In the United States the modern flying saucer era began in the desert of Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, but in Russia, the modern flying saucer era began in 1908, as villagers from a sparsely populated area of central Siberia, near the Tunguska River, witnessed a large glowing object streak across the sky and explode in midair with the force of an atomic blast equal to over 40 megatons, completely destroying miles of forest.