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The Dyatlov Pass Incident: What Really Happened to the 9 Hikers? · Kat Has Questions: True Crime and Unsolved Mysteries

0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to Kat Has Questions. Curiosity, stories, and the strange
0:12
Speaker 1: corners of everyday life. Hello, hello, I'm Kat, and this
0:23
Speaker 1: is Kat Has Questions. Today I've got a little bit
0:27
Speaker 1: different of a story for you. Not necessarily a murder, probably,
0:32
Speaker 1: but still has a lot of weird elements. A lot
0:37
Speaker 1: of maybe natural things, maybe some conspiracy dribbled in there.
0:42
Speaker 1: So with that, let's get into it. On February 26th, 1959,
0:49
Speaker 1: two searchers were crossing the eastern slope of a mountain
0:52
Speaker 1: in the northern Ural region of the Soviet Union, now Russia.
0:58
Speaker 1: And also, let me just preface this now. This case
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Speaker 1: takes place in Russia. A lot of the names are Russian.
1:03
Speaker 1: A lot of things... are going to be hard for
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Speaker 1: me to pronounce. I'm going to do my best to
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Speaker 1: pronounce them correctly, but I'm probably not going to do
1:11
Speaker 1: a great job at it. So I'll do what I can.
1:15
Speaker 1: So these two searchers were looking for a missing group
1:17
Speaker 1: of hikers for days. And finally, through the snow, they
1:21
Speaker 1: saw something, a tent, or what was left of one.
1:25
Speaker 1: The tent had partially collapsed beneath a layer of hardened,
1:28
Speaker 1: windblown snow. One side was still secured to a ski
1:32
Speaker 1: pole and But most of the long canvas structure had
1:35
Speaker 1: fallen inward. Several skis remained positioned beneath it. An ice
1:41
Speaker 1: axe stood near the entrance. A flashlight was lying on
1:45
Speaker 1: top of the snow. When one of the searchers picked
1:48
Speaker 1: it up and switched it on, it was still working.
1:51
Speaker 1: Inside the tent were the hikers' backpacks, their food, blankets, cameras,
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Speaker 1: their money, their tools, and most importantly, their winter boots
2:00
Speaker 1: and warm clothing. but the nine people who belonged inside
2:04
Speaker 1: the tent were gone. Investigators would determine that several long
2:09
Speaker 1: cuts in the fabric had been made from inside the shelter.
2:12
Speaker 1: Below the campsite, searchers found tracks. Nine sets of footprints
2:17
Speaker 1: appeared to move together down the exposed mountainside. Some had
2:22
Speaker 1: been made by people wearing socks, some by people wearing
2:25
Speaker 1: soft felt footwear, and at least one person appeared to
2:28
Speaker 1: have been wearing only a single shoe. Some prints seem
2:32
Speaker 1: to have been made by bare feet. The tracks continue
2:35
Speaker 1: toward the forest approximately a mile below the campsite. After
2:39
Speaker 1: about 500 meters, the trail disappeared beneath fresh snow. But
2:43
Speaker 1: there was no trail leading back. At the edge of
2:46
Speaker 1: the forest, searchers found the remains of a small fire
2:50
Speaker 1: beneath a large Siberian cedar tree. Two bodies were lying nearby.
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Speaker 1: Three more would be discovered on the slope between the
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Speaker 1: tree and the abandoned tent. And then, more than two
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Speaker 1: months later after this, the remaining four hikers would be
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Speaker 1: found beneath approximately 13 feet of snow in a ravine.
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Speaker 1: Some had died from hypothermia. Others had suffered massive internal injuries,
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Speaker 1: including crushed ribs and a catastrophic skull fracture. Two were
3:19
Speaker 1: missing their eyes. One was missing her tongue and portions
3:23
Speaker 1: of tissue around her face. Some of the clothing showed
3:27
Speaker 1: traces of radioactive contamination. and the original Soviet investigation eventually
3:33
Speaker 1: concluded that all nine people had been killed by what
3:36
Speaker 1: some translated as, quote, a compelling natural force. Which is
3:41
Speaker 1: technically a conclusion, but it's not much of an explanation.
3:45
Speaker 1: What could have convinced nine experienced winter hikers to cut
3:49
Speaker 1: their way out of their shelter and descend into the
3:51
Speaker 1: freezing darkness without their boots? Why did they seem to
3:54
Speaker 1: leave together rather than scatter in panic? How did several
3:58
Speaker 1: of them suffer injuries compared to those seen in a
4:00
Speaker 1: serious car crash. And after decades of UFOs, secret weapons, murderers,
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Speaker 1: radioactive experiments, infrasound, and even a supposed Yeti being blamed
4:11
Speaker 1: for their deaths, is this mystery actually as impossible as
4:15
Speaker 1: it sounds? Or have the strangest details been repeated so
4:19
Speaker 1: many times that they have buried the most likely answer?
4:23
Speaker 1: This is the Dyatlov Pass incident. Before we begin, there
4:27
Speaker 1: are two important things to understand about this story. First,
4:30
Speaker 1: the people involved were real. They were not characters in
4:33
Speaker 1: a horror movie and they were not careless teenagers wandering
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Speaker 1: into a mountain range with no idea what they were doing.
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Speaker 1: They were experienced Soviet hikers. They had trained for difficult
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Speaker 1: winter conditions. They knew how to build fires, navigate, ski
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Speaker 1: through deep snow, and construct emergency shelters. Several of them
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Speaker 1: were completing their expedition to qualify for the highest hiking
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Speaker 1: certification available in the Soviet Union at the time. Second,
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Speaker 1: there are dozens of different versions of this case. Some
5:02
Speaker 1: contain verified evidence from the original investigation. Others repeat details
5:07
Speaker 1: that appeared years or even decades later. And many combine
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Speaker 1: those things without making it clear which is which. So,
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Speaker 1: throughout this episode, I'm going to separate three things. what
5:19
Speaker 1: the original investigation documented, what can reasonably be inferred from
5:23
Speaker 1: that evidence, and what remains only a theory. Because there
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Speaker 1: are parts of the Dyatlov Pass that are genuinely strange.
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Speaker 1: We do not need to make them stranger than they
5:33
Speaker 1: already are. In January 1959, 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov organized a
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Speaker 1: winter skiing expedition through the northern Ural Mountains. Igor was
5:45
Speaker 1: a radio engineering student at the Ural Polytechnical Institute in Sverdlovsk,
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Speaker 1: the city now known as Yekaterinburg. He had already completed
5:56
Speaker 1: difficult winter trips and had experienced camping above the treeline,
6:01
Speaker 1: where there was no shelter from the wind and no
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Speaker 1: easy access to firewood. The route he had planned was
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Speaker 1: approximately 300 kilometers, or about 186 miles, and was expected
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Speaker 1: to take roughly 18 days. The expedition was designated Category 3,
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Speaker 1: the highest level of difficulty recognized in the Soviet Union
6:21
Speaker 1: at that time. The group planned to travel through the
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Speaker 1: far northern region of Ferdlovsky Oblast, following portions of the
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Speaker 1: Lozva River before reaching Mount Otorten. Their route was formally
6:36
Speaker 1: approved by the City Route Commission in early January. They
6:40
Speaker 1: received their official route book on January 23, 1959, and
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Speaker 1: departed Sverdlovsk the same day. The original party consisted of
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Speaker 1: 10 people. There was Igor Dyatlov, the leader, Zinyada Kolmogorova,
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Speaker 1: called Zina, who is 22, Ludimla Dubinina, called Luda, who
7:04
Speaker 1: is 20, Rustem Slobodin, who is 23, Georgi Korvanshchenko, who
7:12
Speaker 1: often went by Yuri or Yura, who is also 23,
7:15
Speaker 1: Yuri Doroshenko, who is 21, Nikolai Thibaut Brinilo, who is 23,
7:24
Speaker 1: and Alexander Kovator, who is 24. And finally, Seymon Zolotarvoy,
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Speaker 1: the oldest member of the expedition, and Yuri Yudin, who
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Speaker 1: would become the only member of the original group to
7:38
Speaker 1: return home. Once again, apologies for probably mispronouncing a lot
7:42
Speaker 1: of that. I even have the pronunciations like typed out
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Speaker 1: next to their names, and I am probably still butchering it.
