The Dyatlov Pass Incident

This one has always fascinated me. You know it’s going to be a good mystery when the investigative board concludes the cause of death of nine people was an ‘unknown compelling force’ which loosely translates from Russian as ‘fucked if we know’. But in the case of the Dyatlov pass incident, the pieces of the puzzle just really really don’t fit leaving no good explanation as to what really happened. The sole survivor of the incident Yuri Yudin who had left his friends earlier the date in question due to ill health summarised it best – “If I had a chance to ask God just one question, it would be, ‘What really happened to my friends that night?’”

The Dyatlov Pass incident involves ten ski trekkers from the Ural Polytechnical institute who had gone hiking in the Ural mountains in January 1959. Their final camp was made on the foot of a mountain called Khloat Syakhl which translates as ‘Mountain of the Dead’ – who would have thought? When the hikers didn’t return on schedule, a rescue operation was ordered. Not long after the search began it turned up five of the hikers’ bodies, all dressed in their underwear – not entirely unexpected since the temperature was around –25 to –30 ^oC (although paradoxical undressing common with hypothermia victims could have accounted for this). But as the investigative team continued their investigation it just got weirder and weirder. When the camp was discovered it was found that the tent had been ripped open from the inside as if the team was desperately trying to get away from something although the footprints and positions of the first five bodies seemed to suggest they were trying to make their way back to the camp. What didn’t make sense were the injuries of the next four bodies discovered. Although there were no signs of a struggle and no external injuries to the corpses, it seemed the two of the victims had fractured skulls, two of them had broken ribs and one was missing their tongue. Since there was no sign of external injuries, the only reasonable conclusion was that they had been subjected to an extremely high level of pressure. The last four bodies found were also dressed in snippets of clothing which appeared to have been cut from the first five bodies discovered.

Other facts also surfaced during the investigation which didn’t seem to fit any rational explanation. Four of the victims’ clothing contained substantial levels of radiation and at the funerals, the skin of the victims was reported to have a strange orange tan whilst their hair had gone grey. An investigating officer also stated that his dosimeter had shown a high level of radiation though the source was never determined. Some reports also suggested that there was a lot of scrap metal in the area leading to speculation that the military had been utilising the area secretly whilst on the night in question another group of hikers 30km to the south had reported seeing glowing orange balls in the sky above the Dyatlov pass area.

Other facts also didn’t fit any logical conclusion to the inquiry such as the odd location of the campsite – out in the open rather than near the forest. A weird scrap of paper was also found that read ‘From no on we know that snowmen exist’. After the incident Soviet authorities closed off the area around Dyatlov pass for three years and files pertaining to the investigation were sealed away until the 90s. When reopened again important documentation that may have shed more light on the incident was found to be missing.

No one really knows what happened that night and no satisfactory explanation has ever been put forward although the most likely explanation is that the Soviets were testing some kind of thermobaric nuclear device which would appear to account for the injuries, lack of clothing, the missing tongue, the strange behaviour, the radiation and the apparent panic but the location for such a test is highly questionable given that the Russians usually liked testing their nuclear warheads in Kazakhstan. Other explanations – Aliens? Bigfoot? Ghosts? Or possibly all three working in tandem. Secret weapons test it is then.