05/26/2025
NEW ARTICLE RELEASE: A Tunguska Sized Airburst Destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age City in the Jordan Valley Near the Dead Sea (Expanded)
Carl Sagan famously stated the often-quoted and often-misused phrase, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” To clarify, he warned, “The worst aspect is that some scientists attempt to suppress [new] ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge and has no place in the endeavor of science.”
Ignoring Sagan’s warning, a small but vocal group of scientists actively sought to stifle discussion on the Tall el-Hammam airburst. Such actions undermine the principles of scientific inquiry. Nevertheless, after nearly four years of constant badgering by this small group of critics since the publication or our original article in 2021, Nature Scientific Reports caved in to their demands and withdrew our original article from publication.
In response, the authors updated, expanded, and republished the original article on Tall el-Hammam in the journal Airbursts and Cratering Impacts. This new article incorporates novel data on the SW-to-NE directionality of the blast wave, shocked quartz at both Tall el-Hammam and Tunguska, and a hydrocode model of the proposed impact event. This publication represents the merging of three previous publications relevant to Tall el-Hammam, with overlapping co-authorship by Bunch et al., Silvia et al., and Kletetschka et al., plus additional contributions from the collective group of co-authors.
Read or download the new and expanded article here:
We present evidence that Tall el-Hammam, a fortified Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley, was destroyed by an extraordinary high-energy event in approximately 1650 BCE. Excavations reveal th...
