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The Untold True Story
of the
Dyatlov Pass Incident
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One can't say just how or when one became aware of this event, and this is the first reading undertaken. But a bare outline or two sentence synopsis one has been aware of for a few years.
This book would make a far better reading if it were a straightforward three or four part narrative instead of the author weaving the three stories, of hikers and searchers and his own, like a braid. For one, losing track isn't attractive in this case, and all intensity is lost repeatedly. And the opposite would kill the story.
But reading the introductory prologue and first couple of pages by the author about his getting into this investigation, the one thing that pops into mind is the story one found on social media - was it yt? - about U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan being attacked by a giant striding out of a mountain cave from above them, and his being transported off on flight to U.S. after they had killed him.
If that story wasn't an undefined, unrefuted spoof, it leads to implications logically - for one, it's unlikely this creature was unique and alone; for another, perhaps what West mistakenly calls yeti is one of them. (Yati is a Sanskrit word, for someone who's undertaken a painstaking spiritual path, of meditating while being physically far from comfortable; for example, standing on one leg in meditation without moving, for hours, would be a first elementary beginning on this path. 'Yaatanaa' literally translates as pain.)
Was it one, whether same or another, of these that the Russian group of hikers met in Northern Urals, in 1959? There were no tracks of any kind besides the hikers themselves,, according to the records of searchers.
The author proposes a natural phenomena, then not understood yet but beginning to now, of infrasound. It's almost hypnotic, the scenario he sets forth in his final chapter, with imagination. But not quite convincing and for a very simple reason.
The name and the scientific experiments relating infrasound wasn't general knowledge when the hikers went their way to Dyatlov Pass and settled down for the night before beginning a two day hike to Otorten. But the phenomenon itself is another story, as is that of the Kármán vortex street.
A dog or a monkey don't do sums on paper, but they know when another has a biscuit and they don't - so they know one and zero.
Similarly, those living in Siberia, even at Yekaterinburg instead of Irkutsk, know cold and winds. And this group was one consisting not only of students living in Yekaterinburg - and in primitive conditions, as attested by author in 2012, which coukdnt be worse than in 1959 - but also, they were experienced hikers, with a tradition of hikers who went deep into Siberia and Urals and Arctic too, supporting them right there in the institute.
At the very least, they had to have been familiar with most of what the author describes in his imagined scenario, if not by experience then by lore, cautioned by seniors, and thus forewarned to deal with it by not leaving tent. It's a knowledge of the land that becomes universal for those that have belonged there for generations through centuries, since that land has been their universe. It's a matter of survival, after all, and lack of familiarity with the winds, arctic gales or infrasound would have had people of the region perish regularly under circumstances described, which weren't likely to be unique to that particular day or night.
It had to be something completely unexpected that they couldn't have been warned against, which drove them out of the security of their tent.
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"The sun is dropping. The searchers don’t have much time before they must turn around and rejoin the rest of the team at base camp. Weather conditions are volatile in the northern Urals—snow can fly in fast and thick without warning, and hurricane-force winds are a persistent menace. Though the morning had given them clear skies, threatening clouds have since collected, and the wind is already whipping snow from the ground in prelude to a storm. It looks as if it may be another day lost. But then, through the disorienting blur, the men spy something that is neither rock nor tree—a dark, gray shape. As they draw closer, they find a flapping tent. Though its twin poles stand obediently in the wind, a section of the tarpaulin has surrendered under the weight of recent snows."
"The sun is dropping. The searchers don’t have much time before they must turn around and rejoin the rest of the team at base camp. Weather conditions are volatile in the northern Urals—snow can fly in fast and thick without warning, and hurricane-force winds are a persistent menace. Though the morning had given them clear skies, threatening clouds have since collected, and the wind is already whipping snow from the ground in prelude to a storm. It looks as if it may be another day lost. But then, through the disorienting blur, the men spy something that is neither rock nor tree—a dark, gray shape. As they draw closer, they find a flapping tent. Though its twin poles stand obediently in the wind, a section of the tarpaulin has surrendered under the weight of recent snows."
They looked in. Everything was neatly arranged, leading to impression that they'd return any moment.
"The men step back into the snow to consider their discovery. They give in to a moment of cautious celebration, comforted in the idea that their comrades have not perished, but are out there somewhere, perhaps in a snow cave. As the two scan the immediate landscape, not once does it cross their minds that a forsaken camp is cause for anything but hope. Yet they cannot begin to fathom the conditions that must have compelled their friends—all nine of them—to abandon their only shelter and vanish into the stark cruelty of the Russian wilderness."
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"IT IS NEARLY TWENTY BELOW ZERO AS I CRUNCH THROUGH knee-deep snow in the direction of Dyatlov Pass. It’s the middle of winter and I have been trekking with my Russian companions through the northern Ural Mountains for over eight hours and I’m anxious to reach our destination, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to put one foot in front of the other. Visibility is low, and the horizon is lost in a milky-white veil of sky and ground. Only the occasional dwarf pine, pushing through the snow’s crust, reminds me that there is dormant life beneath my feet. The knee-high boots I am wearing—an “Arctic Pro” model I purchased on the Internet two months ago—are supposed to be shielding my feet from the most glacial temperatures. Yet at the moment the inner toes of my right foot are frozen together, and I am already having dark visions of amputation. I don’t complain, of course. The last time I expressed any hint of dissatisfaction, my guide Vladimir leaned over and said, “This is Siberia.” I later learn this isn’t technically Siberia, only the gateway. The real Siberia, which stretches to the east all the way to the Pacific Ocean, begins on the other side of the Ural Mountains. But then “Siberia,” historically, has been less a geographical designation than a state of mind, a looming threat—the frozen hell on earth to which czarist and Communist Russias sent their political undesirables. By this definition, Siberia is not so much a place as it is a hardship to endure, and perhaps that’s what Vladimir means when he says that we are in Siberia. I trudge on.
"I have taken two extended trips to Russia, traveled over 15,000 miles, left my infant son and his mother and drained all of my savings in order to be here. And now we are less than a mile away from our terminus: Holatchahl (sometimes transliterated as “Kholat-Syakhyl”), a name that means “Dead Mountain” in Mansi, the indigenous language of the region."
'Mansi' in Hindi, or more correctly 'Maanasie' in Sanskrit, is a term with meanings and connotations and associated many words. Mountains are often termed 'Achala' in Sanskrit or 'Achal' in Hindi, meaning unmoving or immovable. Sanskrit often has multitude of words for objects. Hala or especially Halaahala means poison in Sanskrit. Halaachala might construe poisonous mountain, although such a term hasn't been seen or heard of in Sanskrit in India. 'Hala' more commonly connotes a major farming instrument, used commonly with a pair of oxen to till fields before planting seeds.
