Did the Dyatlov Pass Incident Happen?

In the dead of winter, a small of group of students became stranded in a vast, unending wilderness, the Ural Mountains. Better known as the Mountains of Death. And it proved oddly pertinent, going missing one dark night. Their frozen bodies were later found, but their injuries were unexplainable. Totally bizarre and totally impossible. Their bodies located in various places where they simply could not have been. It became known as The Dyatlov Pass Incident and the mystery endured for the next 60 years. With dozens of conspiracy theories, many have wondered one simple thing: just what the hell happened?

Prelude

January 23^rd, 1959. A small group of students boarded a sleeper train from Sverdlovsk, just east of the Ural Mountains. Travelling across a vast landscape, lost to time, completely untouched, completely savage, completely remote. Igor was the leader of the group, an engineering student and a vastly experienced athlete. With him, Alexander Kolevatov, Lyudmila Dubinina, Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignolle, Rustem Slobodin, Yuri Doroshenko, Yuri Krivonischenko, Yuri Yudin and Zinaida Kolmogorova. The oldest member of the group was 38-year-old Semyon Zolotaryov, who had fought in World War II.

Throughout their arduous trip, the group documented everything, from journals to photographs. The stern and humourless Lyudmila, a member of the Young Communists, wrote of how the group sung songs and tittered over childish discussions on love and romance. They were young and full of optimism. On January 25^th, they camped out at a logging base, chatting to the lumberjacks around a warm fire. Zinaida wrote in her diary:

‘It turns out that this is our last day of civilisation and the last chance me and Lyudmila had to sleep in bed. Tonight, we are going to be in a tent.’

This was the start of their final journey…

Death Mountain

Yuri Yudin soon left the group, feeling unwell, but the remaining students carried on regardless. Their aim? Mount Ortorten. In the language of the indigenous Mansi people, the name simply means… ‘don’t go there’. Allegedly. But the group did. The remote location and harsh climate dotted with abandoned buildings and a frightful chill in the air. The group was tentative. Some, such as Zinaida, didn’t even want to be there, her ex-boyfriend Yuri a part of the group. ‘I really don’t know how I’ll feel. It’s really hard because we are together and yet we’re not together.’ They had met on a previous expedition when Yuri chased away a brown bear with a geologist’s hammer. Clearly, Zinaida was into the brave kind…

We don’t know why, but on February 1^st, for no apparent reason, the group pitched their tents. This was not normal. It was a far from ideal spot to camp. The group was highly experienced, having made many expeditions in the past. They were all university students on this three week trip. Igor had promised to send a message to the sports club in Sverdlovsk as soon as his group was safely back at their base, scheduled to return on February 12^th. But no message came. Maybe they were having too much fun. Maybe the weather had turned bad. Nobody was surprised Igor didn’t report in on the 12^th. Everyone kinda just expected them to take a few more days. They’ll be fine. They know what they’re doing.

But soon, the days turned into a week. By February 20^th, the families of the group became desperately worried. Why hadn’t they come back? They raised the alarm. At once, the university sent out a search party of students, flown to the region by helicopter. They split into smaller groups and some followed ski tracks to which they presumed had come from the missing group. After 500 metres into the forest, one of the volunteers found the tents. Almost completely covered in snow, he started picking at it with his ice pick to try to find the entrance. And inside? Well, the students weren’t there.

He was soon joined by another volunteer but it was strange. A blanket was inside the tent, along with a few rucksacks, all lined up neatly. Plus, there was a stack of boots in the corner. Also inside the tent, a route map, official papers, money and a flask of alcohol. Why would they leave them behind? It simply made no sense.

Upon further investigation, the volunteers found a plate with salo on it, white pork fat, a Slavic delicacy. You would eat this before trekking into the mountains. It was sliced as if the students were about to eat it, as you would before supper, but it hadn’t been touched. It was like the students simply vanished.

And stranger things were to come. The tent had been slashed with a knife. But from the inside, as if the students were in a hurry to get out. And then it got even weirder…

The Lost Footprints in the Snow

Just outside the tent, volunteers found frozen footprints. Eight, maybe nine people had made them, of that much they were sure. Some were clearly wearing socks, others barefoot, and one, only one, wearing a single boot. The tracks continued for five to 10 metres and then they too vanished. Everyone was dumfounded. What had happened?

Why would anyone in their right mind leave the comfort of a tent with no supplies, half-naked, when it was at the very least -20 degrees Celsius outside? The volunteers spread out, they must be near, the students must be near. But hours of searching turned into days. One night, one of the volunteers proposed a toast around a campfire to the missing students, the drink? The flask of vodka he had found in the tent. They drank not to the health of the group, but to their eternal peace. They feared the worst.

The next day, there was a grim discovery. Near a cedar tree, two bodies were found. Strangely, the hands and feet were reddish-brown in colour. One was Yuri and another Yuri alongside. He had bitten off a piece of his own knuckle and if that wasn’t strange enough, both men were in their underwear.

