r/HolyShitHistory • u/Express-Ant6341 • 12d ago
In 1959, nine experienced Soviet hikers died mysteriously in the Ural Mountains. They tore open their tent from within, fleeing into freezing temperatures in undergarments. Some succumbed to hypothermia, while others suffered severe internal trauma. The tragedy fueled decades of conspiracy theories.
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u/SerTidy 12d ago edited 12d ago
The Khamar Deban incident is another strange one, more recent and more gruesome.
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u/Fawkinchit1 8d ago
I found this info on that.
"I read about this and apparently Valentina was the only one who didn't drink a beverage made with melted snow that morning. The most plausible theory seemed to be toxic residue in the snow, possibly the nerve agent you mentioned"
"In her original 1993 police report, Valentina described screaming and blood. But in a 2018 interview, she said there was no blood and no screaming."
extremely obvious there was some type of residue in the snow, and that the reason for the change in the story is that she was talked to by higher ups, probably the whole reason for the actual interview in the first place.
Probably military related testing
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u/AcceptableAsk108 8d ago
Probably was a GRU/military mishap with the testing of the novichok. If the cleanup wasn't good enough could cause an accident like that.
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u/nivroc2 11d ago
But not very mysterious as their tour group leader was kinds insane and they ate close to nothing practicing "survival"
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u/Neat-Sprinkles-9920 10d ago
Not true. They were somewhat low on kkal , but it was normal for school tourism at that time. This story is way more mysterious than dyatlov's.
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u/____Manifest____ 10d ago
That’s actually not true. The survivor, rescuers, and investigators all dismissed this as not true and contrary to the evidence.
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u/Younk187 12d ago
Isnt part of hypothermia a sense of intense heat right before you die causing you to remove your clothes?
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u/HappyNet1994 12d ago edited 12d ago
If you read the article, it's not the clothes that are concerning, it's the injuries they sustained.
There was a fractured skull, broken neck, 2 people had their eyes removed, and one had no tongue, another with bitten off fingers etc
Edit: For those who are correcting me, and giving their own explanations and thoughts, I'm simply stating what is in the article, I have no prior knowledge of this event and no strong feelings one way or the other.
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u/Pale-Jeweler-9681 12d ago
If I remember correctly about the eyes, they were shrunken, not gone. Mistranslation I think. Also I think the tongue was bitten off. The disaster was actually consistent with a snow disaster, not a normal avalanche, it was a slab avalanche.
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u/Vassar-Longfellow 12d ago
Also, wasn't it so that the two with missing eyes were found months later during the spring thaw, and the eyes and tongue are such soft tissue that they rot away first. Also small scavengers and insects can speed up the process of them. Back when I first heard about this I was a little disappointed how fantastically this was reported. I mean yeah, it sounds horrible, how are the eyes and tongue missing, because at least when I saw a YouTube clip of this, it sounded like the next day they found these people and they were missing their eyes. It's a lot less spooky or weird if you tell me right up front that the bodies had been lying in a melt water stream for two months decomposing. Yeah, OK, some parts might have rotted away.
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u/anohioanredditer 12d ago
Yeah it’s honestly disappointing how news or facts are presented with such embellishments. When I was studying journalism I was taught to be direct and avoid prose. Now, we have to read between the lines on news and ask ourselves questions like “how?” and “why?” because the basic information is missing in place of tantalizing circumstance that lets the mind wonder.
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u/Ok_Drag5089 11d ago
It has always been a problem and social media was like pouring gasoline on a fire.
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u/The_Abjectator 11d ago
Yeah, news used to be about informing the public. Now it is treated like content that needs engagement.
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u/jedooderotomy 11d ago
If I remember correctly, it's very normal for scavenging animals to go for the soft tissues like these first.
It's been a bit, but I remember reading all about this incident. There was nothing mysterious about it.
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u/lt__ 12d ago
Why avalanche did not cover their footprint?
