Dyatlov Pass incident

[MasterOfGhost]

Introduction Story:The Dyatlov Pass incident refers to an event that resulted in the deaths of nine ski hikers in the northern Ural mountains on the night of February 2, 1959. It happened on the east shoulder of the mountain Kholat Syakhl (Холат Сяхл) (a Mansi name, meaning Mountain of the Dead). The mountain pass where the incident occurred has since been named Dyatlov Pass (Перевал Дятлова) after the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov (Игорь Дятлов).

The lack of eyewitnesses and subsequent investigations into the hikers' deaths have inspired much speculation. Investigators determined that the hikers tore open their tent from within, departing barefoot in heavy snow. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, two victims had fractured skulls, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue.[1] According to sources, four of the victims' clothing contained high levels of radiationthough no mention of this fact made of it in contemporary documentation, and only appears in later documents. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths. Access to the area was barred for three years after the incident. The chronology of the incident remains unclear due to the lack of survivors.

Background:

A group was formed for a ski trek across the northern Urals in Sverdlovsk (Свердловск), now Yekaterinburg (Екатеринбург). The group, led by Igor Dyatlov, consisted of eight men and two women. Most were students or graduates of Ural Polytechnical Institute (Уральский Политехнический Институт, УПИ), now Ural State Technical University:

* Igor Dyatlov (Игорь Дятлов), the group's leader

* Zinaida Kolmogorova (Зинаида Колмогорова)

* Lyudmila Dubinina (Людмила Дубинина)

* Alexander Kolevatov (Александр Колеватов)

* Rustem Slobodin (Рустем Слободин)

* Yuri Krivonischenko (Юрий Кривонищенко)

* Yuri Doroshenko (Юрий Дорошенко)

* Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle (Николай Тибо-Бриньоль)

* Alexander Zolotarev (Александр Золотарев)

* Yuri Yudin (Юрий Юдин)

The goal of the expedition was to reach Otorten (Отортен), a mountain 10 kilometers north of the site of the incident. This route, at that season, was estimated as "Category III", the most difficult. All members were experienced in long ski tours and mountain expeditions.

The group arrived by train at Ivdel (Ивдель), a city at the center of the northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast on January 25. They then took a truck to Vizhai (Вижай) - the last inhabited settlement so far north. They started their march towards Otorten from Vizhai on January 27. The next day, one of the members (Yuri Yudin) was forced to go back because of health problems. The group now consisted of nine people.

Diaries and cameras found around their last camp made it possible to track the group's route up to the day preceding the incident. On January 31, the group arrived at the edge of a highland area and began to prepare for climbing. In a woody valley they built a storage for surplus food and equipment which would be used for the trip back. The following day (February 1), the hikers started to move through the pass. It seems they planned to get over the pass and make camp for the next night on the opposite side, but because of worsening weather conditions, snowstorms and decreasing visibility, they lost their direction and deviated west, upward towards the top of Kholat Syakhl. When they realized their mistake, the group decided to stop and set up camp there on the slope of the mountain.

The Search: It had been agreed beforehand that Dyatlov would send a telegraph to their sports club as soon as the group returned to Vizhai. It was expected that this would happen no later than February 12, but when this date had passed and no messages had been received, there was no reactiondelays of a few days were common in such expeditions. Only after the relatives of the travelers demanded a rescue operation did the head of the institute send the first rescue groups, consisting of volunteer students and teachers, on February 20. Later, the army and police forces became involved, with planes and helicopters being ordered to join the rescue operation.

On February 26, the searchers found the abandoned camp on Kholat Syakhl. The tent was badly damaged. A chain of footprints could be followed, leading down towards the edge of nearby woods (on the opposite side of the pass, 1.5km north-east), but after 500 meters they were covered with snow. At the forest edge, under a large old pine, the searchers found the remains of a fire, along with the first two dead bodies, those of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. Between the pine and the camp the searchers found three more corpsesDyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodinwho seemed to have died in poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the camp. They were found separately at distances of 300, 480 and 630 meters from the pine tree.

Searching for the remaining four travelers took more than two months. They were finally found on May 4, under four meters of snow, in a ravine in a stream valley further into the wood from the pine tree.

The Investigation: A legal inquest had been started immediately after finding the first five bodies. A medical examination found no injuries which might have led to their deaths, and it was concluded that they had all died of hypothermia. One person had a small crack in his skull, but it was not thought to be a fatal wound.

An examination of the four bodies which were found in May changed the picture. Three of them had fatal injuries: the body of Thibeaux-Brignolle had major skull damage, and both Dubunina and Zolotarev had major chest fractures. The force required to cause such damage would have been extremely high, with one expert comparing it to the force of a car crash. Notably, the bodies had no external wounds, as if they were crippled by a high level of pressure. One woman was found to be missing her tongue. There had initially been some speculation that the indigenous Mansi people might have attacked and murdered the group for encroaching upon their lands, but investigation indicated that the nature of their deaths did not support this thesis; the hikers' footprints alone were visible, and they showed no sign of hand-to-hand struggle.

There was evidence that the team was forced to leave the camp during the night, as they were sleeping. Though the temperature was very low (around -25° to -30°C) with a storm blowing, the dead were dressed only partially, and certainly inadequately for the conditions. Some of them had only one shoe, while others had no shoes or wore only socks. Some were found wrapped in snips of ripped clothes which seemed to be cut from those who were already dead.

Journalists reporting on the available parts of the inquest files claim that it states:

* Six of the group members died of hypothermia and three of fatal injuries.

* There were no indications of other people nearby apart from the nine travelers on Kholat Syakhl, nor anyone in the surrounding areas.

* The tent had been ripped open from within.

* The victims had died 6 to 8 hours after their last meal.

* Traces from the camp showed that all group members (including those who were found injured) left the camp of their own accord, on foot.

* To dispel the theory of an attack by the indigenous Mansi people, one doctor indicated that the fatal injuries of the three bodies could not have been caused by another human being, "because the force of the blows had been too strong and no soft tissue had been damaged".

* Forensic radiation tests had shown high doses of radioactive contamination on the clothes of a few victims.

The final verdict was that the group members all died because of an "unknown compelling force". The inquest ceased officially in May 1959 due to the "absence of a guilty party". The files were sent to a secret archive, and the photocopies of the case became available only in the 1990s, with some parts missing.

[edit] Controversy surrounding investigation

Some researchers point out the following facts which were missed, perhaps ignored, by officials

* After the funerals, relatives of the deceased claimed that the skin of the victims had a strange orange tan.

* A former investigating officer said, in a private interview, that his dosimeter had shown a high radiation level on Kholat Syakhl, and that this was the reason for the radiation found on the bodies. However, the source of the contamination was not found.

* Another group of hikers (about 50 kilometers south of the incident) reported that they saw strange orange spheres in the night sky to the north (likely in the direction of Kholat Syakhl) on the night of the incident. Similar "spheres" were observed in Ivdel and adjacent areas continually during the period of February to March 1959, by various independent witnesses (including the meteorology service and the military).

* Some reports suggested that much scrap metal was located in the area, leading to speculation that the military had utilized the area secretly and might be engaged in a cover-up.

Aftermath: In 1967, Sverdlovsk writer and journalist Yuri Yarovoi (Юрий Яровой) published the fiction novel "Of the highest rank of complexity" ("Высшей категории трудности")[4] which was inspired by this incident. Yarovoi had been involved in the search for Dyatlov's group and the inquest, including acting as an official photographer for the search campaign and in the initial stage of the investigation, and so had insight into the events. However, the book was written in the Soviet era when the details of the accident were kept secret, and Yarovoi avoided revealing anything beyond the official position and well-known facts. The book romanticized the accident and had a much more optimistic end than the real events only the group leader was found deceased. Yarovoi's colleagues say that he had two alternative versions of the novel, but both were declined by censorship. Since Yarovoi's death in 1980, all his archives including photos, diaries and manuscripts have been lost.

Some details of the tragedy became publicly available in 1990 due to publications and discussions in Sverdlovsk's regional press. One of the first authors was Sverdlovsk journalist Anatoly Guschin (Анатолий Гущин). Guschin reported that police officials gave him special permission to study the original files of the inquest and use these materials in his publications. He noticed, however, that a number of pages were excluded from the files, as was a mysterious "envelope" mentioned in the case materials list. At the same time, unofficial photocopies of the case parts started to circulate among other enthusiastic researchers.

Guschin summarized his studies in the book entitled "The price of state secrets is nine lives" ("Цена гостайны - девять жизней"). Some researchers criticized it due to its concentration on the speculative theory of a "Soviet secret weapon", but the publication aroused the public interest in the theory, stimulated by interest in the paranormal. Indeed, many of those who remained silent for 30 years reported new facts about that accident. One of them was the former police officer Lev Ivanov (Лев Иванов), who led the official inquest in 1959. In 1990 he published an article along with his admission that the investigation team had no rational explanation of the accident. He also reported that he received direct orders from high-ranking regional officials to dismiss the inquest and keep its materials secret after reporting that the team had seen "flying spheres". Ivanov personally believes in a paranormal explanation - specifically, UFOs.

In 2000, a regional TV company produced the documentary film "Dyatlov Pass" ("Перевал Дятлова"). With the help of the film crew, a Yekaterinburg writer, Anna Matveyeva (Анна Матвеева), published the fiction/documentary novella of the same name. A large part of the book includes broad quotations from the official case, diaries of victims, interviews with searchers and other documentaries previously used for the film. The book details the everyday life and thoughts of a woman (an alter ego of the author herself) who attempts to resolve the case.

The Dyatlov Foundation has been founded in Yekaterinburg, with the help of Ural State Technical University, led by Yuri Kuntsevitch (Юрий Кунцевич). The foundation's aim is to convince current Russian officials to reopen the investigation of the case, and solve it. Its other purpose is the upkeep of "the Dyatlov museum", to honour the memory of the dead hikers.

Yuri Yudin, the sole survivor of the expedition, has stated, "If I had a chance to ask God just one question, it would be, 'What really happened to my friends that night?'"

Recent speculation has pointed to the possibility of an avalanche, although there is contrary evidence to this theory as well.

Source: Wikipedia

Edited January 20, 2010 by Saru
Remember to include a source link with quoted material

[catutie]

wow that was kind of long but very interesting thanks . if it is some kind of wepon its very effective lol. maybe some kind of radioactive stuff that makes you go insane and unleash full extent of power. that could explain all the broken bones but they said no tissue damage. i dont know its hard to say what happened. what happened to the camera they were carrying? maybe goverment took it to cover up what experiment they were trying? interesting and creepy great find

[blinx]

yeah ive seen this b4 i reckon aliens did it

[Clobhair-cean]

If a bunch of people die of hypothermia after leaving their camp for whatever reason in the Russian winter there is no need to bring in aliens or evil government experiments to the story, it's pretty obvious. The injuries could be sustained by falling or an avalanche (they happen often in the region) and the radiation is most probably from the thorium gas mantles of the camping lanterns.

[+DieChecker]

Guschin summarized his studies in the book entitled "The price of state secrets is nine lives" ("Цена гостайны - девять жизней"). Some researchers criticized it due to its concentration on the speculative theory of a "Soviet secret weapon", but the publication aroused the public interest in the theory, stimulated by interest in the paranormal. Indeed, many of those who remained silent for 30 years reported new facts about that accident. One of them was the former police officer Lev Ivanov (Лев Иванов), who led the official inquest in 1959. In 1990 he published an article along with his admission that the investigation team had no rational explanation of the accident. He also reported that he received direct orders from high-ranking regional officials to dismiss the inquest and keep its materials secret after reporting that the team had seen "flying spheres". Ivanov personally believes in a paranormal explanation - specifically, UFOs.

Some kind of flying metal spheres that collide with people that are remote controlled, would be a fairly interesting weapon. The hardest thing would be the propulsion systems. Making them strong enough to lift a heavy metal object, and yet be small enough to fit inside with fuel.

I think Clob mostly has the right of it. These people had some accident in the mountains and the result was they all died.

[DrunkDwarf]

As far as the radioactivity goes, one of the students on the trip worked with radioactive substances as part of his education, and it was his clothes in which they detected the most radiation. This was known at the time of the original investigation, and therefore wasn't considered a factor.

The mountain rescue team who first arrived at the scene found no sign of an avalanche anywhere nearby, and was therefore removed that as a potential cause.

Something very strange happened there, that i doubt can ever be properly explained.

The fact that their skin had turned orange and hair had gone white wasn't mentioned by the original team, nor the subsequent investigation (im sure the documents are available in russian online somewhere, haven't looked again). That tidbit of information came from the families of the group who identified the bodies.

I always found the case interesting, as there was no evidence of any of the things that could have caused the incident, so some really unusual circumstances must've occured somewhere along the line.

Edited January 20, 2010 by DrunkDwarf

[+DieChecker]

Sounds like a Wes Craven novel. Or, Stephen King.

[DrunkDwarf]

Sounds like a Wes Craven novel. Or, Stephen King.

Have to agree... the story could probably be made into an interesting book, or even a film.

[sinewave]

Yes, the story has been told here before. If you are going to cut and paste entire articles from Wikipedia, just use a link next time.

[Hans Dolbrook]

sounds like a typical purge only stalin did'nt have it done,krushev did!

those russians were some sneaky and mean sobs back when the cold war started.

[Drago]

Some kind of flying metal spheres that collide with people that are remote controlled, would be a fairly interesting weapon.

It never seemed to work out that well for the Tall Man.

...BOOOOOOY!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Eldorado]

Russian vodka causes lots of unexplainable incidents.

[DrunkDwarf]

Russian vodka causes lots of unexplainable incidents.

I know this was intended as a bit of humour, but it reminded me of another note about the case. No trace of any drugs or alcohol were found in their systems, at least nothing they knew about at the time, though they knew of near all of the ones we have today. What occured to me though, is what if one of the individuals in the group (who were all very smart individuals studying various subjects including sciences) concocted their own custom drug, that they experimented with foolishly while traversing a dangerous mountain... that might contribute to their strange behaviour, such as escaping the tent by slashing the side with a knife from the inside, rather than using the tents normal exit, which showed no sign of obstruction.

[analog_warrior]

I figure an avalanche killed them. They were sleeping naked and heard the snow comming and tore out of their tent. They never made it back and died of exopsure. Animals ate at them and the snow melted.

[sinewave]

I figure an avalanche killed them. They were sleeping naked and heard the snow comming and tore out of their tent. They never made it back and died of exopsure. Animals ate at them and the snow melted.

That is the most plausible explanation I have ever heard for that story. It fits the largest number of the presumed facts and is entirely fantasy free.

[DrunkDwarf]

I figure an avalanche killed them. They were sleeping naked and heard the snow comming and tore out of their tent. They never made it back and died of exopsure. Animals ate at them and the snow melted.

That is the most plausible explanation I have ever heard for that story. It fits the largest number of the presumed facts and is entirely fantasy free.

That was the first conclusion that the rescue team came to, that would explain what happened to them, but there was a significant problem, there was no sign of an avalanche anywhere nearby, and the snow had not melted, the footprints of most of the group were perfectly intact. The small group that sustained the most severe injuries were found under snow, but was not deemed to be caused by an avalanche. Something certainly could have caused them to think an avalanche was coming, and that would likely explain why they fled the tent, but not the subsequent events, animals would not explain the severe damage some of them suffered, which was likened to a car crash.

So while an avalanche would definately be the preferable explanation, it would make sense, the evidence of such an event would've been obvious to the rescue team.

Edited January 22, 2010 by DrunkDwarf

[Cryptid_Control]

I figure an avalanche killed them. They were sleeping naked and heard the snow comming and tore out of their tent. They never made it back and died of exopsure. Animals ate at them and the snow melted.

Haha, Yes. Because id sleep naked in a tent in freezing temperatures surounded by my friends..?

I do think that maybe a avalanche killed them but that about te radiation, could they have had something in their tent with radiation on it (gas lamps, ect)? And animals could have ate them but how do you break your ribs witout soft tissue dammage? Is that even possible?

CC

[Ruffjeff]

a human/monster from radiation did it!

[Darcyline]

I thought it was pretty much all but confirmed that they got into some sort of radiation especially with the actions of the government surrounding the issue. It is an interesting situation though.

[Queen in the North]

Haha, Yes. Because id sleep naked in a tent in freezing temperatures surounded by my friends..?

I do think that maybe a avalanche killed them but that about te radiation, could they have had something in their tent with radiation on it (gas lamps, ect)? And animals could have ate them but how do you break your ribs witout soft tissue dammage? Is that even possible?

CC

That was my reaction, C_C.

Not saying OMG IT WOZ ALEINS, I just can't figure out why they'd sleep naked when they were in tents in the mountains.

[Mattshark]

That was my reaction, C_C.

Not saying OMG IT WOZ ALEINS, I just can't figure out why they'd sleep naked when they were in tents in the mountains.

Maybe they were psychologically damaged? Cabin fever maybe?

[Queen in the North]

Maybe they were psychologically damaged? Cabin fever maybe?

True... I wasn't thinking about if something had already happened to them. A first avalanche (working from analog_warrior's theory)? If they were left trapped up there, with no methods of communication and dwindling supplies, that could be plausible. Stress does weird things to people.

Edited January 24, 2010 by storminateacup

[+DieChecker]

I can think of two reasons for some of them to be naked.

One, some of them got wet and skin on skin is the quickest way to warm people up. Others wearing their cloths on the outside of their own would have helped to speed up the drying of the cloths.

Two, they were dead, so others took the clothes in an attempt to layer and keep warmer.

[MasterOfGhost]

I can think of two reasons for some of them to be naked.

One, some of them got wet and skin on skin is the quickest way to warm people up. Others wearing their cloths on the outside of their own would have helped to speed up the drying of the cloths.

Two, they were dead, so others took the clothes in an attempt to layer and keep warmer.

Maybe they was in a warm-hot pool before coming here?

[Cynical Sounds]

Maybe they were psychologically damaged? Cabin fever maybe?

or hypothermia, remember conditions were worse that anticipated and temperatures were lower

maybe a near by avalanche happened while in a state of confusion they thought one was about to hit so go out of the tent, the area is well know for its avalanches

hypothermia for the nakedness and confused exit

nearby avalanche for the the sudden exit