List of unexplained explosion events
Encyclopedia
There are several reports on explosion
Explosion
An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...

s of unknown origin, the best known being the 1908 Tunguska event
Tunguska event
The Tunguska event, or Tunguska blast or Tunguska explosion, was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at about 7:14 a.m...

. The explosive yields of the events vary between 1 ton and 20 megatons
TNT equivalent
TNT equivalent is a method of quantifying the energy released in explosions. The ton of TNT is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 gigajoules, which is approximately the amount of energy released in the detonation of one ton of TNT...

, and witnesses have described most of these explosions as result of a meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...

-like event, which ended with the explosion. Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...

 is that these explosions are likely the result of atypical meteors.
Date Location Yield of explosion (TNT equivalent
TNT equivalent
TNT equivalent is a method of quantifying the energy released in explosions. The ton of TNT is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 gigajoules, which is approximately the amount of energy released in the detonation of one ton of TNT...

)
Height of explosion Notes
60 kilometres (37.3 mi) west northwest of Vanavara, at 60°53′09"N 101°53′40"E in Krasnoyarsk Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai
Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...

, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

10 MtTNT 8.5 km (5.3 mi) Tunguska event
Tunguska event
The Tunguska event, or Tunguska blast or Tunguska explosion, was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at about 7:14 a.m...

Curuçá River
Curuçá River
Curuçá River is a river of Amazonas state in north-western Brazil. On August 13, 1930 the area near latitude 5° S and longitude 71.5° W experienced an unexplained explosion event with a yield estimated at between 0.1–1.0 megatonne of TNT ....

 Area, Amazonas, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

0.1 MtTNT generally assumed to be generated by three meteors.
Revelstoke, British Columbia
Revelstoke, British Columbia
Revelstoke is a city in southeastern British Columbia, Canada. It is located east of Vancouver, and west of Calgary, Alberta. The city is situated on the banks of the Columbia River just south of the Revelstoke Dam and near its confluence with the Illecillewaet River...

600 tTNT 13 km (8 mi) 1 g (0.035273962105112 oz) material from meteorite found
Sometimes placed in Southeastern Canada on May 31
Lake Huron
Lake Huron
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the larger portion of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is bounded on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States...

, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

600 tTNT 13 km (8 mi) No material from meteorite found
Photographed boloid body.
Vilna
Vilna, Alberta
Vilna is a historic village in central Alberta, Canada.Vilna is located in Smoky Lake County, on Highway 28, northeast of the city of Edmonton...

, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

600 tTNT 13 km (8 mi) Two very small fragments found - 48 milligram (0.00169315018104537 oz) and 94 milligram (0.00331575243788052 oz). Stored at University of Alberta, in Edmonton.

Photographed
Southern Indian Ocean
Vela Incident
The Vela Incident was an unidentified "double flash" of light that was detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on September 22, 1979....

2 ktTNT This controversial and assumed explosion over the Indian Ocean was named the Vela Incident
Vela Incident
The Vela Incident was an unidentified "double flash" of light that was detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on September 22, 1979....

, having been detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

 (6911). That high-altitude sentry satellite carried several physics instruments designed specifically to detect nuclear explosions.

Three possible causes emerged over the several years following the event: 1) a secret nuclear test, likely by South Africa or Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

; 2) an asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 or meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...

 impact; or 3) spurious instrumentation noise on board the satellite.

Despite numerous sweeps by special USAF radiation detection aircraft, no airborne nuclear contaminants were detected.
Lugo, Northern Italy >10 ktTNT
Cando, Spain
Cando event
The Cando event was an explosion that occurred in the village of Cando, Galicia, Spain, in the morning of January 18, 1994. There were no reported casualties in this incident, which has been described as similar to the Tunguska event....

150 km South of Nuuk
Nuuk
Nuuk, is the capital of Greenland, the northernmost capital in North America and the largest city in Greenland. Located in the Nuup Kangerlua fjord, the city lies on the eastern shore of the Labrador Sea and on the west coast of Sermersooq. Nuuk is the largest cultural and economic center in...

, Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

, at 62°54′N 50°06′W
>0.064 ktTNT >25 km (16 mi) One airburst at 46 km, three more breakups detected between 25 and 30 km. No remains found so far. Yield only based on luminosity, i.e. the total energy might have been considerably larger.
Eastern Mediterranean Event
Eastern Mediterranean Event
The Eastern Mediterranean Event was a high-energy aerial explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, around 34°N 21°E on June 6, 2002. This explosion, similar in power to a small atomic bomb, has been related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth. The object disintegrated and no part was...

 over the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 between Libya and Greece
26 ktTNT
Bodaybo
Vitim event
The Vitim event or Bodaybo event is believed to be an impact by a bolide or comet nucleus in the Vitim River basin. It occurred near the town of Bodaybo in the Mamsko-Chuisky district of Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia on September 25, 2002 at approximately 10:00 p.m....

, Russia
0.5 ktTNT
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