One of the most bizarre, not to mention flat out terrifying,
mysteries of the modern age concerns the enigmatic deaths of nine
Russian mountaineers whose cross-country skiing trip ended in a tragedy
so ghastly and perplexing that it has mystified experts for over half a
century.
Excursions into nature can be serene for some and exhilarating for
others, but for an unfortunate few these sojourns into the untouched
wilds of our world can be tragic. Still other such journeys into the
unknown end in such unfathomably frightening circumstances that they
become the stuff of legend. Such is the destiny that befell nine
ill-fated skiing enthusiasts in the late 1950s.
Unlike so many of the most intriguing mysteries of the 20
th Century — including the fate of the crew of the
Ourang Medan or the whereabouts of the missing
Anjikuni Villagers of Canada — What makes the so-called “D
yatlov Pass Incident”
so fascinating is the fact that there is absolutely no doubt that these
events actually occurred… and dreadfully little doubt that one of the
last sensations experienced by these poor souls was one of abject
terror.
The proof of this tragedy exists not only in the plethora of
photographs that have been preserved, but also in the extensive records
(many of which are still allegedly classified) of the Soviet military
who investigated the odd case and were manifestly unable to reach any
definitive conclusions despite an overwhelming amount of physical
evidence. In fact, the investigators tasked with solving this case were
eventually forced to attribute the whole peculiar affair to: “
a compelling unknown force.”
But, before we go any further; like any good mystery we must begin at the beginning…
TEN LITTLE SKIERS
On
January 25, 1959, one ski instructor, three engineers and seven
students from the former Soviet Union’s Ural Polytechnic Institute,
located in the city then known as Sverdlovsk, boarded a train and
embarked on a journey to the nearby Otorten Mountain range, which is
nestled in the northern Urals, for a strenuous cross-country skiing
expedition.
The leader of the excursion was an enthusiastic 23 year-old by the
name of Igor Dyatlov — for whom the notorious Pass would eventually be
named — who had assembled a crack team of male and female skiers with
the intention that this arduous trip would serve as a training exercise
for a future expedition to the more difficult and treacherous Arctic
regions.
As the group of seasoned skiers left the train station and hopped a truck headed toward their very own “
Alpine in the Urals,”
one of the team members, Yury Yudin, fell ill and was forced to remain
behind at the settlement of Vizhai, which was the last outpost before
the Otorten range.
Yudin hugged his comrades goodbye and with envy watched them leave…
scarcely could he imagine at the time that he would the lucky one.
Later in life Yudin would claim that the one thing that had haunted
him the most over the years was not being able to discover what kind of
diabolical force stole the lives of his friends; a fate he would have
shared were it not for his unexpected illness. According to Yudin:
“If I had a chance to ask God just one question, it would be, ‘What really happened to my friends that night?’”
Two
day after embarking on their adventure, the nine remaining athletes —
including engineers Rustem Slobodin, Georgyi Krivonischenko and Nicolas
Thibeaux-Brignollel, as well as students Yuri Doroshenko, Zinaida
Kolmogorova, Lyudmila Dubinina and ski instructor and guide, Alexander
Zolotarev — all followed Dyatlov toward the first stop on their long and
grueling journey, the Gora Otorten mountain.
The date was January 28, 1959. The team would never make it to their
destination… and none of them would ever be seen alive again.
THE SEARCH BEGINS
On
February 11, 1959, The Dyatlov Ski Team was supposed to arrive in
Vizhai. Among their first orders of business, following a hot meal and a
stiff drink, were to send their loved ones telegrams announcing the
success of their mission.
When no telegrams were received, most of the team’s family members
were not concerned, realizing that journeys like this rarely end on
schedule, but when over a week went by with no word from the skiers,
their relatives began to demand that the Ural Polytechnic Institute
organize a search and rescue operation, which they did posthaste.
Within days it became clear that the institute’s ground based
initiative would not be able to produce any results on their own and
that was when both military and civilian authorities got involved in the
search. Military planes and helicopters were swiftly dispatched to the
area and it was on February 25, that a pilot first spotted something
curious on a mountainside below.
A MYSTERY IS BORN:
The
next day the search party — including fellow Polytechnic student
Mikhail Sharavin — made their way up to an abandoned encampment on the
eastern slope of a mountain listed as “1079.”
The foreboding peak is better known to the indigenous Mansi tribesmen as “
Kholat Syakhl,” which (prophetically perhaps) translates from their native tongue as the “
Mountain of the Dead.”
The would-be rescuers discovered a badly damaged tent and a plethora
of footprints made by what appeared to be at least eight different
people radiating out from the devastated tent. Sharavin then described
the state of the large tent that the skiers all shared:
“We discovered that the tent was half torn down and
covered with snow. It was empty, and all the group’s belongings and
shoes had been left behind.”
The
search party members quickly realized that the tracks consisted of
either bare or sock clad feet and, in one case, a single shoe. Two sets
of prints led down a slope toward a densely forested area, but the
tracks were covered by snow roughly 1,500 feet away from the tent.
Sharavin followed the trail and found the remains of a fire beneath a looming, ancient pine… and with it something much worse.
Near the long dead fire were the frozen remains of team members
Doroshenko and Krivonischenko. The searchers noted with utter
bewilderment that even though the men were well within range of the now
ravaged tent both men were naked and shoeless, save for their underwear.
The investigators also saw that the branches of the old pine had been
snapped off up to a height of almost 15-feet.
Forensic
tests later confirmed that traces of skin were found embedded in the
bark, indicating that the pair had frantically attempted to climb the
tree, snapping off branches until their hands were mass of pulpy flesh.
At this point the searchers no doubt began to wonder what manner of
“beast” could scare these men so much that they abandoned their clothes,
despite the freezing cold, and tore the skin from their palms in a
desperate attempt to get to safety. The fact that there were no evident
animal tracks and that they had the time to try and start a fire,
combined with the fact that the bodies of the men remained untouched
only heighted the searchers puzzlement.
Not long after the party found the bodies of Doroshenko and
Krivonischenko, they stumbled across the corpse of team leader Dyatlov
nearly 900-feet away from the other cadavers, but somewhat closer to the
tent. Dyatlov was on his back; one hand was clinging to an undersized
birch tree branch while his other hand, locked in ice and rigor mortis,
appeared to be protecting his head from some unknown assailant.
Half buried in the snow not far from the tent was the body of Rustem
Slobodin, which rescuers found lying face down in the snow. Slobodin’s
skull bore a deep fracture nearly 7-inches long; nevertheless medical
experts later determined that the most likely cause death was
hypothermia, which only compounded the befuddlement of the volunteer and
military search party participants.
The carcass of Zinaida Kolmogorov was turned up the furthest away
from the group. Traces of blood were found near her corpse, yet it was
not revealed if she was its source, although that conclusion would seem
likely. The rescuers could not understand why there was no evidence of a
struggle.
The
party continued their efforts to locate the rest of the team, but a
lengthy search for the remaining members turned up nothing. The men on
the site could not comprehend why a group of experienced skiers would
dash half-naked into the bitter cold of the forest in the black of
night. Nor could they fathom the kind of terror that must have inspired
these young people to act so recklessly.
Even more perplexing was the fact that the searchers, after
inspecting the severely damaged tent, came to the conclusion that the
material had been torn from the
inside, as if its occupants had
been frantic to escape from something that was already sealed in the
tent with them or were in such a rush that unclasping the tent from the
inside was not an option!
Amidst the broken wood, shredded canvas and debris of the ravaged
tent, investigators discovered rolls of undeveloped film and the
journals of a few of the expedition members, but rather than helping to
illuminate the truth, these finds would only add more layers to this
already dense mystery.
MAY 4, 1959:
After
two months of fruitless searching, the spring thaw finally set in and
the weather let up enough to reveal the corpses of the missing team
members in a ravine situated some 225-feet from the pine that served as
an arboreal memorial to Doroshenko and Krivonischenko.
The four lost skiers — instructor Alexander Zolotaryov, engineer
Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignollel and students Alexander Kolevatov and Ludmila
Dubinina — were discovered buried beneath 12-feet of snow and ice. All
had apparently succumbed to brutal internal injuries. Unlike their
friends who had perished above, these victims were all fully dressed.
As in the case of Slobodin, Thibeaux -Brignollel’s skull showed
evidence of having been struck by a heavy object. Zolotarev and
Dubunina’s chests had been crushed inward, shattering several ribs and
causing massive internal damage. Strangely there were no indications of
what may have caused this severe trauma and, even more bizarrely, the
corpses showed no signs of bruising or soft tissue damage.
Doctor
Boris Vozrozhdenny, who inspected the bodies, stated that the force
with which these corpses were hit exceeded that capable by man and went
on to claim that the damage: “
…was equal to the effect of a car crash.”
The searchers were startled to observe that Dubinina’s head was
tilted back; her stretched mouth wide as if emitting a silent scream.
Upon closer inspection the rescuers realized that her tongue had been
ripped out by the root.
They also noted that at some point these poor individuals had either
exchanged or stolen the clothing off their comrades as Dubinina’s foot
was swaddled in a tattered piece of Krivonishenko’s wool pants and
Zolotaryov was found wearing Dubinina’s faux fur hat and coat. The
searchers were unsure if this was the result of dressing too swiftly in a
dark tent or a case of scavenging articles of clothing from deceased
teammates.
At the funerals that soon followed the discovery of the bodies, many
family members claimed that the skin of the deceased bore an unnatural
orange color and, even more disturbingly, most reports insisted that
their hair had lost its pigmentation and was a dull shade of grey.
Skeptics claim that the orange skin was caused by exposure and that the
hair had not lost its color, but it’s interesting that so many of the
bereaved relatives took the time to notice these strange features.
As if all of this were not odd enough, some of the articles of
clothing found on the bodies were measured as emitting higher than
normal levels of radiation.
THE INVESTIGATION:
The
compounding enigmas surrounding this fantastic case, combined with the
youth and popularity of the victims, sent Soviet investigators into
overdrive.
The first thing they did was to try and reconstruct the series of
events that led to the Dyatlov Ski Teams shocking demise with the help
of the journals and film rolls discovered at the scene.
The primary mystery that faced them was why Dyatlov and his team
would have chosen to make camp on an exposed mountain face when a detour
of less than a mile would have afforded them some shelter from the
harsh Russian elements.
It would be Yudin — the only team member to survive thanks to a timely illness — who would shed light on this question:
“Dyatlov probably did not want to lose the distance they had covered, or he decided to practice camping on the mountain slope.”
The
photos developed from the rolls of film found in the tent revealed that
the expedition members had set up camp on February 2, at approximately
5:00 pm. on the slope of Kholat-Syakhl, in order to get out of the
inclement weather. The group had cleared the tree line and was a mere
10-miles from the first destination on their long trek, Gora Otorten. In
the photos they all looked healthy and jovial.
Investigators came to the conclusion that sometime around 7:00 pm.
the team ate a meal and not long thereafter members began to settle down
for the night. The temperature on the slope was less than five degrees
Fahrenheit, which has always made investigators wonder why it was that
so many of the skiers were in a state of undress. Whatever their reasons
may have been, most researchers agree that at this point everything was
relatively normal.
Forensic pathologists later estimated that the events which
ultimately led to the untimely deaths of the skiers must have occurred
somewhere between 9.30 and 11.30pm. They based this speculation on the
undigested food found in the stomachs of the victims. At this point
military investigators began piecing this puzzle together to the best of
their ability. What follows is, in their best estimation, what
occurred:
THE TIMELINE OF A TRAGEDY:
The investigators speculated that sometime before midnight on February 2, the skiers were frightened by an “
unknown event.”
Members of the team managed to cut or rip through the fabric of the
tent in a frantic attempt to escape whatever might have been attacking
or approaching them and in their haste they burst out into the icy night
mostly unclothed and in a state of sheer panic.
Being experienced skiers and mountaineers, the group must have been
fully aware of the fact that they would not be able to survive long in
the frigid wastes without protection. This indicated to the
investigators that the team must have been convinced that they were
facing mortal peril and had opted to flee for their lives.
The generally bare tracks found in the deep snow implied that the
team had initially scrambled outward in all directions, but that they
managed to rejoin one another down the incline about 900-feet away from
the now shredded tent. Investigators then surmised that the group then
huddled for safety beneath the large pine that Doroshenko and
Krivonischenko tried so desperately to climb.
At this point the investigators speculated that an attempt was made
by teammates to share clothes, but the states of undress that so many of
the victims were found in would seem to indicate otherwise. Still the
evidence suggests that the group, obviously terrified by the prospect of
returning to their tent, manage to gather enough kindling to start a
fire.
The agents on the case then begin to wonder of if Doroshenko and
Krivonischenko’s efforts to climb the tree were a futile attempt at
escape or if they might have been trying to gain a better vantage point
to see if their tent, which was much higher up on the slope, was still
under siege by whatever unknown menace had compelled them to take
flight.
At
some point during the night investigators proposed that Doroshenko and
Krivonischenko likely had succumbed to exposure. It was then that three
members of the team — Kolmogorova, Slobodin and Dyatlov — determined
that braving whatever it was that had apparently infested the tent was
preferable to dying of hypothermia. Resolute (and almost certainly
terrified) the exhausted trio attempted to make their way back up the
slope — none of them would make it.
With their young leader out of sight one can only assume that the
remaining team members Zolotaryov, Thibeaux-Brignollel, Kolevatov and
Dubinina hoped for the best, but expected the worst. Likely terrified
beyond belief the four remain survivors strip whatever they can from the
corpses of their comrades… and almost certainly pray for daylight.
Fearing that their friends are all dead, investigators hypothesized
that Zolotaryov, Thibeaux-Brignollel, Kolevatov and Dubinina decided to
move nearer to the forest in hopes of finding some kind of shelter.
Somewhere along this journey and eventual descent into a nearby ravine
the remaining teammates would sustain their fatal internal injuries, but
investigators could not find an obvious cause.
The first to perish, according to forensics reports, was
Thibeaux-Brignollel. Within hours he was followed by Kolevatov and
Dubinina. Zolotarev would be the last to expire from a combination of
internal trauma and hypothermia. It was not clear if the removal of
Dubinina’s tongue occurred postmortem or if it contributed to her
demise.
When all was said and done, the final survivor died less than eight
hours after the initial event. As with everything else in this case, the
discovery of the missing team members offered more questions than
answers, and the most important one was…
WHAT HAPPENED?
While investigators were able to piece together much of what happened
that terrible evening from the physical evidence left at the scene, the
primary questions remained unanswered; firstly what could have possibly
have frightened these athlete caliber skiers so badly that they were
willing to freeze to death rather than confront it… and secondly, what
(if anything) lethally injured the remaining survivors?
Despite the popularity of the region, for 3-years following this
harrowing event the pass was closed to outdoorsmen, hikers and skiers.
This was, presumably, to avert the same terrifying fate from befalling
anyone else.
This proves how seriously authorities took this case, but after
months of dead ends and disappointments the case was closed and the
files were sent to what many allege was a clandestine Soviet archive,
but even though the final official word on the event was that the skiers
fell to: “
a compelling unknown force,” that does not mean that
there weren’t plenty of theories floating around. The first supposition
that the investigators proposed was that they were murdered by…
MANSI WARRIORS… AND GHOSTS:
The
first theory offered up as grist for the rumor mill regarding the fates
of the nine skiers was that they had unintentionally run afoul of some
Mansi tribesman by trespassing into their territory and that these
legendarily harsh Siberian natives had dispatched them accordingly. The
theory goes something like this…
Mansi natives enraged by the intrusion of the team tear their way
into the communal tent and force the mostly disrobed skiers down the
slope, where they build a fire. After Doroshenko and Krivonischenko
perish, Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova desperately try and make their
way toward what’s left of their tent. Slobodin’s skull is crushed by
the butt of a rifle or some other heavy object, knocking him cold. He
and his friends then succumb to the elements.
Following the deaths of their compatriots, Zolotaryov,
Thibeaux-Brignollel, Kolevatov and Dubinina are compelled to balance on
the steep precipice of the ravine wherein their bodies were found the
following spring. Thibeaux-Brignollel is wounded with perhaps the same
blunt instrument that claimed Slobodin’s life and Dubinina’s screams
prove to be so annoying that one of the Mansi throws her to the ground,
breaks her ribs with his knee and forcibly removes her tongue to prevent
her from shrieking.
They are both thrown into the ravine, followed by Zolotarev and
Alexander Kolevatov. At this point the Mansi leave the interlopers for
dead… or so this admittedly dubious theory goes anyway.
Military
investigators were swift to dispel this rumor, stating that the damage
done to the corpses were inconsistent with an attack by a human being.
Some modern day researchers have suggested that the Soviets may have
concealed evidence of a Mansi attack in order to avoid a distracting and
potentially costly confrontation with the Mansi on their own oil rich
soil, which they hoped to exploit.
To even the armchair investigator — a clan of which I am a proud
member — it would seem that the total absence of bullet wounds in the
victims, combined with the utter lack of footprints, essentially rules
out the Mansi as potential suspects in this heinous crime.Add to this
the fact that the groups’ provisions were left untouched and we can all
but totally dismiss the circumstantial case again these aboriginal
hunters
As if that weren’t enough evidence to exonerate these native
Siberians, there is conclusive proof that the Mansi assisted in the hunt
for the missing skiers. Regardless of how sound the Soviet’s motivation
may have been for covering up a Mansi attack, the evidence simply does
not bear out this hypothesis.
Intriguingly, Mansi legend has it that Kholat-Syakhl received it’s
ominous name after nine Mansi warriors had mysteriously perished on the
same peak years before. This has led some investigators to surmise that
the region might be cursed or infested by ancient and malicious spirits,
but for the most part the mountain was not considered to be a
particularly sacred region by the Mansi.
So if we rule out the indigenous human culprits as well as undead
ones, then perhaps we should (like so many before us) look to the skies
and wonder whether or not the Dyatlov Team might have fallen prey to an…
ALIEN ATTACK:
Like all classic 20
th
Century mysteries involving groups of missing persons or enigmatic
deaths, someone, somewhere is bound to blame strange flying saucers and
their insidious occupants for the crime and this case proved to be no
different.
According to archived reports, Lev Ivanov, the lead Soviet
investigator on the case, collected a report from a group of hikers
suggesting that something extraterrestrial might have resulted in the
Dyatlov Team’s tragic demise.
The hikers were camping in an area about 32-miles south of Kholat-Syakhl on the night in question when they spied a series of “
strange orange spheres”
in the northern sky. It’s worth noting that during the next month and a
half other residents of the area report similar anomalous aerial
phenomenon.
Ivanov himself believed that these spheres might have been involved
with the unusual deaths. In a 1990 interview, Ivanov claimed that he had
been ordered to close the case and classify the findings as secret.
He stated that officials were worried that reports of U.F.O.s in the
area by multiple eyewitnesses — including members of both the military
and weather service — could result in some unnecessary speculation. In
an interview with a small Soviet newspaper, Ivanov was alleged to have
stated:
“I suspected at the time, and am almost sure now, that
these bright flying spheres had a direct connection to the group’s
death.”
Ivanov speculated that one of the skiers might have spotted the
U.F.O.s and that his or her cries might have panicked the other team
members into rushing out just as one of the vehicles exploded above,
sending them all fleeing in terror. He even speculated that the
concussive blast may be what had cracked Slobodin’s skull. I feel
compelled to add that the removal of the tongue is one of the most
common features in cattle mutilations, but that seems to be a sketchy
link at best.
Other “
evidence” that researchers claim is evidence of alien
interaction is the allegedly orange flesh and grey hair found on the
victims — a point which is hotly debated — and the fact that some of the
team members were wearing clothes contaminated with a low level of
radiation.
While it’s certainly impressive that the head of the Dyatlov
investigation supported this theory, and the anomalous radiation
readings are intriguing, it seems as if we might be yet again casting
unwarranted aspersions upon our intergalactic brethren. While there can
be little doubt that there was some kind of bizarre object soaring in
the skies above the Urals that night, perhaps it was not from
out of this world, but an all too terrestrial…
MILITARY EXPERIMENT GONE AWRY:
This
conjecture supposes that the Soviet government was conducting a highly
classified test of an unknown weapon on the secluded slopes of
Kholat-Syakhl and that — either by intention or accident — the ski team
fell prey to this monstrously powerful weapon.
