Here’s a nice post from the BBC covering the Dyatlov Pass mystery, a topic I know a good number of Cipher Mysteries readers have an interest in.
Lots of people – including the Mansi, which was particularly good to see – were interviewed, and the article includes lots of excellent photographs.
Was the incident an alien incursion, or some kind of Soviet radioactive weapon experiment that went wrong? The surrounding area was subsequently quarantined for four years, and all sorts of pressure were brought to bear on people involves; it should hence be no surprise that the cogs and gears have kept turning in the conspiratorial mill for 60 years.
As any fule kno, the three atomic building blocks of history are conspiracy, cock-up, and cover-up: and historical topics are most interesting where these three Venn diagram circles intersect. It’s appallingly easy to read the Dyatlov Pass incident as a Soviet cover-up of a cocked-up conspiracy. In a country where conspiracy theories and outright distrust of government are the norm, this is almost the default reading (unless you’re an alien buff).
So the BBC’s big news is that a new investigation is now being opened up. Perhaps some of the tissues that were analyzed and stored away will turn up, and a modern forensic analysis will reveal the truth of what happened.
But then again, in the whole sports drug cheating scandal (that is still very much ongoing), Russian labs haven’t exactly managed to cover themselves with Svetlana Khorkina-style glory. So… perhaps The Truth Isn’t Going To Be Out There Just Yet, eh Mulder? We shall see, I guess.
As for me… I think we can rule out three bears murderously angry about a group of students eating their porridge, OK?
Interesting, but I guess there were no ciphers involved; maybe that’s the mystery. I am inclined to think that if you are silly enough to go climbing in the Urals in the winter then you’ve got what’s coming to you.
There’s been much published by enthusiasts in Russia, including the case details, but the main question that still lacks a satisfactory answer is what forced them out of the tent in the dark of night into severe frost without warm clothing. To do that, you’d need to be utterly drunk or in immediate peril of death, or these two things combined. More than that, not only did they leave the tent, but they went towards the forest (not ran, but walked) – evidently hoping to make fire there. When you walk unprotected in frost, then your demise becomes merely a technical matter, you do not need mancy or aliens.
No they were not “silly”, they were experienced sports-men and -women, and this trip was not idle barbequeing but a hike tour. The mountains of Ural are definitely not as hospitable as one’s backyard, but that’s what the sport’s about.
Yes, there were no ciphers involved, but the horror of the Dyatlov Pass is one of those famous unsolved mysteries which attract mass attention, much like the story of Erebus and Terror (which features some curious writings though), or the Levanevsky SSSR N-209 flight (which features un unsolved radiogram though)… But wait, there’s been an enigmatic photo shot, and that much speculated upon 🙂
I would not expect much from the Russian authorities, governments do have their own reasons to be secretive, and in most cases when they “reopen” something it’s just to cover something up. You may be interested in my article (Russian-only, sorry) about how in 2019 the Russian Foreign office was shamelessly selling some flimsies for the originals of the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty and the secret protocol thereto. There’s a thread on VN about that.
Anton: wasn’t it the case that they weren’t all wearing shoes when found? Something definitely persuaded them to leave their tents in a very great hurry, though whether that was aliens, weapons, or some passing cloud of noxious gas I have no idea.
A good deal of shoes were left in the tent. Many of traces found (though not all, as far as I remember) were left by shoeless feet.
There was a flashlight found on top of the tent, which suggests that either it all began from one of them leaving the tent to examine something in the darkness OR that one was left by the tent to signal the whereabouts of the tent to those who left it.
The tent was cut by a knife from within, suggesting there has been some obstacle to leave it in a usual fashion. Otherwise, as far as understand, it was not much damaged or destructed.
There were not several tents there, just a single tent occupied by all members of the expedition together.
The flashlight may have been left alone, of course. It’s a pity that the case does not detail whether it was left there turned ON or OFF.
Re the flashlight: I was mistaken. Slobtsov, the head of one of the rescue teams, has testified at the examination that:
a) the flashlight was turned off
b) when he turned it on, it produced light
c) there was 5 to 10 cm of snow under the flashlight with no snow upon it (he expressly says that’s “inexplicable”)
There’s something about the story – not sure exactly why – which calls sufur to mind.
Pick up a lump of ice to melt for tea, and if there’s scrap of sulfur in it there’ll be trouble.
Otherwise, I vote ‘Yeti’.
IMHO, story of Dyatlov group is fully faked and producer of this fake is Soviet secret service (now Russian). Reasons for faking such story may be accident in atomic industry with deaths of young people (bodies of “tourists” were transported to Dyatlov pass and here was played performance “seeking tourists”). Or several young persons were sent to foreign country as spies 🙂 and bodies found in Dyatlov pass were placed there for intelligence legend formation. This story was formed as “postmortem portrait” at 1990-2000 years and it seems for me there are works of masking real story.