The Tall el-Hammam Airburst Claim

Summary

On 20 September 2021 a paper with twenty-one authors appeared in Scientific Reports arguing that a cosmic airburst larger than the 1908 Tunguska event had destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley, around 1650 BC. It reported shocked quartz, melted pottery and mudbrick, diamond-like carbon and metal spherules, and proposed that a salt influx had left the region abandoned for centuries. The paper raised the possibility that an oral tradition of the destruction lay behind the account of Sodom in Genesis, and press coverage ran with it.

Over the next three and a half years the paper accumulated two author corrections, two published rebuttals and an editorial note. On 24 April 2025 the journal retracted it, stating that the editors no longer had confidence that the conclusions were reliable. Eleven of the twenty-one authors are recorded in the retraction notice as disagreeing with it.

What is documented

The claim. That a cosmic airburst around 1650 BC, larger than Tunguska, destroyed the city; that a city-wide destruction layer contained shocked quartz, melted pottery and mudbrick, diamond-like carbon and metal and mineral spherules; that heating experiments indicated temperatures above 2,000 degrees Celsius; and that a resulting salt influx halted agriculture and left about 120 regional settlements abandoned for three to six centuries.

The first correction, 22 February 2022. Published five months after the paper. It listed several dozen manipulated figures and supplied original images. Its own wording: "The Authors recognise that this level of manipulation was inappropriate, and provide original images." The image problems had been flagged publicly by an image-integrity analyst.

The first rebuttal, 25 March 2022. Jaret and Harris published a Matters Arising titled "No mineralogic or geochemical evidence of impact at Tall el-Hammam". They argued that the melted pottery and sediment could be explained by ancient smelting rather than a cosmic fireball, and that the data did not meet the established criteria for documenting an extraterrestrial event.

The editorial note, February 2023. The journal alerted readers that concerns raised about the data and the conclusions were being considered by the editors, and that a further editorial response would follow. That note is no longer listed in the article’s amendment history, so the Registry records its wording at second hand and does not state which formal label the publisher applied.

The second correction, 22 May 2023. It updated a figure taken from another researcher’s simulation work which critics said had been mislabelled and misinterpreted.

The second rebuttal, 22 April 2025. Boslough and Bruno published "Misunderstandings about the Tunguska event, shock wave physics, and airbursts have resulted in misinterpretations of evidence at Tall el-Hammam". Their opening: the original authors "make several incorrect statements about the Tunguska event and about airbursts in general", and "Collectively, these errors have led to assertions of evidence that do not appear to be supported by the data."

What specifically was wrong, on the physics. The figure of more than eighty million fallen trees at Tunguska traces to an overestimate of the fallen-forest area by about a factor of four. The stated tree diameter of up to a metre is inflated by roughly an order of magnitude, the largest trees being nearer thirty centimetres. The claim of temperatures above 300,000 degrees is not supported by the sources cited. On hypervelocity surface winds, the rebuttal states that "There is not a single source in the vast body of scientific literature on Tunguska that suggests" them. Working from standard blast-effect figures, the authors estimate air heating of only about 20 to 45 degrees Celsius, and conclude: "This is not hot enough to melt pottery or mudbricks."

The retraction, 24 April 2025. Two days after that rebuttal. The notice gives three grounds: the mineralogic and geochemical concerns about errors in methodology, analyses and interpretation; the finding that the comparisons with Tunguska were not adequately substantiated, with errors propagated from sources that overestimated Tunguska’s temperature, wind speeds and blast; and the editors’ conclusion that the airburst claims were not sufficiently supported, such that they no longer had confidence the conclusions were reliable.

Where the authors stand. The notice names eleven of the twenty-one authors as disagreeing with the retraction. Nine did not respond. The first author had died. One co-author said publicly that they "strongly disagree with the retraction" and intend to republish with new data.

The separate archaeological criticism. The radiocarbon dating was criticised for assuming in advance that all the dates must represent a single event, which one critic characterised as affirming the consequent. Biological anthropologists questioned the reading of the human remains. On the imagery, the integrity analyst noted that several photographs of the dig sites appeared to contain cloned parts.

On the Sodom identification. Writing in SAPIENS, Kersel, Chesson and Hill state that the vast majority of archaeologists working in the region do not accept that Tall el-Hammam is Sodom, and describe proving the identification as "the entire point of the endeavor" for the excavation directed by Steven Collins.

Reach before retraction. The paper had accumulated 187 comments on the post-publication review site PubPeer and nineteen citations in Web of Science by the time it was withdrawn.

Leading explanations

The reported material is not evidence of an impact (Jaret and Harris, 2022; the first ground for retraction). That the reported material does not meet the established criteria for identifying an extraterrestrial event, and that the melted pottery and sediment could reflect ancient high-temperature activity such as smelting. The retraction notice cites these concerns first. Neither the critics nor the journal say what did destroy the city.

The airburst physics does not work as described (Boslough and Bruno, 2025; the second ground for retraction). That the paper’s account of Tunguska and of airbursts in general is wrong in several specific, checkable ways, and that standard blast figures give air heating of tens of degrees, not enough to melt pottery or mudbrick.

A cosmic airburst destroyed the city (Bunch and colleagues, 2021; retracted). The original claim. Withdrawn by the journal on 24 April 2025. Eleven of its authors continue to disagree with the withdrawal and have said they intend to republish with new data, which has not appeared as of this review.

Current status

Debunked. The claim was published, examined in public for three and a half years, and withdrawn by the journal that published it. The record is unusually complete: two author corrections, two published rebuttals in the same journal, an editorial note, and a retraction notice setting out three grounds. The physics objections are specific and checkable, resting on documented overestimates of the Tunguska event carried into the paper from its own cited sources, and ending at an estimate of air heating far below what melting pottery would require. What did destroy the city is a separate archaeological question that neither critique set out to answer. A republication of the claim with new data, which eleven of the authors say they intend, would be assessed on its own terms and would change this record only if it survived the same scrutiny.

Last reviewed: November 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.