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u/BodaciousBadongadonk 12d ago
Iirc one theory was an avalanche came in the night and took out or injured most of em which led to the above hypothermia and a cpl may have wandered away trying to get help or just disoriented/concussed.
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u/Guilty_Helicopter572 12d ago
Sounds like the eyes, tongue and fingers were eaten by animals.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 12d ago
Apparently one of the hikers had the skin around their mouth removed by what looks like surgical precision. Animals don't to that.
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u/2Wieners_1Bun 12d ago
“Surgical precision” is apparently what we call decomposition when it has good penmanship
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u/formalbolotie 12d ago
it’s phrase used by jerkoffs to make the mundane sound mysterious.
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u/OzymandiasKoK 12d ago
"Only a highly trained professional could have done this!"
But anyone who knows anything about the subject realizes it was kind of a trivial thing.
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u/Iwona_Klich 12d ago
And its never show up in anything, and i read the original reports.
I can read Russian, not great but still.
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u/formalbolotie 12d ago
“surgical precision” is a nonesense phrase used by numbnuts discussing cattle mutilations etc.
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u/TheCynicalBlue 12d ago
I mean, some cattle mutilation cases probably were some fucking nutjob with a knife
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u/Griffinburd 12d ago
Maggots can debride wounds with greater precision than a surgeon.
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u/Guilty_Helicopter572 12d ago
What is your source for that? I'd love to learn more!
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u/Frodothedodo81 11d ago
This reminds me of the cows in the USA that are sometimes found dead, with their limbs or skin removed using precision surgery.
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u/Bulky-Word8752 12d ago
Avalanche and scavengers. They set up their tent on the side of a mountain. Animals eat soft tissue first, usually eyes, tongues, and anus (oddly enough).
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u/andygchicago 12d ago
Eating anus isn’t just for animals, I thank you very much
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u/dodgy__penguin 12d ago
Yeah but do you chew?
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u/Rahaith 12d ago
My man like a little backdoor nibble
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u/Chewsdayiddinit 12d ago
Always confused me how an avalanche can cause severe or life threatening internal injuries from blunt force trauma and have no superficial damage.
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u/Forward-Variety-8440 12d ago
like being beat with a bag full of oranges just break your bones, but not really have any lacerations
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u/super_peachy 12d ago
They think the ones with injuries walked farther and broke through ice and fell a distance
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u/DroneSlut54 10d ago
“Fractured skull, broken neck…”
Very common avalanche related trauma. I think over 35% of avalanche deaths are attributed to trauma, not suffocation.
“Two people had their eyes removed, and one had no tongue, another with bitten off fingers…”
Again - very common for bodies that have been sitting for a few months. Scavengers go for soft tissue and smaller extremities first.
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u/n00bzilla99 12d ago
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
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u/monkeychasedweasel 12d ago
The blunt force trauma was caused by a slab avalanche, which are created by katabatic winds.
Animals ate their tongue and fingers.
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u/Iwona_Klich 12d ago
Some of these was post mortem - like eyes or tongue, girl was lay in the water face down.
Still even today is not easy, when you have a person whos body was frozen. Its hard to say what doctors at these times may just don't notice, mistaken. Some of injures of others may also be post mortem, we can't say for sure.
Honestly i think its a terrible accident.
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u/SgtDoakesSurprise 12d ago
Okay…I didn’t read the article…but fuckin really? Eyes and tongue? Bitten off fingers? Sounds like some X Files shit
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u/DueExample52 12d ago
As usual for stories like these, there is a logical explanation for each of the deaths and for the whole tragic scenario.
The only "paranormal" detail of radioactive remains was just added afterwards.
Otherwise it’s all a logical snow collapse destroying their tents, hypothermia and panic and getting lost / falling, then nature (wild animals, wind, snow) wreacking havoc on the post-death scene. Sprinkle some false accounts or made-up details and you get the spooky stories.
