This chapter picks up in the 1920s where it follows the campaign of scientist Leonid Kulik to reach the site of the blast. After gathering various pieces of information about the 1908 event, Kulik set off to find the location of Tunguska. This endeavor proved more difficult than expected as the desolate taiga of Siberia remained inaccessible on his first several tries. Yet Kulik’s doggedness was well-suited for the remoteness and severity of the Tunguska environment. Aided by Evenki guides and the work of a handful of other researchers, Kulik finally made it to the epicenter in 1927. His team undertook another, more extensive, expedition the following year. Despite this success, the Tunguska taiga and the cosmos continued to exert a major influence on the research of field scientists, while public attention helped turn Tunguska into a mystery.

Continuing chronologically, this chapter picks up the story of the expeditions of Leonid Kulik in 1929 and follows Tunguska research through World War II. A desire to figure out the source of the destroyed forest fostered a set of distinct ecological interactions at the blast site. Workers and scientists began draining waterlogged holes in the ground in search of meteorite fragments, collecting rock samples, and planning an aerial survey of the location. At this stage scouring and manipulating the environment to find a space rock took precedence. Thwarted by political intrigues, environmental obstacles, and the lack of large remains, the mission to find a meteorite proved unsuccessful. While a pattern had now been established in terms of how to engage materially with the Tunguska site, the mystery of what had happened there only deepened.