Dyatlov Pass incident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

I'm afraid information in English will be quite poor, however, there are lot of materials, analysis and versions of what happened in Russian over internet.

About why I posted it HERE:

1. Deaths of hikers are rather misterious and without clear explanation.
2. Two of hikers worked in secret nuclear plant.
3. Some of their clothes had increased level of beta-radiation (testing was initiative of KGB - some reseachers pointed out that KGB knew that and testing was needed only to affirm it; they even secretely tried to find missing bodies using dosimeters).
4. Investigation of case was unprofessional and violated CSI procedures, existed at the moment in USSR.

hadn't heard about this before.

Do you have a theory on what happened?

Surprised Hollywood hasn't made a movie of it yet!

There are a lot of theories on this incident, varying from accident as result of natural disaster (i.e. avalanche, however slope where they placed their tent was rather flat, not more than 15-20° of angle and this explanation do not explain some of issues mentioned above) to contact with aliens or even with creatures from mythology of local Mansi tribes people

Some explanations claim that hikers were murdered, pointing as perpetors:
1) hunters of local Mansi tribe (proved to be untrue);
2) escaped inmates of Gulag camps - there were such in area (however, no escapes were detected in period of accident);
3) Gulag camp guards acting as poachers.

However also here are no explanation to radioactivity and involvement of KGB during investigation.

Will continue later.

So, the `spy` version tries to deal with radioactivity and involvement of KGB in the investigation.

This version is based on following global facts:
1. During 50-ies, large intelligence efforts were made by both sides of Cold War to detect technologies, plants, ability to produce, raw materials etc. - anything related to construction and production of nuclear weapons.
2. Americans had great advantage in the field of recon air force - Soviet anti-aircraft defense and interceptor jets weren't able to hunt down American recon planes, and last ones flew undetected and unpunished over Soviet air space.
3. However, aerial recon was unable to detect what kind of nuclear materials are produced in particular plant - it could only be done by ground inteligence. So, only way to detect what kind of nuclear material is processed in particular plant, soil and water samples shoud be taken from the vicinity of plant.
4. Under-cover foreign intelligence in Soviet territory was very hard to perform due to overall secrecy and paranoidal behaviour of counter-intelligence of KGB and MVD - foreigners were always under surveilance, and they wouldn't be admitted even in territories, where secret plants (including nuclear) were stationed.
5. The conclusion of above is, that those samples could be taken only by local agents, working for American Inteligence. And the way to bring them to USA could be only by covert operatives, dropped behind Soviet lines by parachute, after they met their local contacts, received from them samples and than covertly left Soviet territory with them. Covert operatives would be conscripted from ex White Russians or their descendents, who could speak Russian without any accent and, if needed, could pose as legal citizens of USSR.

So, the theory is, that one of hikers was such an intelligence agent, and had an objective to transfer such samples (taken from secret plants with his own clothes) to such American commandos, disguised as similar hiker group.

However, two more factors are needed to be in place to fit this scenario:
1. KGB knew about this objective, and also infiltrated one or more their agents in the group.
2. After a contact, when both hiker groups met, something went wrong. According to theory, somebody from commando team unwillingly revealed himself with, for example, not knowing certain fact which was self-evident for authentic Soviet citizen of 50-ies, or not knowing certain Soviet idiom etc.

Because of reveal, commandos was forced to kill all the Dyatloff group, including their own agent, to avoid being catched by Soviet counter-intelligence, and they tried to perform a massacre in the way so it could seemed by an accident (i.e. not using firearms and knives, relaying on deadly hand-to-hand combat techniqs instead).

That's all what I have find out at the moment. I will continue to study material (it's rather large chunk of info) from here http://murders.ru/Dyatloff_group_1.html
and I will post conclusions and findings off that as soon as possible (the site is so large it can stop responding browser on an older computer - however on newer machines there shouldn't be problems. It is in Russian, of course).

Thank you. Very intriguing. The CIA methodology you refer to is a very accurate description of known infiltration programs - which ads to the plausibility.

I was i little bit inaccurate in retelling the version or Rakitin (author of it), since when I post it here, I was only in the half of material . Now I'm done with it and here's a correct retelling of Rakitin version. However, the main idea of who was the murders is not affected by this update.

So, there was no NATO agent in the hiker group, but there was controlled delivery procedure made up by KGB instead.

As I posted above, the USSR was in worse situation with nuclear arms than USA during 50-ies - both in terms of amount of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers, capable of delivering bombs to their targets. So, the Khruschov performed a `nuclear bluff` - activities to convince their oponents that USSR has greater nuclear potential than in reality. As part of this bluff, empty rocket containers on mobile chassis were shown in the military parades in Red Square, while their rockets were still in testing or even turned down as not passed tests.

Rakitin claims, that objective of this `controlled delivery` by KGB agents in Dyatloff group was to provide the NATO agents with clothes, contamined artificially to convince Western intelligence that production rate of Sybirian nuclear plants is greater than in reality. The contacts with western intelligence was performed through `radiogame` - i.e. process, when foreign spy is captured and forced to communicate with his seniors under control of counterintelligence (in this case, KGB).

Remaining story is without changes - during contact of hikers with NATO spies most likely last ones saw something suspicious in the behaviour of hikers (Rakitin claims that secondary objective of the mission was to take a pictures of NATO spies - it is proven, that Semen Zolotarev has camera, but, unlike his mates, he didn't take at least one pictue of this travel) or, hikers not involved in delivery find out something suspicious on the spies - so the last ones decided to kill all the hikers and did it.

Site in English with some info on accident:
http://www.aquiziam.com/dyatlov_pass_1.html

Not so detailed as Russian material, but still better than Wikipedia.

This is a fascinating story, and equally so the theory you've outlined.

Since you first put this up, I started looking at sites that try and give innocent explanations for what happened.

When time permits, I may post some of those. I think most can be easily dismissed - but there may be one or two that are plausible to someone like me who does not have enough of the facts (and may actually still stand when exposed to more of those pesky facts).

Greg, you wanted a Hollywood movie about this... it seems someone is working on such:
http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/renny-harlins-dyatlov-pass-incident-movie-poster.html

And here is one more English site, relying mostly on the `Avalanche` theory:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4108

9K116 wrote:Greg, you wanted a Hollywood movie about this... it seems someone is working on such:
http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/renny-harlins-dyatlov-pass-incident-movie-poster.html

It's not hard to predict what they'll do with it.

9K116 wrote:And here is one more English site, relying mostly on the `Avalanche` theory:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4108

Here is what the above site said in support of the avalanche theory:

I found some translated articles from Russian media and some western articles, and although the case offers some really compelling mysteries, it also offers an elephant in the room: The possibility of avalanches being the culprit. I wanted to see how likely avalanches would have been in that area, so I looked it up on Google Earth. Turns out it's hardly the type of place you'd expect avalanches. The hills are low and rounded, much better for cross country skiing than for avalanches, at least according to my personal informal assessment from looking at the terrain on Google Earth. And, obviously, the group felt comfortable enough with any potential danger to make camp where they did. But I also found a Russian tourism brochure for the area that warns of avalanche danger on slopes steeper than 15°. According to the police reports, the slope immediately above the campsite was at 22-23°, and 50 to 100 meters above the campsite it increased to 25-30°. That's quite steep. There was a cornice, and the snow at the campsite was 2 meters deep. There has also been much discussion in the Russian press about the possible role of avalanches in the Dyatlov Pass incident. So I'm going to go ahead and call avalanches a plausible factor in the tragedy.

Here is another skeptics site
http://www.cracked.com/article_16671_6-famous-unsolved-mysteries-with-really-obvious-solutions.html

What they say about the girl's tongue and discoloration of skin is...

The big fact that gets lost in the re-telling of this story is that the bodies weren't found until weeks later. It's not like somebody turned their back, then five minutes later all their friends were dead and half naked.

That makes the missing tongue a lot easier to explain. As disturbing as it may be, the first thing a scavenging animal is going to go for is probably the soft tissue of an open mouth, especially if it still smelled like the burrito the hiker just ate. Laying out in the sun surrounded by white snow for days also accounts for the weird tan.

1. From other hikers experience of that era and area - air temperature inside the tent was almost the same than outside, with tent serving mostly as protection from wind and precipation. It means that even while in tent, hikers should be wearing rather lot of clothes, including footwear.
2. They hadn't anything like modern sleeping bags, so they used woolen blankets instead. So, if they were sleeping, they should have their heawear, gloves and, most likely, even the `indoors footwear` (they had such - one pair of footwear for skiing, one - for spending time inside the tent). However, most of bodies found had no shoes or boots, and some had only one or couple or cotton socks.
3. Three of most seriously injured persons (with rib cage deffects) were find the last ones, near the layer of branches made in gulley of stream. 4 persons found = layer seemed to be build for 4 persons. One of them - girl with missing tongue - was estimated to have been stayed alive no longer than 15-20 after her rib cage injury. So, if she got her injury in the tent as result of avalanche, she should be already dead in the moment she could be transported down to cedar tree or stream, where her body was found. Injuries of two other men - Semyon Zolotaryov and Nickolay Thibeaux-Brignolle - also was to serious for them to move themselves. Fourth of them, Alexander Kolevatov, was found without his notepad - while witnesses (including Yuri Yudin, who felt ill and left the group in their last stop in the inhabitated village) stated that he always had his notepad at himself. So, if he was froze to death accidently, his notepad most likely should be still in his pocket.
4. The fireplace under cedar tree was made not as source of heat - that place was too windy so wind could easily blow heat away. If they wanted to make a fire as source of heat, they would do that in the place more suitable, with less or no wind. So, the main function of fireplace seems to serve as lighthouse, so the those who went back to tent, could find their way back to their friends. However, fireplace was placed in the place, where the trunk of large cedar tree was accurately between fireplace and the tent, obscuring the flames un making fireplace less visible. So, it seems it was made in the manner so only those, who knew there is such a fire, could see it (however, if we believe in the `controlled delivery` theory, they didn't succeed completely succeed in this plan).
5. `Avalanche` theory does not explain signs of radioactivity in the clothes of group and, as well, involvement of the KGB in the looking for bodies.
6. Avalanche most likely will tear the tent completely down - however, when tent was found, its entrance side still stayed vertically up as built. It can be seen in this photo: http://www.skitalets.ru/works/2004/legend_sobolev/picture06.jpg

Besides, I believe most of these points also rules out those theories relaying on `insanity` of the hikers (some theories claim some factor made hikers insane (as such factor could be `fireballs in the sky`, `infrasound` or `testing of psychotronic weapon`) and that was why they left and damaged they tent) - since their actions after leaving a tent is rather logical and organized; moreover, they are harmonized (hikers mostly keeped together and helped each other as they could) - not the thing you can expect from the people, since actions or insane people should be individual and chaotic, and without any logical sense.

So the conclusion requests as following:
1. There was something, menacing certain death to hikers, if they'll stayed in or at the tent;
2. This unknown force forced hikers to take off their footwear and headwear prior to leave the vicinity of the tent.
3. However, this menace initially didn't seemed as such that could pursue hikers, if they leave vicinity of their tent.
4. Hikers left the tent mostly all together and more or less organized. At that moment they hadn't letal or serious injuries (except Rustem Slobodin who most likely get his head injury at the tent and lost conciousness during they way down the slope).

Thank you. I think you have done a very good job of countering those points. It is the problem with professional skeptics. They often use generalities to counter specifics. Doesn't always work.

Yours is the movie that should be made.

Regarding missing tongue and skin colour issues:

1. I do not see skin colour as problem - the bodies were found month after the incident. Last bodies - even 3 months after.
2. Problem with the missing tongue is we do not know details, since forensic expert, performing autopsy, only stated `absence of tongue`. He didn't specified was it removed artificially (with knife, for example), teared out with force, or maybe bitten off accidently (there is such version, that poor girl fell of the cliff, where her boddy was found, and bit off her tongue in moment of the impact with the stony surface below), or maybe eaten from the body by scavenging animals. Respectively, expert noted the absence of tongue, but didn't give any explanation of how it possibly was lost. Indirect conclusion is, that this finding was so terrible and out of official `accident context`, that he didn't write in the autopsy conclusions and most likely informed investigators of his suspections verbaly (unofficially).

Besides, two of bodies of `last four` - Semyon Zolotaryov and the same poor girl - also had empty eye sockets (again, with no explanation from forensic expert).

Some researchers say that injuries of last four hikers (broken rib cages and skull fractures) was obtained due to falling off the cliff (the bodies were found in the stony stream below the 4 meters (~13 feet) high cliff. Due to the darkness of the night this maybe can be plausible - hikers could be unable to see the edge of cliff or maybe they fell off together with the chunk of snow they stood on - so it is possible they fell all four simultaneously.

However - they should be aware of the cliff and stream below, since aparently hikers from their group build the layer of branches near the stream and near the place last 4 bodies were found.

Lack of notepad of Alexander Kolevatov also could be explained - it could be used to make a fire under the cedar tree, it could be lost due to losing sensitivity of Kolevatov's hands because of cold (I don't how much you are familiar with cold, but it is possible, frozen hands become clumsy and I believe it is possible to lost notepad while trying to write something in it in the cold) and later blown away with the wind...

It does not explain event completely, however it is possible to argue this incident as natural accident - we do not know who or what scared them at the tent, but later it is possible all of them died naturally and/or accidently.

Just watched a trailer for an upcoming series of documentaries on the Discovery channel. This incident will be the first to be shown. The title suggests it was the work of the "Russian Yeti".....hmmm.