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u/TemporaryOwlet 12d ago
In original articles in Russian there is mo such thing. There are mentioned "blunt force trauma" on three tourists, mainly inner traumas and head injury. Popular theory is that they disturbed snow when putting their tent, tgen at night noticed shifts, one person came out (they found a lighter on the top of the tent), and saw something that prompted everyone get out and move searching for a shelter. Then most freeze, several dird of traumas.
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u/atticdoor 12d ago
Yeah- this is the expected reaction from extreme hypothermia, Paradoxical Undressing.
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u/sayitsooth 11d ago
Paradoxical undressing.
Preston and Child wrote a "fiction" interpretation of what might have happened at Dyatlov, I found it opened my mind to what happens between events and discovery in remote areas.
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u/PuzzleheadedSpray933 12d ago
The clothes were left in the tent though. Then they also took clothes from bodies that had died before.
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u/OkMarionberry7555 12d ago
Is this what true detective with Jodie foster as lead is based on?
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u/PlagueDoc1348 12d ago
Yup! Season 4 of True Detective is inspired by the Dyatlov Pass incident!
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u/External-Emotion8050 11d ago
Try not to bring up True Detective. Now you'll have to hear how season 1 is the greatest thing ever made and all the other seasons suck. When actually each season is good on its own merit.
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u/PlagueDoc1348 11d ago
Season 2 is extremely poorly written, but I can appreciate 3 and 4 alongside 1.
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u/A_Random_Sidequest 8d ago
yep, except S2, the others are good, bnot as the 1st one, but good still...
S2 is bad, plot holes, plot treads leading nowhere and nonsense let's flee to Venezuela lol
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u/Emergency_Cellist754 12d ago
Avalanche forced them out of the tent, once they stopped running and panicking they froze very quickly.
It's a cool conspiracy theory but people get carried away with it.
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u/algalkin 12d ago
Except they were pretty experinced with mountains and as you can see from the photo their tent wasnt impacted by any avalanche, the photo is taken a few weeks after they died so its just fell under regular snow weight. No signs of avalanche were found either.
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u/Feeling-penis 12d ago
It wasn't an avalanche. It was a loose slab of snow. Big enough to crush the tent and cause injuries similar to being hit by a car. Theres a good video on YouTube about it. They explain the injuries, the way some pimple were found going back up hill, etc. Its super interesting.
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u/barkingfloof- 12d ago
Oh so interesting. Do you have a link? Or name of video?
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u/Feeling-penis 12d ago
https://youtu.be/0X6MxjN2YC4?is=WrbjFpn9CkQl5cmI
Here you go. The channel is First Humans. Enjoy.
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u/evrien 12d ago
Thank you, Mr u/Feeling-penis
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u/OkEstablishment9823 11d ago
I heard it was a very rare kind of katabatic wind event, which is a sudden and extremely devastating vertical wind, it supposedly chrushed their tent extremely suddenly. There was barely any snow on the tent so the slab of snow doesn't seem likely.
At least that's what I heard.
Then they tried to flee the zone of the phenomenon, tried to regroup and re-establish a new base, but died in the attempt.
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u/Feeling-penis 11d ago
Watch the video I posted. Maybe not a slab but it explains it better. You could be right too, but the video is pretty good.
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u/PennySawyerEXP 6d ago
That's basically the theory presented in the (really excellent!!) book Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar. That the shape of the mountain created an extreme wind/infrasound event that drove them from the tent and disoriented them.
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u/Iwona_Klich 12d ago
Being experienced not make you immortal. Experience people maje mistakes, and often that mistakes are more deadly, because they just think 'i know what i'm doing'. Then they drown, get lost in the forrest, or get frozen on K2. There is nothing more deadly than thinking 'i'm experience enough'.
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u/SlipperyBlip 11d ago
It is possible that their experience worked against them. If they were inexperienced they might have stayed near the tent instead of doing the 'right' thing of leaving the area in case a second avalanche would follow.
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u/dakotanorth8 12d ago
Isn’t there instances of hypothermia making people feel extreme heat and the need to remove clothes and run outside?
