# The Dyatlov Pass mystery



## Lucky Jim

Am currently reading this true book-










Nine experienced hikers (7 men, 2 women) in the Ural mountains went missing in midwinter 1959, and when search parties found their half-collapsed tent on a mountain slope they weren't in it, and there were knife cuts in it where they'd slashed their way out in a hurry.
Their bodies were found scattered around the area up to a mile away, some had no boots or were partially-clothed and had died of cold, and others had fractured skulls and broken bones.
The slope was only about 20 degrees so an avalanche probably never did it, and even if it did, why didn't the survivors make their way back to the tent which had their spare clothes, boots, sleeping bags, food and stove in it? 
The mystery still remains unsolved. What's the PrepperForums members take on it? What happened?

Dyatlov Pass incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## pheniox17

can I accuse inor and his masterbating monkey??


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## Lucky Jim

Personally I'd never pitch my tent halfway up a slope, visible to every monster, zombie, vampire and UFO for miles around.
Incidentally when rescuers found one of the women's bodies, her tongue had been removed, the bloody aliens do that to cattle in Montana too..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_mutilation


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## csi-tech

That is a very interesting story. My opinion is that they succumbed to excited delirium. Something made their body temperatures rise so much that they shed their close. While mysterious I doubt that it is a case of something paranormal.


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## Lucky Jim

Well the book goes into detail and throws up some headscratching facts. For example some of the men had bruised knuckles as if they'd been punching something, and others had burn marks on part of their bodies.
And 3 of them had fallen down a rocky ravine to their deaths a long way from the tent as if they were running in blind panic in the dark..
All 9 were experienced mountain hikers who wouldn't have spooked easily, and they must have known they wouldn't last 5 minutes partially clothed in the minus 30C cold. The big question is why didn't they go back to the tent before they froze to death?


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## bigdogbuc

pheniox17 said:


> can I accuse inor and his masterbating monkey??


That was MY masturbating monkey pal...

This sounds a lot like the Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada's (California) in 1847. Or "Dinner Party" if you catch my drift. However, yours sounds way cooler, like murderous stuff going on. But ours ate each other. So maybe it's a tie.


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## Lucky Jim

Yeah the Donners ate each other, that's what friends are for.
Something like that might have happened at Dyatlov Pass except they didn't eat each other, they might have simply punched their pals lights out so they could steal their clothes to keep warm, as several bodies were partially clothed, and others were wearing clothing that seemed to have been cut off the dead or unconscious ones..


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## Old SF Guy

I'm going with...Bath salts. or some spiked Vodka.


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## Casie

Lucky Jim, that was fascinating! Thank you for the mystery.

OK. After reading Dunning's report, here is my (novice level mystery solving) guess. I disagree with him on the avalanche theory, but I think he got several things right on. Much of my timeline comes from his report. I don't want to take credit for his work/words.









The weather had gotten bad and the group of nine had strayed slightly off course. When they realized the mistake they decided to set up camp in an unfamiliar area on a slope in a ravine. The tent went up, the group had eaten, and most had laid down to rest.

Late that night five of the hikers became agitated, maybe by the infrasound buzzing though the snowy mountains. Some people are very sensitive to it and it could have been maddening for them. Their group-mates may have become aware of their degrading mental state and blocked the door of the tent to keep them in, and returned to sleep thinking they had solved the problem. But the five disturbed campers would not stay the night and cut a slit in the back of the tent and escaped without bothering to even dress properly.

They made it up to the tree line where they stopped. One of them fell and struck his head. Visibility was poor with the blowing snow so they huddled together and tried to start a fire under the cedar tree.

They were not able to make a sufficient fire to warm themselves and hypothermia set in. Two died there. And in a last desperate attempt the troubled campers tried to make it back to the camp. As one would fall, the others would desperately scavenge what items of clothing they could and continue on. Dunning reports one made in 300 meters, another made it as far as 480 meters, and the third made it a full 630 meters before all five were dead from hypothermia.

The 4 hikers that were still back at the camp woke to find five of their group had left. They got dressed, gathered some provisions, and began searching for their friends in the blowing snow. They may have searched for hours during the night until at some point they wandered to close to the dangerous ravine. According to Dunning's report, one of them received a fatal skull fracture, one got 12 broken ribs, and one bit her tongue off.