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Speaker 1: So the one person of those people I just listed
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Speaker 1: who was different from that group was Seymon Zolotarbov. He
7:57
Speaker 1: had served during World War II, worked as a hiking instructor,
8:01
Speaker 1: and joined the expedition after another participant dropped out. So
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Speaker 1: he was older than some of these other ones who
8:05
Speaker 1: were all kind of like young 20s. He reportedly preferred
8:09
Speaker 1: to be called Sasha, even though his legal first name
8:11
Speaker 1: was Semyon. He was actually turning 38 on February 1st, 1959,
8:17
Speaker 1: the final day documented in the group's diaries. On January 25th,
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Speaker 1: the hikers arrived by train in the northern portion of
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Speaker 1: the Serdlovsky Oblast. The next day, they traveled by truck
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Speaker 1: to Visay, generally considered the last permanently inhabited settlement along
8:36
Speaker 1: their route. So they traveled to a city that was
8:38
Speaker 1: like the last established city, basically, before starting their hike.
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Speaker 1: Their diaries and photographs show a group that seemed relaxed
8:45
Speaker 1: and excited. They sang together. They joked. They played music.
8:49
Speaker 1: They entertained schoolchildren by explaining their hiking equipment and telling
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Speaker 1: stories from expeditions. And at one station, Karen Vashenko began
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Speaker 1: singing and jokingly began singing and jokingly held out his
9:01
Speaker 1: hat for money. Police briefly detained him because they believed
9:04
Speaker 1: he was actually begging. On another day, the group spent
9:08
Speaker 1: hours riding in the back of a truck with broken
9:10
Speaker 1: springs and unreliable brakes while temperatures remained well below freezing.
9:16
Speaker 1: Their group diary described them passing the time by discussing friendship, happiness, love, illness,
9:21
Speaker 1: and almost anything else they could think of. This matters
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Speaker 1: because some later theories— suggests that serious conflict was already
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Speaker 1: developing within the expedition. But the diaries do contain small disagreements.
9:34
Speaker 1: There was teasing. There were occasional frustrations. There were references
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Speaker 1: to romantic feelings that were not necessarily returned. Basically, it
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Speaker 1: sounds like 10 young adults who were exhausted, freezing, and
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Speaker 1: spending every minute together. But there is no clear evidence
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Speaker 1: of a major feud or of the group falling apart
9:54
Speaker 1: before the night they died. On January 28th, Yuri Yudin
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Speaker 1: decided that he could not continue. Yuri had a history
10:01
Speaker 1: of health problems and was experiencing significant pain in his
10:04
Speaker 1: knees and joints. He had hoped the pain would improve
10:08
Speaker 1: as the expedition continued, but it became clear that pressing
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Speaker 1: forward into a remote mountain region would endanger both him
10:15
Speaker 1: and the rest of the group. Leaving was deeply disappointing.
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Speaker 1: Photographs showed Yuri saying goodbye to his friends. He hugged
10:23
Speaker 1: Lyudmila and watched as the remaining nine hikers packed their
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Speaker 1: equipment and continued north. No one could have known that
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Speaker 1: he was the last person outside the expedition to see
10:33
Speaker 1: them alive. For the rest of his life, Yuri would
10:36
Speaker 1: live with the knowledge that the health problems he resented
10:39
Speaker 1: at the time were the only reason he survived. The
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Speaker 1: remaining group found Lozva River, and then moved toward the
10:47
Speaker 1: valley of Ospia River. The weather became increasingly difficult. Temperatures
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Speaker 1: dropped well below zero. Strong winds pushed snow through the trees.
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Speaker 1: Visibility came and went. But none of that was entirely unexpected.
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Speaker 1: They had deliberately planned a Category 3 winter expedition that February.
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Speaker 1: Difficult conditions were kind of the point. That's part of
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Speaker 1: what made it one of the hardest expeditions to get
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Speaker 1: that certificate. On January 31st, they reached the edge of
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Speaker 1: the Highland region and camped in a forested valley near
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Speaker 1: the treeline. There, they created a supply cache known as
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Speaker 1: a labaze. They left behind extra food, equipment, and other
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Speaker 1: items that they would not need during the portion of
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Speaker 1: that trip. So basically, they kind of leave it in
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Speaker 1: this little area. They go on further into the trip,
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Speaker 1: and then on their way back, then they can get
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Speaker 1: the supplies again that they left in this labaze. On
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Speaker 1: the morning of February 1st, they left the cachet and
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Speaker 1: began climbing away from the trees. The wind was strong,
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Speaker 1: snow was falling, visibility continued to deteriorate. At some point,
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Speaker 1: the group drifted away from its intended route and moved
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Speaker 1: west toward the upper portion of Holat Saikal. The name
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Speaker 1: is often translated as Dead Mountain. The translation sounds ominous
12:06
Speaker 1: now for obvious reasons, but it did not necessarily mean
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Speaker 1: that like the local indigenous people called the Manzi, believed
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Speaker 1: the mountain was cursed or deadly. The name may have
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Speaker 1: referred more practically to an area with little gain for hunters.
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Speaker 1: When the hikers realized they had moved off course, they
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Speaker 1: faced a decision. They could descend approximately a mile back
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Speaker 1: toward the forest, where they would have shelter from the
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Speaker 1: wind and access to firewood, or they could remain on
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Speaker 1: the exposed slope and preserve the elevation they had already gained.
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Speaker 1: Igor chose the slope. This decision has been criticized for decades,
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Speaker 1: but it was not necessarily reckless. Descending would mean climbing
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Speaker 1: the same elevation again the following morning and losing all
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Speaker 1: that ground they had gained. Camping above the tree line
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Speaker 1: also gave the group an opportunity to practice the kind
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Speaker 1: of cold weather overnight that was part of an advanced
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Speaker 1: expedition training. So the hikers began preparing a campsite. Photographs
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Speaker 1: recovered from their cameras show them cutting into the snow
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Speaker 1: to create a level platform. They arranged skis beneath the
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Speaker 1: tent to create a foundation. Backpacks, blankets, and quilted clothing
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Speaker 1: were used to insulate the floor. The entrance faced generally south,
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Speaker 1: away from the direction they had been traveling. They did
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Speaker 1: not assemble the stove that night, and that may indicate
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Speaker 1: they arrived late or were tired and planned to eat
13:30
Speaker 1: a relatively simple meal before sleeping. So if they weren't
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Speaker 1: like making their stove, clearly they were not intending to
13:35
Speaker 1: like cook with it. Inside the tent, they created a
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Speaker 1: humorous group newspaper called Evening O'Torton. It includes jokes about
13:44
Speaker 1: the expedition in a brief reference to a, quote, snowman.
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Speaker 1: Years later, that joke would be pulled out of context
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Speaker 1: and used as evidence that the hikers had encountered a Yeti.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't a warning. There is no diary entry describing
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Speaker 1: a creature following the group, and there is no final
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Speaker 1: message saying something was outside. As far as the group's
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Speaker 1: own surviving records show, they settled into the tent immediately.
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Speaker 1: expecting an uncomfortable but normal night on the mountain. And
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Speaker 1: then sometime during the night of February 1st into February 2nd,
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Speaker 1: something changed. No one survived to describe what happened next.
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Speaker 1: So every reconstruction has to begin with what was later
14:24
Speaker 1: found inside and around the tent. The group had not
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Speaker 1: packed to leave. Their food, their backpacks, their camera, money, diaries, tools,
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Speaker 1: route documents were all still inside the tent. Most of
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Speaker 1: their winter boots were lined up inside the shelter. Many
14:41
Speaker 1: of their heavy coats and outer layers had also been
14:43
Speaker 1: left behind. Some food appeared to have been prepared or
14:48
Speaker 1: positioned for the group's final meal. Later reporting on the
14:52
Speaker 1: original inquest files suggested that the hikers died approximately six
14:56
Speaker 1: to eight hours after eating. That estimate is not precise
14:59
Speaker 1: enough to create an exact minute-by-minute timeline, but it supports
15:03
Speaker 1: the idea that that the emergency occurred sometime after the
15:06
Speaker 1: group had settled into the camp. A forensic examination of
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Speaker 1: the tent identified three significant cuts measuring approximately 32, 89,
15:16
Speaker 1: and 42 centimeters. I'm not really great with centimeters. I
15:21
Speaker 1: don't really know how long that is. The experts who
15:24
Speaker 1: examined the fabric concluded that these cuts had been made
15:27
Speaker 1: with a sharp object from inside the shelter. Not every
15:31
Speaker 1: tear in the tent could be interpreted. The shelter had collapsed.
