WARNING! THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
[The bodies] displayed devastating internal injuries ... The impact which had caused them was said to be equivalent to a car accident, the result of an “unknown compelling force”.
[The bodies] displayed devastating internal injuries ... The impact which had caused them was said to be equivalent to a car accident, the result of an “unknown compelling force”.
KHOLAT SYAKHL, USSR - On January 27, 1959 a group of 10 well-trained hikers left the town of Vizhai, and the last vestiges of civilization they would ever see before trekking into the bush. Their goal was to reach Otorten, a mountain over a dozen kilometers away. Igor Dyatlov, the leader of the expedition was to send a telegram back to the team's sports club upon their return to Vizhai. It was expected no later than February 12. When the telegram didn't arrive, people began to get worried, not the least of whom was Yuri Yudin who had been part of the expedition but was sent back due to illness before the mysterious "incident" took place (we’ll cover his take on the incident later). By February 20 a search team was organized, later joined by Soviet army and militsya forces. On the 26th the bodies of the nine member team were found.
This is the part that sticks with people. First, their tent was found ripped apart and covered in snow. It was originally thought that the tent had been ripped from the outside but it was later found to have been ripped from the inside, by the occupants. Most people who hear this story for the first time presume that the team ripped open their tent to ensure a swift, sudden and panicky get away. All of their belongings were left behind in the tent, including their outer clothing and shoes.
Investigators then followed a trail of eight or nine bare footprints in the snow to a patch of woods about a kilometer and a half away. Two bodies were found there, those of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, who were both in their underwear next to the remains of a camp fire. The temperature that night was estimated to be around -24° Celsius. It appeared that one of them had climbed the cedar tree as branches were broken five meters up.
Next, three bodies (those of Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorova and Rustem Slobodin) were found lying on the snow roughly 150 meters apart from each other and all three seemed to be heading back in the direction of the tent when they collapsed, one after the other.
On May 4, the snow had melted enough to reveal the remaining four bodies that had been buried four meters below the snow in a ravine another 75 meters deeper into the woods than the tree. These four were found with more clothing on than the others. It may be surmised that the cedar tree group had died first and that these four (Lyudmila Dubinina, Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles, Semyon Zolotariov and Alexander Kolevatov) had taken their clothes to wear.
The condition in which the bodies were found sends chills up the spines of all who encounter this story.
The body of Lyudmila Dubinina was found with her eyes and tongue missing. Thibeaux-Brignolles suffered a major skull fracture and Dubinina and Zolotariev displayed devastating internal injuries, with ribs broken along straight lines. Zolotariev’s ribcage was crushed on both sides while Dubinina’s was injured on one side. The impact which had caused them was said to be equivalent to a car accident, the result of an “unknown compelling force”. What little clothing that was found on the bodies was peppered with radioactive particles.
What “unknown compelling force” could have caused such devastating internal injuries? Who or what removed poor Lyudmila’s tongue? And what could possibly have contaminated the clothing on the bodies with radioactive material?
The answers to these questions have led some people down some very dark paths leading to UFO’s, Ural Mountain Yetis or even Soviet weapon experiments. One can hardly blame them as based on the evidence, either one of these explanations appears logical, albeit extraordinary.
Authorities weren’t able to concoct a comprehensive conclusion about what exactly took place, but they came close. The fact that official Soviet records regarding the case had been sealed for over 40 years behind the iron curtain only led to outrageous speculation by commentators in the West. Was it all just propaganda?
Well, one person who was not only familiar with the case, but intimately involved with the nine victims of this tragedy was Yuri Yudin, the lone survivor of the expedition, who as you may recall was sent back a day into the hike due to illness. He died in 2013 at the age of 75 and spent countless hours turning over the evidence in his mind. The difference between Yudin and official Soviet investigators is that he knew each of the individuals on the team, quite well, and knew how they would react to a given situation both individually and as a group.
To Yuri Yudin, the “unknown compelling force” that killed friends on February 2, 1959 was most likely an avalanche. He wasn’t the first and he certainly wasn’t the only one to put this forth as a theory, but his was the most reasonable version of what might have happened that night.
Yudin's theory was that the team was asleep when an avalanche hit the tent. Remember that the tent was found partially covered in snow. The force of the avalanche slammed against them. He surmised that Dubinina and Zolotariev were lying atop their skis and that Thibeaux-Brignolles was resting his head against a hard object when it hit. He believed that Dyatlov, ever the leader of the group, did not panic but was forced to cut the tent open from the one side that remained unblocked by snow. There were eight sets of footprints for nine people and he believed that Thibeaux-Brignolles was carried by other team members to a more stable area. The rest is somewhat easy to imagine.
Dyatlov volunteered to risk being buried by further avalanches to try to retrieve what supplies he could, but he didn’t make it. Then, perhaps after climbing the cedar tree to mark their leader’s progress and perhaps having seen him collapse, Kolmogorova and Slobodin went after him and collapsed along the way. The remaining survivors sat by the fire in minimal clothing. When Krivonischenko and Doroshenko succumbed, the remaining four took their clothing and went deeper into the woods.
The clothing was found to have much higher than normal levels of radiation on them, but it is believed that this was the result of contamination from Dubinina’s lab coat, although this is questionable. As for Dubinina's tongue? I often come across wild animals as a culprit, online, but these theorist tend to forget that she was buried under four meters of snow. The most reasonable explanation? Natural erosion caused by bacteria.
Sources:
There is an amazingly detailed documentary on youtube called the Mystery of Dyatlov's Pass. It was produced for the Television Agency of Ural and is in two parts. It’s in Russian, but has English subtitles. The first part really humanizes the victims, with many passages from the diaries of the team members. It discusses what the individuals of the expedition were like. It talks about how they would stay up late in their tents and talk philosophically about love and what it is to live a meaningful life. These were passionate youngsters (and one slightly older professor) living in an oppressive regime, yet what they cared most about was experiencing life and living to the fullest. If you can’t get past the low production values and subtitles then you are going to miss out because it’s unforgettable.
The second part gets more into the nitty gritty details of the investigation and though each part is only roughly an hour long, it feels thoroughly detailed. The narrator even explicitly acknowledges theories about UFO’s and doesn’t dismiss them outright, but states plainly that the documentary is only interested in investigating serious ideas. The second part is also where you’ll find Yudin’s excellent and comprehensive theory in full.
Basically, this video wipes away most other research materials I’ve ever come across regarding Dyatlov Pass, but I make mention of one other. You can watch both parts right here:
