - internaut 10y ago
    Berenstein Bears, are they a real life Stand Alone Complex? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12064194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12064194 It is hard to point to the existence of a coordinating mechanism apart from a collective brain glitch. But if it isn't a collective brain glitch it can only be something peculiar in the environment. If so, what?
  - funkyy 10y ago
    Wouldnt be easier and safer for timespace to just drop an artifact in remote area and then try to retrieve it though? Killing people as an timespace event could cause changes in to the world.
maxerickson 10y ago
If you are confident you can hit a 4d coordinate, just point your device out into space at your present time. (if I got the numbers right, we are 108 years * 390 km/s = ~0.14 light years from the location of the Tunguska collision)
- stouset 10y ago
  Based on which reference frame?
  - akiselev 10y ago
    The solar system's rotation is about the center of the galaxy so that would be the natural pick for an inertial reference frame, or the supermassive black hole believed to be in the center.
    - kachnuv_ocasek 10y ago
      Rotating frames of reference are not inertial.
      - akiselev 10y ago
        The center of the galaxy isn't rotating, it's just a point, no? Picking the criteria for such a point would be difficult and tracking it even more so, but what's the alternative?
        bashinator 10y ago
        The center of the galaxy is almost certainly rotating, and is a supermassive black hole, not a point.
        akiselev 10y ago
        That's just the massive object at the center of our galaxy.
nickt 10y ago
While we're on the subject of crackpot ideas - don't forget that Nikola Tesla has occasionally been blamed[1]. Not sure how big your tinfoil hat would need to be to avoid a Tunguska-level event! [1]http://www.teslasociety.com/tunguska.htm http://www.teslasociety.com/tunguska.htm
- taneq 10y ago
  It's where he stored the stockpile of spare Hugh Jackmans. They hit critical mass.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
sdenton4 10y ago
According to the Ghostbusters, the Tunguska event was the biggest 'interdimensional cross-rip' of the 20th century, prior to the whole Zuul incursion.
- davesque 10y ago
  This is my preferred explanation.
- thesagan 10y ago
  I really wonder which form the Destructor took in that scenario. The impact object itself?
- teddyh 10y ago
  You mean the Gozer incursion. “Zuul was a minion of Gozer.”
adventureloop 10y ago
There was a short story on starshipsofa[1] with a similar premise. A research team working time travel are worried about massive energy events, so they plan their test runs to coincide with nuclear tests. I wish I could remember what it was called, it was rather good. [1]: http://www.starshipsofa.com/ http://www.starshipsofa.com/
rmsaksida 10y ago
Another event that took place in Russia and led to a variety of crackpot theories: the Dyatlov Pass incident. [0] > The incident involved a group of nine experienced ski hikers from the Ural Polytechnical Institute who had set up camp for the night on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl. Investigators later determined that the skiers had torn their tents from the inside out. They fled the campsite inadequately dressed, some of them barefoot, under heavy snowfall and at temperatures below freezing. Six victims were determined to have died from hypothermia, while others showed signs of trauma. One victim had a fractured skull and another was found with brain damage without any sign of distress to the skull. Additionally, one woman's tongue was missing. > Soviet authorities determined that an "unknown compelling force" had caused the deaths. Access to the region was consequently blocked for hikers and adventurers for three years after the incident. Due to the lack of survivors, the chronology of events remains uncertain. > Several explanations have been put forward, including an avalanche, infrasound-induced panic, and a military accident. Sensationalist hypotheses include a hostile encounter with a yeti or other unknown creature. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
- Houshalter 10y ago
  The missing tongue is the weirdest part. Otherwise it could be explained by hypothermia. Or, possibly, drugs.
  - somethingsimple 10y ago
    > Otherwise it could be explained by hypothermia. Or, possibly, drugs. Except for the radiation. To me that's what makes it the weirdest.
  - imaginenore 10y ago
    The missing tongue is not the weirdest part. Animals could have eaten it. Every hypothesis about this event that made any sense involves a physical attack by a group of people, likely armed. The only two groups that would mass murder people just not to be found out are 1) foreign military or 2) escaped murderers.
  - 10y ago
protomyth 10y ago
> To be very clear, I don't actually believe this is what happened, but I quite like the idea... I think that's the basic difference between a conspiracy crackpot[1] and a novelist. 1) sadly, as I read more history, a lot more of the "crackpot" than I am comfortable with was actually the truth. People do some strange things for some very odd reasons with some seriously poor logistic skills.
- wlievens 10y ago
  Can you list any good examples? I can't think of any right away
  - mirimir 10y ago
    ECHELON. Parallel construction. XKeyscore. CMU relay early exploit on Tor. Equation Group HDD firmware exploits.
    - xyzzy123 10y ago
      Project MKUltra, Tuskagee, Operation "Green Run", "Igloo White"...
      - ethbro 10y ago
        M28 Davy Crockett, Project 705 / Alfa submarines, Operation Gladio, Duga radar, Project Sanguine / ZEVS, Project Azorian, SOSUS, TACAMO Notably, most of those are answers to "How can we throw money at something to mitigate the risk of getting nuked?"
    - stonemetal 10y ago
      >I read more history None of those are in a history book.
      - protomyth 10y ago
        History is not just written in history books.
DonaldFisk 10y ago
Alien spaceship. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Spaceship_on_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Spaceship_on_Venus Science fiction, of course. Well worth watching. Made in 1960 in East Germany, with an international cast.
Confusion 10y ago
And even better: suppose the cause of Tunguska was simply an asteroid. Then it would still be a great place to test the first time-travel device to, because the place is already associated with weird things. No one would be able to distinguish between readings and hypotheses of the original event and anything added by the time-travel device.