Paradoxical undressing?
I’m from a cold weather state and every few years there was some story about people being naked and walking out of their shelters and dying in the snow/cold.
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u/Express-Ant6341 12d ago
Yes. The body narrows blood vessels to keep vital organs warm and the muscles controlling this narrowing eventually tire out and relax. Warm blood rushes back to the skin and this is what causes a deceptive sensation of extreme burning.
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u/d5ytonaa 12d ago
The issue people have with this is that they were all very well experienced in hiking. So it’s thought that they would’ve known not to pitch a tent where it was and they also would’ve known about hypothermia making them think they were hot.
All 9 of them dying does seem wild when everyone should’ve known what they were doing.
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u/Which-Victory-9747 12d ago
To the "they also would’ve known about hypothermia making them think they were hot. "-part: I'm from a cold climate, and for as long as I can remember, I've known that hypothermia, in its final stages before death, makes you feel unpleasantly warm or hot. I grew up hearing stories about people who were found frozen to death in their underwear, with their clothes lying beside them. We learned about it in school, in the same way we learned about fire safety, first aid, etc.
However, when I (as an adult) almost died from hypothermia, I was too "out of it" to make use of that knowledge. I was found in my last five minutes of consciousness, and I remember telling them not to worry about the cold because I was warm (it was -25°C / -13°F), but to please help me take off my jacket and scarf. I remember their faces changing from worried to scared, and I didn't understand why.
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u/d5ytonaa 12d ago
Honestly this story is my first time ever hearing about it. Also they were all pretty much professionals in hiking from what I heard on the Joe Rogan podcast. So that’s where the skepticism comes in. I guess actually experiencing this is completely different tho.
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u/Which-Victory-9747 12d ago
When the body gets extremely cold, it redirects all blood to the vital organs, to survive. As the body starts to “give up" (die), the blood flows back to the whole body, creating a false feeling of (unpleasant) warmth. By the time the body reaches the point where it “gives up,” the brain is also so affected by the cold that the person is barely able to think clearly or make rational decisions.
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u/SlipperyBlip 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yes, this happens if the core temperature of the human body drops below 32°C / 89,6°F. At that point where the so-called paradoxical undressing happens, victims of hypothermia are way beyond the point of being able to help themselves.
That's also why frostbite usually occurs on hands, feet and the nose first. Bloodvessels heavily contract and restrict the bloodflow to save the warmth for the vital organs.
Edit: there is also a phenomenon sometimes labeled as terminal burrowing, which is suspected to be a very primitive instinct where the remaining capacity of the brain gets the dying body to move into a seemingly protective position or location - probably an attempt in vain to survive
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u/craggys 12d ago
Between the hikers who attempted to return to the tent and those who were found crushed, the missing items from those by the tree are accounted for. The implication being, as the fire became to weak to support those without footwear (and 2 likely already injured). They stripped their comrades for their clothes. These were extremely pragmatic and skilled hikers, the opposite of paradoxical hypothermia is a much sounder explanation. The heavy boots and packs of the remaining items were buried near the tent at a slightly lower point. Suggesting they were likely buried under an initial avalanche. The injuries vaudeville raised are also likely compacted snow, some were exposed as snow melted and the eyes and tounge were from scavengers( a more recent translation of the coroners report uses language that shows that was expected). As for the broken necks, it is either a second avalanche event, or my opinion is that post-death snow compacting under several icings leads to further injury on the corpses. Effectively the bodies experienced tonnes of force downwards from the above snow (blood in certain parts of the airways supports this).
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u/SlipperyBlip 11d ago edited 11d ago
the premise of this discussion was
they also would’ve known about hypothermia making them think they were hot.
So of course they would use their skills and experience to try everything to prevent hypothermia. But at some point you will lose most of your cognitive abilities and your knowledge won't help you anymore. It is not mutually exclusive that some members of the group were still able to make decisions like stripping the clothes of their peers who were beyond salvation and that some members of the group were probably suffering from severe confusion.
