Mysterious story happened in Russia in 1959

Hey guys,

I stumbled upon this story some time ago and for some reason it spooked the heck out of me, eventhough probably the true explanation of it - which is yet to be discovered - has nothing to do with paranormal stuff. It's a well known true Russian story which mystifies researchers to this very day. I searched on Google and couldn't find any mention of it in the English speaking part of the Internet, so I thought I'd take time and try to translate it to English as far as my pretty limited English skills allow (I'm Russian myself).

On January 23, 1959 a group of 9 Russian hikers from the Ural Polytechic University led by Igor Dyatlov went on a hike to the Ural Mountains (7 guys and two gals - Igor Dyatlov, Alexander Kolevatov, Rustem Slobodin, Yuri Krivonischenko, Nikolay Tibo-Briniol, Yuri Doroshenko, Alexander Zolotarev, Ludmila Dubinina, Zina Kolmogorova). They were supposed to return to the base camp on February 12 and then let the University know they were alright by a telegram. On January 31 they reached the upper Auspia river where they planned to leave a part of their stuff and food in a temporary camp, and then next day to take a trip with light baggage 6 miles north to the Otorten mountain (which is more like a big smooth hill). It's only around 14:00 next day after finally setting up their camp in the woods surrounding the mountain they moved out and began their ascent on the gentle mountain slope to the summit. For whatever reason they decided to spend the following night right on the bare windy slope instead of going to the woods - probably because they had realized that by the time they would have gotten there it would have been too dark to set up a camp. Anyway, it was no big deal to spend a night on a windy slope for such experienced hikers as they all were, so they set up a tent, ate some food and then hit the sack.

Fast forward in time, the University didn't recieve their telegram on February 12. At that point no one worried yet - some delay may have happened due to weather etc. It's only on Februray 20 the University sent out a first rescue group, with several more following, and a few days later it became a big rescue operation with military and police aircrafts and choppers searching the places the Dyatlov's group might have been.

On February 26 they finally found their tent on the mountain. It had all their stuff inside - equipment, food, clothes. One tent's side had several long cuts - as later determined made from the inside - as if they left the tent in panic with no time to go through the entrance so they cut their way through with a knife. There were no any signs of a struggle in and around the tent. The only footprints in the snow went from their self-made tent exit down the slope to the woods below. Most of the footprints were barefoot and were said to belong to 8-9 different people. The footprints ended approx 500 meters from the tent, covered with snow from that point.

Later this day, an airplan discovered first bodies. 1500 meters away from the tent right where the woods began they found remains of a campfire under a big cedar tree. Bodies of two men - Doroshenko and Krivonischenko - were found lying around this campfire, naked. As later an autopsy concluded the cause of their deaths was hypothermia. No any injuries were found aside from a few minor scratches. 300 meters away from these bodies up the mountain and towards the tent, the body of Igor Dyatlov was found. He was lying on his back embrasing a small birch with one hand. 180 meters from his body farther towards the tent the body of Rustem Slobodin was found, and 150 meters from his body, again farther towards the tent, the body of a female member Zina Kolmogorova was discovered. Both Rustem and Zina were lying face down in dynamic poses as if they were trying to crawl up to the tent right until the moment they died. There was blood around the Zina's head which came out of her mouth. The cause of death for all three - Dyatlov, Slobodin, and Kolmogorova - was found to be hypothermia as well, with Dyatlov and Kolmogorova having no any injuries. Slobodin, however, had a crack in the skull with no skin and tissue damage, which was not the cause of his death though.

The search for the rest of the members continued for nearly two months. Only on May 4, 75 meters away from the camfire deeper in the woods and under 4 meters of snow they finally found bodies of the other 4 members. The Alexander Kolevatov's body had a few head injuries and the cause of his death was hypothermia. The other three died from severe internal injuries - Ludmila Dubinina had her ribs crushed on both sides of chest and died because of internal bleeding. She also had her whole tounge missing. Alexander Zolotarev had his ribs all broken too and died of the same reason. Tibo-Briniol had his skull badly crushed which was the cause of his death. All of them had no skin and tissue damage.

There are a lot more little strange details here and there that complicate the issue even more - like an unusual orange tint to their skin the forensics team reported, a higher than normal radiation level of some of their clothes, and much more.

A lot of different theories and explanations have been offered, none of them either fit the evidence, or make sense. Why and from what they panically ran away naked in the middle of the night at -30C temperature and what happended next, is still a puzzle.

Interesting story....I tried to look up some stuff on it but couldn't find anything. Where can I look?

As I already found out there is nothing on the web in English regarding this story, that's why I translated everything myself. If you speak Russian though, there are quite a few sites and researches on the subject you can find through Russian web search engines such as yandex.ru by searching for "Dyatlov's group"

Correct me if I am wrong but I remember hearing that parts Ural Mountains are the most contaminated place in the world. It used to be a nuclear waste dump or something. That could explain the radiation. As for the running out naked in the could that is puzzling. Even if there was a Mountain lion or Bear that wouldn’t make me run out naked. It would have to be something really scary. Or a pretty girl

Originally posted by Timcouchfanclub
Correct me if I am wrong but I remember hearing that parts Ural Mountains are the most contaminated place in the world. It used to be a nuclear waste dump or something. That could explain the radiation. As for the running out naked in the could that is puzzling. Even if there was a Mountain lion or Bear that wouldn’t make me run out naked. It would have to be something really scary. Or a pretty girl

There are nuclear facilities somewhere in this area, and most likely there are contaminated areas. I wouldn't go that far as calling the whole Ural Mountains area (which is huge) contaminated though. The area the Dyatlov's group went to was truly wild. Besides, it was 1959, just 10 years after the Russians got their first nuclear bomb made. I doubt there were any significant contamination problems back then...

However, regarding this story there are quite a few versions of what happened that involve some kind of weapon or space program Government tests. Thing is though, the area where the group was found had no any unusual radiaton levels, just some of their clothes had.

This is a very interesting and spooky tale.

Can you provide some of the russian links? I have a russian friend at work who I am sure would be highly intrigued by this story.

Sounds a bit like a true life "Blair Witch".

deee Your English is quite exceptional, where did you learn?

It appears from the report that at least one or two of the bodies were not naked. I would risk a wager this was simply murder or possibly even misadventure rather than ascribing anything too esoteric. If the footprints led off from the tent it's not unusual that no signs of a struggle were found in that location.

The campfire was 1.5 clicks away from the tent, far enough to lose your bearings and get lost and not be able to find your way back. Especially at night. There may well be some hi-jinks or shenanigans that went on that resulted in murderous jealousy with potentially some lethal (or at least blindness inducing) moonshine involved. I wonder if the alcohol levels in their blood was checked?

It's an eerie one though, I agree very Blair Witch it reminds me of Eilean Mor

Originally posted by Koka
This is a very interesting and spooky tale.

Can you provide some of the russian links? I have a russian friend at work who I am sure would be highly intrigued by this story.

Sounds a bit like a true life "Blair Witch".

deee Your English is quite exceptional, where did you learn?

Koka, here are the links:

Here's something to start with - skitalets.ru...

Also, as far as I found out the most complete set of facts in one place including forensic reports, government documents, rescuers reports, interviews with connected people, different versions of what happened and so on, is in a Anna Matveeva's book "The Dyatlov's Pass" - www.art.uralinfo.ru...

It is stated in the beginning of the book that everything written in Italic are the actual reports and evidence and different opinions she was able to dig up during her researh. The rest of the book she made up to make it sound more interesing and thriller-like.


P.S. Thanks for your kind comment on my English! I did not specificaly learn it, it sort of came out naturaly little by little throughout the years of trying to read and translate with a dictionary interesing stuff on the web, and then later chatting with English speaking people on the net.

Originally posted by nexus6
It appears from the report that at least one or two of the bodies were not naked. I would risk a wager this was simply murder or possibly even misadventure rather than ascribing anything too esoteric. If the footprints led off from the tent it's not unusual that no signs of a struggle were found in that location.

The campfire was 1.5 clicks away from the tent, far enough to lose your bearings and get lost and not be able to find your way back. Especially at night. There may well be some hi-jinks or shenanigans that went on that resulted in murderous jealousy with potentially some lethal (or at least blindness inducing) moonshine involved. I wonder if the alcohol levels in their blood was checked?

