At 7.14 a.m. on June 30, 1908 a huge fireball exploded in the Siberian sky. A thousand times the force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, it flattened an area of remote Tunguska forest bigger than metropolitan New York, forming a mushroom cloud that almost reached into space. What was it? A wayward black hole, a crashing comet, an rogue asteroid, an exotic rock of antimatter or mirror matter, a methane gas blast from below, an alien spacecraft, a laser beam fired by extraterrestrials, or an early experiment in nuclear physics which got out of hand? A century on, this grand dame of science mysteries still fascinates scientists and charlatans alike. Australian science journalist and author Surendra Verma tells the incredible story of this famous fireball. He also examines the major theories - scientific and fanciful - and evaluates the new evidence that claims that the mystery has at last been 'solved.' Or, is it? CONTENTS Introduction 1. Fire in the Sky 2. The Case of a Missing Meteorite 3. The Tale of a Fiery Comet 4. Asteroids Behaving Badly 5. Traceless Tunguska 6. The Incredible Journey of a Black Hole 7. The Matters in Question 8. A Blast from Below 9. Opening the X-files 10. A Fireball in the Dinosaurs' Sky 11. Whodunit? Timeline: 114 Years of an Enigma Sources and Further Reading