Impact events have etched our history. Halloween coincides with a very dangerous crossing through the Taurid Meteor stream.
Halloween is a day of the year when children (and often adults) dress up in death and dread related theme. There’s no apparent reason for the custom, besides eating lots of candy, of course.
Isn’t it strange that custom is undertaken by millions of people worldwide without knowing the reason why? Well, it turns out there is a true meaning of Halloween. Cultures all around the world have holidays strangely like Halloween. They follow similar themes and patterns that all fall in late October and early November.
Throughout prehistory, ancient societies also remembered this time. So how far does this tradition go into human origins? Also, what is the true meaning of Halloween?
For a holiday to be global, it has to have an earth-wide purpose. What is more universal than the sky? Studying ancient astronomy during the period of Halloween may reveal the answers.
Today, astronomers have revealed the patterns of meteor showers at set times of the year. The earth and its motion through meteor streams coincide to specific times, like a clock. The Taurid meteor stream occurs within (you guessed it), late October early November.
Is Halloween a tradition of the ancient astronomy of prehistoric man?
When is Halloween?
Today, Halloween is celebrated on October 31st.
Why does Halloween exist around the world?
The Halloween period marks holidays in different cultures across the planet. Christian traditions celebrate All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day over three days.
In Mexico and much of Latin America, the holiday is called the Day of the Dead.
The ancient druid culture also celebrates Halloween and bonfires, torches, and fires at this time around the UK. The Celtics named the day ‘Samhain’ which was thought to align with the end of the summer harvest.
At the same time, the Ancient Egyptians, Hindus, Japanese, and the Ancient Romans all had celebrations spanning over three days.
Ancient Peru had a festival of the dead on the 2nd of November. Spain shares the date through their All Souls Day.
In the southern hemisphere, the day of the dead is celebrated by Indigenous Australians, across the Pacific, and Tongan Islands.
Chasms of time and distance separated each of these ancient societies. They had unrelated languages and calendars systems. Yet, their Halloween festivals always fell on or around November 1st.
What could have been the origin of such human behavior?
Meteor showers and ancient astronomy
Earth is orbiting through a galaxy littered with trillions of pieces of debris. These include comets, asteroids, and meteors of different sizes and shapes.
If you spend a night to sit and watch the sky, you will see many shooting stars across the sky. Called ‘near earth objects,’ most that come close enough, will enter the atmosphere and burn up shortly after.
Today we don’t appreciate how many bodies earth must avoid during its orbit of the sun. Astronomers have only recently begun to understand the cycles that our planet has encounters with these objects. Meteors turn out to be far more regular than previously thought.
Meteor streams are classified by the time of year they appear and the part of the sky they project from. Streams that appear around a constellation in the sky are named after that group of stars. The Leonid meteor stream appears oprojecut of the constellation of Leo.
The time of Halloween coincides precisely with a period that happens two times a year. They are both periods of high meteor activity.
The Taurid Meteor Stream
As the most ancient surviving human culture, the Indigenous Australian attribute their day of the dead to an evil comet-like being in the sky.
Late October, early November is when the earth passes through one of the largest meteor streams. You can see The Taurid Meteor stream by finding the Tauris constellation in the sky. That’s where the Taurids appears to project from.
Earth passes through the Taurid stream twice a year. The first is in late June, and again in very late October, early November. Like the orbit of the earth, the crossing is like clockwork and happens at the same time of the year.
It has been referred to as the November fireworks due to the fiery flashes that appear in the sky.
The two crossings of the Taurid Meteor Stream are quite different. One is when the stream moves away from the sun. That’s the first passing of the year, in late June. The stream appears during the day and from the direction of the sun.
As the sun’s brightness blinds us, it is nearly impossible to see the stream flying past earth or entering the atmosphere.
The second Taurid meteor passing is in early November and happens at night. It’s fully visible in the night sky because there is no light from the sun.
The near impact Tunguska Event
The mystery of Halloween now delves deeper. It is logical that a Halloween culture would develop from the night lights of a meteor stream in early November. Can it be attributed to this simple observation?
Why would it be remembered as the day of the dead? Perhaps the meteors were thought to be evil spirits.
Or, could it remember a time of a previous meteor impact?
The Taurids are one of the largest, and hence, most dangerous meteor streams. Earth has been struck with debris from the stream throughout its history. Today scientists have only recently calculated the regularity and timing of these crossings.
Often we pass through untouched. Other times there are near misses. You probably don’t realize there have been many, many near misses of meteors of impact capability. Other times, we’re unlucky enough to be struck.
In 1908, the earth experienced a near miss of spine-tingling size. In the remote region of Tunguska in Russia, the scars of the cosmic power of meteors remain etched in the land.
The Tunguska impact site is a circle where trees to this day have still not grown back.
At the Tunguska event, a meteor hit the atmosphere over forest land creating an incinerated impact site. You could say it was a miss, but the effects didn’t look like one.
While it didn’t hit the earth, the force was powerful enough to flatten a massive chunk of the forest. The destruction spanned 770 square miles in distance (2000 square km).
It completely flattened 80 million trees.
When was the Tunguska event?
The Tunguska Meteor Event in Russia flattened 80 million trees.
The Tunguska event happened on June 30. It is now traced as an impact with debris from the Taurid meteor stream. As the stream passes in the day the meteor was likely invisible until the very last moments before impact.
There are eyewitness accounts of the event that describe the object as being thrown from the sun, or like a second sun shot towards earth.
There were some very fortunate details about Tunguska that means many people have not heard of it.
- It was very small – Tunguska was a teeny tiny object on the scale of meteors.
- It was very isolated – the impact occurred in a very remote area of Russia. It exploded over dense forest and luckily caused few casualties.
However, the force still equaled the energy of 3000 hydrogen bombs that dropped on Hiroshima or 50 megatons of TNT.
If the meteor had of impacted slightly later, it would have hit over Europe. An event would have altered the history of humanity.
For the few people who witnessed the impact, the sheer force would send shivers down the spine. It would certainly stay etched in your mind, and perhaps the day that it happened would be remembered.
The Halloween and Day of the Dead festival, could be a reminder of the incredible power of the Taurid meteor stream.
Does Halloween remember an impact event?
It’s easy to forget that impact events have etched the earth’s history. One must only look at the moon without a telescope, and you visibly see craters from large meteor events.
There was no impact crater at Tunguska. The scar left in the forest of Tunguska will be gone in barely a century. Without the memory of the people who saw it, it could be completely forgotten.
Even events that leave meteors are hidden by earth’s ability to regenerate. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor that hit the Mexican Gulf. It took decades before the underwater crater was found to prove the event. In 1996 Astronomers watched as the meteor “Shoemaker-Levy 9” hit Jupiter with devastating effects.
During the course of our history, our ancestors have lived through impact events. We are the survivors of those times and Halloween may be a reminder of the dangerous nature of our solar system.
Conclusion
Halloween or Day of the Dead festival is celebrated all around the world with nearly identical themes.
Could it be a ritual to remember a time of the unthinkable power of the Taurid meteor stream?
Now it’s up to you.
What do you think are the true meanings of Halloween?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Further reading
- https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/695704?journalCode=jg
- https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/405/3/1901/966774
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003206331630277X
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