Creepiness warning. This is about the Dyatlov Pass Accident, the mysterious deaths of nine young skiers in Russia in 1959. I’d never heard of this until recently, but it was big news in Russia at the time. Then it was covered up, possibly by the KGB, and more or less forgotten about until the collapse of the Soviet Union. That brought out new records and new witnesses, but by no means solved the case. What happened to the nine skiers that long past dark February on the slopes of Kholat-Syakhl mountain?
The basics of the story are simple. Nine experienced cross country skiers went out on a two week cross country ski trek. Actually eight men and two women set out, one of the men got sick and left the trek very early. They set out January 27th 1959. After a few days travel they got delayed or sidetracked by bad weather crossing Dyatlov pass, and set up camp on the slopes of Kholat-Syakhl mountain. This much was reconstructed at the scene and by reading their diaries and developing film found in their cameras (shades of Blair Witch!)
And that was that. They were supposed to return no later than February 12th. When they didn’t return on time, it took awhile to get a search underway. (Being a few days late was normal for a trek like that.) However, as the time went by and there was no sign of them, the search got more and more serious. On February 26th, nearly a month after their departure, their abandoned camp was found. What had happened? They had cut or torn their way out of the tents, and run downhill toward a wooded area some 1.5 kilometres away. They were wearing few if any clothes, and all of them apparently died of hypothermia. What in the name of God would make experienced winter campers flee their tents almost naked and die in the 25-30 C below zero weather?
It gets weirder. While six of them died of hypothermia, three of them had crushing injuries consistent with being struck by a car. One of them was missing her tongue. None of their belongings were gone, and there was no evidence that anyone else had been at the scene. Those are the basic facts. It’s also alleged that Russian military helicopter crews refused to transport the bodies, and that a civilian helicopter was eventually hired by the families for that purpose. Some of the bodies may have been radioactive, and some family members reported the victim’s skin was orange or burned and that all of their hair had turned grey. A group camping to the south of them reported seeing strange orange spheres in the sky over the doomed group the night they died.
And as previously mentioned, the government clamped down on all discussion of the accident. The formal inquest concluded that they had fled their tents because of some “unknown compelling force” and died of hypothermia. All of them fled their tents, the three injured ones were injured after they had fled. The injuries were so severe it was concluded they could not have been inflicted by human beings.
What the hell? I mean, this isn’t some Twilight Zone episode…this really happened. There are a lot of theories, none very convincing. Some have suggested that other humans were involved: local tribesmen, security troops for a secret installation, escaped convicts from a gulag. The local tribesmen are basically pretty mellow, there was no evidence of other people, and all of their possessions were intact. Some sort of secret weapon testing? Normally stuff like that is tested in secure military areas, not out in public. And there’s no evidence of any sort of weapons testing.
An avalanche made them panic and run out in the night? Some sort of weird ultrasound effect drove them into a frenzy? A botched alien abduction? What do you think? I have an idea, but here are more details if the reader wants to come to their own conclusion before reading my brilliant analysis. For a quick overview of the case check out this SF Chronicle article. For a more detailed overview and some pictures, read this article from the MoscowTimes.com. And as always, there’s a wikipedia article.
I think this can be explained as a case of hypothermia and paradoxical undressing. Basically when people start to die from hypothermia, their brains don’t work right, and they do weird things like get undressed even though it is deadly cold. They had the poor judgement to camp on the windswept side of a mountain in ferocious weather. This was 1959 remember, they may have been well equipped for the time, but basically camping in the open during sub zero weather meant that the wind and cold sucked the heat right out of their bones. And while these were experienced trekkers, they were also college students and may not have had the wisdom of older trekkers. Why did they camp on the mountainside when they could have hiked 1.5 kilometres down into the shelter of the woods? The overconfidence of youth? Possibly the beginning stages of hypothermia were setting in and their judgement was already impaired?
This explains the panicked flight and undressing. Running around in the dark half crazed and running into rocks etc could explain the injuries. A scavenger could explain the missing tongue. Typical Soviet paranoia could explain the secrecy. Details about radioactivity, burned skin, grey hair, and orange spheres aren’t necessarily true. They don’t seem to appear in the original inquest. And remember, the scene wasn’t found until weeks after the deaths, plenty of time for the elements to obscure details and make it look more mysterious than it was. And I can see why the families would want to search for some other explanation, who would want to believe their kids did something really dumb and died naked in the snow as a result? I’m sure more than one group of people has frozen to death in Russia, these things happen.
