The purpose of the book is a dual one: to detail the nature and results of Tunguska investigations in the former USSR and present-day CIS, and to destroy two long-standing myths still held in the West. The first concerns alleged 'final solutions' that have ostensibly been found in Russia or elsewhere. The second concerns the mistaken belief that there has been little or no progress in understanding the nature of the Tunguska phenomenon. All this is treated by the author in a scholarly and responsible manner. Although the book does present certain unusual findings of Russian and Ukrainian scholars, it is important to stress that this is not a sensational book; it is, rather, a serious exposition of the results of rational investigations into a difficult scientific problem. We are demonstrating the true complexity of the problem that is now entering its second century of existence. Simple meteoritic models cannot explain all the characteristics of this complicated event, and therefore certain so-called 'unconventional hypotheses' about the nature of the Tunguska explosion are to be considered as well.

Vladimir V. Rubtsov was born at 1948 in Kharkov, then the USSR (now independent Ukraine). He received his M.S. degree in computer science in 1972 and after that joined the laboratory of Dr. A. V. Zolotov in Kalinin (now Tver), where for three years studied the problem of the Tunguska explosion. Received his Ph.D. degree in the philosophy of science from the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Moscow, Russia), having defended in 1980 the doctoral thesis 'Philosophical and Methodological Aspects of the Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations' (the first of its kind in the former USSR). Dr. Rubtsov's professional fields are methodology of interdisciplinary research, sociology of science and technology, and general epistemology. He is currently Director of the Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena (RIAP), as well as the Editor of its newsletter RIAP Bulletin.

Dr. Rubtsov has authored some 120 scientific and popular-science articles in the Soviet, post-Soviet, and foreign press, as well as two scientific monographs: The Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations (with A. D. Ursul, Kishinev: 'Shtiintsa' ['Science', the publishing house of the Moldavian Academy of Sciences], 1984& 1987) and UFOs and Modern Science (with Y. V. Platov, Moscow: 'Nauka' ['Science', the publishing house of the Russian Academy of Sciences], 1991).

Dr. Rubtsov is a full member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, an associate member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, USA, a member of the Expert Group on Anomalous Atmospheric Phenomena of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a member of the SETI Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences