Warning: This post contains graphic images and descriptions of violence.
In 1959, a group of nine hikers ventured into the Ural Mountains on a ski trip with the mission of making it to Mt. Otorten. Their bodies were found almost a month later on a mountain called Kholat Syakhl, a name which means “Mountain of the Dead.”
This mystery has become famous in its own right due to the disturbing incidents surrounding the deaths of the hikers. I recently discussed this topic within a podcast, highlighting just some of the many theories that surround what happened on that mountain. Below, you’ll find a breakdown of my notes and several theories of what could have caused the demise of the hikers.
This evidence was gathered and written with the intent of finally solving what happened on that fateful night.
The Set Up
The group of hikers, all of them young students at the Ural Polytechnical Institute, originally consisted of ten people (8 men and 2 women). They were all experienced hikers and set out on the ski trip in 1969.
Once they left the town and began their journey, weather conditions quickly become worse. Snowstorms decreased their visibility and it’s suspected that they lost their direction and accidentally deviated west. By the time they realized this, they decided to stop and set up camp on the slope of Kholat Syakhl for the night.
On February 2nd, the temperature outside the hiker’s tent was approximately -25 degrees. It’s also interesting to note that locals reported seeing strange lights in the sky over the mountains during the beginning of February. However, despite these strange signs, pictures of the hikers setting up camp suggest that nothing was amiss.
The Scene
When the group of friends failed to return on February 12th, search groups were sent out to find them. The search was so extensive that police and the army eventually became involved in the search with planes and helicopters that monitored the mountainside. It wasn’t until February 26th that searchers found the campsite. The only footprints belonged to the dead hikers and there was no evidence of animals or other people.
The tent was badly damaged and it appeared that someone had cut open the tent from the inside. It was also noticed that the zipper was still entirely intact and zipped closed, suggesting that the occupants were so frightened that they cut the tent apart to escape.
Another important find was 8-9 sets of footprints that led down towards the edge of nearby woods on the opposite side of the pass. However, after 500 meters they were covered with fresh snow. This also suggests that all of the hikers fled from the tents at some point in the night and ran towards the treeline for cover.
It was at the edge of this forest, that the searchers found the first of the bodies. Yuri Doroshenko, age 21, and Yuri Krinvonischenko, age 23, were found lying side-by-side and had both perished from hypothermia. Both of the men were missing shoes and were dressed in only their underwear. Interestingly, the cedar tree next to the men had broken branches five meters up the trunk. This supports the claim that the two were trying to climb the tree, either to escape from something or spot their camp. Their hands were torn and bloody and may have even been burned. Pieces of their skin were found embedded into the bark of the tree, suggesting that they were frantic.
Over the next several days of the initial search, three more bodies were found between the cedar tree and the camp. All of them died of hypothermia and were found frozen in positions that suggested that they were trying to get back to the camp when they perished. Forensic scientists would later suggest that two of these bodies were moved after death. It’s also important to note that the bodies were found a wide distance apart, found at distances of 300 m, 480 m, and 630 m away from the tree line.
Among these bodies was Igor Dyatlov, who was the leader of the expedition. He was 23 years old, lightly dressed, and wasn’t wearing shoes. He had bruises and defensive wounds on his hands, suggesting that he was in a fist fight briefly before he died. Rustem Slobodin was 23 years old and was found wearing a boot on his right foot. Finally, Zinaida Kolmogorova was 23 years old and was found closest to the tent.
It took searchers more than two months to locate the bodies of the other four missing hikers.
When they were finally found on May 4th, the final four were buried under four meters of snow in a ravine. This ravine was further into the woods, past the cedar tree. All four bodies were found next to a den that they had dug out of the snow. They had spread branches, twigs, leaves, and clothes on the floor of the den, possibly in an attempt to stay warm and minimize their contact with the snow. They also managed to start a fire in the den but were unable to keep it going.
Three of these hikers died from fatal injuries, while one died of hypothermia.
Lyudmila Dubinina was 20 years old and was found with her foot wrapped in the pants of another hiker. She was also wearing someone else’s sweater, which would later test positive for radioactive material along the hem. She had major chest fractures and was missing her tongue, lips, eyes, and a fragment of skull bone. There was also evidence to suggest that her tongue was removed while she was still alive.
Semyon Zolotaryov was 38 years old and was found wearing someone else’s coat and hat. He was almost fully clothed, unlike the other hikers. Like Dubinina, he was also missing an eye. He had major chest fractures and five broken ribs. Interestingly, he was also wearing a camera around his neck that was completely intact.
Alexander Kolevatov was 24 years old and was also found to be wearing a sweater and pants that would test positively for radioactive material. He died of hypothermia but was found with exposed skull bones and a broken nose.
Finally, Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolles was 23 years old and suffered major skull damage. There were multiple fractures to the side of his skull that would have made him unable to move.
Doctors concluded that the force needed to cause such damage to the hikers was extremely high and compared it to a car crash. The bodies had no external wounds and seemed as though the bodies were crippled by a high level of pressure that couldn’t have been caused by another human. The final conclusion by investigators revealed the group died to an unknown compelling force.
