- [Presenter] What is up, EWU CREW?
Today, we will be covering
the chilling story of the Dyatlov Pass incident,
where nine hikers met their tragic fate
among the snow of the Mountain of the Dead.
On January 23rd, 1959,
a group of 10 experienced cross country skiers
departed from the Russian city Sverdlovsk,
now known as Yekaterinburg, by train.
There were nine students among the group
from the Ural Polytechnic Institute
and an expedition leader, Igor Dyatlov.
They carried enough food and supplies
for what was supposed to be a 21 day skiing trip
through the Ural Mountains.
The train had later arrived in Ivdel,
the wind howling down its back,
and the group stepped onto the platform
in the small Russian town.
It was the last leg of their train journey.
From here, they took the bus to Vizhai,
an even smaller and more remote town,
followed by a truck to a logging camp,
and then a sled to an abandoned mining camp
called North-2.
This was the beginning of their trek on skis,
but by the time they reached North-2
one of the group members, Yuri Yudin,
was ready to turn back.
He complained that his sciatica was acting up,
and since it had taken them nearly a week
to get to North-2, he did not want to push through
an additional two weeks of the brutal Russian winter
to reach their destination.
Instead, he turned around with the sled
and made his way back to Sverdlovsk.
This decision ended up saving his life.
The rest of the party pushed ahead.
After all, they had all been
on these cross country expeditions before
and were eager to catch sight of Kholat Syakhl,
the Mountain of the Dead.
They knew the journey would be challenging.
The average daily high for the region
was -15 degrees Celsius.
Though they had just lost a member of their party
and were facing down a long arduous journey,
they were in high spirits as they made camp
on the bank of the Lozva River.
Someone had even brought a mandolin along.
They sang, drank, and went to bed early
to prepare for the next part of their trek.
On the morning of January 31st,
the skiers continued to their next stop, the Auspiya River.
After they set up camp, they made their first attempt
at scaling the Mountain of the Dead,
but discovered that their packs were too heavy.
The following day,
they removed their extra supplies from their packs
and left them in a cache along their trail.
Eventually they made a new camp
on the northern slope of the mountain
and planned on making another attempt at summiting
in the morning.
But in the early hours of February 2nd,
something happened that brought the expedition
to a sudden halt.
Seven men and two women were driven from their tent
in nothing but their underclothes.
Within mere hours, they all succumbed
to the harsh winter conditions.
When the group missed a rendezvous in Vizhai
on February 12th, their friends and family
started to get concerned.
It wasn't until nine days later
when there was still no sight of the group
that a search party was deployed.
By February 26th, their camp was found.
Investigators were puzzled by what they discovered
and still are to this day.
The search party first discovered
the tent that the nine trekkers shared.
It had been ripped to pieces,
and half of the tent was buried in the snow.
They had expected to find at least one body inside,
but it was completely empty,
except for the campers' supplies and shoes.
It was clear to them that someone had used a knife
to cut their way out of the tent.
There was also nine sets of footprints
leading away from the tent.
Concerningly, it was clear that all nine sets
were either barefoot or in socks.
One person had managed to get on a single boot
as they ran for the edge of the nearby forest.
The first to be found
was Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko.
They were huddled together in a tree well
under a large Cedar.
It was clear that they had tried and failed to make a fire.
They had succumbed to the cold in a matter of hours
as they were dressed in only their underwear.
Some of the branches of the tree were broken,
which searchers believe to indicate
that they had tried to climb the tree
possibly to get away from something,
get a better vantage point of the camp.
They weren't sure.
Later on, autopsies showed
that the two had scraped their hands
trying to climb the tree
and that someone had turned the remains over
after their death.
The next day, Igor Dyatlov was found
about 300 meters from the tree
and in the direction of the tent.
Then Zinaida Kolmogorova was discovered
even further from the tree.
On March 5th, they found the fifth member of the party,
Rustem Slobodin, covered with snow
in between Dyatlov and Kolmogorova.
The position and location of their bodies
suggested that they were trying to get back to the tent.
They, too, had succumbed to hypothermia.
It wasn't until nearly two more months
that the other four members were discovered.
On May 5th, 1959,
the remains of Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Kolevatov,
Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle, and Semyon Zolotaryov
were found buried under 12 feet of snow,
75 meters deeper into the tree line.
There were signs that this group
had managed to survive longer than the others.
Some were wearing clothes that belonged
to the deceased members of the track.
They tried to treat their wounds,
which for Kolevatov were just a few cuts and bruises.
The three others, however, upon autopsy
were said to look as if they had been hit by a car.
Dubinina and Zolotaryov
had serious fractures in their chests,
and Thibeaux-Brignolle's skull had been smashed.
And oddly enough,
none of these three looked from the outside
like they had been harmed at all before their death.
A few other details to note
before we move on to the theories.
First off, the final four members of the party
had built a shelter out of snow and branches,
although none of them had actually
been inside the shelter when they died.
The last survivors had also collected clothes
from their deceased comrades,
but most of those clothes were piled beside the shelter
not even used.
And lastly, when scanned with a Geiger counter,
some of the clothing the hikers had been wearing
flared with radioactivity.
The investigator's official position
was that the tragedy was caused
by the mistakes of the leader, Igor Dyatlov.