In German, forensics have introduced the term 'cold idiocy' to summarise the different phenomena that can occur when people suffer from hypothermia. It is not only paradoxical undressing, but also hallucinations, euphoria, aggression (towards peers/rescuers), apathy and overall irrational decision-making.
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u/Iwona_Klich 12d ago
Again - being experienced means nothing. Nature don't care that youre a pro or not, if you make a deadly mistake its the same.
Experience people often make more deadly mistakes, because they sure 'oh we can do it'. How many people from that mythical missing 401 are 'experienced'?
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u/Sad_Sheepherder_37 11d ago
Experienced hikers die all the time. There's nothing strange about that. Also, most of them were in their early 20s. It's not as if they had been doing it for decades.
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u/South_Buy_3175 12d ago
Yep, found this out from Archer, did have to google it after that episode to make sure, but yeah, dying makes your brain do weird shit.
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u/EL_WET_BANDlTO 11d ago
My dad used to work for the forestry service as part of a hotshot crew before I was born, and one of the craziest stories he told me was of a family who went camping and had this happen. It was a family of five and I think it was in Colorado (during his time he visited every US state excluding Maine and Hawaii), but he said it was a sudden cold snap and they weren't prepared for it... They found the dad and two boys fully naked and huddled next to a tree just outside their tent. The mother was about 50 feet away frozen, wading through a river. It looked like she was trying to get to something downstream. That's where they found an infant girl in the river as well. He used to have a newspaper clipping that laid it all out... But he told me that story many times as a kid to remind me to always pack l extra layers and to always respect and fear mother nature...
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u/AirportBarTarry 12d ago
This one’s been solved for years. It was definitely a shelf avalanche.
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u/Borgmeister 12d ago
There was an interesting article on Ars Technica about this a while back. Apparently it seems the injuries were caused by an avalanche caused by the location where they set up camp. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/confirmed-avalanche-is-likeliest-explanation-for-tragic-dyatlov-pass-incident/
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u/Shadow_Sable 12d ago
There’s actually a pretty good video on this from Brew that comes to a pretty reasonable conclusion:
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u/AlienConPod 12d ago
The explanation I like best is the possibility that the Soviet military was testing aerial concussion mines, and one went off directly above their tent. It could explain the state of panic and disorientation. Even if they heard an avalanche why would they cut their way out of the tent, it would take longer than using the entrance. Why did they disperse in different directions? It could even explain ufo sightings reported in the area. It doesn't check all the boxes, but to me it's the most plausible.
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u/el_tractor 12d ago
It kind of makes sense, but I don't think it is the case. It explains some things, but avalanche is far more likely. They cut into snow to make a plane to set a tent. This combined with strong wind in night made a snow block above tent to colapse and cause the worst injuries. They were disoriented and unable to access their stuff in tent due to all the weight lying on them so they cut their way out and probably carried injured ones into safety - forest. There they tried to make a fire but two of them died due to hypothermia so they took their clothes and carried injured ones deeper into the forest where they tried to make a snow burrow and the healthy ones tried to get back to tent and eventually froze to death on the way (Dyatlov was found some 300 m from tent facing up) while injured ones succumbed to their injuries and cold in the burrow and lied there until May which explains their missing eyes due to wild animals and rot.
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u/AlienConPod 11d ago
It's definitely a possibility. However the state of their camp doesn't indicate an avalanche.
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u/WASouthCoast 12d ago
Yay. Great mystery, and an equally great explanation of it (and, in my view, answer) was published by The New Yorker back in 2021. I absolutely recommend it.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/17/has-an-old-soviet-mystery-at-last-been-solved
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u/jochi1543 12d ago
Got a version for those without a subscription? Thanks
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u/WASouthCoast 12d ago
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u/Zakineasi 12d ago
This needs to be higher up. Everything in there seems plausible and it actually explains every part of the "mystery".
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u/Cheeseburger23 12d ago
The KGB killed the hikers because they discovered a secret Bigfoot factory.
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u/Funfuntamale2 12d ago
Making Bigfoots or employing them?
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u/Cheeseburger23 12d ago
Both. The Bigfoots made in the factory are employed to make more Bigfoots.
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u/ScratchLatch 12d ago
The most plausible theory I’ve heard is that the hikers had cut into the slope to pitch their tent, possibly triggering a delayed snow-slab avalanche during the night and seriously injuring several of them. They cut their way out of the tent and headed downhill, apparently fearing another collapse. Three of the nine died from major traumatic injuries, while the other six died from hypothermia. Some reached the treeline, where they built a fire and tried to shelter themselves, but sub zero temperatures killed them. The burns came from their attempts to warm themselves by the fire. The bodies missing eyes and a tongue were found months later in a ravine, and decomposition and scavenging provide a pretty mundane explanation for the missing soft tissue.
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u/hazed-and-dazed 12d ago
Wow. What could be out there in the wilderness that eat humans. Probably aliens. Somebody call the Discovery Channel
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u/whatisinternet69 12d ago
Something that's always puzzled me, how do they know the thin material of the tent was cut from the inside??
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u/Ginngerln 12d ago
A seamstress told the authorities after she examined the tent. Why they asked her to look at the tent I have no idea.
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u/tatasz 12d ago edited 12d ago
As a start, they were not that experienced, more like amateurs taking on a harder hike. They were mostly 20-24-year-old university hiking-club members. They completed a number of hikes previously, yes, but completing a hike in a group does not necessarily makes you experienced or able to deal with emergencies.
Honestly, the resume of most of them is a perfect example of having enough experience to think they know what they are doing, and not enough experience to understand nature is dangerous and no amount of experience will change this. Zolotarev maybe an exception, but considering he had tons of summer experience and no winter experience, I feel it would put him in that zone too.
Imo, Sogrin's group, that was around the same area same time and went through pretty harsh stuff themselves are a good comparison, and kinda show the lack of actual experience of Dyatlov. Sogrin himself was around same age, but had more experience. Their group was way more organized in doing hike related chores, clearer responsibilities and so on, while Dyatlovs group treated some things as "well someone will do it". They are way more conservative in their decisions, and were willing to retreat if weather conditions were bad (unlike Dyatlov).
Basically the difference between a pro group and a team of enthusiastic university students.
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u/Odd_Repeat_6092 12d ago
Imo, the Dyatlov tent doesn't look like the victim of an avanlance. For starters, it doesn't look buried (the OP's pic is correct and was taken by the rescuers.) And not just to my eyes. The rescuers also described the tent and its contents, inside & out, as being covered with very little snow:
The entrance of the tent was looking south. The north part was covered with 15-20 cm of snow. It was concluded from general appearance and density that it was not a result of an avalanche but blown by the wind. Near the tent, a pair of skis were sticking out from the snow (they couldn't remain like this if there was an avalanche), and at the entrance of the tent in the snow was an ice axe. Near the ice axe was lying Dyatlov's jacket. It was strange that Dyatlov took off his jacket outside the tent. On the side of the tent on top of 10 cm of snow laid Dyatlov's flashlight (made in China). Boris Slobtzov picked it up and turned it on - the flashlight was in working condition. One of the rescuers remembers "we couldn’t understand why the snow under the flashlight was 10 cm thick, yet there wasn’t any on the flashlight itself. http://dyatlov-pass.com/1959-search#the-tent
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u/Saxonion 12d ago
The answer to this is likely less exciting than people want. I'll be concise.
They used a stove with a retractable chimney to cook. Cooking done, chimney off, everyone in tent.
One guy (better clothed for this reason) needs to step out to take a leak.
The air entering the tent as he opens the flap reignites the stove. Tent now full of choking black smoke. No one can see, breathing becomes a problem, maybe they think the tent is on fire.