"The 1959 tragedy on Holatchahl’s eastern slope has since become so famous that the area is officially referred to as Dyatlov Pass, in honor of the leader of the hiking group that perished there. This last leg of our journey will not be easy: The mountain is extremely remote, the cold punishing and my companions tell me I am the first American to attempt this route in wintertime. At the moment I don’t find this distinction particularly inspiring or comforting. I force my attention away from my frozen toes and to our single objective: Find the location of the tent where nine hikers met their end over half a century ago."
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"The bare facts were these: In the early winter months of 1959, a group of students and recent graduates from the Ural Polytechnic Institute (now Ural State Technical University) departed from the city of Sverdlovsk (as Yekaterinburg was known during the Soviet era) on an expedition to Otorten Mountain in the northern Urals. All members of the group were experienced in lengthy ski tours and mountain expeditions, but, given the time of year, their route was estimated to be of the highest difficulty—a designation of Grade III. Ten days into the trip, on the first of February, the hikers set up camp for the night on the eastern slope of Holatchahl mountain. That evening, an unknown incident sent the hikers fleeing from their tent into the darkness and piercing cold. Nearly three weeks later, after the group failed to return home, government authorities dispatched a search and rescue team. The team discovered the tent, but found no initial sign of the hikers. Their bodies were eventually found roughly a mile away from their campsite, in separate locations, half-dressed in subzero temperatures. Some were found facedown in the snow; others in fetal position; and some in a ravine clutching one another. Nearly all were without their shoes.
"After the bodies were transported back to civilization, the forensic analysis proved baffling. While six of the nine had perished of hypothermia, the remaining three had died from brutal injuries, including a skull fracture. According to the case files, one of the victims was missing her tongue. And when the victims’ clothing was tested for contaminants, a radiologist determined certain articles to contain abnormal levels of radiation.
"After the close of the investigation, the authorities barred access to Holatchahl mountain and the surrounding area for three years. The lead investigator, Lev Ivanov, wrote in his final report that the hikers had died as a result of “an unknown compelling force,” a euphemism that, despite the best efforts of modern science and technological advances, still defines the case fifty-plus years later.
"With no eyewitnesses and over a half century of extensive yet inconclusive investigations, the Dyatlov hiking tragedy continues to elude explanation. Numerous books have been published in Russia on the subject, varying in quality and level of research, and with most of the authors refuting the others’ claims. I was surprised to learn that none of these Russian authors had ever been to the site of the tragedy in the winter. Speculation in these books and elsewhere ranged from the mundane to the crackpot: avalanche, windstorm, murder, radiation exposure, escaped-prisoner attack, death by shock wave or explosion, death by nuclear waste, UFOs, aliens, a vicious bear attack and a freak winter tornado. There is even a theory that the hikers drank a potent moonshine, resulting in their instant blindness. In the last two decades, some authors have suggested that the hikers had witnessed a top-secret missile launch—a periodic occurrence in the Urals at the height of the Cold War—and had been killed for it. Even self-proclaimed skeptics, who attempt to cut through the intrigue in order to posit scientific explanations, are spun into a web of conspiracy theories and disinformation."
"There was, of course, the central mystery of the case, with its bewildering set of clues. Why would nine experienced outdoorsmen and -women rush out of their tent, insufficiently clothed, in twenty-five-degrees-below-zero conditions and walk a mile toward certain death? One or two of them might have made the unfathomable mistake of leaving the safety of camp, but all nine? I could find no other case in which the bodies of missing hikers were found, and yet after a criminal investigation and forensic examinations, there was no explanation given for the events leading to their deaths. And while there are cases throughout history of single hikers or mountaineering groups disappearing without a trace, in those instances, the cause of death is quite clear—either they had encountered an avalanche or had fallen into a crevasse. I wondered how, in our globalized world of instant access to an unprecedented amount of data, and our sophisticated means of pooling our efforts, a case like this could remain so stubbornly unsolved.
"My investigative synapses really started to fire when I learned that the single surviving member of the Dyatlov group, Yuri Yudin, was still alive. Yudin had been the tenth member of the hiking group, until he decided to turn back early from the expedition. Though he couldn’t have known it at the time, it was a decision that would save his life."
"Although my initial efforts to find Yudin got me nowhere, I was able to make contact with Yuri Kuntsevich, the head of the Dyatlov Foundation in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Kuntsevich explained that the foundation’s mission was both to preserve the memories of the hikers and to uncover the truth of the 1959 tragedy. According to Kuntsevich, not all the files from the Dyatlov case had been made public, and the foundation was hoping to persuade Russian officials to reopen the criminal investigation. Speaking through a translator, he was perfectly cordial and offered that he might have information to help my understanding of the incident. However, my specific queries about the case—including how to reach Yuri Yudin—resulted in only vague or cryptic responses. At last he put the onus on me: “If you seek the truth in this case, you must come to Russia.”"
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Author arrived at Sverdlovsk, which was Yekaterinburg (or Ekaterinburg as it was spelled in West) until 1918 when Romanov family of Nicholas and Alexandra with four daughters and a son were murdered there, as suggested by the Peron he'd contacted at the Dyatlov institute, with a friend Jason.
Author arrived at Sverdlovsk, which was Yekaterinburg (or Ekaterinburg as it was spelled in West) until 1918 when Romanov family of Nicholas and Alexandra with four daughters and a son were murdered there, as suggested by the Peron he'd contacted at the Dyatlov institute, with a friend Jason.
"OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS, KUNTSEVICH ARRANGED FOR me to talk with various writers, armchair experts and other characters connected to the Dyatlov case, such as search volunteers and friends of the hikers. Though there was a translator present at each of these interviews, and I had arrived with lists of questions, I often left these meetings more confused than I’d gone in. I was learning that everyone had his or her own ideas as to what happened to the hikers, and none seemed to match the others. I was told tales of runaway murderous prison guards, top-secret military tests gone awry and a tale about mythic arctic dwarves. One man even alleged that the survivor Yuri Yudin had something to do with his friends’ deaths—after all, wasn’t it convenient that Yudin had gotten sick in the middle of the trip and had been forced to turn back? Might he have been complicit in a larger plot? Arctic dwarves aside, nearly all of these theories involved a deep distrust of the Soviet government and a belief that the euphemistic conclusion that the hikers had died of an “unknown compelling force” had been used to paper over a darker truth. Though I wasn’t yet ruling anything out, by the end of these meetings, I knew that I needed to get to people who could give me facts, not more stories out of the Fortean Times."
Arctic dwarves? And no, “unknown compelling force” isn't specific enough to invoke "deep distrust of the Soviet government", the latter phrase merely reminding readers about general attitude fed in U.S. about left and Russia; but as to "paper over a darker truth", author ought to see JFK at least once, and repeat until he understands.
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"Unknown to most Westerners until the 1963 English-language publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—and, later, The Gulag Archipelago—Stalin’s ramped-up secret prison system had only been rumored to exist at this time. In fact, the Gulag system predated Hitler’s concentration camps and would go on to function for many decades after the liberation of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. It wasn’t until 1989 that Gorbachev finally began to reform the Soviet prison system."
"Unknown to most Westerners until the 1963 English-language publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—and, later, The Gulag Archipelago—Stalin’s ramped-up secret prison system had only been rumored to exist at this time. In fact, the Gulag system predated Hitler’s concentration camps and would go on to function for many decades after the liberation of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. It wasn’t until 1989 that Gorbachev finally began to reform the Soviet prison system."
Is it deliberate obfuscation, fitting the post-war McCarthy era strategy of ignoring Nazi war crimes, or a serious inability to comprehend the difference, between Nazi intentions of enslaving the world to Germany and the destroying of human civilisation, on one hand, and punishment of ideological opposition in a poorer country with a harsh climate? To put it another way, gulags were not extermination camps aimed at a race, or half a dozen. And McCarthy era treatment of various citizens in U.S. wasn't better, nor was that of Japanese Americans during WWII.
" ... For the men, this would have been an ideal moment to break out the cigarettes and let their lungs fill with the heat of burning tobacco. But, as Zina liked to remind them, they had made a pact not to smoke, and no one had brought any cigarettes. ... "
Is the author deliberately advertising smoking, or making the hikers seem deficient in proof of male bullying female? This, just after he was told how Russia in Soviet times truly gave equality to women!
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"INSIDE DORMITORY 531 on January 23, 1959, ..."
"The group’s twenty-three-year-old leader, Igor Dyatlov, was overseeing these final preparations with somber concentration. ... "
"Igor had been born into a family of engineers and at an early age had shown a finely tuned, scientific mind. He was studying radio engineering at UPI, and despite the official Soviet ban on shortwave radio transmissions during the Cold War, his bedroom at home was outfitted with radio panels, homemade receivers, and a shortwave radio. “Thanks to Igor, we had a handmade radio receiver on our hiking trips,” Poloyanov said. “His technical knowledge was encyclopedic.” Another hiking friend, Moisey Akselrod, recalled of a 1958 trip to the Sayan Mountains in southern Siberia, “Dyatlov’s major contribution was his amazing ultrashortwave transmitters that were used for communications between rafts.”
"Despite Igor’s affection for wireless devices, he would not be packing a radio for this particular trip. Shortwave radios of the time were cumbersome, and hauling them into the Russian wilderness in winter would have been out of the question. Besides, Igor had his hands full ensuring his group packed the essentials. If they were to forget something, there would be no stopping for extra supplies in the middle of the Ural Mountains, and no one wanted to be responsible for neglecting to pack something potentially lifesaving. This was a pivotal trip for Igor and his friends. They were all Grade II hikers, but if this particular excursion went as planned, the group would be awarded Grade III certification upon their return. It was the highest hiking certification in the country at the time, one that required candidates to cover at least 186 miles (300 kilometers) of ground, with a third of those miles in challenging terrain. The minimum duration of the trip was to be sixteen days, with no fewer than eight of those spent in uninhabited regions, and at least six nights spent in a tent. If the hikers met these conditions, their new certification would allow them to teach others their craft as Masters of Sport. It was a distinction that Igor and his group badly wanted."
"As the group settled in, they noticed that their numbers had suddenly increased by one. There was a newcomer in their midst—an acquaintance of Igor’s who had asked to tag along at the last minute. As eight pairs of eyes settled on and assessed Alexander Zolotaryov, it was apparent to everyone that he was old. Well, older—thirty-seven, to be exact. Igor introduced him to the others, explaining that Zolotaryov was a local hiking instructor and a valuable addition to the team. Zolotaryov had originally intended to set off with student hiker Sergey Sogrin and his group, who were headed further north into the subpolar Urals, but when Sogrin’s timetable didn’t suit Zolotaryov, Sogrin introduced him to Igor. The timing was perfect, as another hiker, Nikolay Popov, had recently dropped out of Igor’s party.
"“Just call me Sasha,” the newcomer told them with a flash of gold teeth. Besides having a mouth full of metal, Sasha also had several tattoos. The name Gena had been inked on the back of his right hand, and when he pushed up his sleeves, a picture of beets could be glimpsed on his right forearm. Tattoos were relatively unusual for the average Russian citizen in 1959, but they were common among veterans. Sasha had, in fact, seen combat in World War II.
"After the initial surprise of finding a stranger among them subsided, the friends relaxed into their seats and chatted with the hiking groups around them. Igor and the others were happy to discover that one of their hiking-club friends, Yuri Blinov, was seated in their train car. Blinov’s party was taking the same route north to Ivdel, and the two groups would be able to keep each other company over the coming days."
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When they did not return on February 13, Rufina Dyatlov - who adored her brother and had followed him to do engineering at the institute - asked, and other relatives of the various other hikers began calling. They were told that small delays in winter were normal, but their request for search plane was denied. The institute inquired at Vizhay, the last village they'd set out from, but the return telegram said they'd not checked back in, so then search teams set forth flying over the area to see what they could. Blinov was on one team, his group having returned safely. Yuri Yudin from Dyatlov team had returned too, but he'd dropped out halfway due to health.
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Author arrived at Sverdlovsk, which was Yekaterinburg (or Ekaterinburg as it was spelled in West) until 1918 when Romanov family of Nicholas and Alexandra with four daughters and a son were murdered there, as suggested by the Peron he'd contacted at the Dyatlov institute, with a friend Jason.
Author arrived at Sverdlovsk, which was Yekaterinburg (or Ekaterinburg as it was spelled in West) until 1918 when Romanov family of Nicholas and Alexandra with four daughters and a son were murdered there, as suggested by the Peron he'd contacted at the Dyatlov institute, with a friend Jason.
"OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS, KUNTSEVICH ARRANGED FOR me to talk with various writers, armchair experts and other characters connected to the Dyatlov case, such as search volunteers and friends of the hikers. Though there was a translator present at each of these interviews, and I had arrived with lists of questions, I often left these meetings more confused than I’d gone in. I was learning that everyone had his or her own ideas as to what happened to the hikers, and none seemed to match the others. I was told tales of runaway murderous prison guards, top-secret military tests gone awry and a tale about mythic arctic dwarves. One man even alleged that the survivor Yuri Yudin had something to do with his friends’ deaths—after all, wasn’t it convenient that Yudin had gotten sick in the middle of the trip and had been forced to turn back? Might he have been complicit in a larger plot? Arctic dwarves aside, nearly all of these theories involved a deep distrust of the Soviet government and a belief that the euphemistic conclusion that the hikers had died of an “unknown compelling force” had been used to paper over a darker truth. Though I wasn’t yet ruling anything out, by the end of these meetings, I knew that I needed to get to people who could give me facts, not more stories out of the Fortean Times."
Arctic dwarves? And no, “unknown compelling force” isn't specific enough to invoke "deep distrust of the Soviet government", the latter phrase merely reminding readers about general attitude fed in U.S. about left and Russia; but as to "paper over a darker truth", author ought to see JFK at least once, and repeat until he understands.