One of the biggest proponents of this theory was the only surviving
member of the team, Yudin. Yudin believed that his friends inadvertently
entered a covert military testing ground and had paid for it with their
lives. He speculated that this was why the military had been so
secretive about the investigation and that it also explained his
comrades’ irradiated clothing.
After all of the evidence had been collected, the searchers asked for
Yudin’s help in identifying who the objects found at the site belonged
to. He said that he saw in the mix of his friend’s possessions a torn
swathe of fabric that resembled a piece of a soldier’s coat as well as a
pair of glasses and skis that had not belonged to any of the team
members.
This proof — combined with the fact that Yudin testified to seeing
documents that indicated the actual investigation had begun two weeks
before the camp’s “official” discovery — compelled him to claim that the
military had discovered the camp before the volunteer search party
arrived. Yudin also claimed that he knew for a fact that: “
there were special boxes with their organs sent for examination,” but this was not reflected in any of the papers that were released.
Be
that as it may, the fact remains that the search party found no
indication on any explosion on or near the campsite at Kholat-Syakhl.
There is also no record of any missile launches in the region, but even
in the 21
st Century records of clandestine Soviet military operations are still few and far between.
But if we’re dealing with a hazardous unidentified weapon there’s no
reason to assume it was explosive. Perhaps there was a bacteriological
or chemical spray released that resulted in their panic and eventual
demise. A few have even suggested, due to the haphazard method they used
in building the fire, that they were blinded by a bright flash, but
most researchers do not agree with this assumption
There are also some who believe that it might have been some kind of
experimental sonic weapon that employed Infrasound, which has been known
to cause feelings from dread to outright panic in humans. Since this
sound is inaudible in a classic sense, many people who have been
subjected to Infrasound experiments claim to feel that some manner of
paranormal force is at work.
This would frankly explain a lot, but that doesn’t change the fact
that there’s absolutely no proof to support this assumption. Bringing
this back down to Earth… literally… there are those who feel that the
team may well have surrendered to…
AVALANCHE PARANOIA:
The
eastern face of Kholat-Syakhl is a potentially disastrous avalanche
zone and while these intrepid mountaineers chose to brave the slope
rather than retreat to the safety of the forest, it seems indubitable
that they were keeping one ear open for any tell tale signs of an
avalanche.
While there is no evidence supporting the theory that the skiers were
caught in even a small avalanche, there are a few who suspect that they
might have heard a strange rumbling sound during the night, which led
them to believe an avalanche was imminent and in their haste to escape
they cut their tent and ran half-naked into the 3-foot deep snow drifts.
While this is a distinct possibility, one would envision that the
manifest lack of falling rocks and snow would be enough to compel the
team to return to their torn tent to patch it up and bundle up in the
clothing they left behind. Investigators have reported that the base of
the pine tree where the group gathered was just out of sight of the
tent, but I find it difficult to imagine that these seasoned skiers
would run that far and never look behind them.
Beyond that, “
avalanche panic” doesn’t account for the
extensive injuries suffered by so many team members. Still, the one
element of this mystery that is universally agreed upon is that the
frenetic condition in which the team members ripped, then abandoned
their tent indicates that they were genuinely afraid. The biggest
question has always been “
what caused this fear?” and some have suggested that the Dyatlov crew might of had a nasty run-in with a…
VICIOUS SIBERIAN YETI:
Although
the evidence for this supposition is scant to say the least, there are
some who have proposed that the skiers fell victim to the notoriously
territorial wild man of Siberia, known to locals as the
Almas.
They speculate that the terrifying roar of the beast might have sent
the team into a panic, resulting in their poorly prepared escape into
the snow.
The two primary reasons for the existence of this theory are the
seemingly inexplicable impact wounds found on the skulls and torsos of
nearly half of the corpses and an as yet unverified piece of paper that
was allegedly discovered near the campsite which read:
“From now on we know there are snowmen.”
While
the crypto-dork in me salivates at the idea of lumbering, ape-like
beasts dwelling in the dark and forested nether regions of our ever
shrinking world, the evidence in this case simply does not support the
involvement of hairy hominids. The first and most obvious point is that
amidst all the manmade tracks that the searchers found, there is no way a
pair of gargantuan, bare prints would have gone undetected.
