From this site, I found some eyewitness reports about the Tunguska Event (30th June 1908). One of them goes like this:
"I was sitting on the porch of the house at the trading station, looking north. Suddenly in the north...the sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire. I felt a great heat, as if my shirt had caught fire... At that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash... I was thrown twenty feet from the porch and lost consciousness for a moment.... The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled.... At the moment when the sky opened, a hot wind, as if from a cannon, blew past the huts from the north. It damaged the onion plants. Later, we found that many panes in the windows had been blown out and the iron hasp in the barn door had been broken."
I've highlighted some of the events that I found quite interesting. Assuming the eyewitness's report is true, I tried to come up with an explanation for these events.
The great heat must've been infrared and visible rays transferring energy via electromagnetic radiation, causing his skin's (and his shirt's) temperature to rise. The meteor must have produced compressional waves in the ground (seismic) and in the air. According to my understanding, the compressional air waves energy must have carried the eyewitness due to it likely having a large amplitude, and the earth trembling must have been the seismic waves.
However, I was unable to come up with an explanation for the noise like stones falling from the sky. My first thoughts were that this was the sound of the meteor disintegrating. A second eyewitness' report from the same site contradicts this suggestion:
"A ball of fire...coming down obliquely. A few minutes later [we heard] separate deafening crash like peals of thunder...followed by eight loud bangs like gunshots."
While I am skeptical of the accuracy of the number eight, this must suggest that each "gunshot" occured at a separate time, so it may not have been a disintegration. (On further thought, this could've been a single disintegration, with the sound waves undergoing several reflections ; many images of the event show a lot of fallen trees)
Could someone provide a suggestion as to what this may have meant (assuming this is true)?
Moreover, what is the hot wind(from the first report) and how did it occur immediately after the P/S seismic waves?
Any help would be appreciated!