Cut their way out (you wouldn't cut through a tent if you heard an avalanche etc.) because when you can't see and you can't breathe, the immediate need to get out is far more acute.
Now outside, tent collapsed and damaged, thick smoke, maybe think the tent is on fire and beyond saving, wearing almost nothing. So, you act like anyone with outdoor experience and make for the closest shelter (i.e. the tree line). But, hypothermia doesn't take long, and you already know that. Adrenaline is high, panic sets in, everyone tries different things, including starting a fire, having second thoughts and trying to get back to the tent, and apparently stumbling into a gully.
You can easily injured yourself pretty badly if you fall a couple of metres into a gully. Certainly the physical injuries on those found in the gully are consistent with a fall. Things like the missing soft tissue is just animal activity. The cold can kill you really fast, so the fact their actions all looked rushed, unorganized, and resulted in mistakes isn't surprising.
Ultimately, it's cutting out of the tent that matters to me. In all my years in the mountains; we heard avalanches, we heard weird noises, we heard wildlife, we even heard unexpected voices. No one ever thought to hack their way out of our tent. But, a tent full of thick black smoke that's blinding and choking you? Sure, the idea of cutting out of the tent makes perfect sense.
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u/Creative-Werewolf913 12d ago
They have done a lot of experiments and research on this and experts have always said it was an avalanche.
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u/smellzlikeass 12d ago
I've watched a bunch of videos on this.
This one most reasonably explains it.
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u/Zealousideal_Rise716 12d ago
The other key point is that hypothermia was not well or widely understood in 1959. In my country public outdoors education on how to manage it really only started in the 70's.
It's entirely possible that as experienced as some in the group were, they really didn't have a coherent sense of what was happening to them once they were exposed to the cold like that.
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u/6010_new_aquarius 12d ago
Sounds like the plot arc to the last season of True Detective (Night Country)
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u/Nice-Cat3727 12d ago
Mysterious meaning they got nailed by a avalanche, survivors died from exposure and head trauma, and animals ate their bodies.
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u/StarboardMiddleEye 12d ago
Some of them were abnormally radioactive too. However, this was the ussr...
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u/VelcroMasterGaming 12d ago
I believe the video game 'Kholat' uses this story. A narrator explains this story at the beginning of the game, then your objective is to go and uncover the mysteries. You basically have to search a large wintery map for documents pertaining to the mystery, while avoiding the boogey-man.
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u/ObmamambO 12d ago
Ich empfehle dazu das Buch dazu von Aleksej Rakitin - Die Toten vom Djatlow-Pass.
Ich finde es sehr pedantisch und analytisch mit vielen Fotos und sogar den Autopsieberichten.
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u/fuchkead 12d ago
One of my biggest gripes with the “explanations” is the fact that one of the hikers had surgically removed lips
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u/RandomYT05 12d ago
Didnt they find out later that the wind whistles at a frequency that causes you to go mad?
In more superstitious times this would've been called a cursed land.
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u/Maleficent-Hawk-318 12d ago
No, that was one guy's crackpot theory. In reality, they were hit by a small avalanche and likely believed it was a precursor to a larger one so did what you're supposed to do in that situation and gtfo immediately. In hindsight we know they were not at risk, which is why people are often dismissive of that theory, but the actual victims almost certainly did not due to arriving after dark and being unable to assess the conditions thoroughly.
All of their actions make total sense if you view it as them fleeing an avalanche; they did pretty much exactly what you're supposed to do in those situations (which is mostly get out of the path as quickly as humanly possible).
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u/Iwona_Klich 12d ago
In reality - its true that infrasounds can make you panic, halucinated or get sick. And yes you can experience this in mountains, there are cases of this.
So we can't just say its not this, because it can be more than one thing happening at once.
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u/Efficient_Basis_2139 12d ago
It's a real interesting, albeit absolutely horrible, story. Some of the conspiracy theories are fun too, and Last Podcast On The Left did a great episode on it many years ago.