15:35
Speaker 1: It remained exposed to wind and snow for weeks. Searchers
15:39
Speaker 1: moved it and opened portions of the fabric, but at
15:42
Speaker 1: least several cuts were deliberately made from the inside. The
15:46
Speaker 1: hikers then left. And this is where one of the
15:50
Speaker 1: most repeated versions of the story becomes misleading. You will
15:54
Speaker 1: often hear that nine terrified people sliced open the tent
15:58
Speaker 1: and ran barefoot in every direction. But that is not
16:01
Speaker 1: what the tracks showed. the footprints appeared to move together
16:05
Speaker 1: down the slope. Searcher Boris Lobsab later described tracks made
16:09
Speaker 1: by people wearing socks, soft felt footwear, or no proper
16:13
Speaker 1: shoes at all. Only one person may have had a
16:16
Speaker 1: single boot or shoe, and the tracks did not look
16:19
Speaker 1: like nine people blindly sprinting away from one another. They
16:23
Speaker 1: traveled in roughly the same direction, and they initially remained
16:26
Speaker 1: close together. The visible trail continued for approximately 500 meters
16:31
Speaker 1: and before being covered and erased by snowfall later. The
16:37
Speaker 1: eventual location of the bodies shows that the group continued
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Speaker 1: toward the forest approximately one and a half kilometers below
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Speaker 1: the campsite. They were inadequately dressed, but they apparently walked,
16:48
Speaker 1: and that distinction matters. Whatever happened inside or around the
16:52
Speaker 1: tent was urgent enough that they would not take the
16:55
Speaker 1: time to properly dress themselves, but the descent itself may
17:00
Speaker 1: have been slightly organized. They could have believed the evacuation
17:04
Speaker 1: was temporary. They may have expected to wait a short
17:07
Speaker 1: time and return. Or some of them may have been
17:11
Speaker 1: injured and needed help moving. The forest offered two things
17:15
Speaker 1: that the exposed slope did not. Protection from the wind
17:19
Speaker 1: and wood for a fire. So even though leaving the
17:22
Speaker 1: tent was extraordinarily dangerous... walking downhill toward the trees was
17:27
Speaker 1: not random. It was the only obvious place where they
17:30
Speaker 1: might survive if the campsite itself had become unsafe. The
17:34
Speaker 1: problem was that once they reached the forest, they were
17:37
Speaker 1: still a mile away from their boots, clothing, blankets, and food.
17:41
Speaker 1: And through blowing snow, darkness, and poor visibility, the tent
17:45
Speaker 1: may have disappeared completely into the white mountainside. So it's
17:49
Speaker 1: possible they wouldn't have been able to find their way
17:50
Speaker 1: back regardless. So before leaving for the trip, Igor had
17:54
Speaker 1: agreed to send a telegram to the group's sports club
17:57
Speaker 1: after they returned to Visay. The message was expected no
18:02
Speaker 1: later than February 12th. So if you remember, this night
18:06
Speaker 1: they kind of disappeared was February 1st and 2nd. However,
18:09
Speaker 1: Igor had reportedly warned Yuri Yudin that the group could
18:13
Speaker 1: be delayed. So Yuri was the one who left early
18:15
Speaker 1: due to his health concerns. So he had sent, when
18:17
Speaker 1: he was on his way back, he told him like, hey,
18:20
Speaker 1: tell them it might be later than February 12th. This
18:23
Speaker 1: was not unusual. Winter expeditions did not always remain perfectly
18:27
Speaker 1: on schedule. Snow, equipment problems, and navigation delays could add
18:32
Speaker 1: several days to a route. So, when February 12th passed
18:35
Speaker 1: without a telegram, officials did not immediately launch a rescue operation.
18:40
Speaker 1: The hikers' families, however, were much more concerned. As more
18:44
Speaker 1: days passed without any message, relatives began demanding action. On
18:49
Speaker 1: February 20th, the Institute organized the first search teams. Those
18:54
Speaker 1: initial groups consisted largely of volunteer students and teachers familiar
18:59
Speaker 1: with hiking in that region. Police and military personnel later
19:03
Speaker 1: joined the operation. Aircraft and helicopters were used to search
19:06
Speaker 1: the enormous snow-covered landscape. This was not an area where
19:10
Speaker 1: searchers could simply follow a marked trail. The missing group
19:14
Speaker 1: had traveled deep into a region of mountains, rivers, forests,
19:18
Speaker 1: and wind-blown snow. And their last confirmed location was not known.
19:24
Speaker 1: Searchers first located the supply cache in Ospia Valley, and
19:28
Speaker 1: that showed that the group had successfully reached that point
19:31
Speaker 1: and then continued toward the mountain. On February 26th, Boris
19:37
Speaker 1: Slopsob and Mikhail Sherevin reached the eastern slope of Holot-Sykov.
19:44
Speaker 1: There they found the tent. Sherevin later described it as
19:47
Speaker 1: half-collapsed and covered with snow, incinerated. completely empty. The discovery
19:52
Speaker 1: immediately created more questions than answers. If the group had
19:55
Speaker 1: become lost, why were all of their belongings still there?
19:59
Speaker 1: If they had decided to abandon the expedition, why had
20:02
Speaker 1: they left their boots? And if someone had attacked them,
20:05
Speaker 1: where were the attacker's tracks? And why had the hikers
20:09
Speaker 1: cut open their own shelter from the inside? The searchers
20:12
Speaker 1: began following the footprints downhill. And at the edge of
20:16
Speaker 1: the forest, beneath a large Siberian cedar, they found the
20:19
Speaker 1: remains of a fire. Nearby were the first two bodies.
20:23
Speaker 1: Georgie and Yuri. Both men were badly underdressed for the conditions.
20:28
Speaker 1: Georgie was barefoot on one foot and wore only a
20:31
Speaker 1: damaged sock on the other. Yuri had socks but no
20:34
Speaker 1: proper winter boots. They were wearing underwear and limited layers
20:38
Speaker 1: that would have provided almost no protection against the wind
20:40
Speaker 1: and cold. Branches had been broken from the cedar as
20:44
Speaker 1: high as approximately 5 meters or more than 16 feet
20:48
Speaker 1: above the ground. Someone had climbed the tree or repeatedly
20:52
Speaker 1: pulled at the branches high above the snow. And there
20:55
Speaker 1: are several possible reasons. They may have been collecting dry
20:59
Speaker 1: wood for their fire and lower branches might have been
21:02
Speaker 1: damp or buried. Someone may have climbed the cedar to
21:06
Speaker 1: look for the tent. So maybe they were climbing up
21:08
Speaker 1: to see if they could find their tent again. From
21:10
Speaker 1: higher in the tree, they may have hoped to see
21:12
Speaker 1: a dark shape or a light of some indication of
21:15
Speaker 1: their campsite on the slope. Fragments of skin and clothing
21:19
Speaker 1: were reportedly found on the trunk, suggesting the climb had
21:22
Speaker 1: been desperate and physically damaging. So this was probably kind
21:26
Speaker 1: of like last ditch efforts if like their skin was
21:28
Speaker 1: coming off on the tree. The fire beneath the tree
21:31
Speaker 1: had burned and there were charred branches and pieces of clothing.
21:34
Speaker 1: but it had not been large enough or sustained long
21:37
Speaker 1: enough to keep two inadequately dressed men alive. The autopsies
21:41
Speaker 1: concluded that both of them had died from hypothermia. Georgie
21:45
Speaker 1: also had burns on his body. Some of the burns
21:48
Speaker 1: may have occurred because he remained dangerously close to the
21:50
Speaker 1: flames as he became weak or unconscious. One of the
21:54
Speaker 1: autopsy findings suggests that he had bitten a piece of
21:57
Speaker 1: tissue from his own hand. Whether that occurred because of pain, confusion,
22:02
Speaker 1: or an attempt to remain conscious is impossible to know.
