A massive explosion, caused by the airburst of a disintegrating meteor or comet fragment, flattened over eighty million trees across a remote forest region in Tunguska, Siberia. The blast detonated with the force of a massive nuclear bomb, sending shockwaves that were recorded across Europe and causing the night skies as far away as London to glow brightly for days. Because of the absolute remoteness of the site, it took decades for scientific expeditions to formally investigate the event.

The mysterious explosion and the glowing night skies over Europe fueled an explosion of early science fiction poetry and speculative literature. It permanently introduced the terrifying concept of an unannounced cosmic impact into modern twentieth-century literature.