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" ... Yekaterinburg—Sverdlovsk, to the Soviets—had been founded in 1723 as part of Peter the Great’s effort to tap the riches of the Ural region. After the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the late nineteenth century, the city had become a regional hub for mining, metallurgy and machine production. During the next century, the surrounding area became home to some of the largest and most brutal labor camps. Later known as Gulags—an acronym taken from the Russian name for the Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps—these camps were expanded by Stalin in the 1930s to house political prisoners, dissenters and other enemies of the State."
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" ... Yekaterinburg—Sverdlovsk, to the Soviets—had been founded in 1723 as part of Peter the Great’s effort to tap the riches of the Ural region. After the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the late nineteenth century, the city had become a regional hub for mining, metallurgy and machine production. During the next century, the surrounding area became home to some of the largest and most brutal labor camps. Later known as Gulags—an acronym taken from the Russian name for the Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps—these camps were expanded by Stalin in the 1930s to house political prisoners, dissenters and other enemies of the State."
It's reverted to Yekaterinburg for a while now.
" ... Ural State Technical University—or, as it was called until 1992, the Ural Polytechnic Institute. Westerners might know the university as the alma mater of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin; Igor Dyatlov and most of his friends would have been arriving just as Yeltsin was leaving in 1955. ... "
Author and his friend were taken to meet Tatiana Dyatlova.
"All four Dyatlov children had been raised to be upstanding Communists, yet each had an independent spirit and inquiring mind, which they had parlayed into their respective fields of study. All four had attended UPI—Igor, Slava and Rufina for radio engineering, and Tatiana for chemical engineering. Tatiana told me that Igor had always been the most scientifically inclined of the siblings, as well as the most artistic. “He had an excellent knowledge of art,” she said. “He was a great photographer. He used to love to play the guitar, as well—he’d write songs and poems, just for himself.”"
"When I asked Tatiana what her last memory of Igor was, she said abruptly, “He didn’t die from the snow.” She then described seeing the open caskets at the funerals, and how darkly colored and aged their skin had been. “It’s impossible. When people are just freezing and cold, the color of their face is not so dark.” Of her brother’s body, she said, “Igor was twenty-three years old and his hair looked like an old man’s. It was white.” Her family would not have believed it was Igor if not for one distinguishing mark on the corpse, one that brother and sister shared. ... "
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The hikers had a whole day in Serov due to train schedules and visited a school where the children didn't want them, especially Zina, to leave; they walked to the station with them to say farewell.
"Weeks later, once School #41 had gotten word that the Dyatlov group was missing, the children all wrote letters to UPI, expressing their concern and asking the frank questions that children ask. What happened to their new friends? Where was Zina? But their mail went unanswered, even after the group’s fate was known. Yuri Yudin received one such letter from a child they had met that day, but he didn’t have the heart to write back. What could he say?"
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The hikers had a whole day in Serov due to train schedules and visited a school where the children didn't want them, especially Zina, to leave; they walked to the station with them to say farewell.
"Weeks later, once School #41 had gotten word that the Dyatlov group was missing, the children all wrote letters to UPI, expressing their concern and asking the frank questions that children ask. What happened to their new friends? Where was Zina? But their mail went unanswered, even after the group’s fate was known. Yuri Yudin received one such letter from a child they had met that day, but he didn’t have the heart to write back. What could he say?"
"Gordo and Blinov, meanwhile, have been unsuccessful in their attempts to pick up the hikers’ trail leading from Bahtiyarova village. By the estimates of Mansi villagers, the hikers had arrived approximately sixteen days earlier, putting their visit around February 4.
"On February 23, the day after Gordo and Blinov visit the village, several Mansi tribesmen join the search effort. Their help is essential, as the Mansi know these mountains intimately. The group is headed by Stepan Kurikov ... "
"A search by helicopter over the Auspiya River is quick to pick up ski tracks along the bank. Groups on the ground, meanwhile, follow up on the discovery of Mansi hunters that ski tracks and evidence of camping were spotted 55 miles from the Mansi village of Suyevatpaul. In response to the latter, a group headed by the Mansi team’s Stepan Kurikov, accompanied by a radio operator, sets out in the direction of the ski path. In anticipation of finding the hikers at the end of these tracks, they equip themselves with a first aid kit and food."
"The note dropped to Boris Slobtsov on February 25 instructs the party to alter its route and begin searching along a smaller adjacent river, the Auspiya, where ski tracks were recently spotted. Slobtsov and his team of nine promptly change course and that same day pick up not only on the Dyatlov ski trail, but also evidence of one of their campsites along the river."
"Before Ivan leaves, he suggests that the group continue in the direction of Otorten Mountain until they encounter a streambed at the bottom of a slope. Because of the westerly wind in this area, he says, the snow has accumulated along the slope, creating potential avalanche conditions. The possibility that Dyatlov and his friends have gotten buried in snow is not one Slobtsov wants to believe, but after the group says good-bye to Ivan, they take his advice and head in the direction of the mountain. To increase their chances of success, Slobtsov suggests the team break into pairs, with Slobtsov taking classmate and hiking-club member Mikhail Sharavin. From the Auspiya River, Slobtsov and Sharavin head up the slope, hoping to get a better view from the hill overlooking the riverbed. By now, the weather is worsening and their time is limited."
They discovered the tent.
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"Before I left Russia, Kuntsevich had transferred the entire Dyatlov case file to my laptop—452 digital pages, entirely in Russian. The case records had been available for viewing only since the late 1980s, when Gorbachev’s glasnost called for increased transparency of government activities. It wasn’t until the late ’90s that partial copies of the case—having been illegally smuggled out of the Sverdlovsk Regional State Archives—revived interest in the Dyatlov tragedy. But this incomplete copy of the case file was largely used by writers to sensationalize the tragedy, much to the exasperation of the Yekaterinburg prosecutor’s office. Additional clandestine photocopies continued to circulate into the new millennium, but it wasn’t until 2009 that stealthy copiers, most likely students, pieced together a comprehensive reproduction of the case and distributed it among a select number of enthusiasts.
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"Before I left Russia, Kuntsevich had transferred the entire Dyatlov case file to my laptop—452 digital pages, entirely in Russian. The case records had been available for viewing only since the late 1980s, when Gorbachev’s glasnost called for increased transparency of government activities. It wasn’t until the late ’90s that partial copies of the case—having been illegally smuggled out of the Sverdlovsk Regional State Archives—revived interest in the Dyatlov tragedy. But this incomplete copy of the case file was largely used by writers to sensationalize the tragedy, much to the exasperation of the Yekaterinburg prosecutor’s office. Additional clandestine photocopies continued to circulate into the new millennium, but it wasn’t until 2009 that stealthy copiers, most likely students, pieced together a comprehensive reproduction of the case and distributed it among a select number of enthusiasts.