22:05
Speaker 1: Several hundred meters uphill from the cedar, searchers found Igor Dyatlov.
22:11
Speaker 1: And then farther toward the tent, they discovered Zina. Rustem
22:14
Speaker 1: Slobodin was found later along the same general path, and
22:19
Speaker 1: Igor was approximately 300 meters from the cedar. So to
22:22
Speaker 1: kind of give you the layout here, Igor was approximately
22:25
Speaker 1: 300 meters away from that tree. Rustem was about 480
22:30
Speaker 1: meters from the tree, and Xena was roughly 630 meters
22:33
Speaker 1: away from the tree. So kind of like in that
22:36
Speaker 1: line up towards where the tent was. Their bodies were
22:40
Speaker 1: positioned between the fire and the tent, facing generally uphill.
22:45
Speaker 1: That has led investigators to believe they were attempting to
22:47
Speaker 1: return to the campsite. And honestly, that's one of the
22:50
Speaker 1: most logical conclusions in the entire case. The fire wasn't enough.
22:54
Speaker 1: The group had no food. They had no shoes. They
22:56
Speaker 1: had no blankets. and the equipment required to keep anybody
23:00
Speaker 1: alive was still inside that tent. At some point, someone
23:04
Speaker 1: had to go back, and it looks like Igor, Zina,
23:07
Speaker 1: and Rustem may have attempted to climb together, or they
23:10
Speaker 1: may have left at different times with the same goal.
23:14
Speaker 1: They may have followed tracks that were still visible before
23:17
Speaker 1: the wind erased them, but climbing through deep snow into
23:20
Speaker 1: strong wind and darkness while wearing inadequate footwear had consumed
23:24
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of energy. Igor never made it further,
23:28
Speaker 1: then about 300 meters, and then Rustam a little bit further,
23:31
Speaker 1: and then Zina came the closest. The autopsies concluded that
23:36
Speaker 1: Igor and Zina died from hypothermia. Rustam also died from hypothermia,
23:41
Speaker 1: although he had a small fracture to his skull. The
23:44
Speaker 1: medical examiner did not believe the fracture was immediately fatal,
23:48
Speaker 1: but even a non-fatal head injury could have caused disorientation, weakness,
23:52
Speaker 1: or loss of consciousness. In that environment, a person did
23:56
Speaker 1: not need to be unconscious for long. Five of the
23:59
Speaker 1: nine hikers have now been found, meaning four were still missing.
24:03
Speaker 1: And investigators had not yet discovered the injuries that would
24:07
Speaker 1: turn the case into an international mystery. So searchers continued
24:12
Speaker 1: examining the forest throughout March and April. So as we
24:15
Speaker 1: talked about, these conditions were very hard to search through.
24:18
Speaker 1: So like it took a few extra months to find
24:20
Speaker 1: these other people because of the snow and everything like that.
24:23
Speaker 1: They used long probes to test areas where the snow
24:26
Speaker 1: was especially deep. As temperatures began to rise, portions of
24:30
Speaker 1: the snow packs shifted and melted. Near the beginning of May,
24:35
Speaker 1: searchers found pieces of cut clothing and a platform made
24:39
Speaker 1: from tree branches near a ravine approximately 75 meters beyond
24:44
Speaker 1: the cedar, so further away from the campsite, past the
24:47
Speaker 1: tree that they found those other people in that fire.
24:50
Speaker 1: The branches appeared to have been deliberately placed over the
24:52
Speaker 1: snow to create an insulated floor. This was likely the
24:56
Speaker 1: remains of an emergency snow shelter. and its important evidence.
25:00
Speaker 1: The people in the forest had not simply panicked and
25:03
Speaker 1: stopped thinking. Someone gathered branches. Someone selected a location more
25:07
Speaker 1: protected than the base of the cedar. Someone cut clothing
25:10
Speaker 1: from the hikers who died first and redistributed it to
25:13
Speaker 1: people who were still alive. Someone attempted to create insulation
25:17
Speaker 1: between their bodies and the snow. And those are rational
25:20
Speaker 1: survival decisions. On May 4th, more than three months after
25:25
Speaker 1: the night of the incident, The remaining four hikers were
25:27
Speaker 1: found beneath approximately 4 meters, or 13 feet, of snow.
25:33
Speaker 1: Their bodies were located in or beside a stream at
25:36
Speaker 1: the bottom of a ravine. They were Ludimla Dubina, Simon Zolotaryov,
25:44
Speaker 1: Nikolai Tibobrinov, and Alexander Kolevatov. They were better dressed than
25:51
Speaker 1: the first five. So some were wearing clothing that had
25:54
Speaker 1: originally belonged to Georgie and Yuri, and Ludima was wearing
25:58
Speaker 1: portions of Georgie's burned and torn trousers. Her lower leg
26:04
Speaker 1: and foot had been wrapped in part of a jacket.
26:07
Speaker 1: This was sometimes described as evidence that the hikers had
26:10
Speaker 1: irrationally removed their clothing because of paradoxical undressing. So the
26:14
Speaker 1: phenomenon that can occur during severe hypothermia where your body
26:17
Speaker 1: thinks it's really hot, so you start removing your clothes.
26:20
Speaker 1: But the distribution of the garments suggests something more deliberate.
26:24
Speaker 1: The people who remained alive removed usable clothing from those
26:27
Speaker 1: who had already died to add layers to themselves, and
26:30
Speaker 1: they wrapped exposed limbs. They were trying to preserve whoever
26:34
Speaker 1: still had the best chance of surviving. Alexander's official cause
26:37
Speaker 1: of death was exposure to low temperature. The other three
26:41
Speaker 1: hikers found with him had devastating internal injuries. Nikolai had
26:45
Speaker 1: suffered a major depressed skull fracture. and the fracture extended
26:49
Speaker 1: across a significant portion of the skull and into its base.
26:53
Speaker 1: The injury was fatal. And Simon had multiple, or Sasha
26:58
Speaker 1: as he liked to be called, had multiple fractures on
27:00
Speaker 1: the right side of his rib cage and severe internal bleeding.
27:04
Speaker 1: Ludmilla had extensive fractures on both sides of her chest.
27:08
Speaker 1: Her injuries were especially severe. Multiple ribs were broken, and
27:13
Speaker 1: she had suffered massive bleeding into the chest cavity. The
27:16
Speaker 1: medical examiner compared the force necessary to produce injuries of
27:20
Speaker 1: this kind of trauma experienced in a serious vehicle collision.
27:25
Speaker 1: And yet they were the kind of external wounds many
27:27
Speaker 1: people would expect from like a violent beating. There were
27:30
Speaker 1: no documented gunshot wounds, no stab wounds, no obvious weapon marks,
27:35
Speaker 1: no evidence that their chest had repeatedly been struck by
27:38
Speaker 1: another person. The damage was largely internal, as though the
27:42
Speaker 1: bodies had been subjected to intense pressure or compression. The
27:46
Speaker 1: medical examiner believed the injuries occurred while the hikers were alive.
27:50
Speaker 1: They were not simply fractures created when frozen remains were
27:53
Speaker 1: moved several months later. And this raised an immediate question.