Theories
The Local Mansi People
The idea fueling this theory is that the hikers were intruding on the locals land, and paid for it with their lives. However, this theory was quickly discounted because the only footprints in the surrounding area belonged to the dead hikers and the force of the attack was too strong for a human to make. This theory may have just been created as a knee-jerk reaction as locals were shocked by the brutality of the scene and were looking to point fingers at a scapegoat.
It’s also interesting to note that, according to a Mansi legend, 9 hunters slept on the same mountain one night and were all later found dead.
Paradoxical Undressing
The next theory is actually a phenomenon that occurs during moderate to severe hypothermia. A person within this condition will start to feel incredibly warm and begin removing their clothing in an attempt to cool down. However, this only increases the rate of heat loss and quickens the process of hypothermia.
This condition may explain why many of the hikers were only partially dressed and why some of them were only wearing a single shoe. Some of the bodies were also found wrapped in snippets of ripped clothing which appeared to have been cut from those who were already dead.
While this explains why some of the bodies were undressed, it doesn’t explain the radiation or excessive force used to kill the hikers that were found in the ravine.
Soviet Weapon Experiment/Government Cover-up
While there is little physical evidence to support this theory, suspicious behavior by the Soviet government at the time of the incident suggests they may be involved.
In 1967, Russian journalist Yuri Yarovoi published a novel titled “Of The Highest Rank of Complexity” which was based on the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Yarovoi had been involved with the initial search and acted as the photographer of the scene. He faced intense pressure from the government to censor his book. The author died in 1980 and all of his archives, photos, diaries, and manuscripts were mysteriously lost after his death.
Another Soviet journalist named Anatoly Guschin looked into the Dyatlov Pass Incident and wrote a book called “The Price of State Secrets in Nine Lives.” Within this text, he suggests they were victims of a secret Soviet weapon experiment. In response, the Soviet government ordered a mass recall of all of his texts. However, many people still believe that the Soviets were testing some sort of secret weapon that drove the group insane. In addition, a strange unidentified cloth was found near the bodies, and it was thought to resemble military cloth.
However, this theory doesn’t entirely hold up. Why would the government/army be involved in the search for hikers if they were trying to cover up the disappearance? Also, if this were a missile test gone wrong, there would be evidence in the surrounding area (such as indentations, markings, blast zones, etc.) however, none were found.
Aliens
Multiple eyewitness testimonies claimed to witness strange events in the sky during early February. A former police officer named Lev Ivanov led the search party for the hikers in 1959 and was present when they were first found. In 1990, he published an article where he admitted that the investigative team had seen “flying spheres” themselves during their search. Even today, he believes that extraterrestrials are responsible for the group’s deaths.
Witnesses in the surrounding area reported seeing orange spheres in the night sky during early February, supporting Ivanov’s claims. However, there is no evidence to support this claim aside from eyewitness testimony.
Avalanche
An avalanche is one of the few theories that explain the force that’s needed to cause the injuries sustained by the hikers. There is one scientist in particular who supports this theory (the same scientist also explains the radiation away by claiming it was from a mechanism in their lantern. However, this does not explain why the radiation as found on the hems of their clothes and not their hands. It’s also worth noting that the Soviet government never revealed the type of radiation that was found on the bodies).
This theory suggests that five of the campers heard a loud noise at night and believed an avalanche was coming. They then cut out of their tent and made a run for it to the treeline. It was here that two of them lost consciousness and the remaining three attempted to cut off their clothes. The three attempted to make their way back to camp once they realized an avalanche wasn’t coming (one collapsed at 300 meters from the tree line, another one at 480 meters, and the last one at 630 meters). The five campers remained in their tent while the others fled. The five then packed provisions and were caught up in an actual avalanche.
This explanation feels like a stretch and may give evidence to the government cover-up theory. This theory doesn’t explain why the women’s tongue was missing or why their tent was found on top of the snow by search parties. Most importantly, there was no evidence of an avalanche in the surrounding area.
Infrasound
Infrasound is a lower frequency of sound (under 20 Hz) which is too low for human hearing to pick up, however, some still have an unconscious reaction to them. This phenomenon occurs naturally during severe weather storms, avalanches, earthquakes, lightning, ocean waves, etc. It also can be picked up in man-made sonic booms and explosions.
Recent studies on infrasound revealed that it can cause feelings of awe, fear, headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Some people think that infrasound might even have a relationship with some ghost sightings. For example, an engineer named Vic Tandy was working in a laboratory when he started to feel uneasy, as if a supernatural presence was next to him. He even started hallucinating a shadowy, dark figure out of the corner of his eye. However, when he attempted to look at it dead-on, there was nothing there. These occurrences were larger attributed to a broken metal fan that was causing low-frequency noises that trigger the unconscious response.
However, there has never been evidence of a mass panic caused by infrasound and we do not yet know how much infrasonic vibrations can influence human behavior. This theory also does not explain the radiation, why some campers were missing their eyes and other soft tissue, and the excessive force.
In conclusion…
There is no satisfaction here or groundbreaking revelation of what happened to those poor nine students who hiked into the mountains one day and never returned. However, one way we can honor them is to continue to tell their story.
The Dyatlov Foundation was established with the help of the university that the hikers attended as well as Yuri, the tenth member of the hike who turned back due to illness. The goal of this institution is to convince Russian officials to reopen the case and continue their investigation into what happened. If you’d like to learn more details about the Dyatlov Pass Incident, please visit their website.
Climbing With Apples 