" ... Kuntsevich had also given me nearly five hundred photographs and negatives courtesy of Lev Ivanov’s daughter, Alexandra. She had been just a toddler when her father was appointed lead investigator to the case, and in 2009 she donated her father’s long-forgotten photo archive to the Dyatlov Foundation. ... "
"For over a year, I pored over the translated case files and the hikers’ journals, and many hours of my own transcribed interviews, as well as sought any other information on the case that I could find. When I felt I had exhausted these sources, I booked another flight to Russia. If I couldn’t find Yuri Yudin, I could at the very least put myself in the place of Igor Dyatlov and his friends. I would embark on the hikers’ expedition, starting out from the Yekaterinburg train station and concluding on the remote slope in the northern Ural Mountains where they had died."
Yuri Yudin was there, and spoke to Donny about the times.
" ... Kuntsevich interrupted our conversation to inform us that weather conditions in the northern Ural Mountains were going to be very unpredictable. Sudden blizzards and violent winds were a real threat, and a clear sky could lull one into a false sense of security. And once you’re above the tree line, there’s no place to seek cover. ... "
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"Unknown to most Westerners until the 1963 English-language publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—and, later, The Gulag Archipelago—Stalin’s ramped-up secret prison system had only been rumored to exist at this time. In fact, the Gulag system predated Hitler’s concentration camps and would go on to function for many decades after the liberation of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. It wasn’t until 1989 that Gorbachev finally began to reform the Soviet prison system."
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"Unknown to most Westerners until the 1963 English-language publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—and, later, The Gulag Archipelago—Stalin’s ramped-up secret prison system had only been rumored to exist at this time. In fact, the Gulag system predated Hitler’s concentration camps and would go on to function for many decades after the liberation of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. It wasn’t until 1989 that Gorbachev finally began to reform the Soviet prison system."
Is it deliberate obfuscation, fitting the post-war McCarthy era strategy of ignoring Nazi war crimes, or a serious inability to comprehend the difference, between Nazi intentions of enslaving the world to Germany and the destroying of human civilisation, on one hand, and punishment of ideological opposition in a poorer country with a harsh climate? To put it another way, gulags were not extermination camps aimed at a race, or half a dozen. And McCarthy era treatment of various citizens in U.S. wasn't better, nor was that of Japanese Americans during WWII.
" ... For the men, this would have been an ideal moment to break out the cigarettes and let their lungs fill with the heat of burning tobacco. But, as Zina liked to remind them, they had made a pact not to smoke, and no one had brought any cigarettes. ... "
Is the author deliberately advertising smoking, or making the hikers seem deficient in proof of male bullying female? This, just after he was told how Russia in Soviet times truly gave equality to women!
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The two groups had a meal at a cafeteria in Vizhay on January 26, 1959, before the Blinov group left, expecting to see the Dyatlov group back at school.
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"Word of the tent quickly spreads among the search groups, and the next day, multiple search teams arrive on the eastern slope to begin a more intensive search. ... There are also Mansi volunteers, Sverdlovsk outdoorsmen and UPI students."
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The two groups had a meal at a cafeteria in Vizhay on January 26, 1959, before the Blinov group left, expecting to see the Dyatlov group back at school.
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"Word of the tent quickly spreads among the search groups, and the next day, multiple search teams arrive on the eastern slope to begin a more intensive search. ... There are also Mansi volunteers, Sverdlovsk outdoorsmen and UPI students."
" ... In their eagerness to find the hikers alive, searchers pick over the tent and its contents for clues. Policemen with search dogs come, led by Lieutenant Nikolay Moiseyev."
"Unfortunately, there are no discernible tracks in the surrounding snow for the dog teams to follow. This is presumably due to the slope’s incline and the wind having swept away any traces of footsteps. But if there had been evidence of the hikers’ prints, the teams of men now swarming the tent have certainly obliterated them. Farther down the slope, however, where the land levels out, one of the teams picks up impressions in the hardened snowpack. About 20 yards away from the tent there are multiple sets of footprints that have remained preserved. Some of the prints are large. Others are smaller and less distinct, as if the person who left them had not been wearing shoes. The investigators count nine sets of prints, extending for nearly half a mile toward the river valley. The tracks are split into two parallel paths, continuing toward the valley before merging again. The searchers follow this footpath until they hit a patch of freshly fallen snow, at which point the prints disappear. But the searchers continue on, hoping to pick up the trail again."
They found an irregular fire site near a ceder tree, and investigation led to discovery of two of the hikers buried in snow, not properly clad, face of one eaten, which they concluded was by a bird.
"Despite the damage to his face, Sharavin and Koptelov are able to recognize the upturned hiker as Georgy Krivonishchenko. The body lying face down is his classmate, Yuri Doroshenko."
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On their last day in Vizhay, the transport could only be had in the afternoon. They ate in the cafeteria.
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On their last day in Vizhay, the transport could only be had in the afternoon. They ate in the cafeteria.
"The goulash didn’t present any particular reason for complaint, but the hikers were disappointed when their tea arrived unheated. Igor, however, took the nuisance in stride. According to Georgy’s diary, he quipped, “If the tea is cold, drink it outside and it will seem warmer.”"
They visited the forester, in this case a Russianised German, who warned them when he was informed about their intention of proceeding to Otorten mountain, that it wasn't safe to do so at the time of the year; but Dyatlov thought their group was well prepared.
"Even if Igor had believed that significant danger lay ahead, as the forester was insisting, he wouldn’t have let that discourage his group. Igor was “a fan of extremely dangerous situations—an addict,” Yudin says. “He was deliberately finding and choosing the most dangerous situations and overcoming them.” Perhaps, then, the forester’s warning had the opposite effect to the one intended: It only convinced Igor that he and his friends were on the right path. After Igor copied down one of Rempel’s maps, which was more detailed than the one they were carrying, the friends thanked the forester, cast a last glance at the miniature curios and went on their way.
"It was around this time that Yudin began to have serious doubts about continuing into the mountains. It had nothing to do with the forester’s warnings and everything to do with the increasing pain shooting through his back and legs. Yudin informed the group of his discomfort—stated merely as fact, not as a complaint—but also said he fully intended to push ahead to Sector 41."
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Shortly after the first pair was found, Stepan Kurikov and his dog found Igor Dyatlov; Karelin identified him. Moiseyev found Zina. They were all in various stages of dress, but were all without shoes.
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Shortly after the first pair was found, Stepan Kurikov and his dog found Igor Dyatlov; Karelin identified him. Moiseyev found Zina. They were all in various stages of dress, but were all without shoes.
At this point there was a first suggestion from searchers, that they'd been swept by strong gales and snowed under, but immediately it was questioned.
"More specifically, why would the tent—including all its contents and support posts—be left intact when the hikers had been swept away so forcefully? This seemingly innocuous question posed by radiogram would turn out to be one of the most baffling questions of the case, one that would ceaselessly plague investigators."
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Author got ready for his hike in footsteps of the Dyatlov group.
"Kuntsevich’s worry was that in the 45 miles between Ushma and Dyatlov Pass, a region known for its hurricane-force winds, weather prediction was utterly useless. The temperate forecasts were saying minus twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the same estimated temperature the hikers had experienced on their last night together. But even that prediction could change for the worse.
