The Clearing (Courtesy of Cunning Folk Films) The sky split in two. Those words stuck with Stephanie Trainer. She was reading an issue of
National Geographic when she came across an article about the Tunguska Event: On June 30, 1908, a massive explosion wiped out almost a thousand square miles of forest in the deepest heart of Russia, an event that has still never been explained to this day. She vaguely remembered it as the backdrop to an episode of
The X-Files, but the article opened up a rabbit hole for her. While the scientific discussion was fascinating, what really intrigued her were the interviews with those living in the region at the time, including that simple, ominous description: The sky split in two. Trainer said, Because it happened back in 1908, scientific tools were still rather rudimentary so civilians came up with their own stories of what might have been the cause: everything from aliens to God.