27:58
Speaker 1: What on that mountain could generate enough pressure to crush
28:00
Speaker 1: a person's ribcage without leaving a clear external wound? So
28:06
Speaker 1: I think this is where people really get caught up
28:08
Speaker 1: because they're like, what are these terrible injuries that occurred
28:11
Speaker 1: to these people? If, like, they were just left out
28:13
Speaker 1: in the cold, you know, to die of hypothermia like
28:16
Speaker 1: some of the others. But what could cause that kind
28:19
Speaker 1: of pressure? A heavy mass of snow. Maybe a fall
28:22
Speaker 1: onto rocks. A collapse inside a snow shelter could. Maybe
28:26
Speaker 1: an explosive pressure wave. But the injuries alone do not
28:29
Speaker 1: tell us which of those events occurred. And then there
28:33
Speaker 1: was the condition of their faces. So I think this
28:35
Speaker 1: is probably the weirdest thing about it. Both Sasha and
28:42
Speaker 1: Ludmila were missing their eyes. Ludmila was also missing her tongue,
28:49
Speaker 1: portions of her lips, and other soft tissue from around
28:53
Speaker 1: her face. Alexander was missing tissue around his eyebrows. These
28:58
Speaker 1: injuries are disturbing and are also the reason that the
29:03
Speaker 1: theories involving torture and military interrogation and ritual killing kind
29:08
Speaker 1: of make their way into this story. but the environment
29:11
Speaker 1: where the bodies were found is critical. The four hikers
29:13
Speaker 1: remained buried for approximately three months. They were located in
29:17
Speaker 1: running water beneath several feet of snow, and as the
29:20
Speaker 1: snow melted, water moved continuously around the bodies. What they're
29:25
Speaker 1: saying is that soft tissue around the eyes, mouth, and
29:27
Speaker 1: lips is especially vulnerable to decomposition, water damage, and animal activity.
29:34
Speaker 1: Ludimilla's face had been positioned against or near the flowing stream.
29:38
Speaker 1: Her exposed facial bones in law of soft tissue were
29:41
Speaker 1: documented during the autopsy. But the report could not conclude
29:46
Speaker 1: about her tongue because it had looked like it had
29:48
Speaker 1: been intentionally cut out. But it did not identify knife
29:52
Speaker 1: marks showing deliberate removal. The medical examiner ultimately believed the
29:57
Speaker 1: facial injuries occurred after death. And that explanation is much
30:02
Speaker 1: less dramatic than torture. And it fits the location and
30:05
Speaker 1: condition in which the bodies were found. The missing tissue
30:09
Speaker 1: was real, but it was not proof that someone had
30:11
Speaker 1: mutilated them. And then there are details that started creating
30:16
Speaker 1: a conspiracy. Well, the missing eyeballs and tongue are part
30:18
Speaker 1: of it. But then there was the radiation. A radiological
30:23
Speaker 1: examination detected elevated beta radiation on several pieces of clothing
30:27
Speaker 1: recovered from the ravine. the highest readings were associated with
30:31
Speaker 1: portions of a sweater and trousers. The testing did not
30:35
Speaker 1: establish exactly when or where the clothing had become contaminated,
30:39
Speaker 1: and at least two members of the group had worked
30:41
Speaker 1: in environments associated with the Soviet nuclear industry. Georgie had
30:46
Speaker 1: worked at the Mayak nuclear facility and participated in cleanup
30:49
Speaker 1: following a serious radioactive accident. That provides at least one
30:54
Speaker 1: route for the contamination that had nothing to do with
30:57
Speaker 1: the hiker's death. But the radiation was real. The autopsies
31:01
Speaker 1: did not identify radiation poisoning as a cause of death.
31:04
Speaker 1: There was no widespread contamination across the entire campsite. And
31:08
Speaker 1: not every hiker's clothing produced the same result. The radiation
31:12
Speaker 1: does not explain why the group left the tent. And
31:15
Speaker 1: it does not prove that a nuclear device exploded above them.
31:18
Speaker 1: But people have questioned that. Another frequently repeated detail is
31:23
Speaker 1: that the hikers' bodies had orange or brown skin and
31:26
Speaker 1: gray hair. Yuri Konsevich, who was 12 years old at
31:30
Speaker 1: the time of this happening, and he actually later helped
31:33
Speaker 1: establish the Diet Love Foundation, attended several of the funerals,
31:37
Speaker 1: and he recalled the bodies having a deep brown or
31:39
Speaker 1: orange appearance, and relatives also made similar observations. But the
31:45
Speaker 1: bodies had been exposed to extreme cold, wind, decomposition, and
31:49
Speaker 1: post-mortem preparation. Changes in skin color are not unusual under
31:54
Speaker 1: those circumstances. Descriptions of gray hair may also have been
31:58
Speaker 1: influenced by frost, decomposition, chemicals used during examination, or the
32:03
Speaker 1: appearance of the bodies after recovery. But the coloring was unsettling.
32:07
Speaker 1: It's not reliable evidence of an unknown radiation weapon, but
32:11
Speaker 1: I can see why if you saw somebody and they
32:12
Speaker 1: had orange skin, you would think, that's kind of suspicious
32:15
Speaker 1: of some chemical warfare there. Then there were lights in
32:18
Speaker 1: the sky. So the night of, well, in the time
32:23
Speaker 1: when these people disappeared, Other hikers located many miles away
32:27
Speaker 1: reported seeing orange spheres and glowing objects to the north.
32:32
Speaker 1: Additional witnesses in the wider region described unusual lights during
32:35
Speaker 1: February and March 1959. Some of those witnesses included members
32:40
Speaker 1: of the military in a meteorological service. This part of
32:44
Speaker 1: the story should not be dismissed as though every person
32:46
Speaker 1: who reported a light was lying. People did see something.
32:51
Speaker 1: The problem is connecting those observations to the Dyatlov group.
32:55
Speaker 1: Not all the sightings occurred the same night. Some were
32:58
Speaker 1: weeks later. Some witnesses were many miles away. But the
33:03
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was conducting military and rocket activity during this period.
33:08
Speaker 1: The lights may have been rockets, military flares, atmospheric effects,
33:12
Speaker 1: or other testing. But even if an orange object appeared
33:16
Speaker 1: in the sky on the night of February 1st, it
33:19
Speaker 1: doesn't prove it forced the group out of their tent.
33:22
Speaker 1: There was no confirmed explosion of the site, No fragments
33:25
Speaker 1: of a weapon were documented. The surrounding trees had not
33:28
Speaker 1: been flattened or burned. The tent and its contents had
33:31
Speaker 1: not been destroyed by a blast. The strange light evidence
33:36
Speaker 1: is odd, but it's not automatically evidence of murder. The
33:41
Speaker 1: official investigation also created suspicion through its vagueness. The inquest
33:45
Speaker 1: was closed in May 1959 because no guilty party had
33:49
Speaker 1: been identified. The files were placed in an archive that
33:52
Speaker 1: was not freely accessible to the public. and access to
33:56
Speaker 1: the area was reportedly restricted for several years. In the
34:00
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, information about domestic accidents and military activity was
34:04
Speaker 1: routinely controlled. But to families and later researchers, the secrecy
34:09
Speaker 1: looked like proof that the officials were hiding something specific.
34:13
Speaker 1: And once that belief took hold, every unexplained detail became
34:16
Speaker 1: part of the cover-up. The radiation, the lights, the missing
34:20
Speaker 1: eyes and tongue, the internal injuries, the closed investigation, the
34:24
Speaker 1: restricted area. Some of those details are genuinely unusual, but
34:29
Speaker 1: unusual details are not necessarily connected details. So now we're
34:34
Speaker 1: going to walk through all the theories that have been
34:36
Speaker 1: proposed as to what happened to these people. One of
34:40
Speaker 1: the earliest theories involved the Manzi. This is the indigenous
34:44
Speaker 1: people who lived and hunted throughout that region. Investigators considered
34:48
Speaker 1: whether the hikers had entered sacred territory and had been attacked.
34:52
Speaker 1: Several Manzi residents were questioned and but there was no
34:55
Speaker 1: physical evidence supporting the theory. The hikers' diaries described interest
34:59
Speaker 1: in Manzi language and culture rather than conflict. Local Manzi
35:05
Speaker 1: residents also participated in the search. Only the hikers' tracks
35:08
Speaker 1: were documented around the tent. There were no signs of
35:11
Speaker 1: a large group approaching from outside. Money, cameras, food, and
35:16
Speaker 1: valuable equipment remained at the campsite, so you'd think if
35:19
Speaker 1: they were being attacked, maybe someone would take some of
35:20
Speaker 1: the valuable things that they had in the tent. and
35:24
Speaker 1: the hikers' injuries did not resemble an attack involving knives, firearms,
35:27
Speaker 1: or other weapons. The theory appears to have developed primarily
35:31
Speaker 1: because the Manzi were local and unfamiliar to the investigators.
