There was a very compelling film on TV some years back where the tree destruction pattern was reproduced by sliding an explosive charge down a wire above a simulated forest. When the right angle was found, the ‘butterfly’ pattern of felled trees was achieved including trees still standing directly under the point of explosion.
Sounds interesting, I'd love to see it. The crashing UFO idea came from a book "The Fire Came By", it was a Soviet author, and while it's woo-woo way out there, there is some useful research, such as, newspaper accounts in British India from the day of the impact, making estimates of the descent trajectory more accurate.