It's an eerie one though, I agree very Blair Witch it reminds me of Eilean Mor

The alcohol level was of course checked and none was found. It was also determinted that the both girls were virgins.

A possible murder was the first version the invistigators were on, with all the nearest local native hunters - the only people who ever dare to go to those places - thoroughly examined. This version was almost immediately dropped since all the evidence and the nature of the injuries suggested there was no way it could happen.

It is true that at least one man - Tibo-Briniol (the one with completely crashed skull) was fully dressed when they all left the tent. It is believed that he went out of the tent in the middle of the night to take a leak (urine marks were found near the tent), and then he possibly saw something outside and ordered everyone to get out of the tent immediately. Then they all ran off from this "something" down the slope.

Well if the girls were virgins and alcohol tests were negative, it’s very unlikely they were sleeping all in one tent and were naked. In which case they must have been stripped after death – which once again points to a human cause. Were the women found naked? The report is not clear. I don’t think it can be said that they ‘ran away naked from the tent’ this is an assumption that makes an already unclear situation more murky. There may have been bare footprints but it’s a big jump to say they were naked.

They must have had some ‘equipment’ with them to light the campfire that the two naked men were found lying near.

The tongue of one woman was ‘missing’ was it torn out by an animal or cut out with a knife or tool? That should have been determined.

The skeptic in me also feels that perhaps ‘hypothermia’ has been used rather enthusiastically to perhaps cover up or close the book on what appears to be a brutal murder.

I found something in English, some nice pics on the first one, it sure looks godforsaken!

www.extreme.ur.ru...

english.pravda.ru...

So it seems the mountain itself has a fairly dark reputation…

This event sounds like a very bad '___' trip. I have heard that a user on acid thinks that he can fly. YMMV

Roper

Originally posted by nexus6
Well if the girls were virgins and alcohol tests were negative, it’s very unlikely they were sleeping all in one tent and were naked. In which case they must have been stripped after death – which once again points to a human cause. Were the women found naked? The report is not clear. I don’t think it can be said that they ‘ran away naked from the tent’ this is an assumption that makes an already unclear situation more murky. There may have been bare footprints but it’s a big jump to say they were naked.

They must have had some ‘equipment’ with them to light the campfire that the two naked men were found lying near.

The tongue of one woman was ‘missing’ was it torn out by an animal or cut out with a knife or tool? That should have been determined.

The skeptic in me also feels that perhaps ‘hypothermia’ has been used rather enthusiastically to perhaps cover up or close the book on what appears to be a brutal murder.

I found something in English, some nice pics on the first one, it sure looks godforsaken!

www.extreme.ur.ru...

english.pravda.ru...

So it seems the mountain itself has a fairly dark reputation…

nexus6,

You are correct on some points - as I said I traslated this stuff myself and due to my silly English I might have chosen some wrong wording here and there, sorry. I'll try to clarify:

First of all, all of them (except for one (?) man) initally had light clothes on - the ones they were sleeping in in their sleeping bags. Just light clothes which is not enough to withstand the cold outside, with no boots on as well. However the two men at the campfare were indeed naked. Their clothes were cut from their already by that time dead bodies with a knife, and later found on the girl from the last four bodies. As if one of alive members tried to warm the girl up a bit by cutting clothes from someone who didn't need it already. Thing is, this fact creates some continuity problems for many of the theories involving explosions, shockwaves and the like - this girl had one of the most severe injuries and as later determined she could not live more than 10-15 minutes max after she was injuried this badly. So either the guy who dressed her didn't realize she were dead (which is barely plausible), or she got her injuries and died AFTER the two guys at the campfire were frozen to death.

You are also correct about the place having a dark reputation - in fact, the very mountain they died at is called Mountain of the deads. There are more mysterious stuff and legends to it, I just didn't want to bring this stuff out because frankly I don't believe in a supernatural cause of what happened with the group.

As for pictures, the first link I gave has real pictures of the mountain and the place. It also has a photo of the tent as they found it, and some photos of the guys from the group too.