35:35
Speaker 1: It was not supported by the scene. Another theory suggested
35:39
Speaker 1: that escaped prisoners or criminals encountered the group. There were
35:44
Speaker 1: prison and labor camp facilities throughout portions of the Soviet North,
35:48
Speaker 1: so the idea was not completely invented from nothing. But again,
35:52
Speaker 1: No unidentified tracks. Nothing was stolen. There was no evidence
35:56
Speaker 1: of confrontation. And nine hikers leaving together without proper clothing
36:01
Speaker 1: would be a very bizarre response to criminals approaching from
36:04
Speaker 1: the outside. An attacker would also have needed to force
36:07
Speaker 1: the group a mile downhill without leaving a visible trail
36:10
Speaker 1: of their own. So there's, once again, no evidence that
36:13
Speaker 1: this happened. So the next is a fight within the group.
36:17
Speaker 1: Could the hikers have turned against one another? There were
36:20
Speaker 1: young men and women traveling together. There were friendships, crushes,
36:23
Speaker 1: and occasional disagreements. But nothing in the diaries suggested a
36:26
Speaker 1: conflict severe enough to become homicidal. More importantly, a fight
36:31
Speaker 1: does not explain the physical evidence. Nine people would not
36:34
Speaker 1: normally resolve an argument by collectively abandoning all their stuff,
36:37
Speaker 1: their boots, their coats, and their footprints showed they traveled together.
36:42
Speaker 1: And they would later work together to build a fire
36:44
Speaker 1: and snow shelter, clothing was redistributed, and at least three
36:47
Speaker 1: hikers appeared to have tried to return to the campsite.
36:50
Speaker 1: Whatever happened, their behavior suggests cooperation together, not a group
36:54
Speaker 1: destroying itself over an argument. The next theory is an
36:58
Speaker 1: animal attack, but there's been no confirmed tracks from a
37:01
Speaker 1: large animal around the tent. An animal frightening them may
37:04
Speaker 1: have explained the sudden evacuation, but it would not explain
37:07
Speaker 1: why the group continued a full mile downhill or why
37:10
Speaker 1: no one returned once the animal was gone. It also
37:13
Speaker 1: does not account for the several internal injuries. The next
37:16
Speaker 1: theory is the Yeti theory. And this theory relies primarily
37:20
Speaker 1: on two things. The jokes about a snowman in the
37:23
Speaker 1: group's newspaper and a blurry photograph found on one of
37:26
Speaker 1: the cameras. So as we mentioned, some of the cameras
37:28
Speaker 1: were left behind so they could develop the footage prior
37:31
Speaker 1: to them dying, obviously. And the photograph appears to show
37:36
Speaker 1: a human figure in heavy winter clothing, most likely a
37:39
Speaker 1: member of the expedition. So there are no unknown tracks,
37:43
Speaker 1: no claw marks, no evidence of a creature attacking the campsite.
37:48
Speaker 1: And I am comfortable ruling out the Yeti. You heard
37:51
Speaker 1: it here first. And maybe it's the most controversial position
37:53
Speaker 1: I'll ever take. I don't know, but I don't think
37:55
Speaker 1: it was a Yeti. The next theory is the military theory.
37:59
Speaker 1: And this one's more difficult to dismiss completely because the
38:03
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was conducting secret weapons testing in that area.
38:08
Speaker 1: Its government was also not known for transparency. Several versions
38:13
Speaker 1: involve parachute mines, rockets, chemical weapons, radioactive devices, or soldiers
38:18
Speaker 1: eliminating witnesses. Parachute mines were designed to detonate above the
38:23
Speaker 1: ground and create a powerful pressure wave. Supporters of this
38:27
Speaker 1: theory argue that this could explain several internal injuries without
38:31
Speaker 1: external damage expected from a direct explosion. The orange lights
38:36
Speaker 1: reported in the region are sometimes described as mines, rockets,
38:39
Speaker 1: or aircrafts. And the radioactive clothing is then added as
38:43
Speaker 1: evidence that there was maybe some secret weapons tests going
38:46
Speaker 1: on and that either it accidentally kind of like exploded
38:49
Speaker 1: above where they were with like the military not realizing
38:51
Speaker 1: they were there, obviously. But the theory has major problems
38:56
Speaker 1: because there's no confirmed parachute material recovered, no bomb fragments documented,
39:01
Speaker 1: and there were no clear blast sites. The one thing
39:04
Speaker 1: I want to say about that, though, is because like
39:06
Speaker 1: they were pretty secretive about the investigation. So like Would
39:09
Speaker 1: they tell everybody if there was parachute material recovered? I
39:13
Speaker 1: would guess no. The trees and tent were not damaged
39:16
Speaker 1: in a way that was consistent with the large nearby explosion, though.
39:20
Speaker 1: A pressure wave powerful enough to crush multiple rib cages
39:23
Speaker 1: should have affected the campsite and equipment much more dramatically.
39:27
Speaker 1: The hikers also left their cameras and diaries. If military
39:31
Speaker 1: did stage a scene, they did an extremely poor job
39:34
Speaker 1: of removing material that would fuel suspicion. The Soviet government
39:38
Speaker 1: may have concealed information about unrelated military activity. That's definitely possible.
39:43
Speaker 1: But government secrecy does not prove that a weapon killed
39:46
Speaker 1: the hikers. Another elaborate theory is a botched intelligence operation.
39:52
Speaker 1: So this suggests that one or more hikers were participating
39:56
Speaker 1: in an intelligence operation involving the controlled delivery of radioactive
40:00
Speaker 1: material to foreign agents. It's kind of a little bit
40:04
Speaker 1: out there, but under this theory, basically they're saying a
40:08
Speaker 1: meeting went wrong and the hikers were killed. This is
40:11
Speaker 1: based largely on the radioactive clothing and the professional backgrounds
40:15
Speaker 1: of several group members. especially some suspicion surrounding Simon or Sasha,
40:22
Speaker 1: but there's no verified evidence because he was the one
40:24
Speaker 1: who was like a little bit older and like joined
40:25
Speaker 1: at the last minute. There's no verified evidence that an
40:29
Speaker 1: intelligence meeting had been scheduled. No foreign agents were identified.
40:32
Speaker 1: No second groups tracks were fought or found in the
40:36
Speaker 1: condition of the scene still points toward the hikers leaving
40:39
Speaker 1: under their own power. It's a detailed story, but that
40:42
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily make it a documented one. Okay. There's a
40:45
Speaker 1: few more theories here. One is talking about infrasound. So
40:50
Speaker 1: writer Donnie Ecker popularized a theory involving infrasound. The idea
40:55
Speaker 1: is that the wind moving around the mountain may have
40:58
Speaker 1: created a pattern known as a Karman vortex street. So
41:02
Speaker 1: under particular conditions, air flowing around an obstacle can form
41:06
Speaker 1: alternating vortices or vortexes. So those vortices may produce a
41:11
Speaker 1: very low-frequency sound, and so it's called infrasound. So basically,
41:16
Speaker 1: this low-frequency sound can sometimes cause feelings of anxiety, discomfort, nausea,
41:20
Speaker 1: or unease. So the theory suggests that the hikers were
41:24
Speaker 1: experiencing a wave of intense, unexplained panic and fled the tent,
41:28
Speaker 1: so because of this infrasound. Once they moved downhill and
41:32
Speaker 1: out of the affected area, they regained composure but could
41:35
Speaker 1: no longer locate their campsite. The major injuries may have
41:39
Speaker 1: occurred when the several hikers fell into the ravine, but
41:43
Speaker 1: the problem is that there is no evidence that the
41:44
Speaker 1: infrasound even occurred that night. And there's also limited evidence
41:48
Speaker 1: that it would cause nine experienced people to make the
41:51
Speaker 1: same complex decision at the same time. It's definitely an
41:55
Speaker 1: interesting environmental theory, but it depends on a phenomenon that
41:59
Speaker 1: was never measured at the campsite. The next being a
42:02
Speaker 1: caudabatic wind phenomenon. which is a powerful downslope wind created
42:07
Speaker 1: when dense, cold air rushes from higher elevation toward lower ground.
42:12
Speaker 1: So these winds can become sudden and violent. In 2019,
42:18
Speaker 1: members of a Swedish-Russian expedition traveled to the area and
42:22
Speaker 1: proposed that a katabatic wind could have forced the hikers
42:25
Speaker 1: from their shelter. A similar type wind was considered in
42:29
Speaker 1: a 1978 disaster called at Anaris Mountain in Sweden, where
42:35
Speaker 1: eight hikers died. Under the diet love theory, the wind
42:39
Speaker 1: became so violent that remaining inside the tent was impossible.
42:43
Speaker 1: The hikers may have covered or secured the shelter, left
42:47
Speaker 1: a flashlight on top as a beacon, and ascended to
42:50
Speaker 1: the forest to wait for the wind to weaken. The
42:53
Speaker 1: flashlight found on the snow is interesting in that context
42:56
Speaker 1: because It may have simply just been dropped, but it's
42:59
Speaker 1: also possible that the hikers deliberately left it visible so
43:03
Speaker 1: that they could find the tent again. Once they reached
43:06
Speaker 1: the forest, however, the wind and snow continued, and the
43:10
Speaker 1: tent disappeared from view. The group built a fire and
43:14
Speaker 1: at least one snow shelter. The catabotic wind theory can
43:17
Speaker 1: explain why they sought protection among the trees, and it
43:21
Speaker 1: can explain why returning uphill became impossible. It can even
43:25
Speaker 1: work alongside the theory that that a shelter near the
43:28
Speaker 1: ravine later collapsed. But wind alone does not fully explain
43:33
Speaker 1: why the group cut through the tent instead of using
43:35
Speaker 1: the entrance. And a wind powerful enough to make the
43:39
Speaker 1: tent completely uninhabitable might be expected to damage or carry
43:44
Speaker 1: away more of the campsite. It remains plausible as a
43:47
Speaker 1: contributing factor, but it's harder to prove as the single trigger.
43:52
Speaker 1: The next theory is just like a traditional avalanche. So
43:56
Speaker 1: this was considered during the original investigation and has remained
44:00
Speaker 1: one of the leading explanations ever since. It also faces
44:04
Speaker 1: several obvious objections. The tent had not been swept down
44:08
Speaker 1: the slope. Skis and poles remained near the campsite. Searchers
44:13
Speaker 1: did not describe a massive debris field. And the slope
44:16
Speaker 1: appeared too shallow. Footprints remained visible below the tent. And
44:22
Speaker 1: the bodies found during that, like, February, March search... were
44:26
Speaker 1: not buried beneath a large avalanche deposit. More than 100
44:31
Speaker 1: expeditions have later traveled through that region without reporting any
44:35
Speaker 1: major avalanches at that exact campsite. Researchers also argued that
44:40
Speaker 1: the prevailing wind could remove snow from the ridge rather
44:44
Speaker 1: than deposit enough to create a slide. So basically they
44:47
Speaker 1: think it would just kind of like blow rather than
44:49
Speaker 1: create an avalanche slide, I guess. Igor was also experienced.
44:55
Speaker 1: Sasha was trained for advanced certification as a hiking instructor.
44:59
Speaker 1: Why would either man place a tent directly beneath an
45:01
Speaker 1: obvious avalanche path? The tracks are another problem. They did
45:06
Speaker 1: not look like people running in uncontrolled terror. The hikers
45:09
Speaker 1: appeared to walk downhill together. A large, fast-moving avalanche sweeping
45:14
Speaker 1: across the campsite does not fit that evidence particularly well.
45:19
Speaker 1: But a large avalanche is not the same thing as
45:22
Speaker 1: a small slab release. So this brings us to more
45:26
Speaker 1: modern investigation of these events. So in 2019, Russian prosecutors
45:31
Speaker 1: reopened the investigation. They limited their review to natural explanations,
45:36
Speaker 1: including a traditional avalanche, a slab avalanche, and extreme wind.
45:41
Speaker 1: Murder was not treated as a serious possibility. In 2020,
45:45
Speaker 1: investigators announced that an avalanche was the most likely cause.
45:49
Speaker 1: Their reconstruction argued that snow shifted above or around the tent,
45:54
Speaker 1: forcing the hikers to evacuate into severe weather. Once they
45:58
Speaker 1: reached what they believed was a safe distance, darkness and
46:01
Speaker 1: low visibility prevented them from finding the campsite again. Later
46:06
Speaker 1: reviews also emphasized how severe the weather may have been.
46:11
Speaker 1: Estimates include temperatures potentially approaching negative 40 degrees, And winds
46:16
Speaker 1: between roughly 45 and 67 miles per hour. Negative 40
46:20
Speaker 1: degrees is freezing. And that's actual temperature, not like feels like.
46:25
Speaker 1: Here in the Midwest, we get in the middle of
46:27
Speaker 1: the winter. Sometimes in really cold times, we'll get like
46:30
Speaker 1: small negative numbers with wind chill. But like, oh my God,
46:33
Speaker 1: that's freezing. People would not survive long out in that,
46:36
Speaker 1: especially if they're not wearing shoes. Those numbers, though, are reconstructions.
46:40
Speaker 1: They're not direct measurements taken beside the tent. but they
46:43
Speaker 1: illustrate the kind of environment the group may have faced.
46:46
Speaker 1: Officials described the hikers' actions as a heroic struggle rather
46:50
Speaker 1: than a blind panic. They evacuated an area that they
46:54
Speaker 1: believed was dangerous. They moved toward the protection of the
46:56
Speaker 1: tree line, started a fire, created an emergency shelter. They
47:00
Speaker 1: attempted to return for supplies. The problem was not that
47:04
Speaker 1: they did nothing correctly. The problem was that the conditions
47:08
Speaker 1: gave them no margin for error. In 2021, snow scientist
47:13
Speaker 1: Johan Gomm and a geotechnical engineer, Alexander Puzran, published a
47:18
Speaker 1: more specific model. They proposed that the hikers had cut
47:22
Speaker 1: into the slope to create a level platform for the tent,
47:26
Speaker 1: and that cut may have weakened a buried layer of snow.
47:30
Speaker 1: So the tent itself rested on like a compacted snow
47:34
Speaker 1: reinforced by skis, which was like a relatively hard surface
47:38
Speaker 1: beneath where the hikers were. But... Above them, then, the
47:42
Speaker 1: dense slab may have been like weakened a little bit
47:45
Speaker 1: by them digging into it. So the slab would not
47:48
Speaker 1: collapse immediately. Strong winds continued transporting snow onto the slope
47:55
Speaker 1: above the campsite. So like more snow was accumulating still
47:57
Speaker 1: above it then. And hours later, the additional load may
48:01
Speaker 1: have caused a compact section of the snow to break free.
48:04
Speaker 1: So not like a full on avalanche, but like a
48:06
Speaker 1: small compact section. And this would not necessarily look like
48:09
Speaker 1: a giant wall of snow, like what you think of
48:12
Speaker 1: when you picture like an avalanche happening on the side
48:14
Speaker 1: of a mountain. It may have been relatively small, but
48:17
Speaker 1: extremely dense. Large enough to fall across part of the tent,
48:21
Speaker 1: large enough to pin people against the hard floor and
48:23
Speaker 1: the skis, and large enough to produce serious chest and
48:27
Speaker 1: skull injuries. But maybe not potentially large enough to carry
48:30
Speaker 1: the entire tent down the mountain or leave like an
48:33
Speaker 1: obvious debris field three weeks later. The researchers' simulations found
48:37
Speaker 1: that a slab under the right conditions could produce injuries
48:41
Speaker 1: similar to those documented in the autopsy. Their work also
48:44
Speaker 1: accounted for the delayed timing between cutting the slope and
48:47
Speaker 1: a possible collapse. Follow-up expeditions documented slab avalanches in the
48:53
Speaker 1: wider Dyatlov Pass area and found that portions of the
48:56
Speaker 1: terrain near the campsite were steeper than they appeared from
48:59
Speaker 1: some angles. But the researchers were careful. Their model showed
49:03
Speaker 1: that the event was physically possible, but it did not
49:06
Speaker 1: prove that that's what happened. So then they think potentially
49:09
Speaker 1: maybe part of their tent collapsed after the slab shifts.