The odd skin coloring of the dead and the lights in the sky are harder to explain. Maybe the mortician was trying to cover the extreme freeze burn of the bodies which had been exposed to the elements for so long.

The radiation found on the clothes of two campers could have come from the mantles of the camping lamps OR it could have been in the area for a long time and caused by the Soviets and their beloved weapons testing in the area back in 1959. Dunning points out the fact that the mantles used in camping lanterns contain Thorium which is known to emit alpha particle radiation! These mantles are the little fabric bags that are used as wicks in camping lanterns. They are, as Dunning says, fragile and can easily turn to dust upon touching them and that radioactive dust can get on you and your clothing when you replace them in the lanterns. BTW they need replacing rather regularly. Thorium gas mantles were invented in 1891 and were made in many countries. Coleman is the best known maker of these mantles in the US and they just phased them out in the 1990s. Dunning says he found a blog post signed by Igor and the guy said he was Russian and attended the same college as the hikers did. Igor stated that thorium gas mantles were not available in the Soviet Union in 1959. That's not so according to Dunning. He says he found a Russian WW2 lantern on eBay that was fueled by kerosene and they used thorium gas mantles even during the war.

I really enjoyed this tragic and interesting story. Thanks again!


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## Old SF Guy

Dang Casie....color me impressed. Great theory!.....so what your saying is ...no bath salts?...LOL good Job.



Casie said:


> Lucky Jim, that was fascinating! Thank you for the mystery.
> 
> OK. After reading Dunning's report, here is my (novice level mystery solving) guess. I disagree with him on the avalanche theory, but I think he got several things right on. Much of my timeline comes from his report. I don't want to take credit for his work/words.
> 
> View attachment 5696
> 
> 
> The weather had gotten bad and the group of nine had strayed slightly off course. When they realized the mistake they decided to set up camp in an unfamiliar area on a slope in a ravine. The tent went up, the group had eaten, and most had laid down to rest.
> 
> Late that night five of the hikers became agitated, maybe by the infrasound buzzing though the snowy mountains. Some people are very sensitive to it and it could have been maddening for them. Their group-mates may have become aware of their degrading mental state and blocked the door of the tent to keep them in, and returned to sleep thinking they had solved the problem. But the five disturbed campers would not stay the night and cut a slit in the back of the tent and escaped without bothering to even dress properly.
> 
> They made it up to the tree line where they stopped. One of them fell and struck his head. Visibility was poor with the blowing snow so they huddled together and tried to start a fire under the cedar tree.
> 
> They were not able to make a sufficient fire to warm themselves and hypothermia set in. Two died there. And in a last desperate attempt the troubled campers tried to make it back to the camp. As one would fall, the others would desperately scavenge what items of clothing they could and continue on. Dunning reports one made in 300 meters, another made it as far as 480 meters, and the third made it a full 630 meters before all five were dead from hypothermia.
> 
> The 4 hikers that were still back at the camp woke to find five of their group had left. They got dressed, gathered some provisions, and began searching for their friends in the blowing snow. They may have searched for hours during the night until at some point they wandered to close to the dangerous ravine. According to Dunning's report, one of them received a fatal skull fracture, one got 12 broken ribs, and one bit her tongue off.
> 
> The odd skin coloring of the dead and the lights in the sky are harder to explain. Maybe the mortician was trying to cover the extreme freeze burn of the bodies which had been exposed to the elements for so long.
> 
> The radiation found on the clothes of two campers could have come from the mantles of the camping lamps OR it could have been in the area for a long time and caused by the Soviets and their beloved weapons testing in the area back in 1959. Dunning points out the fact that the mantles used in camping lanterns contain Thorium which is known to emit alpha particle radiation! These mantles are the little fabric bags that are used as wicks in camping lanterns. They are, as Dunning says, fragile and can easily turn to dust upon touching them and that radioactive dust can get on you and your clothing when you replace them in the lanterns. BTW they need replacing rather regularly. Thorium gas mantles were invented in 1891 and were made in many countries. Coleman is the best known maker of these mantles in the US and they just phased them out in the 1990s. Dunning says he found a blog post signed by Igor and the guy said he was Russian and attended the same college as the hikers did. Igor stated that thorium gas mantles were not available in the Soviet Union in 1959. That's not so according to Dunning. He says he found a Russian WW2 lantern on eBay that was fueled by kerosene and they used thorium gas mantles even during the war.
> 
> I really enjoyed this tragic and interesting story. Thanks again!


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## Lucky Jim

Thanks Casie, but just to clarify one thing, they pitched the tent well up the slope of the mountain as this pic shows.
Somebody has dubbed a pic of the tent (as the search party found it) onto a summer pic of the mountain and marked in red where they ran. 
They got split up and some of them scooped out a snow hole at the bottom of the slope (circled) to get out of the wind, nobody knows why they didn't go back to the tent where all their warm clothes were-










The search party find the snow hole-









The slashed tent after recovery by the search team-


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## Casie

Yeah LJ, I figured your book would have lots more details than the wiki page and the Dunning report I found online. But it was very enjoyable to hypothesize. I've been on a murder mystery kick lately and your post was a treat! Dunning thought they were run off by an avalanche. But wouldn't that have covered the tracks as well? Whatever it was, it made a group of nine skilled mountain climbers act irrationally. Can you imagine being more afraid of staying in the tent, than fearing exposure in a snow storm? Some ran out barefoot! Crazy!

Old SF Guy, wouldn't it be just ironic if it WAS drugs after all?


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## Inor

pheniox17 said:


> can I accuse inor and his masterbating monkey??


I wasn't even born yet! And the masterbating monkey didn't show up until my bachelor party.


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## pheniox17

Inor said:


> I wasn't even born yet! And the masterbating monkey didn't show up until my bachelor party.


do you have someone willing to verify your claim?? lol


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## Lucky Jim

Casie said:


> ..But it was very enjoyable to hypothesize. I've been on a murder mystery kick lately and your post was a treat!..


Thanks, I'm only halfway through the book and the nitty-gritty details are still coming thick and fast, it just shows that well-written books are still king, and beat most internet accounts hands down..
At the moment I'm thinking it might have been a bear attack, they're in the habit of ripping open tents to get at the people inside; like 3 years ago when a polar bear killed a schoolboy who was camping in the arctic with a trekking party-
Horatio Chapple: Death of Eton schoolboy savaged by polar bear COULD have been prevented | Mail Online

The rips in the Dyatlov tent might therefore have been made by a bear, so they had the choice of staying in it and facing certain death by being grabbed and eaten, or running like hell down to the trees and huddling out of the wind where at least they had a chance.
It all happened in pitch black night, so maybe they were hoping to sit it out til dawn when they could see the tent and go back to it when the bears were gone.
But sadly, nobody can survive partially clothed at minus 30C even if they're out of the wind, and they didn't make it to morning.
I'll post any new tidbits i come across in the book.

PS- they never had a gun which would have taken care of any bears, maybe Russian citizens weren't allowed to own guns..


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## Casie

Ah! They didn't have a gun and a bear attacked! They had just eaten dinner! I think we have a winner!


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## slewfoot

This was on tv last week. 2 hour special. It was interesting to watch.


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## Lucky Jim

There are all sorts of theories and stuff on the net, here's another guess of mine, I don't know if anybody's already thought of it-

They carried a stove with them, it's pipe stuck out of the tent like in the top pic (this is their tent at another site), and maybe it was leaking carbon monoxide into the tent and some became unconscious. 
Others may have felt themselves becoming faint and realised what was happening, so they slashed their way out of the tent with a knife, and dragged their unconscious companions out where they died of hypothermia.
The survivors didnt want to go back in the tent and get gassed again, so they built a snow hole at the bottom of the slope where they too died of cold.
Incidentally there were smaller cuts in the tent (circled yellow), maybe they made these earlier on to let the gas out, but the gas was too strong, so they had no choice but to slash their way out in a panic to avoid blacking out..










PS- hey here's another guess, maybe the stove leaked and caught fire and exploded, killing and knocking out some of them, and shredding the tent (some bodies had burn marks and severe injuries including no eyes), so maybe the inside of the tent and their sleeping bags were still soaked in whatever inflammable liquid fuelled the stove, which is why the survivors built a snowhole instead of going back into the fume-filled tent which could have fireballed again if the stove was still hot..


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## Lucky Jim

Aha the plot thickens...
The group kept a diary, and at another campsite a couple of days before the incident the diary reveals there was a bit of an argument about who should sleep nearest the stove because nobody wanted to, yet you'd have thought it'd have been the best most sought-after position next to a warm stove!
Perhaps the stove had been playing up (it was a home made affair) and maybe giving trouble before, and nobody trusted it.

PS-the diary also mentions they'd been discussing using the stove to make "steam heat" (whatever that is), maybe some kind of a sauna or something, and maybe the attempt somehow went wrong..


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## Lucky Jim

Found another clue: 
One of the group had written on a piece of paper found in the abandoned tent- "Now we know snowmen exist", whatever that meant?


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## Lucky Jim

After more reading, my own view is that it was probably an avalanche that got them. The snow was 3 feet deep and the slope was only 18 to 20 degrees so it was more of a "snow slide" than avalanche, but was still powerful enough to bury the tent, forcing them to slash the sides of the tent to claw their way out.
It was pitch-black night so maybe they couldn't see well enough to dig for the tent to retrieve warm clothes and decided to go down to the forest for shelter.


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## Lucky Jim

As preppers/survivalists there are a couple of lessons we can learn from the incident-

1- To safeguard against avalanches don't pitch our tent on a slope in snow; their slope was only 18 to 20 degrees and the snow was only 3 feet deep, but it still seems an avalanche got them, probably more of a "snow slide" than a full-blown avalanche, but it still hit them hard enough to crush some of the groups ribcages and skulls like eggshells.

2- Sleep fully-clothed in case we have to get out of the tent in a hurry for whatever reason. Most of the group were sleeping in just lightweight longjohns, shirts and socks, so when they clawed their way out of the tent they were as good as dead in the minus 30 degrees cold, some were actually barefoot.
(I always sleep fully-clothed myself even on warm summer camping trips because I feel more secure and sleep better, rather than if I was stripped off half naked) 

3- Make sure there's a knife and torch (flashlight) next to our head to grab in an emergency.
Have I missed anything out?


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## Alpha-17

Lucky Jim said:


> 2- Sleep fully-clothed in case we have to get out of the tent in a hurry for whatever reason. Most of the group were sleeping in just lightweight longjohns, shirts and socks, so when they clawed their way out of the tent they were as good as dead in the minus 30 degrees cold, some were actually barefoot.
> (I always sleep fully-clothed myself even on warm summer camping trips because I feel more secure and sleep better, rather than if I was stripped off half naked)


The problem with doing that is that as your body temperature drops while you sleep, you'll get cold and need more sleeping gear/blankets to stay warm. That's fine, until you have to get up in the morning. Then, you'll have to take the blankets and sleeping bags off, but won't be able to add anything to fight off the cold. Sleeping with your boots on after walking/hiking for a few days is also a bad idea especially if you have insulated ones.  I can understand what you're getting at, but it isn't always practical.


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## Ripon

Brown Recluse got em


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## Lucky Jim

Alpha-17 said:


> The problem with doing that is that as your body temperature drops while you sleep, you'll get cold and need more sleeping gear/blankets to stay warm. That's fine, until you have to get up in the morning. Then, you'll have to take the blankets and sleeping bags off, but won't be able to add anything to fight off the cold. Sleeping with your boots on after walking/hiking for a few days is also a bad idea especially if you have insulated ones. I can understand what you're getting at, but it isn't always practical.


Yeah I forgot to say I ALWAYS take my boots/sneakers off to let my feet breathe during the night, but I keep them close where I can grab them quick in the dark.
As for wearing clothing at night, yeah it depends whether we're in snow or a warm valley so we have to play it by ear..

PS- I found out something else about the Dyatlov parties tent, the entrance flaps were the button-up type, so they hung a sheet on the inside covering the flaps to keep draughts out. So when the tent collapsed on them under the crushing avalanche it must have made it hard to get past the sheet to undo the buttons, and they had to slash their way out of the side with a knife before they suffocated.
Full marks to the guy who knew where his knife was in the pitch dark.


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