Still, whatever happened to these lost kids, a sad and curious case. They’d likely be old folks with families and lives today, instead of a few old snapshots posted in the backwaters of the Internet.
(The above images are claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. They are not being used for profit and are central to illustrating the post. They are arguably historically important images. The top is a picture of Yury Yudin, the soul survivor, hugging Lyudmila Dubinina as he leaves the group. Igor Dyatlov, the group’s leader, watches. This picture was recovered from film found at the death site. The second picture is of their grave site. God rest their souls.)
24 Comments
February 28, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Never heard of this before. Fascinating! That’s why I love this site. It peaks my interest every day.
February 28, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Fascinating. Never heard about this before. Thanks for writing about it.
Your theory of what happened makes sense. But, it doesn’t explain the tongue. I read the Wikipedia article also, BTW.
Was victim Dubunina’s – the one whose tongue was missing – mouth open? If not, how did the scavenging beasts take it off? Why didn’t they target the bodies of other victims or even, other body parts of Dubunina?
The rest of your theory makes sense – especially since 2 of the campers tried to make a fire & a few others tried to return to the camp.
February 28, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Ok. Um, sometimes the tongue protrudes after death. It’s not unusual for scavenging animals to grab it, among other protruding parts. I’ll post about the so called “cattle mutilation” cases some days, my research into that showed that nasty things happen to bodies in the wilderness settings. As for why only the tongue of one victim, I dunno, something scared the predator off? I don’t claim that maybe something else may have happened, just that hypothermia and attendant madness is a plausible theory.
Too bad this was 1959, modern forensic science could have made more of the case. Be interesting to see what a good profiler would say though, I think?
February 28, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Interesting bit about the tongue – Makes perfect sense. Yes, we must understand that forensic science must have been primitive then.
Not to mention the rocks some people found in the vicinity – some people had fractures, maybe because they fell & hit the rocks. Someone used “getting hit by a car” as a metaphor & that stuck. Dubunina may have fallen on a rock & bit her tongue hard. Such things happen.
People are always seeing “orange spheres” – I saw several once when I was a kid. Only to read the next day about night-time test flights that the Indian Airforce conducted. I couldn’t convince my schoolmates that the spheres were not UFOs, though. People love mysteries & they just hated me for deflating their “belief”.
March 1, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Excuse. I am well familiar with this history. I can tell the following. It is not necessary to put accent on that that there was no only the tongue. It ours in 3 months after death. The snow already thew. Has been found in water. In documents on medical research it is written that there was all person is damaged almost and not just there was no the tongue. This natural condition in such conditions. The attention to the tongue was turned only by journalists and writers of books about this case. They have not told that in documents was exact. Writers very much love sensations
About “orange spheres” the following is possible to tell. It is the optical phenomenon at start of a space rocket it was far from this place. Started a rocket on distance about 2000 kms.-1500 miles.
It is very guilty badly I state in English. Itself I live in Russia. All documents read in Russian in the original..
March 12, 2008 at 9:35 am
I like your explanation. Has the benefit of parsimony.
April 9, 2008 at 10:42 am
I think an avalanche would be the most reasonable explanation for this.
1. it would explain the violent injuries to their bodies and organs
2. an avalanche could easily tear bodies out of nylon tents
3. the radiation could be “dirty” snow that had fallen prior to the avalanche, or even contaminated them after they died
4. dirty bolcheviks, haha
May 14, 2008 at 11:08 am
[...] the same spirit as my column on the Dyatlov Pass Accident I thought I’d cover another historical disaster mystery, the 1975 London Moorgate tube crash. [...]
June 10, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I think that maybe theywere doing something with a radio and something wet wrong with some stuff they were messinging around with and a blast of some sort went off and it burned them(The orange skin and grey hair and it also says that they could of been blind) So they ran out of the tent not knowing where they were going. Thats what I think.
August 23, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Some of these theories just don’t make sense. First of all, paradoxical undressing just doesn’t fit, because I read that several people had actually ripped/cut clothing off of the already dead victims (what little there was) and tried to cover themselves up just that little bit more. If paradoxical undressing was indeed a factor, why would they have the prescience of mind to then try and utilize this clothing? Also, some of the victims built a fire. If they had paradoxical undressing, they also would not have had the prescience of mind to build a fire to keep warm.
