The Dyatlov Pass Incident

There are very few things creepier, in my opinion, than the events of February 2, 1959 on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl, in the Ural Mountains of Russia.  What exactly those events were is unknown to the world to this day, but it's safe to say it was something terrible.

In January of 1959, 10 experienced ski-trekkers set off from their university in central Russia, with an intent to reach a mountain just over 6 miles away called Otorten.  It is interesting to note that the name Otorten translates to "don't go there" in Mansi.  This was  perhaps a warning that the skiers should have heeded.  Of the 10 students that set out on this trek, only one would remain alive.

On January 25, the group of students took a train to the province of Sverdlovsk Oblast, alighting in the city of Ivdel.  They then traveled by truck to the northernmost settlement of Vizhai.  It was from here that they set off for Otorten, on the 27th of January, 1959.

Of the group, 2 were women and the rest were men, all between the ages of 20 and 38.  Igor Dyatlov, 23, was the leader of the expedition, and it was after him that the pass was eventually named.  Yuri Droshenko, Yuri Krivonischenko, Alexander Kolevatov, Rustem Slobodin, Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles, Semyon Zolotariov and Yuri Yudin were the remaining men in the group.  Zinaida Kolmogorova and Lyudmila Dubinina rounded out the expedition.  All except one, Yuri Yudin, would perish on the mountainside less than a week later, under horrifying and unexplainable circumstances.

On February 1, the ski-trekkers, minus Yuri Yudin who turned back because of illness, began their journey through what would eventually be named Dyatlov Pass toward their destination.  The weather conditions were bad and the hikers set up camp on the exposed mountainside, a mere mile away from the edge of a forested area.  Why set up camp there instead of moving into the forest?  Surely experienced mountaineers would have known that the woods would have provided some protection from the harsh Russian winter.  Yuri Yudin, the sole survivor of the expedition, speculated after the fact that it was likely because Dyatlov wanted to practice camping on the exposed mountain slope instead of in the safety of the woods.  Alternatively, he may have found it preferable to camp where they were instead of losing a mile of altitude by descending to the woods.  We will likely never know for sure but for whatever reason, they camped right there on the side of the hill.

Sometime during the middle of the night on February 2, 1959 (Semyon Zolotariov's 38th birthday), something horrifying happened.  It is unknown to this day what exactly befell the hikers, but by February 12th, a telegram that Dyatlov had promised to send to their school had not arrived.  Yudin, who had returned to the university, didn't think much of this, as Dyatlov had said, when they parted, that February 12th was only an estimate and in fact he expected it to be later.  But when another week went by with no contact from the expedition, the hikers' families began to worry.  By February 20th, they were demanding a search and rescue operation be launched to find the missing students and, it was hoped, bring them home safely.

The first volunteer search parties were sent out shortly after.  On February 26th, the hikers' tent was found.  The rescuers, mainly students and faculty from the university, and later expanded to include military, were perplexed by what they saw.  The abandoned tent was in ruins - torn from the inside and half-covered with snow.  Inside the damaged tent were some of the hikers' boots and winter coats, but no sign of the students themselves.  Nine sets of footprints, some wearing one shoe, socks or completely barefoot, led away from the tent in all directions, indicating that the group had scattered.

The rescuers couldn't imagine what could have happened to send nine experienced mountain hikers screaming out of a tent, half dressed in the middle of a snowstorm in the mountains of Russia.  They concluded that something must have terrified Dyatlov and his friends so severely that they feared for their safety if they were to remain where they were.  But where had they gone?  And were any of them still alive so many days after the incident?

Continuing on their search, the rescue expedition headed toward the forest.  The footprints leading away from the tent, which had initially gone in all directions, seemed to converge and lead toward the woods.  Nearly a mile to the northeast, the rescue party came across the bodies of two of the hikers - Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko.  The bodies were found beneath a cedar tree, and it appeared as though they had tried to light a fire there as well.  Branches were stripped off the tree up to a height of 15 feet, and the hands of at least one of the men were scratched and bloodied, indicating that he had tried to climb up the tree for some reason.  It is unknown whether he was trying to climb the tree to evade someone or something, or to gain a better vantage point from which to view the surrounding area.  Even more baffling was the fact that both men were found naked except for their underpants.

It is known that people suffering from moderate to severe hypothermia (a concept not out of the question for Russia in the middle of winter) sometimes remove clothing, a phenomenon known as paradoxical undressing.  Is this what happened to Krivonischenko and Doroshenko?  I can't imagine they would have been sleeping in their underwear in a Russian blizzard, particularly not in mixed company.  Did they remove their clothing in a hypothermic daze?  Or did their peers survive them and remove their clothing to use to keep warm?  If this was the case, were they still alive now?  

At varying distances between the tent and the cedar tree,  three more bodies were found face down in the snow.  Expedition leader Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorov and Rustem Slobodin were found, in various states of undress, in positions that lead searchers to believe they had been trying to return to the campsite.  Slobodin, it was discovered, had suffered a head injury that resulted in a cracked skull.  Despite his injury, it was concluded that he, like the rest of the hikers' whose bodies were found that day, had died of hypothermia.

