Normally one would expect a story such as this one to be in the National Enquirer. However, in this case, the story presents some interesting features which may have ramifications for the scientific application of ID.
In this case, the Russian scientist is claiming that back in 1908 an ET deliberately flew their spacecraft into a large meteorite to protect our planet. The crash took place in what is called the Tunguska site, somewhere in Siberia. According to Wikipedia, the impact was probably equivalent to a 10-15 megaton nuke. Pretty powerful for 1908. You can see a photo in the Wiki link.
According to the Foxnews report, “Dr. Yuri Labvin, president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, insists that an alien spacecraft sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from slamming into the planet above Siberia on June 30, 1908.” And here’s where things get interesting. Apparently Labvin has uncovered some artifacts along a river bed at the site.
“It was not until many years later that a Siberian scientist set up an expedition to the place of the meteorite’s crash. They searched carefully through the river banks and found unusual quartz boards
Mr. Lavbin states that such solid stones do not exist on our planet Earth. He told of an experiment that was done on the crystals: scientists tried to put some of the same drawing that were on the stones initially with a sophisticated laser machine.How surprised they were to realize that the laser (that usually cuts metal objects into pieces) managed to put just some faint stripes, barely visible. The stones, have an entire system of different lines and circles on them. Scientists suppose that the stones used to be a part of the navigational system of a spaceship. All stones united form a map, which they could have used to cruise through the Universe.” (From the MINA news story
“But Labvin thinks quartz slabs with strange markings found at the site are remnants of an alien control panel, which fell to the ground after the UFO slammed into the giant rock.”
“We don’t have any technologies that can print such kind of drawings on crystals,” Labvin told the Macedonian International News Agency. “We also found ferrum silicate that can not be produced anywhere, except in space.”(From Foxnews story)
So, apparently these crystals displayed markings can not be printed by any known technology we humans posses and which must have features that natural means wouldn’t produce either. There are some interesting applications for ID here, I think.
Are these natural phenomenon or intelligently caused. If natural, how and under what conditions did nature do it? If intelligently caused, then when was it done, how and by whom? If these crystals really have just been lying there since 1908, then given the technologies of the time, how might humans have done it? If no known technology of the time could have done it, then how was it done? Is this an intelligently designed hoax, a real artifact from an alien intelligence, or a natural phenomenon? And, how might we examine these artifacts to determine that?
If these artifacts are the result of intelligent cause, what would make the process for making that determination different from doing the same thing for biological systems?