The winter expedition through Russia’s Ural Alps began on January 23, 1959, with ten hikers. One returned after many days because of medical concerns, while the other nine continued their journey. Having planned to communicate with their sports group about three weeks after their departure, the hikers failed to make contact on February 20. As a result, a search team was sent out to find them.
Discovery of Bodies
Over the following few weeks, their search group discovered the very first five trekkers’ corpses strewn out on the snow. They were clothed in distinct patterns and had weird injuries, including one that appeared to have bitten off a portion of their knuckles.
Months after that, when the snow had melted, detectives uncovered the dead bodies of the four other trekkers. They suffered yet more puzzling injuries. One came with a shattered skull, the other had a twisted head and neck, two had no eyes, and one of the two female trekkers without one eye also lacked a tongue.
The Mystery of the Undamaged Tent
Once the search team discovered the campsite, they saw that it had been ruined and covered with snow. Within, the trekkers’ things were reasonably undamaged. The search team discovered the trekkers’ apparel, shoes, and gear neatly arranged inside the camp, and their food was cut as well as arranged on a plate as if the hikers were preparing to eat it. The canvas structure had been knifed open, and as a seamstress afterward discovered, the cut had been made from the inside.
Puzzling Postmortem Reports
The initial two bodies discovered by the search crew were the ones of students Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonishchenko, some hundred yards away from the tent. Both were resting in their underpants beside the ruins of a fire. The autopsy team uncovered burns on the flesh of the deceased individual, Krivonishchenko.
The bodies of hiking leader Dyatlov and one of the female student-athletes, Zinaida Kolmogorova, were found in a different spot, suggesting that they had tried to make it, back to the tent. Afterward, rescuers discovered the corpse of Rustem Slobodin, who was believed to be on his journey to the tent when he succumbed to death unexpectedly.
The KGB/CIA Theory
Many Russian citizens feared that the Soviet operation was hiding something. The discovery of radiation traces on some trekkers’ clothes led people to believe that the hikers were killed in a weapons testing mishap.
This radiation on clothing could be attributed to the Kyshtym accident, a nuclear incident that occurred two years prior. The first of the trekkers on the trek was a resident of the contaminated area, while another had assisted with the cleanup. Yet, lots of Russians seemed to believe that the state was hiding information. Yetis, the KGB, and the CIA have all been suggested to explain what happened.
Slab Avalanche Theory
In the year 2021, Johan Gaume & Alexander M. Puzrin released an article in a scientific journal. It employed a mathematical model to predict whether a slab avalanche was feasible, considering the tent’s placement and the meteorological factors. They, with the VFX team behind the animated movie ‘Frozen’, created a simulation and determined that it was possible. It is yet to be proven whether this was the case.
Paradoxical Undressing Theory
In one revelation, the International Scientific Times stated that hypothermia triggered the hikers’ fatalities, and this may result from paradoxical undressing, wherein hypothermia sufferers discard their clothes in reaction to their sensations of burning warmth. It is an unquestionable fact that six of them suffered from hypothermia. Others in the group, however, appear to have gained more clothes (from the ones who had previously succumbed), indicating that they were in the right mind in trying to add more clothes.
The nine trekkers’ awful deaths have spawned theories that range from extreme weather to secret test firing of weapons to an alien/UFO attack. While some explanations seem more trustworthy than others, this Dyatlov Pass incident is still a controversial and unresolved puzzle.
“We made a campfire on the logs because we were too tired to dig a fire pit. Dinner is in the tent. It’s nice and warm. It’s difficult to picture being so relaxed on the ridge, where the wind howls, yet there have been no human settlements across several hundred kilometers.”
Dyatlov’s last diary entry
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Sadi Reza
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE