Unpacking The Eerie
Unpacking the Eerie is a passion project that merges the intersections of our dark curiosities with our deeply held values. Each episode we’ll dig past the surface of morbid fascination, scavenging for unasked questions surrounding the stories that creep the hell out of us. We hope that when you listen, you’ll experience the feels, the enjoyment, the horror and interludes of comedic relief that we do. - 2 politicized social workers based in the PNW and in India.
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Music Credit: Creepy Mood by Oleg Fedak
Unpacking The Eerie
28. Death By Swirling Winds
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In the winter of 1959, a group of young hikers were found deceased in the Ural Mountains of Russia. Evidence showed they had exited their tents in freezing temperatures without proper clothing and their bodies were found scattered, in strange and disturbing conditions. The trail, Dyatlov Pass, is now named after the leader of this hike and has since garnered copious amounts of attention from scholars, investigators and internet sleuths searching for some answers as to what exactly happened to them. In our extended episode, we detail the journey and the unknowns while also offering some related deep dives on Mansi Cosmology, “arctic hysteria” and the cultural mechanics of mystery.
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Theme Song Title: Creepy Mood | Artist Name: Oleg Fedak
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Theme Song Title: Creepy Mood | Artist Name: Oleg Fedak
P.S. We're in the process of updating our intro and making edits to our episodes. You may notice inconsistencies as we do that!
Hello. Hello. We're back again. We're back again. Let's start with announcements. So we've been toggling with Patreon and like how to like make member benefits more benefity. You know, there's only so much that we can keep up with, but we really do appreciate people supporting us to keep this going. And so we were talking about, we go on an obscene amount of tangents in all of these episodes. A lot of them end up being up to two hours because of it. And so we decided that we're going to have extended cuts available for Patreon subscribers and BuzzSpout subscribers, starting at $2 a month on Patreon, $3 a month on BuzzSprout. So very minimal, you know. And as we have always mentioned, 25% of our proceeds from Patreon go to a mutual aid effort or cause that is related to the episodes that we cover. So if you'd like to support and you're interested in the in the extra research, the supplemental information, consider subscribing, joining us on Patreon. Patreon does have more benefits. You get like mugs and stuff at different tiers. Yeah. If if you're interested at all.
SPEAKER_01But if you just want those juicy, extended episodes, and they will be juicy. Tangents are always juicy. You always learn something good.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, tangents are like historical context, random things that we want to research that are related to what we were talking about.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Little banter back and forth to get to know us better. If you want that, then you gotta pay. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00If you want to know the personal shit, you gotta pay for it. Yeah. Anyways. Anyways.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we were just talking about how we're glad that this last Mercury retrograde is over.
SPEAKER_01So glad, so glad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's October, it's August 2nd. October. October. No!
SPEAKER_01I can't believe that's even August. Like the months just pass so quickly.
SPEAKER_02Try not to think too much about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fair enough.
SPEAKER_02I just want to savor the last of the summer here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's fair. I'm glad I don't have to like think about that anymore.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, that's nice. Here, long dark. Long dark.
SPEAKER_01Which theoretically I miss. But in reality, I don't know how much I would.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're feeling nostalgic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I miss this creepy vibes.
SPEAKER_02Fair enough. I'll switch my heads my headspace, you know, when the time comes. Um I'll be clums when the time comes. I'm waking up still, I think. When yeah, I'll find things to look forward to when the time comes, you know. True.
unknownTrue.
SPEAKER_01You know, even though it's a long dark, that's when Halloween and all that creepy stuff happens, which is fun.
SPEAKER_02It's true. Creepy stuff, cozy food, beer fests, which I really want to go to. A couple of snow days, which are actually really beautiful. Yeah, true. The trees are really pretty.
SPEAKER_01Well, speaking of snow, we're gonna be talking about a lot of snow today. Okay, yeah. So let me set the scene. Set the scene. January 23rd, 1959, deep in the Ural Mountains of Russia.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah, I'm there.
SPEAKER_01So it's January 23rd, northern hemisphere, peak winter time. Ten hikers that were students that were studying engineering at the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Soviet Russia set out for a winter trek. A few days later, one of them had to turn back for medical reasons. About a month later, five of the hikers' bodies were found with bizarre injuries, some undressed, and months later, after the snow melted, the bodies of the remaining four were found with even more weird injuries. For example, two were found with missing eyes, and one was missing a tongue. Oh, so 1959, that was like 80 years ago almost at this point, right? And because of how strange this incident was, it's just given rise to a wide range of theories over the years. So today we're gonna dive into it. But today we're talking about the Diet Love Pass incident. Have you heard of it before?
SPEAKER_02I've heard of it through you and did some peeping, but I don't have a lot of I don't have a lot of details.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02Initially, when I hear eyes plucked out, tongue, I'm thinking a fuck. I'm feeling like a fucking freak found them on their on their journey, maybe a couple of freaks.
SPEAKER_01Not a bad theory, and is definitely one of the many, but I'm gonna rewind back to like day one of the trip.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So walk us through it. The reason where we have a lot of information about this trip, also, is because it's 1959, and pretty much every single person on the trip brought a journal with them and were writing daily, and then they also had a group journal, and then they also had cameras with them because they were doing this hike to fulfill a specific requirement, which I'll get into later. But yeah, so they have the journals and the photos that were recovered, which is where they basically this that's the evidence that they have on top of like the physical evidence. So rewinding back to day one of the trip, it's January 23rd, 1959. The group of 10 boards a sleeper train at Sfer de Lavusk. There's gonna be a lot of Russian words that I'm most likely gonna pronounce not correctly, but just give me some grace. So they arrive at Sarov station. Their plan was to hike, mount a tortan to earn their grade three hiking rating, which was the highest level of difficulty and expertise in outdoor certification. The group consisted of eight men and two women, with their leader being Igor Diatlov. So they were all experienced outdoors people. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about each one of them right now. So the Urals Polytechnic Institute was located in Yekatenburg. That was what the city was called during Soviet times. They were studying engineering, radio engineering, or physics, and it was a mix of current students and alumni, plus one extra person who I'll also explain. So, first I'm gonna share a little bit about Igor Dietlov, which is what the group is named after him, since he was the leader of the group, and that area in the mountain is now named after the group, and that's why it's called the Diet Love Pass. So Igor was 23 years old at the time. He was a fifth-year radio engineering student and one of the most athletic in the group with the most amount of experience. He had gone on 16 hikes at that point that were on record, and he had led nine hikes on record as well. Some fun facts about Igor. He made his own telescope and would climb to the roof of this house to look at the Sputnik satellite that had just been launched by Russia. His sister shares about him that everyone believed that after he graduated, he would go into cosmonautics because it was a brand new industry at the time and he wanted to be a part of it. So he planned this hike that would take between like two to three weeks, routed them along through these cities where they would be stopping, a camp where they would stop, and then this route would basically take them into the wilderness along a river that then reached Mount Otorten. This route was approved by the Sverdolosk City Route Commission. Second person I'm gonna share about is Zeneida Kolomogorova or Zina. She was 22 years old and a fifth-year student as well, and was also in the radio engineering department. She was, excuse me, she was described as outgoing, energetic, and one of the popular students from the university. Yuri Doroshenko was a 21-year-old fourth-year student, and he was studying power economics. He was actually Zina's ex-boyfriend and also a radio engineering student. And funny story about Zina and Yuri is that the way that they started dating was because on a previous hike, I guess there had been a bear that showed up, and Yuri was like ready to fight the bear. And Zina thought that that was like very brave and cute of him. So that's why they started dating.
SPEAKER_02Some reason that sounds very Russian to me. Something about it.
SPEAKER_01She thought that that was very brave and cute of it. She was like, wow, but they had broken up by this point, but they were still on good terms, you know. But there was a diary entry in which she had wrote something like either before they left or on the first day where she was like, I'm feeling nervous about the trip because the ex is gonna be there. You feel. I see.
SPEAKER_02Wow, it's kind of wild that there's actually so much information.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_02Like firsthand information from everybody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, especially because it was like 80 years ago in the 50s. Yeah, a lot of the I guess sources are like primary sources since it's like their journal and stuff, which is very cool.
SPEAKER_02I guess they were like live posting, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. This was the live posting of the 1950s. I mean, they're going on a hiking trip in the middle of winter, so they are clearly a certain kind of people, right? Because I mean, only certain kinds of people go backpacking, period. But I feel like there's only certain kinds of people who go backpacking for three weeks in the middle of the dead of winter.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, it's really extreme.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the most famous books that's written about this incident is called Dead Mountain because truly was the dead of winter, and it was in the part of the mountain where pretty much no animals like ever go, and it's like a kind of a barren landscape.
SPEAKER_02I see.
SPEAKER_01People died exactly. So the next person was Alex or Alexander Kolvatov. He was a 24-year-old fourth-year student studying nuclear physics, and he actually worked at a secret institute in Moscow. Then we have Ludmila, also known as Luda Dubanina. She was 20 years old, a fourth-year student, and studying engineering and economics. She had a reputation as quote, stern and humorless. And she was able to just keep going afterwards. So she was seen by the group as like quote unquote tough. Oh, I think she's been through some shit. Clearly, clearly. I mean, they all have, which we'll get into because they're all living in Soviet Russia at the time.
SPEAKER_02I mean, no one does a trip like this who's not going through something. Fair a lot of people do other things that I'm like, oh, they're going through. Like people who run at night, people who run at nighttime. Like, I feel like evolutionarily you're only running like for a really long time if something is wrong, you know, or we gotta get away.
SPEAKER_01True, true, true. And evolutionarily, probably we shouldn't be going into the mountains in the dead of winter for three weeks at a time trying to survive. Definitely, definitely humans always be humaning. So that's true.
SPEAKER_02And people, people out here in the Pacific Northwest, yes, there's really an appetite for extremes.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure that there are people listening right now that were we're like that are like, that's me. I would love to do that. I'm totally that kind of person, which I would support you.
SPEAKER_02Be safe and also, you know, like I hope you're respecting your therapist.
SPEAKER_01And respect nature.
SPEAKER_02To go somewhere in the dead of winter when it's already like that's how it already is, it sounds like really extreme to me.
SPEAKER_01You know, they were trying to get their level three hiking thing certified. That sounds like level 10. I don't know. I know it does. I'm like, wow, level three, like, is that the highest level? I'm not actually sure. I'd have to go check that. But this seems like the hardest thing that you could ever do.
SPEAKER_02So I've seen some videos of people from Mount doing Mount Everest, and it just looks like every time I'm like, this is a completely optional activity. Like, you absolutely did not need to do that. 116-year-old girl vlogging halfway through, she's not even done yet. Her face is completely chapped, her throat, I think, is burned from how cold it is or something. And maybe the altitude is also fucking with her health, but she can barely speak and she's like in so much pain, she still has half the mountain to go. And I'm just like, you just really didn't need to go do that. And also the whole thing with the with the Sherpa people.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's exactly what I was gonna say. I was gonna say the like whole Mount Everest route at this point is completely covered in trash. One, not even counting the number of dead bodies that are around there from people who have died trying to peak to reach the peak. And at a certain point, it was like, you know, like people who are like skilled and adventurous, but now if you like pay enough money, you can do it, but you shouldn't be doing it if you don't have the skill and ability to, because you will die. Because regardless of how much money you have after a certain point, you're still summing like Mount Everest, and most of the work is done by the Sherpas and the people who are local there who have done it over and over again. And many of them die also taking people up there. So it's true, it's really fucked up. Yeah, that's what happens. It's just a capitalism thing. However, on the other hand, I will say I read this really good memoir. There's this memoir called In the Shadow of the Mountain, written by Silvia Vasquez Lovado. I think she's like one of the first women to summit like a bunch of different mountains over the world. And the memoir is about her personal story of surviving child sexual abuse and domestic violence when she grew up in Peru, and how she like her doing mountaineering was like a way of her to like reclaim power over her body. But there's a whole section in it where she leads a group of survivors just to Mount Everest Base Camp before she summits it herself, and that part of the book is really beautiful. How this group of survivors are just like hiking together and supporting one another as part of their emotional processing and like healing journey. I think, yeah, pretty much all the survivors were from Nepal. So she was like leading them because she had the experience in hiking and mountaineering, but the whole group was from Nepal.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yes, cool. Yeah, I mean, the mountains hold rage really well, like there's something specifically about that, and I also I mean they're so old and like strong and rooted into the they have so many levels of like history that are just part of them. Yeah, and true there's studies that show hiking, you know, has the same bilateral stimulation effects as EMDMDR.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes sense. So makes sense. I mean, I think walking probably does to a certain degree as well anytime you're using both sides of your body. Both it's enjoying robot hands right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, using both sides of your body. I think there's also something to being really hyper-aware of your environment, scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning as you're walking.
SPEAKER_01You have to be very present. You have to survive. Like even if you're like on a chill hike, you still have to be pretty present of like other animals that are there so you don't walk into something or trip over something, keeping track that you're staying on the trail. Like, I feel like it's like a great way to get out of your head and into your body because you kind of just have to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Nature, true, respect nature, respect nature.
SPEAKER_01She holds she holds the answers. Yes, exactly. I've still got a few more students to go, or I guess they're not all students, but the next one, also named Yuri, is Yuri Udin, and he was 22 years old and a fourth year student studying economics and geology, and he was described to be quiet, and he also did have chronic health problems. He was the one survivor who ended up turning back, which is why he survived. Um so his chronic health problems actually saved him in this case, even though he had severe survivor's guilt afterwards because all his friends died.
SPEAKER_02That makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Then there was Nicolai Thibault Brunol, who was a son of a French communist, and his father actually served time in a gulag during the time of Stalin's regime. He was an alumni of the same institute. He was 23 and had graduated the year before. And this one article I was reading from like historycollection.com said that his tall, floppy hat and lopsided grin lets makes him stand out in all the photos of the hikers. So I guess he was a fun one. And then there was Rustum Rustic Slobodin, who is the son of a professor, and he had also graduated the previous year and was 23. He was quiet, had a good sense of humor, and was skilled at playing the mandolin. Then there was Georgi Krivonishchenko, who is also 23 and had graduated two years before and was friends with Igor Dyatlov, the leader of the group. He was actually working as an engineer at the Mayak Nuclear Complex, but he was an artist at heart and he also loved playing the mandolin and writing poetry. There was a random last minute addition to the group. Dyatlov was told that they would be joined by Semyon Zolotaryov. He wasn't from the university. He was older than all of them. He was 37 years old. He was a veteran of World War II. None of them knew him beforehand, but in the photos, it seems like they're all getting along pretty well together. And from the journals, there's evidence that says that him and Nikolai, who was the son of a French communist, became close friends during the trek. And quote, a camaraderie can be seen in the group's photos. In Zina's diary, she writes about the random edition. With us is senior instructor of the Korov Sport Space, Seymon Zolotaryov. He knows a lot of songs. It's just happy somehow that we are learning new songs. Okay. More songs will come into the stories. That's the group of hikers, most of whom are students and alumni. And then there was one extra person who was with them. So that's 10 of them that we're starting out with. Okay, yeah. This is sad. It is it is sad. It is sad. They were all like super young and really beginning of their life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it sounded like they had full lives. They were your buddy buddies with each other, they were building friendships, they were singing songs, they were writing poetry, connecting with nature.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Making some decisions that are a little crazy, girl, but um I do I think I also have a theory around that, which I'll get into a little bit further because there is like a historical context to this particular time as well, but just put a pin in that for now. I'm gonna read a quote from Xina's diary from day one. And here we are on the train. We sang all the songs that we know, learned new ones, and everyone goes to sleep at 3 a.m. I wonder what awaits us in this trip. What will we encounter? The boy solemnly swore not to smoke the entire trip. Everybody is falling asleep, and behind the window, the Ural taiga is spreading in all directions.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Kind of sad in retrospect.
SPEAKER_02A little bit. I'm wondering, like, I think often when something really wild or tragic happens, there's always somebody who kind of reports either like through first hand account, you know, in a journal or something, or later feeling like, oh, I had a feeling, I had a there was like a feeling.
SPEAKER_01Weirdly, none of them said that. Or I mean, I haven't read all the journal entries, so I can't say that for certain. I have not read all the journal entries, I have read lots of summaries, so someone could have said that at some point, but it was not in the research that I found. So day number two, January 24th. They spent the day in Serab for 11 hours. Some highlights of this day was that one of the Yuri's was singing in the train station and was apprehended by the police because there were rules against quote unquote disturbing the peace. However, their friend his friends backed him up and thankfully he didn't end up getting in that much trouble. What they ended up doing was spending the day at the school at Sarov hanging out with the students and answering questions about their hike. They hopped on a train at 6.47 p.m. and arrived in Ivdal around midnight. They had an interaction with a drunk passenger on the train. He told them that they had stolen a bottle of vodka from him and they ignored him. And because he kept bothering them, the conductor had to take him off the train. So that's uh also another fun fact about their journey. They were also having conversations about love on the train, and once they reached Ivedal, they waited there all night at the station, taking shifts to watch over their stuff. 6 a.m. the next day, they took a bus to the city and they dropped off their post, which was basically like this is the last time they're gonna be able to be in contact with anyone. So Xena sent a letter to her family saying, We have a transfer here, and I'm writing to you. How's life? Anything new? We're going camping, a group of 10 people. The group is good. Trying it not to have C's this semester. She was like referring to her sister. Spend more time on the skis. Big kisses to you all. They took a bus at 7 a.m. with another hiking group and traveled 90 kilometers up to the village of Vijay. And they arrived there around 2 p.m. on this is day three now on January 25th. They stamped their root books over here and they spent a night at a guest house and watched the Symphony in Gold, which was an Austrian musical about ice skating. You might be wondering, how are they watching a movie if this is like Soviet Russia? Let me tell you, 1959, this was the middle of the Cold War period of time with Russia, but it was during the 1950s, the person that was in power, his name was Khrushchev, and he was a person that gained power after Stalin died. And this time in Russia was actually known as quote-unquote the Thaw, which heralded like a more relaxed atmosphere. It was a time in which a lot of political prisoners were freed. Khrushchev was the first leader of the Soviet to visit the US in 1959. And students finally had access to things like foreign literature, music, and films. There was economic reforms, more international culture and sports competitions that were sort of like part of Russia. And it was known as a golden age of Soviet science. And like I shared earlier, two years before, they had just launched Sputnik into space and they were like quote unquote ahead in the space race. I'm also thinking like they're probably like, oh my gosh, have so much more freedom than they just did, like very, very recently. So I wonder if they're like, you know, drive for adventure or you know, wanting to go on this journey has something to do with that as well. Because it's a newer time period in Russia at this point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, nothing like doing an extreme activity to remind yourself that you're free and alive, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And not controlled by a fascist government. Yeah, not controlled by fascist government. Yep. Yeah, they're like, watch this, you know. It's like I'm actually going to take control of my life and body, even if it means putting myself in an extremely dangerous situation. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Now I'm curious about people who have proclivities around extremes activities and like living in high control environments or like perceived high control. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01I'm curious about that as well. Maybe someone's done some research on it, someone's written a dissertation. Yeah. I will go into a very particular research paper later as well. It's just like so funny to me, the research papers that the nerds around the world have written over the past several years. And I don't say nerd in like a mean way. I'm also part of the nerd group. Clearly, we both are, given that we're doing this podcast.
SPEAKER_02I don't think anyone was questioning that, actually.
SPEAKER_01Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. All right, we continue. 1 30 p.m. It's day four, January 26th. They hitched a ride to something called District 41 settlement. So this is basically like they're in the middle of nowhere now. They're not near a city anymore. They're 40 kilometers north of the J, which is where they had the last city they left from. And they traveled to the District 41 settlement on a logging camp truck. So the settlement was basically where a bunch of civilian lumberjacks were working. And so that's why the settlement was there. And they arrived there around 4:30 p.m. They were greeted by the civilian lumberjacks and hung out with them that night because, as Zina said, today is the last day of civilization. So they watched two movies with them that evening and spent the night in the dorm, and it was their last night sleeping in beds. We come to day five, January 27, 1959, which is their first day in the wilderness. They hired a horse-drawn sled to help with their packs for the last 15 miles that took them to an abandoned settlement called North II. One of the workers at the district wrote down a dictionary of Monsi words for them to use because the Monse were the indigenous people that lived in the Ural Mountains, and there was a possibility that they might run into them. So this worker was like, here are some words you can use to communicate, if so. At this point, where Yuri Yudin begins to feel sick because he has an inflamed back nerve and sciatica. So he decides, I can't do this. This is not for me. My pain's too much. So I'm gonna return. So he returned on the horse sled that had brought them there. And I guess this decision head is what ended up saving his life and making him the only survivor of the Diet Love group. So I guess, you know, even if like maybe one of them wasn't having like a something's wrong, maybe Yuri Udin's body pain was that.
SPEAKER_02I was just thinking that. I mean, I think that people who have a lot of chronic pain, very intuitive. I think they're very intuitive. I think yeah, their bodies are responding to high levels of stress. So even if cognitively whatever is not going on, I just feel like people who are in chronic pain are often in situations or relationships or whatever that aren't serving them and their body reacts. It's like I think that's a thing. And it totally is. No surprise that the majority of people who are diagnosed with chronic pain are women, you know.
SPEAKER_01True, very, very true. Well, I'm gonna take this moment to share a little bit about where they are right now and situate us geographically, and also share a little bit about the Monsi people who are the indigenous people of the region. So the Ural Mountains, which is where they are right now, extend all the way from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Ural River in what is now northwestern Kazakhstan. And human beings have lived there since the Paleolithic era. The earliest documented presence of humans in this area was about 33,000 years ago. Wild. Can't even conceptualize. The goal for the group was to summit Mount Atorton, which there was some like things that I read that said, like in Monsi, it means don't go there, but actually it means mountain with swirling winds. So clearly that just came up as like part of the lore. Someone made it up. The Monsi really don't care about this mountain much because there's nothing there for them in terms of there's no animals there and there's no, there's no flora and fauna there, so they don't really go there because there's nothing for them there. In the 1950s, though, in the same region, there was a network of prison camps in the northern Urals where 30,000 inmates built roads, cut and processed timber, and labored in makeshift factories. So this was like when the gulag system was running in the Soviet Union. And this particular camp actually had a reputation as one of the most atrocious and violent in the entire gulag system. And because of how remote the location was and how harsh the climate was, that's kind of why it was located there because very few people ever tried to escape. Where would they go if they did, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So the vibes are bad.
SPEAKER_01Yep. The vibes are not good. The vibes are not good. The Monsi people, they are Finno Ugarian indigenous people living in Conti or Mancia. They were formerly known as the Vogels, and they are one of 45 indigenous peoples living in Russia. So one of 45 indigenous groups living in Russia. They migrated probably sometime during the prehistoric era and spoke languages that were in the Uralic and Turkic families. Monsi people are pretty much the people that inhabit the area between the Ural Mountains that lead to the Ob River. Colonization by the Russian Empire and Germans began in the 16th century, and the Russian expansion east of the Urals led to population shifts. Monsees moved eastward while other indigenous groups were pushed north and east. And for the Monsi people, the final resettlement happened in the late 19th, early 20th century. And they were actually settled onto what were called quote unquote collective farms during the Soviet administration. So, and it said that they were very similar to reservation. So clearly colonization, they're just doing the same shit wherever they go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Unoriginal.
SPEAKER_01Unoriginal. So in 2021, there was a total number of 12,228 Monsi people in the census. And they are traditionally semi-nomadic fishermen and reindeer herders, which makes a lot of sense given where they're located. Fishing was central for many of the groups, while others either kept reindeer or practiced small-scale agriculture, cultivating barley, raising cattle, and horses. They engaged in hunting, trapping, fishing, and reindeer herding. And they are organized into tribes and clans. Since the late 1980s, there's been a huge cultural revival that's been led by indigenous initiatives, such as the Save Yagra Association. And so Conti and Monsi cultures that were once marginalized are now coming to be more recognized as very unique and valuable people of the region. Yeah, that's the Monsi people who are living in this region, and we'll definitely hear about them again. But I wanted to just like situate where we're at in the world. So January 28th, 1959 was day number six for the group. And it was the first day of the journey where they were on cross-country skis. They skied along the Osipia River. And this is basically the final path they were going on before they began their ascent up the mountain. They went from about 11:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. And they had their first night in a tent that night. Zina said in her diary, All day long we followed the river. At night we'll camp on a Monsi trail. I burned my mittens and Eura's jacket at the campfire. He cursed me a lot.
SPEAKER_02Oh there's some conflict coming up, some five of wands energy.
SPEAKER_01Yes, totally, totally. This point is where we kind of lose the information. Day seven to day 10, which is January 29th to February 1st. It's theorized that this is when the group was following the trail up the mountain, which is now called Diatlov Mountain after the group. But back then it was called Kolatsiakil, which I said earlier means mountain of swirling winds. The temperature at this time is obviously extremely, extremely cold. It's the middle of winter in the like near the Arctic region.
SPEAKER_02And they oh, I'm just like, it's kind of like real colonizer behavior to be like this group of like, you know, empire people died here. So we're gonna take the indigenous names of these places and transform them to like honor this group of people who maybe shouldn't have been there doing that anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like very true. Very true.
SPEAKER_02I was just told that Deception Pass over here in Washington was like named that because fucking settlers got lost or something, and they just they felt deceived by the land or whatever. So now it's deception passed.
SPEAKER_01I yeah, I guess I never thought about that. I have been there once and it's it's very pretty because it has a nice view of the ocean, but wow.
SPEAKER_02It's reshaping things. Right, we're being exactly we're being deceived. What is that? It's like really giving like Columbus energy, like the you know, he gets to what he thinks India, and it's absolutely not, and he's like, What do you mean? No, no. What do you mean you are not Indian? No, no, no. I I refuse, actually.
SPEAKER_01Well, even if you say that you're not, I'm still gonna call you that. That's a yeah. Oh it is, it is. You're very, you're very right. Well, anyway, they made camp at an elevation of a thousand seventy nine meters, which is three thousand and three thousand five hundred and forty feet elevation. Yik they dug a shelter to create a level solid foundation for their tent to protect them from the poor weather. So this is kind of like the last info that we got from the journals and the diaries and the pictures.
SPEAKER_02I see 3,040 feet. I'm like, I can't conceptualize that.
SPEAKER_013,540.
SPEAKER_02Oh, 3,540. I still can't conceptualize that in my head. I'm like, what's the height of an average skyscraper or something? Okay, average skyscraper height. Okay, the average skyscraper is about 100 meters or 328 feet.
SPEAKER_01So it's like 10 times the size of that.
SPEAKER_02That's huge.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's huge, very huge. How tall is Mount Tahoma?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she's huge, also. Let's see here. She's 14,406 feet or 4,391 meters. She's the highest mountain in Washington. You can, yeah, she see her everywhere.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, you see her everywhere. She's just there looking gorgeous. Used to make her day.
SPEAKER_02She's beautiful. She is, but huge people do climb Mount Rainier.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's people do be climbing huge mountains, and I guess that's how their trails there and stuff is because humans have been going there for a long time. Well, the group was supposed to return by February 12th and send a message back to their sports club. And I'm sure they give them like a little bit of like room. It's the 1950s, they don't know actually how long they might take. But when the club didn't hear from them and when their families didn't hear from them by February 20th, that's when a search party was first sent out.
SPEAKER_02So February 20th. Okay, they waited a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. They waited, like they waited, they were supposed to come hear from them on the 12th of February, and they waited eight days after that to send the search party out.
SPEAKER_02I see.
SPEAKER_01But at this point, it had been like February 20th is almost a month after like the last info that we have.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So a search party was sent out on February 26th, and one of the students from the university, his name was Mikhail Sharbin, was part of the group, and he found their tent 300 meters from the top of the mountain. He noticed a tent pole sticking up above the snow and a flashlight that was resting on top of the tent's canvas. Inside the tent, they found a flask of vodka, a map, a plate of white pork fat, seemingly like this was all abandoned without warning in a rush. There was also a slash on the side of the tent, which they later figured out was actually made from the inside to carve out an escape route. Even though there's like, you know, there's like an entrance to the tent. There was a rip in the tent that was caused by a knife, which is how they're theorized to have gotten out of the tent. There were also footprints leading away from the tent. So let's remember this is the dead of winter in the Arctic region. These footprints indicated that some of them had ventured out at night in sub-zero temperatures, barefoot, or some of them with a single boot or only socks. So that's the first weird thing that they find. When they found the tent, Mikhail Sharbin shares that they shared the vodka out of the flask. There were 11 of them, including the guides. And they were about to drink it when one guy turned to me and said, best not to drink to their health, but to their eternal peace. So I think at this point they were like, they're probably gonna make it because they're not in the tent. None of them are in the tent, and there's footprints in the snow.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01So already it's getting weird. And these are like super experienced people as well. Like, as we're talking about, this is like the hardest hike that they could do. So why would they leave their tents without any of their gear, especially without shoes?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, barefoot is wild.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So next day, February 27th, was when the first two bodies were found, and that was of Yuri Doroshenko and Georgie Krivaneshenko. And they were found about a kilometer and a half from the tent. They were found in their underwear next to the remains of a fire. And a medical examiner later found that Georgie had burns on his body and had bitten off part of his own hand. Oh, so more weird stuff. Next, the hiking leader, Igor Diatlov, Zina and Rustic, I think. Yes, Rustic were found. They were found in a different location. Igor was dressed but not wearing shoes and was face down in the snow, hugging a branch. Zina was nearby, and her body was positioned in a way where it seemed like maybe they had both been trying to get back to the tent. But there was also a long bruise on the right side of Zina's torso, almost like she had been hit with like a baton. Rustic was found a few days later on March 5th in a different location. He had a fractured skull, but was better dressed than the others that were found because he had a long sleeve undershirt, sweater, and two pairs of trousers on, and four pairs of socks. However, it was confirmed that all five of these students died from hypothermia. So this is only half of the group at this point. It's just five of them when there were nine of them. The rest of the hikers were only found in May after the snow melted when a Monsea hunter actually discovered them in a ravine. So Alex, Kolovatov, Nikolai, Semyon, and Luda were found inside the ravine. Nikolai had a skull fracture that was so severe that there were actually pieces of bone found in his brain. Semyon and Dubanina's chest were completely crushed, and their eye sockets were empty, and Ludmila's tongue was also missing. Oh shit. Yes. So it was the condition of these hikers' bodies that began a lot of speculation and theories, as they were in far, far worse shape than the bodies that were found in February. But also they had been exposed to warmer temperatures and had a longer time to decompose and had a longer time for like animals and things to come across the bodies. And animals tend to eat soft tissue first. So that's why they theorized that the eyes and the tongue were missing.
SPEAKER_02We're gone first. Yeah, I was thinking about that too.
SPEAKER_01Because the bodies were lying in melting ravine water, which like also made the decomposition process faster. So some of some of the weirdness, like regardless of how disturbing it is to find bodies like that, some of that is explained by natural phenomenon, or can be explained by natural phenomenon. So obviously, there was an investigation that was opened at this point, and the lead investigator's name was Lev Ivanov. And he was said to be diligent, said to have asked a lot of questions, and was told by forensic experts that they had been subjected to, quote, an explosion wave. Don't know what that means. Initially, very unsurprisingly, the indigenous Monsi people were blamed just for reasons of racism. This BBC article, they interviewed someone from the community who still lives in that region. And his dad was one of the few people that helped to look for the missing hikers. And he said, Soviet investigators were convinced we Monsi people must have killed them. So many people around here were arrested, and a woman from another village who is no longer with us used to say that the secret police tortured them. I don't know if that's true, but they were certainly interrogated for weeks, which is really, really sad because there's absolutely, absolutely no evidence at all that they had anything to do with it. It was just that they lived in that region. There was like another racist theory, even though this mountain meant nothing to them. There was another racist theory that stated that the hikers had stumbled upon quote unquote sacred Monsi ground and were punished, even though the Monsi were well known to be very nonviolent and had been living with the Russians and Soviets for generations.
SPEAKER_02So it's yeah, and the also they said they don't go there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, literally, they're like, we don't go there, we we don't go there. Swirling winds, we don't go there. That's the mountain of swirling winds, and we avoid it because of the swirling winds, we avoid it. They didn't care much for it as it was quote, barren and windy. But the the wild thing is, since they were never able to find any evidence that the Monsieur people were involved, they were just kind of like, oh whoops, sorry. But since you guys live in this region, can you actually like help us look for the rest of the bodies and help us figure out what might have happened? And the the last four students exactly, and the last four students were found because of a Monsey Hunter who's part of a group that was looking for them. That's just fucked. I I watched like a documentary and I read a bunch of articles, and some of the articles, like I liked that in the documentary, the guy actually who did the documentary, he actually went on the exact route that the whole hikers went with a guide, and he interviewed a bunch of Monsey people in the documentary, but still like I feel like the way that in a lot of the documentation around this incident, one of the theories is like the the theory of the Monsi people, even though literally like it has no weight at all, and the only reason it exists is because of like racism and that they were nearby. So I don't really like how it's sort of framed that way as just like one of the many theories, when obviously there was a bunch of people that were harmed. I wouldn't be surprised if like they were tortured by the secret police. This was the time of the Soviet Union, and then they were just asked to help with the rescue effort, and most of the articles I read don't really talk about how that is that was a fucked up thing to happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's often a gap.
SPEAKER_01As I shared earlier, there was an ongoing investigation from this guy, Lev Ivanov. It seemed like after about not even very long, it seemed like just like a few weeks after the final bodies were found, it seemed like either he lost interest or what I think more likely was pressured to close the case. And so the case was closed in the like end of May 1959. And to be fair to him, he was pressured by the Soviet government. And if he had refused, he likely would have been sent to prison. So he was kind of stuck in between a rock and a hard place on what he could actually do. So the case was closed, and it was said that the hikers died of a quote unknown compelling force, which the hikers were unable to overcome.
SPEAKER_02An unknown compelling force that the hikers were unable to overcome.
SPEAKER_01The documentary I watched is called like an unknown compelling force or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Okay, then we would be taking the title of the documentary.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So that could mean clearly a lot of different things. It's an extremely vague statement. However, their explanation basically was that like something happened. An unknown compelling force happened, which is what led them to cut themselves out of the tent and flee. Some of them started a fire at the tree that they were found at. Some of them attempted to climb back up the mountain to get more clothes and gear, but froze to death on the slope. Others, the ones that were found in the ravine, died as they tried to build a shelter, not knowing that they were digging over a ravine that they then collapsed into, causing them to drop nine feet onto rocks, which is what caused the injuries that killed them. But a weird thing was one of them was found in the ravine, but didn't have any crash-like injuries. The official cause of death for most of them was hypothermia, but for Xina and Nikolai, they sustained fatal injuries similar to a car crash when they were found in the ravine. So this is a puzzle that folks have been trying to solve for over 80 years now. Scientists, case experts, and of course, amateur sleuths.
SPEAKER_02Never forget the amateur sleuths.
SPEAKER_01Especially in this case, they don't really add much. Like a lot of the work is being done by scientists and case experts, and you kind of have to be in the region and have visited the place to actually like come up with like legitimate theories. For three decades after the case was closed, all of the case files were buried because this was still during the Cold War, still during the Soviet Union, and it was only after the Soviet Union fell that these case files became available to the public. So in 1990, Lev Ivanov, the investigator of the case, gave an interview to a newspaper in which he admitted that he had been shocked by the results of the autopsy, that he had also received several reports of balls of fire in the sky, but he'd been ordered to classify his findings, close the case, and forget about them. So in the 90s, there were some strange details that came out about the autopsies. Some of the students had traces of radiation on their clothing. The makeshift morgue where the bodies were first examined was surrounded by KGB agents rather than police officers. And large quantities of alcohol were delivered to the morgue, and this is often used to protect from radiation. So it seemed like that's what they were they were, they already knew that that was something that they had to be worried about, worried about, which is a bit sus. Like, how did they know that? So in 1999, the Dyatlov Foundation was founded at Yeka Terrenburg with the help of the Ural State Technical University led by Yuri Kunsevich. The foundation stated that its aim was to continue the investigation of the case and to maintain the Dyatlov Museum to preserve the memory of the dead hikers.
SPEAKER_02My God, who gets this kind of attention when they die? This is crazy.
SPEAKER_01A bunch of young white people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the Titanic, you know, they went all the way down there to put a plaque because it's like really dangerous. And they said, we have to put a plaque down here for all these white people who died.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to put a plaque here also for the pass for the bikers that died. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I see, I see for the nightmakers. It's just really a 1999.
SPEAKER_01I know.
SPEAKER_02Tragic, don't get me wrong. It's just, wow, a lot of other things have happened, and totally a lot of times they don't get a plaque, they don't get a mention.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we will get into that too in a little bit. Like what makes people intrigued by specific cases and not others, but definitely the fact that it was a bunch of nine young, white hikers, well educated, well educated, they were all engineers, could have had very bright futures ahead of them.
SPEAKER_02Right. Sounds like they were like socially they were popular.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they were popular kids. All right. So now we're gonna get to the theories. The official investigation said that there was like no suspicious circumstances, no third party that was involved, and the hikers must have ran out of the tent for their own reasons because of an unknown compelling force. But obviously, this theory and answer doesn't really clear much up. And so people are thinking like, what would make these nine hikers, especially hikers that have a lot of experience, like one of them was a World War II vet, suddenly flee their tent in deadly temperatures at night without any winter gear, some even without shoes, and also leave a meal uneaten. Right. So it's since 1959, there's been over 75 theories that have emerged.
SPEAKER_0275 theories.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, to try to explain the events that took place on Feb 1st, 1959. So on historycollection.com, they say the theories run from the fantastical to the criminal to nature's wrath.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah, sounds correct. Sounds like what people be talking about.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So I'm only gonna get into some of the theories. Obviously, we don't got time to go into all 75. So theory number one is the Russian Yeti or Abominable Snowman.
SPEAKER_02Okay, let's go.
SPEAKER_01Very, very, very what's the word? Circumstantial evidence.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01So in the hiker stuff, there was a satirical newsletter that had they had written together on their last day. And in that newsletter, they had wrote, latest evidence indicates that the Yeti lives in the northern Urals near Mount O'Tortin. And then an image was found on one of their cameras that shows something that looks kind of like a Yeti. But I'm gonna show you the picture. Okay. Tell me what you think.
SPEAKER_02So the Yeti is supposed to be those like big furry looking creatures, right? Giant, sometimes with like glowing eyes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so here's the picture that apparently is proof of the yeti.
SPEAKER_02Wow, I'm my mic is called the blue yeti.
SPEAKER_01I actually was thinking that right in the beginning, too. I was like, wow, that's funny. So that's the picture, if you can see.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01There's the Yeti.
SPEAKER_02Or supposed yeti. The supposed Yeti, yeah. So I'm looking at a photo. They're like deep in the snow, they're in a bunch of trees. There's like a human, a large human-like figure kind of peeking in the background, nondescript face, but like there's no details you can really see. It's like it's like a silhouette almost. I mean, that looks like it could be a person.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's exactly what a lot of people share. Like this is a photograph from the 1950s as well. And it's also like kind of blurry and from a distance, it's not very clear at all what the figure looks like from a close-up. Yeah. That's what a lot of people say. I like a lot of people agree with that. It looks like a human form, it's head and arms walking on two legs, but it also looks like it could be one of the hikers, just like from a distance, looks like they might be wearing a thick jacket with the hood on. Uh-huh. Like maybe posing. Yes. But you know, the cryptozoologists were like all wanting to explore this theory. So there was actually a TV show on Discovery Channel in 2014 called Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives, where they explore this theory regarding what happened to the hikers.
SPEAKER_02I see.
SPEAKER_01However, this theory has zero evidence to back it up. That's like real. The newsletter was entirely satirical, and it was poking fun at members of the group, of the expedition, of their surroundings. There clearly are creative people, they're funny people, they're making jokes. There's not much to do when they're in the middle of nowhere. So they're making newsletters and having a fun time. Had they actually seen something to fear, probably they would have actually written it in the journal in like a more serious way, but they probably also wouldn't have continued to like go further into the Gedis territory if they actually saw something that they were scared of. So theory really just doesn't hold up, but is one of the many supernatural theories out there, but the only supernatural one I'm going to be sharing today. Sorry, everyone, if you were looking forward to that. So theory number two involves KGB agents and the CIA. So this theory states that the ex the random guy plus two of the students were Secretly KGB agent on a secret mission, and the other hikers didn't know that. And that their secret mission was to root out an American CIA cell that was in that region. And that their plan was to deliver radioactive materials to the CIA agents, pretending to be like cooperating with the USA, but actually they were asked to like take photographs of the CIA agents so that the KGB would be able to identify who these agents are. And the theory is that this meeting went wrong. The CIA agents figured out the betrayal and killed the group. And this is why there was radiation on some of the hikers' clothing, and also why some Russian officials in KGB were like with were there measuring rate radiation levels and also having alcohol to protect from radiation, and also the KGB agents were around instead of the police.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So there's actually a very mundane and sad explanation to the radiation. So one of them, Georgie, who had graduated about two years prior, he was an engineer at a nuclear weapons facility, which I had shared earlier. There was actually a nuclear disaster that happened in that region, but that had been covered up. So that nuclear disaster had contaminated 23,000 square kilometers or 9,000 square miles of a southern Ural region. And he was part of a group that was like helping with the cleanup of this nuclear disaster, but it had been covered up. So basically, according to his brother, there was a lot of radiation that was present during his work. And he also quit because of like he didn't want to work in the system like this. But his clothes, his clothes were the ones that tested positive for radiation, as did Xena's, but she had lived in the area of the contaminated zone. So that is a very mundane and real explanation to why their clothes tested positive for radiation, but the others didn't, because one of them worked in that and one of them lived in the region where that disaster had happened. And prior to the 90s, nobody would have even known that that disaster happened because the government covered it up. So then there is that kind of leads to the next theory, which is that it was a military test or a nuclear test gone wrong, or it was like a rocket weapons test. So a lot of their parents thought it was somehow related to the military, which makes sense because at the funeral, they were being told by investigators, quote, what went on up there is hard to say. You will never know the truth. So stop asking questions. This is at their funeral. The investigators are like, you'll never know the truth. So stop asking questions. And then the parents also said, like, don't forget that in those days, if they told you to shut up, you would be silent. Because even though it was the quote unquote thaw after Stalin, it wasn't like it was safe to go against what government officials were telling you, even if you worked for the government, which is why the case was closed so quickly as well. I see. Um even some of the people who have investigated the case believed that they were part of a military cover-up and that the bodies had been rearranged to make it look like they had frozen to death. So, what this theory says is that the military killed the group after they witnessed a top secret rocket experiment or weapons test. They staged the bodies to create a confusing and different story. They even edited the hikers' journals to support the staged crime. And the whole rescue effort was just a show to soothe the families and put on a show for the public. This is like the theory that the families, I think the families and the one survivor believe somehow that the military or government was involved. Like they don't know the specifics of it, but given how much it was just covered up, it totally makes sense why they would think that. In 2008, a joint conference between the Ural State Technical University, which was formerly Ural Polytechnical Institute, where this the students went, and the Dietlov Group Memorial Foundation actually lay the blame on military testing. And according to Igor's sister, Tatiana, and Igor's parents, along with the family of the other hikers, they believe this theory. And so does Yuri Kunsevich, who's the director of the Dietlov Foundation and has been researching this case for a very, very long time. One of the Monsi people in the region, also, who was interviewed by the BBC, said that in the in February 1959, we were coming back from the forest and we could see the village ahead of us. There was a bright burning object that appeared. It was wider in the front and narrower at the back with a tail, and there were sparks flying off of it. Some people say maybe it was a comet, but some of the village elders also witnessed this and saw it as a bad omen or just something harmful. So some people think that it might be a weapons test, that this that's what the balls of light in the sky were, but there is a researcher who has a different take on it. She is someone who is a researcher for the biggest selling newspaper. She said, quote, and her name is Natalia Varsogova. If the young people had been killed by an experiment, there's no way the military would have allowed ordinary civilians, friends of the students, to join the search party on that mountain. One of the soldiers would have let it slip before he died. Someone would have said something in drunk company. We live in a country where nobody can keep any secrets. So she was kind of saying, like, someone would have said something by now if this was actually true, and that they wouldn't have actually let anyone in that area that was not in the military if that was actually the case. I see. So I don't know. I feel like obviously there was a government cover-up involved, but it's hard to say whether that's because the government was involved or whether they just were like, we're covering this up because we can't figure it out.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01And we have better things to do because we're trying to like win the space race.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Who knows?
SPEAKER_02Moving on, using resources in a different way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So then we go on to another, it's not really a theory, it's more just like an unknown thing, which is like there were also other people. So people in the search team also say that they saw a fireball move from east to west, with other witnesses saying that they saw a fireball move from south to north, indicating that there was some kind of object like a missile in the sky that other people had seen. And that one of the theories is that maybe the military wasn't actively involved, but like they didn't kill them because they witnessed a weapons test, but because debris from the rockets started raining down on the tent, it caused, quote, confusion and pain that drove the hikers out of their tent. But there was no evidence that there was like things that were burned nearby to the tent. So I feel like that doesn't make a lot of sense. Now we're gonna get into the theories that are like, okay, that could be likely. We'll see what you think. And you can tell me what you think happened if you mean one way or the other. So this next theory is one that Donnie Iker, who's a filmmaker who traveled to the Diet Law Pass in 2013, believes is what happened. And it's also the theory that was put forth in the book Dead Mountain, which I actually read for fun last year. And for people who are into this kind of thing, which is, I guess, just like disturbing things that happen in nature, mysteries and conspiracies, it was a great read. I really enjoyed it. It's really well researched. And when I read the theory, I actually was like, oh, this could actually make sense. And I guess they've like solved what happened. But then it was only when I was doing research for this episode that I found that there's actually another more likely theory as well. So this theory that's put forth in the book is about infrasound. Do you know what that is? Have you ever heard of it? Okay. So infrasound is these vibrations that humans cannot hear but react to physically. They cause the infrasound waves cause nausea, confusion, delirium. And the theory is that it reached a point where the hikers could not be stand being confined in the tent. And the filmmaker Donnie Iker suggests that the sound drove them from the tent. And once out, they couldn't find their way back because it was too dark, too stormy, too cold. Um, they were already being affected by the hypothermia. Um, and he worked with the NOAA, which is the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, to kind of like come up with this infrasound theory. So, how they say that this would have happened in this particular case is that there was a natural flow of wind moving down the slope towards the hikers that created this sort of vortex of quote small tornadoes. And even though those small tornadoes swirling wind, exactly. Imagine a swirling wind, even though the swirling winds were far away, the sound, both audible and inaudible, is what was impacting the hikers. So I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. That could make them act really wild. And hypothermia actually also leads people to engage in what's known as paradoxical undressing, where they feel really hot, so they take off their clothes. So that is also a reason why they explain some of them might have been more undressed than others. But how this theory does think that too. How this infrasound theory doesn't make a lot of sense is that all of these people are like extremely experienced hikers. And they would have all nine of them would have had to reach like this like severe level of like panic at exactly the same time where they all are trying to escape the tent to a point where like they don't even have the mental cognition to be like we can open the tent instead of like ripping it to the point where we can't use it anymore once we get out, like it'll have to be fixed. Also, like leaving without any of their outdoor gear. So in some ways it makes sense, but it doesn't really explain everything because it doesn't really make sense that they would all be affected in the same exact way, and none of them would sort of be like, wait, let's not rip rip the tent open, but let's just go through the front door of the tent, even though the entryway did have layers and was closed, it wouldn't have taken that much more time than cutting it open with a knife. That theory has some maybe to it, but there's still questions that are left unanswered with this theory as well. Well, now I'm gonna get into the theory that I think most people at this point think that this is what happened, and it is the avalanche theory. Yeah, but it's not like the kind of avalanche that you're thinking of, it's a different kind of avalanche. Okay, so give it to me in 2019, they did another investigation of it, the Russian authorities, and it was led by prosecutor Andrei Kuryakov, and he looked at all the evidence again, and he his study of it and his investigation of it found that the quote-unquote unknown compelling force was a snow slab avalanche. What is a snow slab avalanche? Even though I've read a lot about it, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because it's a lot of like science-y theoretical knowledge, it's kind of like the Doppler effect from Malaysian Airlines episode where I read a lot about it, but I'm still confused. Okay, it's not my niche snow slab avalanches. Although there was a paper published very recently in Nature about this snow slab avalanche theory. So what basically they're trying to say is that the surface layer of the snow is compact and dense and heavy, and the snow beneath that is weaker. And when the crust breaks from the weaker snow, the slab moves moves down the slope. So they basically said that the fact that they dug out the upper layers of snow to create a foundation for their tent is sort of what led the crust to weaken and for the snow slab avalanche to happen. And that winds that were blowing at over 100 kilometers per hour, which is like 65 miles per hour, could have also caused to destabilize the snow. Some questions or counter-arguments to this is how could an avalanche have happened without leaving any evidence around the tent site? They dug into the snow at the side of a slope, and the angle wasn't steep enough to trigger an avalanche. Another question is that the hole that they had dug for the tent had been created at least nine hours before the quote unquote avalanche would have happened. And so, wouldn't the snow have collapsed sooner after it was dug out and not nine hours later? There was also like the footprints outside of the tent didn't indicate, I don't know how they know this, but it says that they didn't indicate a panicked rapid exit and seemed slower than that, I suppose. So those are some questions around the avalanche theory. But these two people, engineer Alexander Puzrin of the ET of ETH Zurich, and Johan Gome of the Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory, they tackled this question of why an avalanche would have happened, wouldn't have happened until well into the night, nine hours after they had dug the tent site. And they actually found a way in which this could have happened, and that's what this nature paper is about. So basically, they shared that there were catabatic winds, which are winds that blow downhill as gravity pulls higher density air downward, which leads to the lower density air to rise. And they said that catabatic winds basically would have allowed for the snow to accumulate over time and then cause the slab to roll down the hill, and that the destabilization happened when the extra snow was like piled on. They ran a simulation and they found that the avalanche might not have been much more than a rush of snow and ice that was about 16 feet, and that would have been just enough to fill the pit that was dug by the group. An interesting fact these uh researchers, I guess, they really liked the computer snow animation that was used in the movie Frozen, and so they contacted Disney snow effects specialist who shared the movie's code, and then they used this code, changed it, and simulated the impacts of the small avalanche on the human body using that.
SPEAKER_02They're very whimsy to such a dark thing.
SPEAKER_01I know, I know, like just so random.
SPEAKER_02And then they wait, why what did they like about it? It was that it looked that they think it just like maybe looked looked real. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Okay, maybe they were like, wow, the physics of this computer snow animation is so accurate that we could use it to simulate a real life avalanche.
SPEAKER_02Okay, wow, funny.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, yeah. So they applied general motor seatbelt safety cadaver crash test results to this and figured out different ways in which basically this heavy snow could have had an impact on the hikers that were in the tent, and basically how a small avalanche could have while they slept caused severe injuries like broken ribs and skull fractures, and that because those are internal injuries, sometimes it takes a while to kill someone, and they wouldn't have known if that first avalanche was just the beginning. So that's could have been the reason why they ran out of the tent is like they thought a bigger avalanche was coming and they were fearing that. And so they were like, let's flee the tent as fast as possible. And even some professional mountaineers, like this person who was interviewed for National Geographic, Freddie Wilkinson, said some slabs can be quite hard, and it's very possible they can result in blunt forced trauma wounds. And this theory recognizes the fact that they're all really experienced hikers because they wouldn't have like this would have happened in a very surprising way. There's no way that they could have guessed that this can happen, and even very experienced hikers and guys and mountaineers can be, quote, caught off guard by nature.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01But Gome, who's one of these researchers who wrote this paper, says people don't want it to be an avalanche, it's too normal.
SPEAKER_02That's true, it is anticlimactic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's like, it's been 80 years, people don't want it to just be an avalanche. But the thing is that even though the testing, all the testing that they did offers a reasonable explanation of what the unknown compelling force that drove them out of the tent might have been, it doesn't really explain the traces of radioactivity, but we have already explained that. It doesn't really explain what happened after the hikers left their tent, the state of their bodies, or the autopsy findings. But they also explicitly state in their research like our goal was not to figure any of that stuff out. And like, as we've already gone over, we know why there was radiation on the clothing, we know why some of their bodies might have been in the state that they were due to decomposition, and also we know that like they might have just been trying to stay alive/slash get back to the tent, which is why they were all in different places and positions. However, Dr. Vladimir Borzinkov, who is Moscow State University of Aeronautics, has criticized and scrutinized this theory. He states that the sample site that they visited was three kilometers away from the Diatlov site, which he says is far enough. A way that like it could have been a little bit different. And he kind of goes through their methodology and their findings and provides a critical analysis for it. But like every other theory, there are arguments that poke holes in this one as well.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03What you think?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm thinking, well, initially, I'm thinking about like if Avalanche, if they were surprised by like some weather pattern, I'm still confused about where why they would think it was more safe to exit their tent under in these conditions in the snow, like that doesn't really land for me. And why did they think they could get away from it outside? You know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So and why did they not wear shoes? That's really just the most confusing to me. Because even when I go camping in the summer, I will not go outside without shoes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there seems to be something that's very uh counter survival instinct.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Especially, yeah, it's fucking dark out there. What what what were they using to light their way? I could see the infrasound. That sounds plausible for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And maybe not everyone did that, but I could see maybe them sleeping and someone getting delirious and confused and cutting themselves out of that tent, and people waking up and being like, what the fuck is going on? And then being like, they don't even have shoes on and going after them, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, like let's go after this person so that they don't get lost, and then uh and I was trying to take notes because there's a lot of details, you know. I didn't know if you're stimming or taking notes.
SPEAKER_02I was taking notes. One of them wasn't wearing shoes, he was hugging his a branch, and the other person had like a long torso bruise looking like you could have been hit by a baton. So I'm like, was it Igor who took his shoes off and was wigging out, left the tent. Maybe she's trying to go get him, he's hitting her with the branch, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Wow, you know, totally, totally, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because it looked like there was, you know, like there was a good amount of them together trying to find, you know. And so even if there was just two people experiencing psychological phenomena, it would make sense that groups of people would follow each of them into unsafe spaces, and it would make sense that it wouldn't take long for people to die. I know hypothermia can happen within 15 minutes if you're not properly, you know.
SPEAKER_01And like it's dark and they're swirling winds. So even if they were like close to their tents, it's extremely difficult to find your way back. Cause I don't like it said that there was a flashlight that was on top of the tent, but I don't think any of them had flashlights on them when they were found.
SPEAKER_02So okay, yeah. I mean, half sleeping, confused, scared for the other person that disappeared. I could totally see that.
SPEAKER_01And and then at one point being like, oh shit, like I'm now far away from the tent. How am I supposed to get back? And then it seems like some of them try to make a fire to keep warm, but right.
SPEAKER_02And if someone, yeah, like if someone was refusing to go back for whatever reason, or if someone hurt themselves, or if someone actually died, seemed like they were close to each other. I think it would be important for them to actually retrieve their body and bring it back to the tent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I was also wondering since like a but there's like three of them in the ravine that had like car crash-like injuries, whereas one of them didn't. I was actually like, maybe three of them fell in and the third person didn't, or sorry, three of them fell in and the fourth person didn't, but try to go in to try to like see if they're okay or save them, which is why he didn't have those injuries because he didn't fall in. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe, or maybe fell on top of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, true. Yikes, yeah, because a couple of them had their chests crushed, so that totally could have been because someone and their bodies were found several months later after a snow had melted. So I'm sure like they weren't found exactly in the way that they would have passed either, in terms of like functioning.
SPEAKER_02And then also when we're frozen, aren't we just really easy to crush? True. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, a mystery, but not so much a mystery that yeah, like there's explanations that make sense, and I think the infra sound one, yeah. When I read the book, I was like, oh, this makes a lot of sense actually. And it felt like correct to me as well. Because there's no way that they would have even been prepared for that, and like it's not like any would have any of them would have known, like, yeah, I'm the reason I'm feeling this way is because of some weird weird sound that I'm not perceiving right now. Cause yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's the only thing that I can think of that would cause this group of people who are actually seemed really smart, really close to each other, and experienced to be acting completely anti-survival.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I was thinking too. And I feel like in nature, like when you're in such brutal conditions, like things can go from like mildly bad to like horrible super fast. So I feel like you're right in sharing that even if it was just one or two people, it could have totally just been like the trigger that caused an unfortunate sequence of events.
SPEAKER_02This is truly an unfortunate sequence of events.
SPEAKER_01It is, it is. Yeah, well, I just have a little more left before we get to the end of the story. We have pretty much got to the end of the story, but basically, this case is still f seem, even though the like the Russian government has said like this is what the explanation is, the families of the hikers, as well as Yuri Udin, who was the 10th member of the group, they dispute the idea of a natural disaster. I think a lot of that has to do with also distrust in the official story and distrust in the former Soviet Union. And since even scientific analysis stirs debate and argument, there's still there's still questions and there's still holes that can poked into them. Gome and Pozrin, who were the people that came up with the slab avalanche theory and did all the simulations, they told they told nature, quote, mysteries are more attractive, nature as in the journal. Mysteries are more attractive while unsolved, or at least not solved with a boring scientific explanation. So that's the Diat Love Pass incident. I think it's the first, like I guess, natural disaster or dark thing that happened in nature story that we're covering. Yeah, maybe explicitly or alien related, maybe actually, I don't know. I guess we have covered Lake Washington, Lake Lanier.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, I mean, technically Titanic, there it was an iceberg, yeah, true. They drowned, and we covered the ancient underwater forests in Lake Washington, which which was created by a massive natural disaster.
SPEAKER_01And also, this makes me it has a similar vibe to like that Canadian guy who came across the UFO with like the radiation and being in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was wondering if there was like some theory that would come up that it was aliens.
SPEAKER_01There is, but like I didn't go into it because the theory is basically just it's aliens or they're affected, you know, and it's like okay, it's not that interesting, it's just like people always love to have that as a theory.
SPEAKER_02That's true. Although with Stefan, I really believe that was aliens. That was a wild story.
SPEAKER_01That one, and then that one got me blue. I can't explain anything else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what the fuck with the mutilated cows? I also I'm like, yeah, that sounds like aliens.
SPEAKER_01Yes. In this mystery, I'm thinking it was infra sound, which is scary, you know. Like it's scary that a sound that you can't consciously perceive is like messing with you both like physiologically and psychologically. That's true. Frequencies are powerful. Because then couldn't that be used? That makes me scared because then it makes like that could be used in an intentionally malicious or insidious way, too. Could that's yeah, could definitely yeah, it was interesting to dive into this. It happened a long time ago, but there's a lot of different interesting tangents that made me learn things about a part of the world. I don't maybe this is our first story that's in that part of the world.
SPEAKER_02That's true.
SPEAKER_01That is, yeah, yeah, can add it to our map. Well, thanks for listening, y'all. I hope that you learned a lot, and as always, respect nature, yeah, respect nature. Maybe don't go hiking in places that are so dangerous that even the indigenous people don't go there. Definitely a bad sign.
SPEAKER_02Definitely a bad sign if you go to a place and even the indigenous people are like, no, that's that's not for us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Some hubris to think that that's for you, and yeah, when it's not even for the indigenous people, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Okay, so that's episode.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Thank you for sharing, doing all that research.
SPEAKER_01I learned a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Thanks for listening. Bye.
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