Secondly, while a punch from a Bigfoot-like beast could most
assuredly shatter ones ribcage, why would these commonly gentle giants
choose to attack some in the group, while allowing others to succumb to
the elements? It might be suggested that they were hurling large rocks
from a distance, as these creatures are sometimes known to do, but if
that were the case then where was the debris when the searchers arrived?
Finally the existence of the note itself is highly debatable and most
researchers dismiss the entire theory. I’m inclined to agree.
A LEGEND IS BORN
In 1967, journalist Yuri Yarovoi wrote a novel about this enduring mystery titled: “
Of the highest rank of complexity.”
Yarovoi had served as the official photographer for the Dyatlov Ski
Team search party, so he was privy to inside information. Nevertheless,
many modern investigators think that due to the fact that the book was
published in an era when Cold War tensions were running high and secrecy
was the rule rather than the exception, the likelihood that this book
told the full story was not very good.
Regardless of how revealing Yarovoi’s book may actually have been — and he conceded that it was a “
dramatization”
of the actual events, with a much more happy ending — it did manage to
lay the groundwork for the legend that would eventually creep its way
past the Iron Curtain and into the outside world.
Yarovoi’s colleagues would later reveal that he had written
alternative (and ostensibly more authentic) versions of the novel, but
his first two attempts were scratched by Soviet censorship. Sadly,
following Yarovoi’s death in 1980, his photos, diaries and manuscripts
were, conveniently perhaps, lost.
In 1990, author Anatoly Guschin had been granted “
special permission”
to study the original files of the Dyatlov inquest for a book he wanted
to write about the incident. He later reported that scores of pages had
been removed from the files, including an “
envelope” mentioned
in the evidence list. What this envelope was supposed to contain (or if
it ever really existed) remains just one of the many mysteries
surrounding these events.
In his book: “
The price of state secrets is nine lives,” Guschin speculated that the team had fallen victim to a “
Soviet secret weapon experiment.”
While his theory was just as controversial as the rest, Guschin’s
reintroduced this mystery to a brand new generation of curiosity seekers
and the floodgates were thrown open with literally hundreds of articles
and documentaries following in its wake, including a 2011 segment on
the History Channel’s hit program “Ancient Aliens.”
CONCLUSION
So
what really happened to these nine poor souls? For over half a century
forensics experts, scientists, military officials and amateur
investigators have scratched their collective heads over this eerie
enigma… and it doesn’t seem as if any answers are forthcoming.
On February 2, 2008, an investigative conference was organized by
Ural State Technical University and the Dyatlov Foundation. The six
surviving members of the original search party as well as 31 technical
experts assembled in Yekaterinburg, Russia, to look at the evidence and
determine the actual fate of the Dyatlov Ski Team. After much
deliberation the panel concluded that their deaths were likely the
unintended result of a secret military test. Needless to say there are
many who disagree with this conclusion.
Regardless of the fact that the victims’ grey hair may be an
exaggeration or that the radiation readings might be dismissed due to
mild exposure to Radium or Radon in one of the Polytechnic Institute’s
many laboratories, the fact is that nine experienced hikers were thrust
into such a terrified state that they literally doomed themselves in an
effort to escape a fate that they believed would be even more horrendous
that freezing to death on an icy mountain slope… what could do that?
In
the end we must never forget that this is first and foremost a tragedy
in which nine young lives were tragically cut short, with little more
than a memorial stone and a rusted plaque to commemorate the terrible
loss. Almost as sad is the fact that none of their families were offered
the dubious consolation of knowing why it was there loved ones had
perished in such a frightening fashion.
There are many who would attribute this mystery to little more than a
mundane series of unfortunate mishaps that resulted in nine sorrowful
deaths, but these were experienced skiers and it seems unlikely that
they would all follow such a foolhardy path. Now, despite generations of
effort to debunk and demystify this extraordinary event, the “
Dyatlov Pass Incident” remains one of the great mysteries of the 20
th Century… and one of the most frightening true life campfire stories I’ve ever encountered.