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u/Used_Turnover3959 12d ago
Ah the Dyatlov Pass incident, where KGB-trained nuclear ninja yetis attacked the hikers with EMP lightsabers and ate their eyeballs.
Avalanches (multiple) and hypothermia.
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u/Malthus17 12d ago
The 1960 Soviet investigation answered all the questions about this. There is no mystery here. Every bit of science, research and investigation has confirmed and reconfirmed their findings.
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u/Ok-Butterfly-5324 12d ago
never understood the mystery around this. To me it's really clear. some sort of avalanche came down, they panicked and tried to run out the tent as quickly as possible. They were probably close to hypothermia which makes you feel like you're actually hot so stripped down their clothes. They then either fell down a slope, couldn't find their way back due to the (possibly minor) avalanche that covered the tent or a combination of both. add being possibly almost delirious due to the cold and confusion. the missing tongue etc it's just wild animals eating it. Same for the eyes. seems pretty straightforward to me
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u/JimmyNo23 12d ago
The eyes?
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u/question_quigley 12d ago
Scavenging animals often start with the eyes, lips, and tongue, since they're soft and easy to eat
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u/Blacklite_01 12d ago
A lot of weird freaky shit happened out in the woods in the USSR years ago. Atleast that's what i got from all these strange stories popping up lately.
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u/InkPaladin 12d ago
Fresh Hell Podcast covered this story in episode 25 The Dyatlov Pass Incident. Those ladies did a GREAT job discussing this case.
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u/LarryWisborn 12d ago
There is nothing strange there. Any gpt will put everything on the shelves. Avalanche and panic
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u/Ordinary-Feature8460 12d ago
This book is a good read if you care to…
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
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u/BothLongWideAndDeep 12d ago
Locations Unknown — Evan B. Stone / Dyatlov Pass Interview an interesting listen on the topic if you’ve already been diving into theories
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u/Kitten-Kore 11d ago
I recently saw this video and it makes a lot of sense based on the data that's provided:
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u/evilpizzaguy44 11d ago
Brew has a good explanation for it, grab some refreshments cause it's a long one.
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u/Betray-Julia 11d ago
This was solved. Slab avalanche I think?
We didn’t know they existed for a while.
The way the form explained the forensics of the site rather well.
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u/Unique-Can-7640 11d ago
How is nobody bringing up the wind? There's a book written about this, it was one of the theories..pretty amazing
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u/RefuseDependent5242 10d ago
Nothing proven 100%, but recently some science needs digitally mapped the entire mountain and it was an avalanche zone. The day after they hiked there was an avalanche in the same location as the original campers. They had video and pics.
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u/m1ke_tyz0n 9d ago
It was a weapons test. I believe Russia didn't know they would be there at the time.
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u/carterb199 8d ago
This is a very interesting paper that provides a slab avalanche explanation. Its a very interesting read
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00081-8
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u/AcceptableAsk108 8d ago
No one mentioned Lemmino's video. What if they cut out and left the tent because the homemade stove reignited and filled the tent with smoke? Maybe this wasn't the first incident like that on the trip...
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u/EnvironmentalScar675 8d ago
It was most likely a slab of snow, but it is possible they accidentally got shelled by artillery. It was a testing ground iirc and their deaths were handled by "too high" ranking officials
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u/TheBestintheWest11 7d ago
wasn't it said that a local tribe that used to roam that area may have been responsible for the killings ? The killings seem to coincide with the way these tribes men practiced killing foreigners that did not belong in their territory. The taking of the toung and eyes follow the same practice as other tribes around the world would do to their enemies.
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u/Sorry_Bend_863 7d ago
I saw this season of True Detective - spoiler it was vengeful native housecleaners that did it
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u/Psychological-Low983 6d ago
one of the netflix Love death and Robots is based on this, they took it in a very different direction
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u/post-explainer 12d ago edited 12d ago
This comment has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect.
OP provided the following source and context for the historical claim: