According to the Bible, God punished the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah by obliterating the city. "Fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all," so says the scripture. That may not be as far from the truth as you might think, (except for the God and sinners part.) In Jordan, archaeologists have found evidence that the city of Tell el-Hammam may have been destroyed by an asteroid. According to theology professor John Bergsma of Ohio's Franciscan University, Tell el-Hammam could have inspired the Sodom story. (Or, that may be utter bullshit, according to the Skeptical Inquirer.)
From the Jerusalem Post:
Bergsma received insight into some remarkable discoveries from Steven Collins, the chief archaeologist at Tell el-Hammam. Among these discoveries were pottery shards coated with trinitite, a glassy substance formed when an atomic bomb detonates in a desert, as Bergsma explained. Additionally, human remains were uncovered, with skeletons intact up to the mid-spine, above which only scorch marks remained[…]
Steven Collins likened the devastation to the Tunguska event of 1908, in which a massive asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere over Siberia, causing widespread destruction. He added the proposed airburst would have been larger the Tunguska event, which had 1,000 times more energy than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima."[…]
While Collins is confident in his conclusions, some archaeologists have accused him of prematurely drawing conclusions without sufficient field evidence.