Along those lines, it is mentioned several times above that they must have been inexperienced to camp in the windswept side of a hill. It has been stated many times, however, on other sites that all of the victims were experienced trekkers. I have read in several places that the group was lost in some sort of snow storm, and decided to camp where they were. There was limited visibility, and they didn’t want to exacerbate the situation and get more lost, so they camped where they were. And they were lost, which means they could have been trying for hours to get to a safer area, only becoming exhausted and giving up. They may not have even known that they were in an area that was any worse than another, and I doubt they could have hiked another 1.5 KM to a better area, seeing as how they were already turned around.
The other perplexing issue is that the rib cages of several of the victims were crushed, not just a few broken ribs. Crushed. They relate it to being hit by a car at a high velocity to demonstrate to us that there is no way another human could have done this to them, without super strength, heavy weight, or machinery. If the victims had fallen, they would have died instantly, and would have been found in the place they fell, from a high point. This was not the case.
The avalanche theory makes almost no sense. If an avalanche had in fact ripped the victims from their tent(s) in their sleep, the avalanche would then have covered the campsite, as well as probably all of the victims. This was not the case. The only part of this theory that may make sense would be if they heard an avalanche in the distance, overreacted, and fled, thinking it was closer than it actually was. But why not use the tent flaps? Why rip the tent(s) open from the inside?
Just two more things, I promise… It may not have been documented that the skin seemed burned and orange, or that their hair was gray, but that doesn’t mean ANYTHING, because their families said that was what they noticed, and why would they lie? It wasn’t a sunburn, or windburn, their skin was said to have been ORANGE and their hair GREY. There is no mistaking that.
And last: I can’t think of a reason as to why they built a fire from live branches, when, as experienced hikers and skiers, they knew full well to use dried wood, which was lying yards away from them… It has been suggested that they were blinded, and used what they could for a fire. Is there any logical explanation for the possibility of blindness?
August 23, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I found this article, it has a lot of detailed info, more than I have found anywhere else!
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=25093
August 23, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Well, I will certainly agree that this is still a mystery, and there may very well be an exotic explanation. However, after reading everything I could find on this incident, it still seems like some of the “weird” details didn’t show up in the record until years later, this is always suspicious. And I still think the most likely explanation is hypothermia, panic, and their attendant mental disorientation. I could be wrong though, and I appreciate the link and comments. :)
September 9, 2008 at 1:15 am
Very very good story… makes u wonder… The fact is we’ll never know… but it’s feel so good trying to find out and speculate…
October 14, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Very interesting. I’m wondering about the “orange” faces. In one of the accounts, the faces of the dead were tan, not orange, and they were only seen to be discolored at the funerals. Could this have been the result of the undertaker using too much makeup on the bodies? I imagine he/she would have had to use some type of makeup on the bodies, especially if they were very pale from being out in the cold open air for so long.
December 24, 2008 at 8:17 am
I’ve camped in a tent before near train tracks. I remember the terror I felt when it woke me up in the middle of the night. I didn’t know what it was for a few seconds and I remember thinking that a car or tornado was coming at my tent. I didn’t dash out though. I also knew where my clothes were and I wouldn’t have dashed out without them, even though it was hot. I think these people camped in an area prone to avalanches; yhey didn’t have their clothes organized near them; and I think they panicked. If they had more experience, were better organized, and worked together better, this wouldn’t have happened. I don’t believe the military or ufo scenarios, but even if I did, I would still have expected them to have their clothes on – the exposure killed them. No ufo or rocket forced them to run out into freezing temps. I’ll come back to my own experience, I didn’t dash out of my tent when I heard that terrifying noise (that was a train that was 100 yards from me). I don’t think I’d dash out either if it was a rocket, ufo, or military plane. That’s me, maybe I’m foolish, but I wouldn’t try to make it. I’d stand my ground and get dressed and only leave (fully clothed) if I was 100% certain that something was coming right at me -which it wasn’t in their case. There was zero evidence of military. There is also no evidence of any weapons being tested and that would have been a huge production that everyone who lived 100 of miles away would have known about due to the number of people and support it would have taken to conduct. The coroner and some of those involved in the investigation (and the one surviving member) have mentioned stuff that is only their opinion that has clouded this. The coroner mentioned the amount of force it took to cause the injuries and mentioned a compelling force. That is nonsense. People in positions like that have occasionally made statements that are inaccurate and not true and that’s what I think he did. Think about the misjudgements you see people make everyday and you’ll see how some were made in this case by the coroner and investigators. This was done in the 50s and some of the people investigating may not have been trained well or the way we train people today and they may not have had the experience necessary. Spreading the rumors about ufos and the soviet government being involved only takes the focus off of being safe, organized, and prepared when you are outdoors.
