Impact hypothesis

The proposal that a comet or asteroid strike caused a past event on Earth.

An explanation that puts an impact behind a sudden change: an extinction, a climate reversal, a destroyed site. The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis and Tunguska are the site's two cases. The evidence an impact leaves is specific (a crater, shocked minerals, platinum-group metals, glassy spherules), so the argument is usually over whether the claimed markers are what they are said to be and whether they date to the moment claimed.

Where it comes up

Skinwalker Ranch

NASA CNEOS fireball and bolide reports, 1988 to present

Younger Dryas impact hypothesis

The impact hypothesis says that at the onset the Earth passed through the debris of a large fragmenting comet, whose airbursts and impacts deposited a thin boundary layer (the "YDB") across North America, Europe, the…

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). Impact hypothesis [Concept CPT0DECW046HBQE]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW046HBQE

@misc{mysteriesdept_cpt0decw046hbqe,
  title     = {Impact hypothesis},
  author    = {{Mysteries Department}},
  year      = {2026},
  note      = {Concept, catalog key CPT0DECW046HBQE},
  url       = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/CPT0DECW046HBQE}
}