Mario Bahbouh
The Incident
62 years ago, during the winter of 1959, a horrendous fate met 9 Russian hikers when they embarked on a hike through Russia’s Ural Mountains. The experienced hikers sought promotion to Grade 3, the highest certification at the time, upon completing the hike.
Igor Dyatlov, 23 and a radio engineering student, led a group of 9 others, 2 women and 7 men, in February for the duration of the 300 km hike. Yuri Yudin, a member of the original squad, did not partake in the hike due to complications suffered from a congenital heart defect, a decision that saved his life.
By the 31st of January, the group arrived at the edge of a highland area and the preparations for the hike commenced. On the 1st of February, the group began to advance through the infamous pass that would later be named after their leader.
Dyatlov himself made a mistake when he opted not to set camp in a nearby forested area, despite worsening conditions. The group was expected to return on the 12th of February and send a telegram to the sports club that they were affiliated to; however, no telegram was received.
By the 20th of February, a demand for a rescue operation, requested by the relatives of the hikers, is accepted and several search teams are dispatched.
A Puzzling Discovery
The badly damaged tent belonging to the hikers, was found on the 26th of February, ;however, it contained no bodies despite the presence of all their belongings and some shoes. The tent seemed to have been ripped from the inside, indicating hurried attempts at escape.
9 sets of footprints, made by bare feet, or single paired socks or shoes, were found leading to the other side of the pass.
The first five bodies were bound at the edge of the Forested area near a Siberian Pine along with a small fire made by one of the hikers. Some branches of the tree were broken reaching 5 metres high, indicating that a member of the group tried to climb up there and was successful.
The bodies belonged to Krivonischenko, Doroshenko, Slobodin, Kolmogorova and Dyatlov himself. 3 of the 5 bodies found died in a specific pose that suggests an attempt to return to the tent. Dubinina and the remaining 3 members were found dead and their bodies buried deep under 4 metres of snow further into the woods.
Many bodies were strangely undressed or in varying states of undress.
A medical examination of the bodies concluded that 6 members of the group died from hypothermia and the other 3 died from fatal injuries. Some had their skulls and chest smashed open, others had their eyes missing and one body lacked a tongue.
The official report added to the already sinister scene by declaring that the cause of their death was an “unknown natural force”
A Russian study in 2019 concluded that the cause of death was an avalanche that occurred near the camping site of the hikers but refused to offer any other details.
Different Theories
A lot of theories pointed towards some sort of avalanche occurring that lead to the death of the campers but a lot of the evidence did not add up. For example, there was no snowfall on the night of the incident to explain an increase in the weight of the snow burden on the slope, on which they were camped, to trigger a fatal collapse.
If an avalanche did occur, then the presence of a nine hour gap between efforts to cut the slope for encampment and the eventual avalanche should not exist but it does according to the forensic report.
A lot of theories emerged that attributed the death of the group to a secret soviet weapon being tested nearby, especially after the statement of Lev Ivanov, a former police officer that lead the investigation to find the bodies, stated that he saw flying spheres in the sky, an observation that he was forced not to discuss with the media at the time after receiving direct orders from high raking officers.
One speculation states that because the campsite fell within the pass of a Soviet parachute mine exercise, the hikers were probably woken by the sounds of loud explosions that forced them to flee hastily leaving behind everything.
The concussions that resulted from the alleged mine explosions might have also killed those who attempted to return to the tent to salvage some clothing. There were indeed Parachute mines being tested in the area, that detonate in the air, explaining the sightings of orange orbs in the sky.
The mines also produce signature injuries that match with the reported heavy internal damage and a lack of or very little external damage found in the bodies of the victims.
Finally, an interesting theory that was also presented refers to the interesting phenomenon called paradoxical undressing, where subjects of extreme hypothermia experience an exaggerated feeling of burning warmth that forces them to undress instead of add layers to keep them warm.
As interesting as it may seem, evidence shows that some members of the group opted to acquire clothing from already deceased members, a sign of a sound mind.
Queen Elsa steps in
As we mentioned before the sub avalanche theory did not match up a lot of the evidence at the crime scene. There was no avalanche present when the rescuers arrived at the camp site, 26 days after the hikers went missing.
The slope on which the camp was built offered an inclination of 30 degrees which is the bare minimum required to support an avalanche theory. The aforementioned 9 hour gap is a major irregularity that supporters of this theory have had to explain. The injuries to the chest and skull were not consistent with injuries sustained in avalanche caused deaths.
Therefore the challenge that Johan Gaume and his co-author, Alexander Puzrin, from the Institute for Geotechnical Engineering in Zurich, Switzerland, faced in trying to credit the sub avalanche theory for the demise of the hikers was huge.
They used a digital avalanche model to test whether a slab avalanche could have occurred. Their main aim was to try an explain why a 9 hour gap was present, believing it was the key to solve the mystery.
Dyatlov had mentioned in his diary that on that fateful night, “very strong winds” were present. He might have been referring to katabatic winds, heavy clumps of frigid air that brought large amounts of snow from higher up the slope on the unsuspecting campers down below.
The force would have been similar to having an SUV being thrown at you, a relatively small amount when compared to other avalanches, but it definitely caught the campers by surprise and its small size explains why 26 days later no evidence of it remained as it was already buried deep in the snow.
The final part of the mystery involved explaining the traumatic injuries suffered by the victims and with the assistance of the animators of the movie Frozen, the researchers might have come up with a satisfactory explanation.
The snow movement in the movie was so exceptional that it encouraged Johan Gaume to contact the specialists at the studio to simulate the impacts that avalanches would have on the human body. The researchers and the specialist also used results from experiments done on cadavers in the 70s by General Motors to test the effects of car crashes on the rib cage, as evidence for the importance of seat belts.
The experiments at GM showed that with sufficient force and a rigid background and support, damage to the rib cage of a victim of both of these factors would definitely experience some damage to the rib cage and the skull.
The campers at the pass slept with their bedding atop their skis, meaning that when the avalanche did strike they were squeezed between a rigid surface and now, a known natural force.
What happened after the avalanche is just mere speculation, the campers would have definitely cut the tent from the inside to escape and fled the scene in panic. The ones not injured would have carried the injured out of the tents to the forested area, a final act of courage and friendship.
The researchers do not claim that they have solved the mystery but offer some data to support the avalanche theory.
References
https://www.indiewire.com/2021/02/engineers-frozen-animation-code-dyatlov-pass-mystery-1234614083/ https://www.insider.com/frozen-animation-helped-solve-dyatlov-pass-avalanche-incident-2021-2
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