49:13
Speaker 1: Some hikers might be injured or pinned. They cut through
49:16
Speaker 1: the fabric to escape because the entrance is blocked. They
49:20
Speaker 1: hear cracks or movement. So maybe they believe a larger
49:22
Speaker 1: avalanche could follow. So they move toward the forest at
49:26
Speaker 1: the tree line. They built the fire. Someone climbs the
49:28
Speaker 1: cedar tree to look for the campsite or gather wood.
49:32
Speaker 1: A second group constructs a snow shelter near the ravine.
49:36
Speaker 1: Georgie and Yuri die near the fire. their clothing is redistributed. Igor, Xena,
49:42
Speaker 1: and Rustem attempt to return to the tent for supplies,
49:45
Speaker 1: but they collapse on the slope. And then those final
49:47
Speaker 1: four are near the ravine. And those already suffering from
49:51
Speaker 1: major injuries eventually die from trauma and exposure. And then
49:54
Speaker 1: Alexander dies from hypothermia. But there are problems with that
49:58
Speaker 1: exact sequence of events, because moving a person with a
50:00
Speaker 1: catastrophic skull fracture more than a mile through deep snow
50:04
Speaker 1: would have been extraordinarily difficult, meaning they don't know that
50:07
Speaker 1: it's possible to that if they were hurt in like
50:09
Speaker 1: that avalanche situation, that those people who got those severe
50:13
Speaker 1: injuries could have been transported and died later down at like,
50:17
Speaker 1: you know, at the ravine. So the Mila's chest injuries
50:21
Speaker 1: were severe enough that walking any significant distance would have
50:23
Speaker 1: been nearly impossible, which leads some investigators to believe that
50:28
Speaker 1: the injuries occurred later. Like once they were actually near
50:31
Speaker 1: the ravine, the hikers may have fallen through the roof
50:33
Speaker 1: of a snow covered stream channel or Or a snow
50:36
Speaker 1: shelter could have collapsed. Or a heavy mass of compacted
50:39
Speaker 1: snow may have fallen onto them when they were already
50:41
Speaker 1: down there. Or several hikers may have dropped onto rocks
50:44
Speaker 1: hidden beneath the snow. And that version of events explains
50:47
Speaker 1: why the three people with the most serious injuries were
50:50
Speaker 1: found together in the ravine. But then the original evacuation
50:54
Speaker 1: still needs another explanation. Perhaps the hikers did not suffer
50:59
Speaker 1: the fatal trauma at the tent. But perhaps they heard
51:02
Speaker 1: or saw a small movement of snow. feared a much
51:05
Speaker 1: larger avalanche, evacuated before anyone was seriously injured, and then
51:09
Speaker 1: those injuries occurred later at the ravine, like I was saying.
51:13
Speaker 1: So this is way less cinematic than like a secret
51:15
Speaker 1: weapon or like secret military things, but this is often
51:18
Speaker 1: how real disasters happen. Not because one impossible event, but
51:23
Speaker 1: because several survivable problems occur in the worst possible order.
51:28
Speaker 1: So the original Soviet investigation concluded that the hikers had
51:32
Speaker 1: died because of a compelling or overwhelming natural force that
51:35
Speaker 1: they were unable to overcome. That wording was vague. The
51:39
Speaker 1: files were not openly available for decades, and the government
51:43
Speaker 1: did very little to explain how investigators had reached that conclusion.
51:47
Speaker 1: Over time, every confusing fact became proof of something larger.
51:51
Speaker 1: Missing eyes became torture. Radioactive clothing became a nuclear weapon.
51:55
Speaker 1: A joke about a snowman became a Yeti sighting. Lights
51:59
Speaker 1: in the sky became missiles. The lack of a detailed
52:02
Speaker 1: official explanation became proof that officials knew exactly what had
52:06
Speaker 1: happened and were hiding it. But the hikers' actual behavior
52:09
Speaker 1: was not as irrational as it is often presented. They
52:13
Speaker 1: did not scatter randomly. They moved together toward the nearest
52:16
Speaker 1: natural shelter. These are not actions of nine people who
52:20
Speaker 1: instantly lost their minds. They are actions of people attempting
52:23
Speaker 1: to solve an emergency while freezing, injured, and unable to see.
52:28
Speaker 1: The central question has always been, why would experienced hikers
52:32
Speaker 1: leave their tent without their boots? And I think the
52:35
Speaker 1: most likely answer is that in that moment, they believed
52:39
Speaker 1: remaining inside was more dangerous than leaving. They probably expected
52:44
Speaker 1: to return. Maybe they thought they would wait below the
52:47
Speaker 1: slope for a few minutes, and then without a compass
52:51
Speaker 1: or visible landmark, they may not have known exactly which
52:53
Speaker 1: direction to climb back. The people who tried to reach
52:56
Speaker 1: the campsite died facing uphill, The people who remained below
53:00
Speaker 1: ran out of fire, strength, and time. Dyatlov Pass is
53:04
Speaker 1: often introduced as a story in which nine experienced hikers
53:07
Speaker 1: ripped open their tent, ran barefoot into the snow, and
53:11
Speaker 1: were later found mutilated by an unknown force. That description
53:15
Speaker 1: is not completely false, but it is designed to make
53:18
Speaker 1: the events sound impossible. A more accurate version is this.
53:23
Speaker 1: Nine experienced hikers evacuated a damaged or threatened shelter, they
53:27
Speaker 1: traveled together toward the treeline, They attempted multiple survival strategies.
53:31
Speaker 1: Six died primarily from hypothermia. Three suffered fatal physical trauma.
53:37
Speaker 1: The bodies recovered nine months later from running water had
53:39
Speaker 1: undergone significant post-mortem damage. I'm still not convinced about the
53:43
Speaker 1: tongue thing, though. Like, I get soft tissue would, like,
53:47
Speaker 1: decompose first, but I'm like, okay. Was it cut out? Okay.
53:53
Speaker 1: So some clothing carried radioactive contamination, but the radiation did
53:56
Speaker 1: not kill the group. There's no reliable physical evidence that
53:59
Speaker 1: shows another person or creature was present. The exact triggers
54:04
Speaker 1: remain uncertain. The best theory is that small avalanche or
54:08
Speaker 1: threatening movement of snow, followed by extreme weather, disorientation, injury,
54:12
Speaker 1: and hypothermia, currently explain more of the physical evidence with
54:16
Speaker 1: fewer unsupported assumptions than any of the more sensational theories.
54:21
Speaker 1: Maybe the reason this case remains so haunting is not
54:23
Speaker 1: because the answer has to be supernatural. Maybe it's because
54:26
Speaker 1: the line between a difficult expedition and an irreversible disaster
54:30
Speaker 1: can be incredibly thin. One decision to camp on an
54:34
Speaker 1: exposed slope, one weak layer hidden beneath the snow, one
54:39
Speaker 1: section of shelter collapsing, one descent made with the belief
54:42
Speaker 1: that you can come back, and then the wind erases
54:45
Speaker 1: the only path home. Nine people died on that mountain.
54:50
Speaker 1: The mountain pass that now carries Igor Dyatlov's name is
54:53
Speaker 1: actually located more than a mile from the exact campsite.
54:57
Speaker 1: The name was given to the wider area in memory
54:59
Speaker 1: of that expedition. A memorial now stands near the location.
55:03
Speaker 1: But the mystery belongs to all nine of those people.
55:06
Speaker 1: They were deserved to be remembered as more than the
55:09
Speaker 1: bodies in one of Internet's favorite unsolved stories. They were friends, students, engineers, veterans, musicians, instructors,
55:18
Speaker 1: experienced travelers. And judging by the evidence they left behind,
55:22
Speaker 1: they fought extremely hard to survive. I'm Kat, and I
55:27
Speaker 1: still have questions. Stay curious. Thanks for listening to Kat
55:37
Speaker 1: Has Questions. If you liked this episode, follow the show
55:40
Speaker 1: and share it with someone who loves a good spiral.
55:43
Speaker 1: See you next week.