December 30, 2008 at 8:14 am
I don’t think that the Paradoxical Undressing explanation works; this would not occur until stage 2/3 of Hypothermia it seems unlikely that you would be able to trek 1.5K in deep snow and then gather wood and make a fire in such an advanced stage of Hypothermia.
Anyway supposing they were then why would they make a fire? Why would they take the clothing of others? These actions describe someone desperately cold trying to warm-up!
It seems odd in the investigation that no-one draws the conclusion that the 3 who died of massive head and chest injuries caused by extreme pressure were killed by an avalanche…
All very curious…
February 22, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Running into rocks?
Great theory. Obvious a lot of effort and study put into that one.
March 9, 2009 at 8:39 pm
I think I have figured it out, and by accident, as I was warming water in a tea kettle over a gas stove to make tea this evening.
Lets look at the facts:
1) They were experienced. This leads me to believe they wouldn’t have taken all of their clothes off due to “paradoxical undressing”. I believe they would have know what that hypothermic warning sign was, so would not have taken their clothes off – for that reason. BUT they did take their cloths off. Why? I believe their clothes were on fire, thus they tore them off. Lets come back to this later.
2) I was severely cold. -30C. The fire they built in this cold, cold weather would not be too effective, for those SITTING AROUND the fire. Instead, to be exposed to the most heat from the fire, they would have to position themselves ABOVE the fire. I believe they were in a survival mode – and optimized their position above the fire (standing above it, and/or climbing a bit up the tree to get above it. THEN I believe something went wrong where one or more of them got a bit too close and then their clothes caught on fire (or at least their outer clothing – jacket, etc). This explains why these “experienced” hikers took off thier clothes. It may also explain their “deep tanned” skin. It likely explains the greyness of their hair – try burning a few strands of your hair. It curls up and looks greyish.
4) As for the REASON they left the tent in the first place – I believe they were at the top of a start of an avalanche. Otherwise their tent would have been consumed in the falling snow if they were at the midpoint or bottom of the avalanhe. I believe they felt their tent sliding downward, so paniced and cut themselves out of it in haste.
Now this is the important part: I watched a couple of avalanche videos on youtube. As the avalanche is starting, then falling in each video, it creates a big mist of snow, like a “fog”, all around. This may explain why some evidence shows they may have been “blinded”. They were, buy this cloud of snow (like a cloud of dust).
As for the orange sphere that was observed from another group several kilometers away – I believe this “sphere” was from the fire Dyatlov’s group created. Possibly from the many embers that would have sparked into the air from the damp wood. On such a dark night as this, it would still be easily visable from so far away. Also in extremely cold and windy weather, your eyes tear up. This exaggerates any point of light in the distance. Thats what I think of “orange sphere” is just the embers from the fire in the distance (or possibly the clothing of one of the members of the Dyatlov group that caught on fire).
The missing tounge – probably a scavenger.
March 21, 2009 at 2:54 am
1. Suggestion of blindness – it was the middle of the night, you are unable to see your hand in front of your face in true darkness. Their attempt at getting a fire going in the pitch black, -30 degrees (without adequate clothing) and during what is assumed to have been a state of absolute panic is commendable.
2. Avalanche – probably the most widely excepted explanation and also the most mundane, however the investigators don’t appear to have considered this… Surely this would have been taken into account and judging by the ‘unknown compelling force’ verdict must have been ruled out.
3. Evacuation of the tents – i should imagine that had one of the skiers awoken in belief of an impending avalanche, a state of panic would ensue and fight/flight response kicks in. Wait for someone to fiddle with the tent zip…. no, with the notion of an avalanche imminent i’d find my way out of that tent with my fecking teeth.
4. Orange skin/grey hair – sunburn, windburn, exposure, chemicals used by morticians. I should think that it would be no easy task to prepare a body that has been exposed to such harsh conditions for such a time ready for a open casket funeral. These details appear to come from accounts given by those present at the funerals, i.e. family and friends. My understanding of embalming and corpse preservation are limited so i’ll leave that here.
