February 2nd, 1959 - It’s a bitterly cold night in the remote northern Soviet Union
wilderness.
Nine hikers make camp in a Ural Mountains pass near the peak known as Kholat Syakhl,
or the Dead Mountain.
They are 7 days into a strenuous 16 day expedition and are slightly off course due to losing
their direction in bad weather conditions.
However, they are all experienced trekkers and should be fine...except the hikers never
live to see another dawn.
Sometime during the night, the hikers leave the safety of their tents and flee into the
frigid dark, some of them half dressed and barefoot.
What happened to the 9 hikers on that freezing Siberian night?
The bizarre and confusing circumstances of the last hours of the hikers’ lives has
caused much speculation.The Dyatlov Pass incident, as the tragedy has come to be known, is one
of the most enduring and popular mysteries of the latter half of the 20th century.
In late January 1959, 10 students and alumni from the Ural Polytechnical Institute--UPI
and an older ski instructor began a difficult trip, the climax of which was an arduous 7
mile trek to reach the North Ural mountain of Otorten.
With diaries and cameras found at the campsite, authorities were able to retrace the group’s
journey up until the day before their deaths.
The leader of the hiking group was 23 year old Igor Dyatlov, a radio engineering student.
Dyatlov was extremely passionate about the outdoors and an avid skier.
The snowy, windswept mountain pass where the hikers perished will eventually come to bear
his last name in his honor.
Dyatlov’s close friend 23 year old Yuri Krivonischenko was a frequent companion on
his hiking trips.
Krivonischenko, the joker of the group had studied construction and hydraulics, graduating
from UPI in 1957.
He was 5 days short of his 24th birthday when he died.
There were two more Yuris among the trekkers, both aged 21.
Yuri Yudin was an economics student with an interest in geology.
Yuri Doroshenko was a radio engineering student with a reputation for being impulsive and
fearless.
Once during a camping trip, he had confronted a bear with a geologist’s hammer.
Zinaida Kolmogorova, nicknamed Zina was 22 years old and also a radio engineering major.
She was an experienced hiker who had once survived being bitten by a viper during a
trek.
At 20, Lyuda Dubinina was the youngest member of the group.
She was an Engineering and Economics Major.
She loved photography and often took pictures during her mountaineering adventures.
Two years before the fateful Dyatlov trip, she had been accidentally shot in the leg
by a hunter during a hike through the Eastern Sayan mountains.
With great fortitude she endured a long painful slog back to camp.
Then there was 24 year old Alexander Kolevatov, a Physics major.
He was especially interested in nuclear physics.
Rustem Slobodin, aged 23 had graduated in 1958 with a degree in mechanical engineering.
He was a quiet man who enjoyed long distance running.
Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolles was 23 and had also graduated in 1958 from UPI.
His degree was in civil engineering.
Thibeaux-Brignolles was popular and had been very involved with sports clubs at the university.
The final member of the expedition was much older and a stranger to the others.
World War II vet Semyon Zolotaryov was 38 years old.
He joined the trip as a part of certifying for his Masters Certificate in ski instruction
and mountain hiking.
In fact, each member of the group were adept hikers with ski tour experience, and would
be receiving grade III, the highest level of hiking certification in the USSR upon completing
the trip.
On January 23rd, the group departed by train from the city of Sverdlovsk, now called Yekaterinburg.
Yekaterinburg is 1,036 miles (1,667 km) east of Moscow, on the border of Europe and Asia.
The hikers travelled by rail about 200 miles north to Ivdel, arriving at midnight on the
25th of January.
The next morning they travelled by bus to the northern frontier town of Vizhay where
they prepared to begin their trek.
Dyatlov went to the local post office to send a telegram about their arrival to the checkpoint
of the route.
He had also agreed to send a second telegram on February 12, once the group had completed
their journey.
After checking in with the Sverdlovsk Political Bureau of extreme sports, Dyatlov sent a postcard
to his father--the last message he would ever write.
From Vizhay, the hikers traveled by truck to a remote logging community.
On January 27, 1959 the physical part of the journey began in earnest.
The hikers skied along the Lovza river, hiring a local with a horse and sled to carry some
of their provisions.
They travelled to an abandoned mine, the last human settlement in the area and spent the
night there.
Yudin, who hadn’t been feeling well due to joint pain, took some geological samples
for the university.
On January 28, an upset Yudin, whose condition was worsening decided to turn back, skipping
the rest of the hiking trip.
This decision would save his life.
In fact Yudin lived to age 75, dying April 27, 2013.
The remaining 9 hikers continued towards their goal of reaching Mount Otorten.
They travelled along the river until January 31st.
From diary notes, we know they estimated their travel speed to be about 1 mile per hour.
At night the temperature would drop to -11 F (-24 degrees C).
On January 31, the hikers left the river.
In a wooded valley, to lighten their load, they cached surplus food and equipment that
would be used for the return trip.
Then they hiked about 1.25 miles (2 km) to the base of Kholat Syakhl mountain.
Because of a bad snowstorm and poor visibility, they went slightly off their planned route,
deviating west.
Realizing their mistake, on February 2nd they pitched their tents on the north slope of
Kholat Syakhl for the night.
It was here that the 9 met their deaths.
On February 12th when Dyatlov didn’t send the agreed upon telegram, no was one too concerned.
The hikers had planned a difficult route and of course, travel times for expeditions were
approximate.
However by February 20, worried relatives of the hikers demanded that authorities mount
a rescue.
A volunteer search party made up of students and teachers from the university set out to
find the hikers.
They were soon joined by the army and militsiya, or Soviet police forces.
On February 26, 14 days after the hikers should have returned to Vizhay, searchers found the
abandoned and damaged hikers’ tent.
Puzzlingly, it looked as if someone had cut a hole in the wall of the tent from the inside.
In fact, the searchers found the whole campsite disconcerting.
Many of the hikers’ belongings, including shoes and clothing were still inside the tent.
Eight or nine sets of footprints from bare feet or people only wearing socks or one shoe
were still visible in the snow.
Searchers followed the footprints north-east down the slope about a mile (1.5 km) towards
the edge of a nearby woods.
At the forest's edge, under a cedar, the searchers found the remains of a small fire.
Huddled nearby were the frozen bodies of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, shoeless and dressed only
in their underwear.
Broken tree branches as high as about 16 feet up into the tree suggested that at least one
of the hikers had climbed up to get a bird's eye view of the area.
Between the forest and the campsite, 3 more bodies were found: Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and
Slobodin.
They were found separately with poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the
camp when they perished.
An inquest was immediately opened after the first 5 bodies were found, but autopsies revealed
that all five had died of hypothermia.
Slobodin had a minor skull fracture, but it was not thought to be a fatal wound.
It wasn’t until over 2 months later on May 4, 1959 that the remaining 4 hikers were found
buried under 9 feet of snow in a ravine further into the woods.
The 4 were better dressed for the weather than the others with signs that clothing had
been harvested from those who died first.
Dubinina was wearing Krivonishenko's burned, torn trousers and her left leg and foot was
wrapped in a torn jacket.
The state of their bodies made the authorities wonder if something more sinister had occurred
during the incident.
Curiously 3 of the 4 hikers had suffered severe injuries.
Dubinina and Zolotaryov were found to have major chest fractures, while Thibeaux-Brignolles
had substantial damage to his skull.
Oddly, while the hikers had extensive trauma to their bones, it was reported that there
were no corresponding external injuries.
The injuries to the bodies were caused by extreme force, quite similar to injuries suffered
during a car crash.
Also Dubinina had facial damage, she was found to be missing her eyes, tongue and part of
her lips.
Russian authorities quickly wrapped up the inquest, concluding that "the cause of death
was an unknown compelling force which the hikers were unable to overcome.”
Dubinina’s missing body parts were explained away as simply decomposing, it’s reported
that she was found in a stream that ran under the snow.
Public access to the Dyatlov pass where the hikers died was banned for 3 years and the
results of the investigation were classified in a secret archive until the 1970’s.
The authorities suppressing information regarding the case had the opposite effect of what was
intended.
Over the years, odd details and rumors surrounding the deaths have leaked out.
The skin of the deceased was said to be a strange tan color--some claim that the bodies
were prematurely aged.
Some speculate the corpses were unnaturally manipulated or posed after death due to characteristic
livor mortis markings discovered during autopsy, as well as burns to hair and skin.
Some of the hikers’ clothing contained traces of radiation.
Other clothing was a strange light shade of purple – the result of processing reagents
for disinfection.
The tent and camp were set up in an amateurish way unusual for experienced hikers.
Soviet authorities removed items from the site, including some of the film; this evidence
disappeared and was not entered in record.
Circumventing the usual protocol, high ranking Russian authorities came from out of town
to watch some of the autopsies take place.
Strange orange orbs or fireballs were seen in the sky above mountain the night of the
hikers’ deaths.
Some even claim that Zolotaryov was a secret KGB agent and was on the trek as part of a
mission.