CaptSpify 10y ago

I love stories based on these premises. It's so much fun to take a weird mysterious event, and put a conspiracy behind it. Why? I dunno. Some part of human nature, I guess. Also: https://www.comixology.com/Atomic-Robo-The-Shadow-From-Beyond-Time/digital-comic/197604 https://www.comixology.com/Atomic-Robo-The-Shadow-From-Beyon...

powertower 10y ago

That's actually one of the theories of crop circles... That they are signs being used to gauge how the time-line has been effected. http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/fringe2015c.html http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/fringe2015c.html

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
467568985476 10y ago
Wow! If "a group of remote viewers" concluded that, it must be true!
FreeFull 10y ago
I'd say crop circles are made by bored people, using planks with rope tied to them, and markers so they know which way to flatten the crops.
- bashinator 10y ago
  There's no way humanity could master that kind of technology!!! /s

funkyy 10y ago

Maybe Tunguska event was first time travel that failed badly...

wybiral 10y ago
Maybe it was a success. Maybe we didn't send a person back, we just created an explosion in the past for the purpose of verifying that it altered history. Success! Now we just have to find Nelson Mandela and the creator of the Berenstein Bears... (Okay, I'm done being a crackpot now, it was fun though)
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  How many timelines are there? Or is there just a single timeline and the act of sending this event back in time has always existed, the timelines conjoined at some quantum level.
  - wybiral 10y ago
    It feels paradoxical either way to me, but maybe the multiverse is cool with there being universes that are paradoxical. Perhaps there's a dimension beyond time, and just as information changes in space across time, the entirety of our timeline changes within this upper dimension. The timeline that we once thought was straight and obvious turns out to be wiggling around and looping through itself in this "time of times". Now, where did I put all of my tin foil...
- internaut 10y ago
  Berenstein Bears, are they a real life Stand Alone Complex? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12064194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12064194 It is hard to point to the existence of a coordinating mechanism apart from a collective brain glitch. But if it isn't a collective brain glitch it can only be something peculiar in the environment. If so, what?
- funkyy 10y ago
  Wouldnt be easier and safer for timespace to just drop an artifact in remote area and then try to retrieve it though? Killing people as an timespace event could cause changes in to the world.

maxerickson 10y ago

If you are confident you can hit a 4d coordinate, just point your device out into space at your present time. (if I got the numbers right, we are 108 years * 390 km/s = ~0.14 light years from the location of the Tunguska collision)

stouset 10y ago
Based on which reference frame?
- akiselev 10y ago
  The solar system's rotation is about the center of the galaxy so that would be the natural pick for an inertial reference frame, or the supermassive black hole believed to be in the center.
  - kachnuv_ocasek 10y ago
    Rotating frames of reference are not inertial.
    - akiselev 10y ago
      The center of the galaxy isn't rotating, it's just a point, no? Picking the criteria for such a point would be difficult and tracking it even more so, but what's the alternative?
      - bashinator 10y ago
        The center of the galaxy is almost certainly rotating, and is a supermassive black hole, not a point.
        akiselev 10y ago
        That's just the massive object at the center of our galaxy.

nickt 10y ago

While we're on the subject of crackpot ideas - don't forget that Nikola Tesla has occasionally been blamed[1]. Not sure how big your tinfoil hat would need to be to avoid a Tunguska-level event! [1]http://www.teslasociety.com/tunguska.htm http://www.teslasociety.com/tunguska.htm

taneq 10y ago
It's where he stored the stockpile of spare Hugh Jackmans. They hit critical mass.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

sdenton4 10y ago

According to the Ghostbusters, the Tunguska event was the biggest 'interdimensional cross-rip' of the 20th century, prior to the whole Zuul incursion.

davesque 10y ago
This is my preferred explanation.
thesagan 10y ago
I really wonder which form the Destructor took in that scenario. The impact object itself?
teddyh 10y ago
You mean the Gozer incursion. “Zuul was a minion of Gozer.”

adventureloop 10y ago

There was a short story on starshipsofa[1] with a similar premise. A research team working time travel are worried about massive energy events, so they plan their test runs to coincide with nuclear tests. I wish I could remember what it was called, it was rather good. [1]: http://www.starshipsofa.com/ http://www.starshipsofa.com/

rmsaksida 10y ago

Another event that took place in Russia and led to a variety of crackpot theories: the Dyatlov Pass incident. [0] > The incident involved a group of nine experienced ski hikers from the Ural Polytechnical Institute who had set up camp for the night on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl. Investigators later determined that the skiers had torn their tents from the inside out. They fled the campsite inadequately dressed, some of them barefoot, under heavy snowfall and at temperatures below freezing. Six victims were determined to have died from hypothermia, while others showed signs of trauma. One victim had a fractured skull and another was found with brain damage without any sign of distress to the skull. Additionally, one woman's tongue was missing. > Soviet authorities determined that an "unknown compelling force" had caused the deaths. Access to the region was consequently blocked for hikers and adventurers for three years after the incident. Due to the lack of survivors, the chronology of events remains uncertain. > Several explanations have been put forward, including an avalanche, infrasound-induced panic, and a military accident. Sensationalist hypotheses include a hostile encounter with a yeti or other unknown creature. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

Houshalter 10y ago
The missing tongue is the weirdest part. Otherwise it could be explained by hypothermia. Or, possibly, drugs.
- somethingsimple 10y ago
  > Otherwise it could be explained by hypothermia. Or, possibly, drugs. Except for the radiation. To me that's what makes it the weirdest.
- imaginenore 10y ago
  The missing tongue is not the weirdest part. Animals could have eaten it. Every hypothesis about this event that made any sense involves a physical attack by a group of people, likely armed. The only two groups that would mass murder people just not to be found out are 1) foreign military or 2) escaped murderers.
- 10y ago

protomyth 10y ago

> To be very clear, I don't actually believe this is what happened, but I quite like the idea... I think that's the basic difference between a conspiracy crackpot[1] and a novelist. 1) sadly, as I read more history, a lot more of the "crackpot" than I am comfortable with was actually the truth. People do some strange things for some very odd reasons with some seriously poor logistic skills.

wlievens 10y ago
Can you list any good examples? I can't think of any right away
- mirimir 10y ago
  ECHELON. Parallel construction. XKeyscore. CMU relay early exploit on Tor. Equation Group HDD firmware exploits.
  - xyzzy123 10y ago
    Project MKUltra, Tuskagee, Operation "Green Run", "Igloo White"...
    - ethbro 10y ago
      M28 Davy Crockett, Project 705 / Alfa submarines, Operation Gladio, Duga radar, Project Sanguine / ZEVS, Project Azorian, SOSUS, TACAMO Notably, most of those are answers to "How can we throw money at something to mitigate the risk of getting nuked?"
  - stonemetal 10y ago
    >I read more history None of those are in a history book.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      History is not just written in history books.

DonaldFisk 10y ago

Alien spaceship. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Spaceship_on_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Spaceship_on_Venus Science fiction, of course. Well worth watching. Made in 1960 in East Germany, with an international cast.

Confusion 10y ago

And even better: suppose the cause of Tunguska was simply an asteroid. Then it would still be a great place to test the first time-travel device to, because the place is already associated with weird things. No one would be able to distinguish between readings and hypotheses of the original event and anything added by the time-travel device.