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Dyatlov group's last stop on their route before hike was at log cabins of woodcutters, the two groups not different in age but only in education, yet sharing much, such as poetry. They partied late into night together, with poetry recitations and songs around fire. In morning, hikers took photographs and gave what gifts they could spare.
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Author got ready for his hike in footsteps of the Dyatlov group.
"Kuntsevich’s worry was that in the 45 miles between Ushma and Dyatlov Pass, a region known for its hurricane-force winds, weather prediction was utterly useless. The temperate forecasts were saying minus twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the same estimated temperature the hikers had experienced on their last night together. But even that prediction could change for the worse.
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Dyatlov group's last stop on their route before hike was at log cabins of woodcutters, the two groups not different in age but only in education, yet sharing much, such as poetry. They partied late into night together, with poetry recitations and songs around fire. In morning, hikers took photographs and gave what gifts they could spare.
"That afternoon, a Lithuanian named Stanislav Velikyavichus arrived with a horse-drawn sleigh to escort the hikers to the geologic settlement. Velikyavichus was on an errand that day to pick up iron pipes from the abandoned site, and, as luck had it, his sleigh had room enough to hold the hikers’ packs. He was a freelance worker at the settlement, and having been imprisoned for six years at Sector 2 of the eighth department of penitentiary camps, he was the travelers’ first encounter with a former convict of the region. What Velikyavichus did to earn his imprisonment isn’t clear, but, whatever his crime, Sector 41’s director didn’t see any reason not to put the hikers in his trust. Neither did the hikers, who would affectionately dub him “Grandpa Slava.”
"Because Velikyavichus arrived so late in the day, the trade-off for a lightened load was that they would be making much of their 15-mile trek by moonlight. The ten skiers said farewell to their woodcutter friends and proceeded north from Sector 41 deeper into the forest. Though they were temporarily relieved of their packs, the skiers had 15 miles of difficult country to cross before reaching the next settlement."
"There was thick forest all around them, and the easiest path through the snow was up the frozen Lozva River. Yudin says the ice wasn’t very thick, and it wasn’t cold enough to completely ensure against their skis penetrating through to the water. What’s more, the sticky snow would turn to ice on their skis, compelling them to stop periodically and slice away the ice with a knife. But, in doing so, they had to be careful not to put too much weight on the river. “It was very difficult and dangerous,” Yudin remembers. “The river was covered in snow and you couldn’t see the ice you were standing on.”"
There was only one inhabitable house at the settlement, they'd been told, and they found it.
" ... Despite the growing pain in his leg, Yudin chose to believe that he’d feel better in the morning.
"When Yudin awoke and tried to pull himself off the floor into a standing position, it became apparent to everyone, including Yudin, that it would be foolish for him to continue on the trip. Besides, this was his last opportunity to head safely back to civilization. From here on, there would be no more settlements—only forest—and the group couldn’t risk having to carry Yudin out should he be unable to move. And so it was decided that he would return home."
"Yudin gathered as many minerals as he could find scattered around the area, mostly pyrite and quartz, and piled them into the sleigh. “The man with the horse was in a hurry,” Yudin remembers, “and yelled for me to hurry up.” Yudin regretted having to leave his friends, but he adopted his usual smile and reminded himself that they’d be reunited in ten days. After a round of warm hugs, he left the nine to continue the trek to Otorten Mountain without him. He loaded his pack onto the sleigh, but the extremely cold pipes prevented him from hitching a ride himself. And so with aches shooting through his legs and back, Yudin skied after Grandpa Slava and the horse all the way down the 15 miles of winding river."
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"“Karelin’s group” refers to the hiking team led by Vladislav Karelin, who is now among the search volunteers. Karelin and his companions had set out in February, shadowing the Dyatlov group’s path along the riverbed. At the beginning of the search for the missing hikers, Karelin’s visit to a Mansi village in mid-February, in which he and his fellow hikers shared tea with Pyotr Bahtiyarov, had been mistaken for a visit by Igor Dyatlov’s group. The mistake, which was eventually corrected, only temporarily misled investigators. But the Karelin group’s trip was to become of growing interest in the case. Several days after their visit to the Mansi village, Karelin and his friends had witnessed what he called a “strange celestial phenomenon.” Karelin later told investigators that on the early morning of February 17, he had been awoken by excited cries from the hikers on breakfast duty. “I rushed out of my sleeping bag and tent without boots, just in socks, stood on branches and saw a large light spot,” he recounted. “It grew larger. A small star appeared in its center and also grew bigger. The whole spot moved from northeast to southwest and down.” Karelin said that the light lasted just over a minute, and that he supposed it was a large meteorite. But one of his friends, Georgy Atmanaki, was so terrified by the orb of light, he feared a planet was about to collide with Earth. “I talked with witnesses later,” Atmanaki told investigators, “and they described the event similarly and added that the light was so intense that people were awoken inside their houses.”
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"“Karelin’s group” refers to the hiking team led by Vladislav Karelin, who is now among the search volunteers. Karelin and his companions had set out in February, shadowing the Dyatlov group’s path along the riverbed. At the beginning of the search for the missing hikers, Karelin’s visit to a Mansi village in mid-February, in which he and his fellow hikers shared tea with Pyotr Bahtiyarov, had been mistaken for a visit by Igor Dyatlov’s group. The mistake, which was eventually corrected, only temporarily misled investigators. But the Karelin group’s trip was to become of growing interest in the case. Several days after their visit to the Mansi village, Karelin and his friends had witnessed what he called a “strange celestial phenomenon.” Karelin later told investigators that on the early morning of February 17, he had been awoken by excited cries from the hikers on breakfast duty. “I rushed out of my sleeping bag and tent without boots, just in socks, stood on branches and saw a large light spot,” he recounted. “It grew larger. A small star appeared in its center and also grew bigger. The whole spot moved from northeast to southwest and down.” Karelin said that the light lasted just over a minute, and that he supposed it was a large meteorite. But one of his friends, Georgy Atmanaki, was so terrified by the orb of light, he feared a planet was about to collide with Earth. “I talked with witnesses later,” Atmanaki told investigators, “and they described the event similarly and added that the light was so intense that people were awoken inside their houses.”
"Over the coming days, the evidence grows stranger. On March 5, as Karelin and another volunteer are probing a previously unexplored area, about 1,000 yards from the site of the hikers’ tent, they hit something not far beneath the surface: a fifth body. When they dig away the snow, Karelin is able to identify him as Rustik Slobodin. His body is lying facedown with his right leg bent beneath him, and his right fist pulled to his chest. He has on a checkered shirt, sweater, ski trousers, several pairs of socks and a single felt shoe. He also wears a ski cap, which is still intact on his head—strange, given the prevailing theory that wind blew the hikers from their campsite. Rustik lies midway between where Dyatlov and Zina had been found, their bodies in turn lining up with the site of the tent. Like Zina, Rustik is oriented toward the tent as if he had been working his way up the slope at the time of his collapse. Karelin and his companion notice a small hollow of encrusted snow near Rustik’s nose and mouth, where his breath had melted the surrounding snow, suggesting that Rustik had been alive for some time after he fell. But what is most startling is the front of Rustik’s head, which is deeply discolored, as if he sustained a blunt force to the head."