The remaining four hikers were nowhere to be found.  As the days passed, hope of finding them alive dwindled.  

It wasn't until May of 1959, when the snow started melting, that the bodies of Alexander Kolevatov, Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolles, Semyon Zolotariov and Lyudmila Dubinina were discovered.  They were in a ravine, under several feet of snow, less than 250 feet away from the cedar tree where the first two bodies were found.  It appeared that they had taken clothing from their fallen friends in an attempt to keep warm.  Perhaps most interesting to the searchers was the camera found around Semyon Zolotariov's neck.  They did think it odd that, in the midst of an emergency, he had fled the tent with his camera but not his boots, but they were hopeful that the camera could provide some answers as to what had come to pass.  Unfortunately, the film inside the camera had extensive water damage and could not provide much information.

Perhaps most disturbing was the state of some of the corpses - Lyudmila Dubinina in particular.  She was missing her tongue, eyes, and part of her lips (Dubinina was reportedly found face-down in a stream and these external injuries were later attributed to putrefaction).  All of the bodies were reported as having a strange orange/brown tan hue to their skin and notably elevated levels of radiation were later detected on some of their clothing.  

It was later determined that six of the nine hikers had died of hypothermia and the remaining three had died from injury.  Thibeaux-Brignolles, Dubinina and Zolotariov all had extensive internal injuries - Thibeaux-Brignolles to his skull and Dubinina and Zolotariov to their chests.  The amount of force that would have been needed to inflict injuries as severe as these was beyond human capability.  The medical examiner likened it to the force from a car accident.  Interestingly, though, the bodies showed little sign of external trauma, further deepening the mystery of what exactly happened to these poor souls that February night.

The diaries and cameras found in the tent told investigators that the fatal event had occurred sometime during the night between February 1st and February 2nd.  Autopsy would later establish that the hikers had died about six to eight hours after their last meal, corroborating the timeline gleaned from the diaries.

There were (and still are) a great many theories circulating as to what happened that fateful night.  Theories from aliens to ghosts to military experiments abound, but the mystery remains today.

It was thought that perhaps the native Mansi tribe had murdered the students, angered by their presence in "their mountains."  This was dispelled, however, by the absence of incoming footprints and by the vehement denial of the Mansi people upon being questioned.  Besides, the tent was cut from the inside and the injuries sustained by Dubinina, Zolotariov and Thibeaux-Brignolles were not inflicted by humans, as earlier ascertained by autopsy.

Another theory that gained some traction was UFO involvement.  Another group of hikers camping that same night, some miles to the south, reported seeing strange orange spheres in the sky to the north, right around where Dyatlov's group would have been.  These lights had been seen before both by civilians and military.  Could aliens be responsible for these bizarre deaths?  That's harder to prove or disprove, but anything is possible.

A third theory, perhaps even less likely than the UFO theory, is that the group was terrorized by the Yeti.  Again, the lack of footprints makes this unlikely (aside from the fact that the existence of the Yeti is unlikely in the first place).  Unless the Russian Yeti can fly, it was probably not him.

A slightly more believable idea that was offered up was that an avalanche, or impending avalanche, had frightened the students out of their tent.  However, there was no evidence that an avalanche had indeed roared into their camp.  The tent was partially covered with snow but not buried.  The footprints were still visible.  It is possible that the group believed they were in imminent danger of an avalanche and cut their way out of the tent, believing it better to have a tent to repair than to be buried inside it beneath feet of snow.  We will never know for sure, but it seems unlikely that something would have led them to believe that an avalanche was looming.

Perhaps the most believable theory is that it was a military experiment that accidentally claimed the lives of these nine skiers.  In the 50s and 60s there were lots of military experiments happening all over the world.  There had been reports of the Russian military testing parachute mines in the general vicinity of Dyatlov's camp around the time of the incident.  Parachute mines are mines dropped from an aircraft attached to a parachute.  They are known to cause injury similar to those sustained by Dubinina, Zolotariov and Thibeaux-Brignolles - catastrophic internal damage without much external damage to show for it.

Lending to the military theory, it is alleged that when the reports finally became available to the public (which wasn't until the 1990s) that there were pieces missing and that the military was being secretive about the whole event.  Militaries are often secretive about things for reasons we cannot know, but speculations abound and of course conspiracy theories are rife.   The reality is that this mystery will likely never be solved entirely.

The events of February 2, 1959 in the Ural Mountains have sparked many debates, captured numerous imaginations, provided the basis for many books and even a major motion picture (Devil's Pass - 2013).  There are as many theories as there are unanswered questions.  

Today, a memorial rock stands on the ridge of Kholat Syakhl.  The spot where the tent stood and where the bodies were found draws tourists to this day.  A memorial statue stands somewhere in a wooded area, with the pictures of the nine skiers on it.  People still leave flowers on their gravestones.  What exactly happened to them is unknown and will probably remain so forever, but these nine students certainly have not been forgotten.  And as long as their story is still told, it is unlikely that they ever will be.

Sources: wikipedia.com, http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-dyatlov-pass-incident