As some of the searchers and lower level officials involved in the case retired, they have drawn
upon their memories, discussing how evidence was ignored, information was restricted and
the official statements they were instructed to say about the case.
There have been documentaries, books and even a fictional movie made based on the Dyatlov
Pass incident.
There are a number of websites dedicated to the incident where users have painstakingly
dissected maps, photographs, diaries written by the hikers, and any other details they
could find.
Over 75 theories have sprung up as what actually happened on the mountain.
The theories are wide ranging.
They run the gauntlet from the supernatural to the more mundane.
The hikers were killed by aliens or a yeti.
There was an animal attack, such as a wolverine.
The hikers were killed by the Mansi people, a local indigenous tribe.
The Ural mountains are sacred to the Mansi and the hikers were trespassing in a spiritually
important place.
Actually, the remains of a Mansi chum or nomadic tent was found relatively near the Dyatlov
campsite.
The authorities considered foul play by the Mansi in the beginning, however the injuries
to the hikers were determined not to be caused by humans.
Another theory is that the hikers stumbled into an area where the USSR was testing a
secret weapon program and there was a military cover up.
Radiological weapons testing could account for the hikers’ weird injuries and the feelings
of warmth which led the hikers to stripping in the snow.
The odd orange glowing spheres in the night sky were seen by another group of hikers who
were camping approximately 31 miles south of the Dyatlov incident and confirmed by meteorological
services.
Could these lights have been rockets or some other type of weapon testing?
Probably the most commonly held theory is that there was a sudden slab avalanche in
the middle of the night that partially buried the tent and woke the hikers.
Slab avalanches occur when a sheet of hard, dense snow slides down a slope.
After the avalanche, the hikers cut the tent open with a knife and escaped down the mountain
into the nearby woods.
Disoriented, they couldn’t make their way back to the camp and end up splitting up.
However, experienced hikers were unlikely to react to an avalanche by rushing out into
the freezing cold wearing only minimal clothing and without shoes.
Nor was the area known for avalanches.
The terrain on the slope is craggy, with boulders sticking out from the ground, making an avalanche
here very unlikely.
There were also no signs of a recent avalanche found by searchers at the campsite.
There are also theories that the hikers experienced temporary insanity, made irrational choices
to leave the campsite and simply got lost in the woods.
Their distressed mental state was brought on by a bad drug trip from ingesting shrooms
or a potent Mansi liquor.
Recent research suggests another explanation for potential temporary insanity in the hikers.
A wind phenomenon called a Karman Vortex Street could have produced a petrifying sound which
is known to induce irrational fear in humans.
Due to the unique topography of the area, the fierce winds that blow through the mountain
pass could have twisted into a series of small but powerful tornadoes.
The tornadoes whipping through the pass would have created a deafening noise.
Also under certain circumstances the winds could produce a subtle vibration phenomenon
known as infra-sound.
The opposite of ultrasound, infra-sound has a frequency below the human hearing range
of 20 hertz and cannot be picked up by the human ear.
However, studies have shown intra-sound can affect the human body in many ways including
loss of sleep, nausea, shortness of breath, feelings of anxiety and severe dread.
Some locations known for being haunted by ghosts, have been found to have infra-sound
phenomena, natural or man made occuring there.
Exhausted and stuck in a claustrophobic tent on the pitch black side of mountain with a
growing sensation of foreboding...even the most stalwart of experienced hikers might
freak out.
Once the hikers panicked, they frantically fled the campsite without properly dressing
for the elements and ended up lost in a snowstorm.
As the hikers succumbed to hypothermia, they probably suffered ‘paradoxical undressing’
or the effect of cold-induced paralysis of the nerves in the vessel walls which causes
the sensation that the body temperature is higher than it really is.
As a result the victim undresses, because they feel burning warmth.
In February of 2019, some 60 years later Russian officials have finally agreed to reopen the
case due to pressure from relatives, the media and the public.
The Russian prosecutor general's office is eager to put all the theories about the hikers'
deaths to rest.
They plan to involve a team of expert investigators, inspect the site, review the original cases
files and interview those still alive that were originally involved.
Also they plan to utilize modern technology which was not available at the time.
However...from the start the officials have discounted the majority of the theories, saying
that the Dyatlov Incident was caused by an avalanche, a snow slab or a hurricane.
So it seems as if from the start of the new investigation, once again the Russian authorities
are already attempting to limit the truth of what could have happened on that bitter
night in the Ural mountains so long ago.
What do you think happened to the Dyatlov hiking party?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video What Actually Happens in the Bermuda Triangle!
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