"Around this time, after the tent’s contents are transported to Ivdel for further examination, a discovery is made about the tent itself. The discovery had, in fact, been noted in the case file early on, but it was not initially believed to be significant. Besides the ice-ax gashes made by Mikhail Sharavin upon discovery of the tent, there are additional cuts to the back of the tent. These are not the cuts of an ice ax, but appear to be made with more precision. There is one longer cut that is large enough to accommodate a person stepping through it. When a professional tailor is brought to the prosecutor’s office to make a new uniform for one of its officers, the woman is also asked to take a look at the damaged tarpaulin. After examining the threads along the mysterious cut, she confirms what investigators have already concluded: It is a deliberate slash made with a knife. The tailor hesitates to speculate beyond that, but for investigators, the meaning is clear. The hikers themselves would not have damaged their own tent in this way, even by accident, so this seems to suggest one thing: Someone from the outside knifed his way through the tent on that terrible night."
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"The US government had originally denied the existence of Powers’s aircraft—blaming the incident on a weather plane that had drifted off course into Soviet airspace—only to sheepishly admit to lying about the whole affair after Khrushchev declared: “I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report, I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well . . . and now just look how many silly things the Americans have said.”"
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"The US government had originally denied the existence of Powers’s aircraft—blaming the incident on a weather plane that had drifted off course into Soviet airspace—only to sheepishly admit to lying about the whole affair after Khrushchev declared: “I must tell you a secret. When I made my first report, I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well . . . and now just look how many silly things the Americans have said.”"
The photographs and diaries of hikers tell about the hike after Yuri Yudin turned back. They followed along Lozva river and then along Auspiya in tracks of Mansi, but lost them. January 31 was their last day recorded in journals.
"It was on this second-to-last day of their trip that the nine hikers began to deviate from the river and make their way up the slope in the direction of Otorten Mountain. The group had been lucky in rediscovering the Mansi tracks—ski tracks this time—but the uphill path was still slow going ... "
"THE FRIENDS TOOK APPROXIMATELY TEN PHOTOGRAPHS on their final day of life, and judging from the first few snapshots taken at the campsite that morning, spirits were high. ... "
"The morning’s mood was evidently contagious, and one member of the group drafted the front page of a mock newspaper called The Evening Otorten, dated February 1, Issue 1. Among its contents was an editorial posing the question, “Is it possible to keep nine hikers warm with one stove and one blanket?” plus an announcement for a daily seminar titled “Love and Hiking” to be held in the tent by lecturers “Dr.” Kolya and “Candidate of Science” Lyuda. The sports page announced that “Comrades Doroshenko and Zina Kolmogorova set a new world record in competition for stove assembly,” while the science pages claimed that the “snow man,” or yeti, dwelled in the northern Urals around Otorten Mountain."
Since they were going to climb Otorten mountain next, they built a storage shelter and stored all they'd collect on their way back for the return journey, so they could climb with lighter packs with only necessities.
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Scientific officer Churkina confirmed that the rips in back of tent were, in fact, cuts.
"Lev Ivanov and his investigators believed that the case rested on identifying the cause of these gashes, and when the tent had been initially brought in for examination, the condition of the fabric had suggested to some that there had been an outside attacker that night. The determination that the tears had been made by a knife seemed to support this theory, but upon closer examination of the threads under a microscope, Churkina made another discovery: The cuts had come from inside the tent. “The defects continue as thin scratches in the corners of the punctures on the internal side of the tent,” she wrote, “not on the external side. Nature and form of damage indicate that the cuts were made from inside by some blade/knife.”"
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Scientific officer Churkina confirmed that the rips in back of tent were, in fact, cuts.
"Lev Ivanov and his investigators believed that the case rested on identifying the cause of these gashes, and when the tent had been initially brought in for examination, the condition of the fabric had suggested to some that there had been an outside attacker that night. The determination that the tears had been made by a knife seemed to support this theory, but upon closer examination of the threads under a microscope, Churkina made another discovery: The cuts had come from inside the tent. “The defects continue as thin scratches in the corners of the punctures on the internal side of the tent,” she wrote, “not on the external side. Nature and form of damage indicate that the cuts were made from inside by some blade/knife.”"
"Yudin remembers that the regional authorities were eager to get beyond the entire incident, and in private talks with family members, strongly suggested that their loved ones be buried in the mountains. The officials wanted “for nobody to come to the funeral, for nobody to show up,” Yudin says. “The authorities wanted to bury them where they were found so there would be no funeral and it would be done.”
"Rimma Kolevatova, the older sister of Kolevatov, in her testimony to investigators, called the organization of the funeral arrangements “disgraceful.” The search teams had not yet found her brother, but she was keenly aware of the ordeal the other families had endured. The parents of the hikers, she recalled, had been summoned by Party officials into private meetings, in which they were told their children should not be returned to Sverdlovsk, but buried instead in Ivdel. “They lived and studied and made friends in Sverdlovsk,” Rimma told investigators. “Why should they be buried in Ivdel?” According to Rimma, in these private meetings, each set of parents had been told that the other parents had already agreed to an Ivdel burial, with a mass grave and single obelisk marker. When the parents of Zina Kolmogorova proposed that all the families should be called together to come to an agreement, the secretary of the institute committee of the regional Communist party made excuses that the families were too spread out to make a single meeting feasible."
The authorities offered a compromise stipulating not a single mass funeral but two, minimised events.
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After the funerals, some of the families met some hikers who'd been in the area at the time, and seen the light orb in the sky.
"By the time the first hikers had been buried, the “orb” accounts and their attendant theories had infiltrated Lev Ivanov’s investigation. The overwhelming number of witnesses who came forth to describe bizarre lights seen in the vicinity of Otorten Mountain—and to link the phenomenon back to the hikers’ demise—made it difficult for the prosecutor’s office to ignore this angle. It also made it more difficult for Ivanov and his crew to arrive at acceptable answers for the hikers’ families. At some point in mid-March, a new piece of evidence emerged that would only bolster the theories of those who felt the orbs had something to do with the fate of the Dyatlov group. That evidence was in the final photographs taken by the hikers before they died."
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After the funerals, some of the families met some hikers who'd been in the area at the time, and seen the light orb in the sky.
"By the time the first hikers had been buried, the “orb” accounts and their attendant theories had infiltrated Lev Ivanov’s investigation. The overwhelming number of witnesses who came forth to describe bizarre lights seen in the vicinity of Otorten Mountain—and to link the phenomenon back to the hikers’ demise—made it difficult for the prosecutor’s office to ignore this angle. It also made it more difficult for Ivanov and his crew to arrive at acceptable answers for the hikers’ families. At some point in mid-March, a new piece of evidence emerged that would only bolster the theories of those who felt the orbs had something to do with the fate of the Dyatlov group. That evidence was in the final photographs taken by the hikers before they died."