The mistakes include pushing them too hard
and setting up camp in a bad spot.
Overall, the officials believe that their catastrophe
was the result of a natural force
they were unable to overcome.
The investigations files were classified.
No one really knew what happened on the trek
until decades later.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain,
the Dyatlov Pass incident files were finally declassified
and people began to question the official story,
which in itself was incredibly vague.
And as more and more details began to come to light,
the explanation provided by the authorities at the time
made less and less sense.
Eventually, an official investigation was reopened
by the new Russian government
and drew the attention of even more amateur sleuths.
These were the questions everyone was trying to answer.
Why would nine experienced skiers
cut their way out of their own tent
and flee into sub zero temperatures
in nothing but their underclothes?
Why did some of the remains suffer severe internal damage,
but no external distress?
Why did Krivonischenko and Doroshenko
try so desperately to climb the Cedar?
Why did the rest of the party perish out in the open
when there was a shelter available?
And why were their clothes radioactive?
The first theory considered was that of an avalanche.
A massive snow colliding with their tent
could explain why they fled and some of their injuries.
Experts, however, quickly dismissed this explanation.
The slope above their campsite was not steep or tall enough
to produce a destructive avalanche of snow.
Plus, plenty of pictures from the search party
showed the group's gear stuck upright in the snow.
It would have been shifted or buried
if there had been an avalanche.
Other theories suspected a local tribe of natives
called the Mansi.
Some believed that they had been skilled enough
to cover their tracks if they had attacked the trekkers,
but there was no reason for the Mansi
to go after Dyatlov's party.
None of the party's supplies had been stolen either,
plus dozens of other groups had made the hike before
without any interference from the tribe.
The third theory posits a military test.
Whether intentionally or not,
had the Russian military tested a weapon on the group,
a rocket or a chemical weapon would explain the trauma
done to some of the members.
The sound of it detonating might've been enough
to cause them to rip through their tent
and run for the trees.
It would also explain why some of their clothes
tested positively for radiation.
Pictures developed from Semyon Zolotaryov's camera
seem to show strange lights in the sky.
Proponents of this theory claim
that this is evidence of an explosion or even a plane,
but could also be explained
by water damage to the camera's film.
Experts agree that there would likely be more evidence
of a blast at the campsite if this had been the case.
Other theories include UFOs, yetis, and even KGB officers.
All are attempts to explain the mystery
at the heart of this incident.
Why did they cut their way out of their tent?
What could have triggered so much fear
that they ran without even reaching for a coat?
There are some aspects of the story
that if taken and examined individually
can be explained.
In recent years, a new theory has emerged
that can explain why they left
the relative safety of their tent.
Katabatic winds.
While the slope of the mountain
might not have been steep enough
to generate a forceful avalanche,
it was sloped enough to create
what is sometimes called a gravity wind.
A katabatic wind is created when a high pressure system
collides with the sides of a glacial mountain.
Wind collects and begins to descend the mountain,
picking up even more pressure and speed as it goes.
This type of wind is rare,
and when it does occur is not usually that dangerous.
However, in the right conditions,
it can generate a deadly amount of force.
When they pitched their tent parallel to the mountain
and using only their skis for tent poles,
the wind could have hit their tent
and caused hurricane-like conditions.
And rather than fumbling with the buttons of the tent flap,
they took a knife and sliced through the material.
Some members of the party sustained serious injuries,
which could have been a result
from the wind hitting their tent,
and they would not have realized this
before they succumbed to hypothermia.
And for those who had survived longer,
they took shelter in the tree line
and then tried to set up a temporary shelter.
One of those shelters may have collapsed,
fatally injuring the people inside.
A similar theory that explains
the panic exhibited by the hikers is infrasound.
Some postulate that the high winds
pushing past the mountain could have created
a Karman vortex street.
This is a vortex of wind
pushing against the summit of the mountain,
which could have created infrasound powerful enough
to induce a communal panic attack.
And the physical injuries could have been caused
by falls as they fled.
Krivonischenko and Doroshenko
likely tried to take shelter under the Cedar,
not realizing they had trapped themselves in a tree well.
This kind of well occurs when the branches of a tree
prevent snow from becoming compacted around the trunk.
If someone falls in,
it can be nearly impossible to get out
before they suffocate.
And the radioactivity,
the vast majority of the group
were students at the Ural Polytechnic Institute,
which meant all of them were studying engineering.
Kolevatov was even studying nuclear physics.
It's not entirely impossible that the radiation
was a natural result of their schooling.
There are still no clear cut answers.
We may never know exactly what happened
that night in February more than 60 years ago.
With little tangible evidence and official explanations
that only generate more questions,
it's easy to go down a rabbit hole of theories.
Were they attacked?
Could wind either creating infrasound
or simply rushing down the slope of the mountain
really have caused the skiers to leave their tents
and flee into the snow?
Nothing seems to fully explain
why a group of people so experienced
would panic the way they did.
Perhaps it was just a series of mistakes
fueled by a natural phenomenon,
but there is always the possibility
that something more nefarious happened
to these nine people, something that caused
even the most rational and experienced among them
to abandon all reason, destroy their shelter, and run.
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