P.S. The more I think about this, the stranger it gets. I just realzied that if Tibo-Briniol from the last four bodies died as said almost immediately after recieveing his head injury, why Kolevatov - who is believed to be the one who cut clothes from the two campfire men and gave them to Dubinina - didn't took Tibo-Briniol's clothes instead. This probably means that they didn't get their injures at the same time. As if something was happening again and again.

P.P.S Just thought I'd add another interesting bit on the two at the campfire - although there were a lot of dead cedar twigs lying around to make a campfire with, not counting smaller trees which were pretty close to the campfire, for some reason they choose to pluck quite hard to reach lower twigs from that very cedar, and that should have been a tremendous effort for them considering their condition. This led the investigators to believe that they might have gone at least partially blind.


[edit on 9-8-2005 by deee]

Ther's sumthin' fishy here. There seems to be some details to this story that would otherwise be impossible to determine for people/investigators who were not there during the mysterious events:

Originally posted by deee
It's only around 14:00 next day after finally setting up their camp in the woods surrounding the mountain they moved out and began their ascent on the gentle mountain slope to the summit.

How could the time of their ascent be determined, even if it's only "around 1400"?

Originally posted by deee
Anyway, it was no big deal to spend a night on a windy slope for such experienced hikers as they all were, so they set up a tent, ate some food and then hit the sack.

This sounds more like a campfire story than it does a real one. How do they know they ate some food? How do they know the food was eaten just before "hitting the sack"? Why would this fact even be mentioned when the crux of the mystery surrounds their deaths?

Originally posted by deee
- as if they left the tent in panic with no time to go through the entrance so they cut their way through with a knife. There were no any signs of a struggle in and around the tent.

The author of this mystery feigning truth is drawing conclusions without any evidence (ie: "no time to go through the entrance").

No signs of struggle inside the tent? What do the holes represent? Or does the author mean that the sleeping bags all were neatly made and clothes folded nicely in the corners?

This story rings of folklore and sounds like somthing one might tell around a campfire.

Originally posted by Freedom_for_sum
Ther's sumthin' fishy here. There seems to be some details to this story that would otherwise be impossible to determine for people/investigators who were not there during the mysterious events:

Originally posted by deee
It's only around 14:00 next day after finally setting up their camp in the woods surrounding the mountain they moved out and began their ascent on the gentle mountain slope to the summit.

How could the time of their ascent be determined, even if it's only "around 1400"?

Originally posted by deee
Anyway, it was no big deal to spend a night on a windy slope for such experienced hikers as they all were, so they set up a tent, ate some food and then hit the sack.

This sounds more like a campfire story than it does a real one. How do they know they ate some food? How do they know the food was eaten just before "hitting the sack"? Why would this fact even be mentioned when the crux of the mystery surrounds their deaths?

Originally posted by deee
- as if they left the tent in panic with no time to go through the entrance so they cut their way through with a knife. There were no any signs of a struggle in and around the tent.

The author of this mystery feigning truth is drawing conclusions without any evidence (ie: "no time to go through the entrance").

No signs of struggle inside the tent? What do the holes represent? Or does the author mean that the sleeping bags all were neatly made and clothes folded nicely in the corners?

This story rings of folklore and sounds like somthing one might tell around a campfire.

1. I've never stated I translated all the facts known and available. There is a lot of info which I simply have no time and means to translate in full, sorry.

2. Many of the members had diaries where they were describing their trip up to January 31.

3. There was a camera found in the tent, with the last photo picturing the process of setting up the tent on the mountain. From the shadows on the picture the investigators were able to easily identify the time.

4. By looking at the contents of their stomaches during the autopsy it's easy to find out what they ate and when they ate.


5. I did not translate some article word for word. I just tried to squeeze a lot of info I had read into more or less short story. Sorry if it now sounds like a campfire one. I can assure you that I made nothing up.

6. "no time to go through the entrance" - these are my words and not the exact word for word translation, which is not possible in Russian to English translations. Also note the whole sentence - "as if they left the tent...", not "because they left the tent...". Probably they did, probably not - noone will ever know, but it looked as they did. It's just that it was the most obvious conclusion from the several facts they had, and this conclusion was not mine either.


[edit on 9-8-2005 by deee]

it was a tornado.

and the dang board rules require me to post more than just one word or sentence, so this is more. i think it was a tornado, only think that could cause all these things at once.

Ok that sounded very strange , first I thought they where haveing group xxx thats the reason they where naked I thought . But that with the bone cruash and stuff like that is really freaky ...............

[edit on 10-8-2005 by gamerman]

Fascinating, and the topic is perfectly valid as "paranormal" unlike some things around here.

One thing to note, hypothermia victims have often been found having shed their cloths before they collapse and die. Hikers in the Rockies have been found with no shirts on in very cold weather. Possibly the body getting a hot sensation as the body cools to the near death mark. Im not sure why, but this does occur.

How could they have crushed skulls with no tissue damage? Wouldny any physical blow cause damage to at least the head area. Perhaps they meant no bodily damage besides the blows to the head.

Few things seem odd here, but indeed are odd. The bodies naked was not surprising, the fact they were so close to their camp but still died isnt surprising either, considering the conditions in a storm. Also that they were buried.

However, the cuts in the tents are odd but not seriously strange. The trauma to the heads are very odd. The skulls of most of the victims were damaged severely and are probably not caused by accident or from the elements.

Perhaps a large animal or someone in the woods? Would explain why someone would try to make another exit in a tent, and why the group would be scattered about, and perhaps after running from this thing, lost their way and froze with the hypothermia effects.

wouldn't there be clear evidence of a tornado? It's also a rather high proportion of head only injuries, if they'd been thrown about by the tornado you would expect more injuries and broken bones.

I think there must be a mistranslation on the skin & tissue damage as some of the wounds mentioned would have both those attributes.

Also I wonder if Dee can also clear up the issue of the skin tint, was it orange or rather red as I've read elsewhere?

Radiactive clothes only suggests the clothes were probably washed in a radioactive watersource.

It's certainly a real puzzle, have you translated any more details Deee?

Indeed a mystery for Sherlock Holmes ...

... my dear watson do you underestimate the jealous mind?

Well who's to say. But the tornado theory seems odd because it sounded like this was high up in a mountain chain. You don't get tornados in mountainous areas, they lose their momentum.

Clearly there are a combination of factors. One conspiracy theory could be a setup to scare people away from a reserved military testing area (a la Area 51). But if it was indeed quite cold, a whiteout storm condition, perhaps, can easily lead to delerium and death. Sounds of a wild animal such as a bear (they have bears in Russia I believe that are at least as big as the American bears) could easily scare someone into leaving the camp. But one would then have expected typical bear injuries (clawing and goring of body parts). The head crushed in could be due to a fight, perhaps over the fate of the virgins? A nice solid object (rock perhaps?) wielded correctly could create such an injury with no other injuries if the person was caught offguard or surprised. There must be a series of events leading up to the changing of the clothes ... that's rather peculiar, although I know some climbers that like to sleep in their sleeping bags nude or close to it rather than with alot of clothes on. Perhaps one of the other people grabbed whatever clothes were lying around in haste to leave the tent. Or maybe they never got in to the tent? Certainly a curious story ... hard to tell what is really true when it happened so long ago.

I think the only reasonable place to begin with is the estimated time of death of each individual and the order in which they occured from the coroners report to attempt to back out some sort of plausible sequence of events.

Originally posted by deee

There are nuclear facilities somewhere in this area, and most likely there are contaminated areas. I wouldn't go that far as calling the whole Ural Mountains area (which is huge) contaminated though. The area the Dyatlov's group went to was truly wild. Besides, it was 1959, just 10 years after the Russians got their first nuclear bomb made. I doubt there were any significant contamination problems back then...

However, regarding this story there are quite a few versions of what happened that involve some kind of weapon or space program Government tests. Thing is though, the area where the group was found had no any unusual radiaton levels, just some of their clothes had.

10 years gives you plenty of time to have small mishaps or contamination.

It's strange that some of the clothes had radiation and I gather the rest did not. Howabout the bodies?

It would be good to support or debunk this aspect, if they had walked through some fallout area or drank contaminated water it could potentially induce an altered state where they started acting irrationally.

Did they have plenty of food left?