Ivanov thought it was murder, but was called to Moscow in mid March, and found changed on his return. He no longer spoke of murder or lights, and when others persisted, told them to hold their tongues. He'd been told to stop.
Search teams found clothing strewn around in cut and shredded pieces before they found four more bodies, only one identifiable.
That the temperature, strong winds and snow had caused their deaths wasn't in doubt; the position of the spot where tent was, plus topography and the fact that the tent had been found with everything neat inside, nixed any question of an avalanche. The mystery was only about what made all nine flee the safety of the tent.
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On May 8th, finally the four bodies were taken to Ivdel for forensic examination, delayed due to pilot refusing to take them on his helicopter without their being sealed in zinc lined coffins, despite the local officers protesting that tarps were safe enough that they'd carried them to the helicopter by hand. The theories about UFO, nuclear experiments or missiles being involved had had effect.
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On May 8th, finally the four bodies were taken to Ivdel for forensic examination, delayed due to pilot refusing to take them on his helicopter without their being sealed in zinc lined coffins, despite the local officers protesting that tarps were safe enough that they'd carried them to the helicopter by hand. The theories about UFO, nuclear experiments or missiles being involved had had effect.
Two of the men had sustained injuries, one in chest with several ribs fractured and other in skull. Most alarming was the state of body of Ludmila Dubinina, with severe injuries, massive thoracic damage, nine ribs fractured, and her tongue missing. Ivanov permitted only her father to have a glimpse that his daughterwas clad properly, but he fainted at the site of the state of the body; rest of the families were denied a look and the funeral was closed casket, families only affair.
Ivanov had brought in a search volunteer who was a hiker, a UPI student and a friend of the group. His opinion was that no one amongst the Dyatlov group was capable of having caused this, and that it had to be only a very serious threat that could have caused nine experienced hikers to run out of security and warmth of the tent into stormy winters of North Ural without shoes.
Ivanov had ordered tests on organs and was forced to close the case by order immediately, before the results arrived. The level of radioactivity on their clothes was far higher than usual for persons who worked with radioactive substances.
Various officials received reprimand and Northern Urals were closed officially to hikers for three years - people could venture without permission at their own risk - but, other than "unknown compelling force", families received no intimation of a cause of demise of the nine hikers.
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Subsequently, infrasound experts in Russia at Lemonosov University have ascribed the Boot Rock responsibility for the event. Author, having come across the mention of the phenomenon in course of his reading, and having eliminated all other theories ascribing it to wind or avalanche or animal or human predator, had concluded as much although without thought of Boot Rock, and so consulted experts at NOAA at Boulder, CO. He was met with by several experts including several Russians, and subjected to questions about his interest in the case. It was generally acknowledged that the first batch discovered had died of hypothermia and rest had sustained injuries due to steep fall onto sharp rocks hidden under snow. But the cause of their leaving the tent so suddenly, without shoes and in diverse state of clothing, the one mystery, was likely infrasound waves.
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Subsequently, infrasound experts in Russia at Lemonosov University have ascribed the Boot Rock responsibility for the event. Author, having come across the mention of the phenomenon in course of his reading, and having eliminated all other theories ascribing it to wind or avalanche or animal or human predator, had concluded as much although without thought of Boot Rock, and so consulted experts at NOAA at Boulder, CO. He was met with by several experts including several Russians, and subjected to questions about his interest in the case. It was generally acknowledged that the first batch discovered had died of hypothermia and rest had sustained injuries due to steep fall onto sharp rocks hidden under snow. But the cause of their leaving the tent so suddenly, without shoes and in diverse state of clothing, the one mystery, was likely infrasound waves.
"The earliest public applications of infrasound, Bedard told me, had been in the early ’50s during the Cold War, when the United States began to measure infrasonic waves generated by the nuclear blasts of secret Soviet bomb tests."
Experiments have shown some people more sensitive than others to effects of infrasound.
"Infrasound had been used by Nazi Germany to stir up anger and strong emotions in crowds assembled to hear Hitler speak."
They spoke about “Kármán vortex street.” At Gibraltar it's cause of shipwreck. But Bedard said Boot Rock was too far away to have had such effect or been the cause of hikers rushing out when they knew not to do so. Author, not satisfied, sent Bedard the various images he had of Boot Rock, and they met next day. Bedard said it was the Otorten mountain behind, with its perfectly symmetrical domed shape, that caught his attention - the shape would cause a tremendous “Kármán vortex street”, and the tent was too close. When asked if it was Kármán vortex street or infrasound, Bedard said, both. It seems the hikers could have picked a more precise location to be terrified out of their minds to death, given the shape, weather and the bare top of the mountain.
Here, it's about the mountain visible in the photograph that arrested Bedard's attention, and it's slightly unclear if they mean Otorten which is slightly further north, or the immediate one in proximity in West, presumably what the author described at beginning as Holatchal. Given that he titled this book Dead Mountain, literally translated from Holatchal, instead of, say, Dyatlov Pass - presumably it's that one that generated the Kármán vortex street and infrasound, which according to Bedard the hikers had pitched their tent in a close position to be affected perfectly by.
On Google maps, Otorten is titled Gora Otorten, and Gora is again from Sanskrit, understood throughout India to mean Light-coloured, and it's masculine as would suit adjective for a mountain (corresponding feminine is Gori, suitable as adjective for objects such as rivers). Being snowcapped in winter as Otorten is, the adjective is suitable.
Otorten mountain was incidentally misnamed, since the word is mispronunciation of real name of another mountain a few miles North; and while Otorten means 'don't go there', that isn't its name. The local tribal name of the mountain identified now as Otorten translates actually to 'mountain of goose nests'.
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The Chelyabinsk meteor of February 15, 2013 was visible as a streaking fireball even from Yekaterinburg, and widely photographed by Russians with dash cams popular in Russian cars. A byproduct was infrasound waves. The CTBTO network measured infrasound waves as far as Antarctica. The effect was short-lived in Chelyabinsk, unlike the sustained infrasound generated by a Kármán vortex street event, but a swift and violent burst of infrasound waves, and that was what shattered the windows in Chelyabinsk.
The Chelyabinsk meteor of February 15, 2013 was visible as a streaking fireball even from Yekaterinburg, and widely photographed by Russians with dash cams popular in Russian cars. A byproduct was infrasound waves. The CTBTO network measured infrasound waves as far as Antarctica. The effect was short-lived in Chelyabinsk, unlike the sustained infrasound generated by a Kármán vortex street event, but a swift and violent burst of infrasound waves, and that was what shattered the windows in Chelyabinsk.
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April 19, 2020 - December 03, 2020.
December 07, 2020 - December 11, 2020.
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2956-3
ISBN 978-1-4521-1274-9
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December 07, 2020 - December 11, 2020.
Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco,
California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2956-3
ISBN 978-1-4521-1274-9
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