5. Absent tongue – not uncommon in cases of suffocation for the tongue to be found protruding from the mouth, could have easily frozen and broken off. Scavenger animals seem highly plausible. Altogether the missing tongue doesn’t appear have much discernible relevance to the events leading to their demise.
I was going to continue with some of the other details but alas my tummy rumbles.
Take out the Yetis, UFOs and Military weapons testing and your left with a tragic story of 9 young students who died on the side of a mountain due to either inexperience or an avalanche – or a combination of the two. It happens all the time…
April 27, 2009 at 4:02 pm
That they were involved with the military and the nuclear industry seems to indicate that they may have been doing something that someone from somewhere did not want to be continued?
We still are only a ’spark’ away from the nuclear immolation of the mass of humanity by accident or mistake.
Missing tongue? Was she told to stop working on nuclear materials? Who may have told her to stop doing what she was doing? Did she tongue lash the wrong party?
Did she refuse to stop her technical work and decided instead to ‘talk back’ to whomever told her to seek Peace instead of furthering the destructive methods of nuclear war?
For those interested you can read for free some alternate theories here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-politics-of-extraterrestrials/4049293
May help give a clue to what could be behind this most interesting
From another post it was reported that the engineer that brought about the Chernobyl catastrophe was named “Anatoly Dyatlov.” Any connection to Igor Dyatlov?
April 30, 2009 at 3:55 am
ok i may have just found out about this like 20 min ago, but theres quite a few people on this sayin that these kids died due to inexperience or an avalanche or hypothermia while running rapidly through probley at least a good foot and a half of snow, and bouncing off rocks apperently fast enough to say that the damage to three of the bodies is as if they were in a car crash while they do so. and don’t forget the traces of radioactive energy found on the clothing, too. first of all,the artical i read clearly said it was a group that has experienced outdoorsmen. an avalanche would have crushed trees, destroyed the camp, and no footprints would have been recovered. they clearly would have not had hypothermia in their sleeping bags next to a fire in what used to be a sealed tent, cause to me with the ripped from inside tent and lack of clothing says to me that they had been in bed. they had to get out of there quick, possibly the lights from the reported spheres would have got there attention, not so much to cut the tent and get out, so there must have been another force to scare them out of there, possible noises or shadows cast on the tents. so now imagine a group of nine people needing to get out of this tent bad enough to cut through and not pack clothing with you. what on earth could scare somebody that bad. i can see being scared in a group of 2 or 3 and freaking out, but there were nine of them.have you ever ran bare foot across snow, i made it around my back yard, when i got in my feet burned, due to the cold. i couln’t have been outside for more than 2 minutes and it was probly only minus 15 c outside. they got from to the edge of the woods cause thats where they found the bodies by the fire, (i wonder how they where able to make a fire, but forget there clothes?) the woods were a kilometer and a half away, their feet would have been torturing them by now. then the cold got to them and they died. so what of the fracured sculls and broken bones? and radiation? what i think happend was they were exposed to unknown amounts radioactive meterial from testing in the area when they built there fire, fire melts and evaporats snow and the particals are carryed into the air getting in their lungs, and on their skin and clothes. now i dont understand all the effects of radiation on humans but the stuff they may have inhailed could have effected their brain, and the orange skin and grey hair, mabey they felt like they were burning and with disorentation from the radiation they could have thought it was a good idea to run of in the snow. after there deaths the weight of the snow may have crushed there bones. but this still leaves a lot of unanwserd questions. what about the missing tounge? so basicly either they got freaked right out and ran off to the woods, or the radiation caused a few short curcuts in their brains, and burnt their skin. either that or sombody seen something they shouldn’t have and 1 or 2 go on a murdurus rampage takin the tounge, scaring them to run off and die in either the chase or pursute. but then that dosn’t make add up with the orange skin again. personaly tho, im gonna have to say it was aliens working with the russian yeti to uncover a KGB cover-up that would ultimitly and litteraly blow your freakin mind. ya, i just said that.
April 30, 2009 at 9:03 am
So many interesting and thoughtful comments have been posted about this that I am going to write a follow-up post. I still think the most likely explanation is a combination of youth, panic, and hypothermia … but could be persuaded otherwise.
May 4, 2009 at 7:38 pm
[...] up this week, Ten Allied Military Blunders, the Dyatlov Pass incident revisited, and a commentary on some of the jingoistic comments people have left on Doug’s [...]
June 15, 2009 at 11:33 am
aliens abductions.-