Alongside the cedar tree was the remains of a small campfire; it appeared as if somebody had climbed the tree to break off the branches for kindling. And the grim discoveries just kept coming. Igor’s body was found next, dressed but shoeless, lying face down in the snow, hugging a birch branch. Zinaida was found next, her position indicating she was trying to climb up a hill when she died. There was a bright red bruise on her torso, made by the strike of a baton. They had all died of hypothermia.

But not all had faced this demise…

The Missing

Rustem was found a few days later with a fractured skull, enough to have killed him. He was dressed but still, not enough for the weather. He was wearing just one boot. His watch had stopped at 8:45. Four more bodies were found in a ravine three months later. Nicholas too had a fractured skull. Alexander had a strange wound behind his ear and his neck had been twisted. Lyudmila and Semyon had suffered multiple broken ribs, Semyon with an open wound on the right side of his skull. And both were missing their eyes. They had been taken. And for Lyudmila, it was worse. Her tongue was also missing.

Nine bodies had been found suffering horrific and unexplainable injuries. Soon, theories started to spread like wildfire. Many blamed the military. Others blamed the Mansi, but they helped search for the students. Many of the Mansi were arrested and some were even tortured by the Secret Police. The Soviet authorities were baffled. They found no evidence of strange shamanic rituals.

One of the Mansi, a woman named Sanka, told her story of that strange night in 1959 when the students went missing. She recalled seeing a bright, burning object in the sky, with ‘sparks’ flying off it. Could it have been a comet? Or even a rocket? Well, whatever it was, the Mansi believed it was a bad omen.

Suspicions soon fell back to the military, perhaps the group had wandered into some kind of testing or experimental area. That reddish-brown colour was abnormal. Many suspect this is proof of a military experiment. We all know what the Soviets were capable of. The first inquest found that the students had died of an ‘explosion wave’ whereas the second inquest was shut down on orders from above. Many believe the Soviets were so confused they did not know what to do but blame an ‘insurmountable force of nature’.

Could that solve the mystery?

The Soviet Lie

After the collapse of the Soviet Union it became apparent that the incident was supressed and ordered to be classified. When the Soviet Union fell, however, dozens of case files were declassified. One such intriguing detail to come from this was the revelation that a few of the students had radiation on their clothes. Why? Well, the autopsies were conducted by a medical examiner surrounded by KGB, refusing to allow anyone inside. And before the autopsies, we know the examiner had received a large barrel of alcohol. Using alcohol to protect against radiation was common and we know the forensic team was ordered to rub their naked bodies with the alcohol. This was highly unusual but if the military were involved, why was it that only the students were contaminated? There were no other cases of radioactive contamination in the area, after all.

For many years after the incident, the authorities banned anyone from visiting the area. Some suspect the bright flash in the sky was a military rocket, perhaps the students couldn’t breathe, which is why they were in such a hurry. Maybe the rocket fuel had poisoned them. As for unusual injuries, I mean, many of the bodies were left at the mercy of wild animals for many months.

In the 60 years that followed, suspicion of foul play never went away. However, in the July of 2020, just a few weeks ago, the truth finally came out…

Afterword

In 2019, the Russian authorities announced that they planned to reopen the case to determine what happened once and for all. The current line of thinking was that, for whatever reason, the group left their tents and died of hypothermia, their injuries sustained by wild animals. In the July of 2020, senior state prosecutor Andrei Kuryakov announced the findings. The group were killed by an avalanche.

In a panic, the group fled their tent to find shelter behind a ridge, which is what you are supposed to do to avoid being buried alive. It would explain the head injuries and the bruising, not to mention the strange sudden disappearance of the group. The report found that, when the group turned back after the avalanche, they couldn’t find their tent, now buried under the snow. Visibility was just 16 metres.

So they lit a fire and tried to search for their tent, but they couldn’t. They, inevitably, froze to death in temperatures now estimated to have been around -40 to -45 degrees. They had no chance of survival. The original report found that the group died from an ‘unknown compelling force’ and maybe they did. That said, not many are convinced by the findings and I guess no matter what any report finds, people will always remain suspicious. And maybe, just maybe, for good reason. Because these mountains are not known for their avalanches. In fact, the slope is so shallow it’s almost impossible, especially with the force needed to wipe out so many lives. Have we uncovered the truth? Or merely another layer to the mystery?

Maybe we’ll never know. As we speak, the bodies of the group are being exhumed to attempt to solve the mystery. That day might be coming or it may never arrive. But one thing is for sure, this is one strange cryptid. A cryptid is something beyond accepted scientific understanding, not just strange creatures but strange events, too.

And there are few stranger than this…

The Dyatlov Pass Incident. A mystery I shall award 179 points using my patented Cryptid-o-Meter, putting it 4^th in the list of 119, between The Bloop and The Oakville Blobs, with The Missing Town bottom and The Beast of Gévauden still holding top spot.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident. A fascinating story indeed.

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Ciao :)(:

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Image: 1) The abandoned tents...