The Dyatlov pass accident and the fatal “unknown compelling force”
by Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 127
What was the Dyatlov pass accident?
On January 28, 1959, ten experienced cross-country skiers left for a skiing expedition. They headed for the Otorten Mountain range in the northern Urals. One skier fell ill and had to turn back. The remaining nine skiers left him behind and continued their journey. They were led by Igor Dyatlov, 23, from whom the accident and location were named:
What happened next is partially conjecture, partially reconstructed from search party evidence, and photos and journals from the deceased.
The skiers never returned from their trip. On February 26, 1959, searchers found the group’s tent “half torn and covered with snow”. While no one was in the tent, the group’s belongings, including shoes and clothing, had been left behind. Footprints were in the snow around the tent, indicating people wearing socks, one shoe or no footwear at all. Below is a picture of the tent as it was found by the search party:
Two bodies were found almost two kilometers down the mountainous slope, near a forest. Both were barefoot and dressed only in underwear. The remains of a fire were nearby. Branches on a nearby tree were broken up to five meters high, and some branches remained in the snow.
Three more bodies were found between the first two bodies and the tent. The positioning of these three was such that it seemed they’d been trying to return to the tent when they were overcome by the cold.
While these five died of hypothermia, one had a fractured skull (this was considered not fatal).
Four more bodies were found in a nearby ravine. Buried in snow, they seem to have suffered traumatic deaths: one suffered a crushed skull. Two others, multiple broken ribs. A fourth was missing her tongue. Adding to this, these bodies showed “no external wounds”, as would be seen from a physical attack by human or animal.
These latter four were dressed warmly. The first five were not, and some were wearing parts of the others’ clothes. It seems that those who died last removed clothes from those who died first.
The clothes all contained high levels of radiation. A source for this contamination was not found.
After the funerals, relatives said the victims’ skin had a “strange orange tan”, and that they were completely grey-haired.
Reconstructions of the victims’ behavior indicated that they may have been blinded. An example is that the victims broke wet tree branches to start their campfire, though there was good dry kindling nearby.
While treated as a crime scene, the investigation ceased officially in May 1959 due to the absence of a guilty party. The group was deemed to have died from an “unknown compelling force”.
During the night of this tragedy, another group of hikers 50 kilometers south reported they saw “strange orange spheres” in the northern sky. Similar spheres were seen in nearby cities during February through March of 1959. Witnesses included a weather service and the military.
On February 2, 2008 six of the rescuers and over 30 independent experts gathered together to examine the facts and look for answers. They concluded that the deaths were caused accidentally by military testing.
That’s a horribly mundane end to a frightening, confusing and exciting story. Other theories as to what happened at the Dyatlov pass accident include encounters with UFOs, Yeti, “mountain madness” or a group of murderous natives in the area.
One of the points of this article is to illustrate that, while the above pseudo-scientific explanations may sound better or make a better movie, scientific analysis can and does prove them wrong, or far less probable. In addition, there are many explanations as to the “unexplainable” facts from the Dyatlov pass accident. These make far more sense than assuming the Dyatlov pass accident was supernatural.
Summarized, here’s a list of the Dyatlov pass accident facts:
The victims’ tent was “cut from the inside”.
Five in the group exited the tent wearing little or no clothing. Four others were dressed normally.
There were many internal injuries and broken bones, but little or no external damage was found.
One person was missing her tongue.
The victims had a “strange orange tan” and grey hair at their funeral.
High levels of radiation were found at the scene of the accident and on the victims’ clothes.
Some of the victims may have been blinded.
There were “strange orange spheres” in the sky during the time of the Dyatlov pass accident.
Now let’s examine each fact:
The victims’ tent was “cut from the inside”: Here are a couple of photos taken by the search party, showing the cuts or tears in the tent material:
Two things strike me:
1) How can you tell this material was “cut from the inside”? It looks like a thin fabric, even degraded and worn, and not thick enough to indicate from which side an incision came from.
2) The tent itself looks like canvas. If you try to tear canvas, you’ll get a tear that goes in a straight line, similar to what you see on the topmost photo.
It seems just as probable that the “cutting” of the tent was due to the tent being physically abused or stressed in some way. And even if people were truly cutting the tent from inside, remember that there were nine people in this expedition: if you wanted to leave a nine-person tent as quickly as possible (as evidence seems to point) and you were number eight or nine, would you want to wait for everyone to shuffle through? If you had a knife handy (and seasoned outdoors-men and women certainly would) and thought this was a life-or-death issue, why not cut your way out?
Summary: The tent being torn or even cut from the inside is unremarkable given the situation.
Five in the group exited the tent wearing little or no clothing. Four others were dressed normally: Again, all evidence seems to point to a hurried, panicked exit. Being in a tent full of nine people would get pretty warm, and the skiers may have been sleeping. If this was something like missile testing being performed nearby, I too would try to get away as quickly as possible, regardless of how much I was wearing. I was not able to find how cold it was during the Dyatlov pass accident. But it was warm enough for the skiiers to survive for a time outside the tent. If it was bearable for a time, and I was in a panic, I could easily understand wanting to leave immediately, and find shelter after the immediate crisis is finished.
Finally, there is an established connection with victims of hypothermia being naked or undressed.
Summary: The partial nudity of the victims is unremarkable given the situation.
There were many internal injuries and broken bones, but little or no external damage was found: It’s difficult to analyze this without knowing more about the situation. Did the victims with broken ribs show any skin bruising? When you break bones and suffer internal injuries, there is hemorrhaging. Were there bruises but no breaks in the skin? Finally, depending on the weather and the condition of the bodies (most of who died from exposure), was the search party experienced enough to make a proper medical diagnosis with weathered and frostbitten bodies?
Summary: Due to the age of the accident and the lack of information, this probably can’t be answered conclusively.
One person was missing her tongue: The tongue could have been removed from a scavenging animal. It also could’ve been bitten off due to the panic, related physical accident, or death throes.
Summary: The removed tongue is not surprising when you consider this was a horrible accident and a panic situation.
The victims had a “strange orange tan” and grey hair at their funeral: Consider that all the bodies were physically damaged and suffered from frostbite and exposure for weeks. And yet the funerals were open-casket. I would think the “strange orange tan” could easily be one of two things:
1) A mortician doing the best job possible to make the deceased look presentable, when dealing with skin that was previously frostbitten, bruised and exposed to the elements.
2) When I go skiing on a sunny day, I get a sunburn if I don’t wear sunscreen. I don’t think sunscreen was as prevalent in the 1950s as now, and this group was skiing for weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if all had heavy tans or sunburns.
The grey hair may have again been the mortician trying to do the best job with the remains he/she had. If fake hair or powder was used for coloring or styling, and the fake hair color didn’t match the original, this is one of those tales that could easily grow with the telling. In addition, it is a myth that someone’s hair can turn white from a shock or fright. It doesn’t, but claiming something similar here could add to the mystery of the Dyatlov pass accident. The story, after all, has had half a century to develop.
Summary: The “strange orange tan” is explainable. The grey hair is most likely a misinterpretation of the mortician’s work or a gradual exaggeration of the facts.
High levels of radiation were found at the scene of the accident and on the clothes of the victims. Some of the victims may have been blinded. There were “strange orange spheres” in the sky during the time of the Dyatlov pass accident.
All these facts can be explained by weapons testing.
Summary: The high radiation, blinded victims and orange spheres in the sky can be explained by military-grade weapons testing. The secretive nature of a 1950s USSR makes this impossible to confirm.
The Dyatlov Pass Accident is truly a horrible accident, and a fascinating story. But one doesn’t need to look at influence from UFOs, Yeti, or other supernatural explanations, or even an “unknown compelling force”. A bit of critical thinking and skeptical analysis tells the story: A group of very unlucky people stumbled into some weapons testing. The Dyatlov Pass Accident was a terrible event, but hardly a mystery. Those nine people just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
References and more information about the Dyatlov Pass Accident:
Wikipedia article and more detail about the Dyatlov Pass Accident
“The Deadly Case of 9 Fleeing Skiers“, by By Svetlana Osadchuk
Russian-language Journal of Youth Engineering by Ivan Sobolev
Pictures used without permission from the following links:
dyatlov-pass-accident-memorial.jpg
dyatlov-pass-accident-discovered-tent-1.jpg
dyatlov-pass-accident-tent-incisions-1.jpg
dyatlov-pass-accident-igor-dyatlov.jpg
dyatlov-pass-accident-tent-incisions-2.jpg
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Sandra H:
An interesting point…Thorium was, and still is, used in making the mantles for camp lanterns. Thorium is a radioactive element (one down from uranium on the periodic table). If they were using this type of lamp (which is almost certain since it was in universal use as a camp lantern), and if it got knocked about in the confusion of getting out of the tent, it could have very easily contaminated nearby material. The mantles disintegrate easily, turning to dust, especially if they have been in use (repeatedly heated) for some time. This could easily account for the radiation readings that were made (remember, thorium is radioactive enough to have been considered for bomb material) and the fact that only some of the clothing was radioactive.
8 March 2008, 9:26 pmRyan:
The weapons testing idea seems contrived and needlessly complicated. I don’t claim to have an answer as to why they all left the tent but consdier this:
They didn’t write in their diaries that day. They camped in the middle of an open slope when a more sheltered area (in the trees) was only 1.5 km away. I have also read that they stopped early (but can’t figure out how this was determined). This is all consistent with bad weather. It is likely they were in a white-out and decided to just camp where they were.
After the “compelling force” sent them away, they couldn’t find their way back. They had to use “wet wood” because they were poorly dressed and freezing to death. A white-out means wind, and wind means wind-chill (exposed skin has heat drawn from it faster in wind than in still air).
The group started to freeze. The survivors took the clothing from the dead. The group broke up and some left the fire and tried to find their way back, they die. The remaining tried to find shelter 75 m away in a gully. They fell into the gully and sustained injries. They eventually died as well.
What scared them away I don’t know. I have camped like this on winter ski trips and I assure you that it is NOT normal to run away into the night without your winter gear. The only way you do this is if staying in the tent is percieved to be a more likely death than the certain death in the cold. It hurts to get out into the cold without clothing.
8 March 2008, 10:48 pmRyan:
Also, weapons testing leaves damage. Where is the evidence for this? How is “weapons testing” (a blanket term that is poorly defined) a skeptical explanation if there is no evidence for it?
8 March 2008, 10:51 pmTim Eisele:
The thing that bothers me about the whole “radioactive contamination” issue isn’t so much the question of “what could have made them radioactive?”, as “Why on earth did the forensic investigators think it would be useful to check for radiation in the first place?” That is not something that I would expect to ever even come up in an investigation of this type. It would be like going over the scene of an auto accident with a Geiger counter - what on earth would be the point? This leads me to think either (a) there’s something that isn’t included in the account that made the investigators think that there *would* be radioactivity; or (b) the “data point” about radioactive contamination is just some spurious thing that crept into the account, and isn’t actually true.
The whole story is more than a little reminiscent of the book by Charles Berlitz about the Bermuda Triangle: a fairly detailed account with a lot of inexplicable things, but what is inexplicable about many of them is the question of “why on earth would people in that situation do *that*”? In the Bermuda Triangle case, it turned out that most of the “inexplicable” things were due to small distortions of the circumstances, things left out of descriptions, and in some cases bits of “data” that turned out to be the result of misunderstandings or outright falsehoods. I strongly suspect that this story is suffering from a lot of that sort of thing, too, especially since it is being translated into English, leaving lots of room for one piece of information to become another.
9 March 2008, 6:03 amSurvivalTopics.com:
Good point Tim Eisele. Sounds like weapons testing is a possibility. The victims attempted to escape the danger but succumbed to the elements. The government covered up the cause of the tragedy for national security reasons.
11 March 2008, 8:15 amigor:
It’s very funny how people with zero knowledge about the living conditions in USSR at that time (almost 50 years ago) and the weather and terrain specifics of the northern Urals can make some assumptions and prove or disprove theories. I was born in Sverdlovsk and graduated from the same Urals Polytechnic College as all the nine from the Dyatlov’s group so IMHO can shed some light on the questionable facts.
11 March 2008, 3:10 pmThe temperature on February 1, 1959 was minus 21 -25 C (about minus 10-12 F) with winds on the top of the mountain up to 15 m/s (45 ft/s). Nobody in the sound mind would venture to go outside undressed in this kind of weather expecting “to survive for a time outside the tent” … “if it was bearable”. They just acted in panic with no logical reasoning and no expectations, like people jumping down from the WTC didn’t really expect to stay alive.
There were no bruises and breaks in the skin of the injured except unremarkable cuts and scratches, but the injuries were massive: one girl had 12 (!!!) ribs broken on left and right sides. These injuries can’t be explained by a mere fall on the snow or even a force of explosion as there were no broken limbs and signs of hematomas. The girl with the missing tongue could not have “bitten it off due to the panic” since not only the tongue but the entire oral cavity lining was missing as it was torn off.
Even more hilarious for me was reading the comments. Darling Sarah H, they didn’t have Coleman-type gas lanterns with thorium mantles in Russia in 1959. They didn’t have any camping gas lanterns, period. They didn’t have sleeping bags, camping pads as well as other essential camping gear. The tent was self-made sewn from 2 old smaller tents. The Dyatlov’s slept on the empty rucksacks wrapped themselves in the wool blankets. They only had one flashlight and used it sparingly to save the battery. It was later found on the tent’s roof left in the switched-on position as if somebody tried to mark the tent’s location.
As for answering the question why the investigators even checked the radioactive contamination of the bodies in the first place one has to be in the state of mind of policemen in the midst of the cold war hysteria in Urals, where every city had secret weaponry manufactures.
Andy:
Hi Igor,
Excellent, excellent information - thanks for taking the time to post. What are your thoughts on the cause of the accident itself? As you say, the majority of us were born at the wrong time and place to know much about life or events in 1959 USSR. Do you have any theories or ideas as to what happened here? You seem to have information beyond what’s easily available (the tent being self-sewn, and the tongue and oral cavity missing, for example). I’m also wondering where you got your information, and if it’s publicly available.
Thanks,
Andy
11 March 2008, 4:29 pmigor:
Hi Andy,
It’s all open to public. I got it by reading the first link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_pass_accident, but it’s in russian.
Regards
12 March 2008, 4:01 pmCritical Critique:
Interesting story Andy. Good observation and analysis given as well. Everything must have a rational and scientific explanation to it. A lot of people quickly come to a supernatural conclusion when they can’t find an answer for something. I just wonder when are people going to give their magical thinking ways and accept reality as it is…
12 March 2008, 7:24 pmdstalker:
>The tent being torn or even cut from the inside is unremarkable given the situation.
It is difficult to judge by the photos. But these photos are taken from the results of an official forensic performed by an expert who concluded that the tent had been cut from the inside by a keen knife. Evidences include direction of the cut fibers and scratches from few unsuccessful attempts on the inner side of the tent.
>Due to the age of the accident and the lack of information, this probably can’t be answered conclusively
No, there are detailed descriptions of all damages in the results of medical forensics (the searchers never attempted to do any diagnosis). Bruises are noted but wounds are not.
>The removed tongue is not surprising
You’re right. This detail is overhyped by the journalists.
>The “strange orange tan” is explainable. The grey hair is most likely a misinterpretation of the mortician’s work or a gradual exaggeration of the facts.
The first who noted the strange “orange” or “dark red” tan were the searchers. They all were experienced mountain skiers too, so it is unlikely if they were surprised by simple sunburn. It is also very difficult to get a tan of Ural’s winter sun. “Grey hairs” - yes, it’s questionable as it seems to come completely from the family legends.
>Summary: The high radiation, blinded victims and orange spheres in the sky can be explained by military-grade weapons testing. The secretive nature of a 1950s USSR makes this impossible to confirm.
1) Strangely, we have not been learned of it during 1990’s “openness” era when very dark soviet secrets and crimes were disclosed. We know about horrific “manoeuvres” at Totzk ground, where the army regiments were ordered to march across nuclear-contaminated territory. We know about kamikaze pilots forced to fly through air-blast epicenter at Novaya Zemlya. We know about victims of antrax, leaked from a secret laboratory in the center of Sverdlovsk city. We know about hundreds of victims of Mayak, Chernobyl, etc. We DON’T know why those 9 hikers have died.
2) You underestimate the “secretive nature of the USSR”. As the competent people said, if it was a weapon testing or so, the level of secrecy would be much higher and NO civilians were allowed - no volunteer searchers, no civil police, no legal investigation. Most likely, the hikers were simply disappeared.
3) The place was obviously bad for the weapon experiments, when there were special safe and well-prepared grounds in totally uninhabited deserts with all infrastructure (e.g. Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan).
Thank you.
13 March 2008, 2:13 pmErich:
People being outside without cloths on when it is -20 C, that suggests one thing to me; they were suffering from hypothermia before they took their clothes off. When someone suffers from hypothermia they become confused and then begin to think they are actually over heating. Because of this many people begin to take their clothes off. Now of course this doesn’t really explain much of the rest of the situation.
It is possible the tent became ripped, and this is where the problems began. However, any experienced outdoors man would have a repair kit with them for just this sort of thing, even in Soviet Russia. In fact, I would go so far as to say that someone in Soviet Russia would be even more prepared to fix their own gear. Like Igor state they made their own tent, which suggests they should have been able to fix it. I am unsure why they wouldn’t have been able to. However, maybe night time conditions were so bad they were unable to fix the tent before any onset of hypothermia.
Of course, none of that explains the injuries without external evidence of them occurring. And it certainly doesn’t explain the missing tongue.
The radiation is a curious piece of evidence, that could have been caused by some sort of Soviet Aircraft Test. However, it also doesn’t explain much of anything. Radiation in any large quantity will cause physical symptoms such as loss of hair, blisters, nausea, and other various ailments, many of which would have been noted by the investigating team. So I don’t think the radiation had much to do with the cause of death. But it is still none the less a curious side.
13 March 2008, 3:52 pmelias:
But how did the girl lost her tongue, and if it was some kind of nuclear weapons test why werent there any radiation exept on some of there cloths.
i do not mean to critise any one i´m just courius my big intrest in life is catastrofs made in the USSR
sorry for the bad spelling
18 March 2008, 6:11 amcarolyn:
I think the absence of clothing says nothing. There are many instances in mountain climbing of people running out when very cold thinking that they are burning up, and desperate to shed clothing.
19 March 2008, 11:11 amIt comments on one site that the broken bodies were found in a ravine. Snow blindness could have led them to the cliff above the ravine, falls doing the rest.
The skin? Condition of weather, and possibly weapons testing site.
With no bodies really to examine at this point, all guessing is just guessing.
Harlen:
Several observations in regards both to the article and other comments.
25 June 2008, 11:18 am1. I doubt it was a white-out if their footprints were visible much later.
2. They may not have been blind, if they were in pajamas it was probably night and in the dark its hard to spot dry brush from wet brush.
3. With weapons testing. It sounds almost like a thermobaric bomb. They didn’t enter service for a few more years but this could be an early test. Thermobaric bombs use a cloud of burning fuel to create a pressure wave that results in internal hemorraging and damages to the rib area. Differing injuries could be accounted for by varying distances from the blast. There wouldn’t be a crater, and while some snow would probably melt, that could be covered by drifting snow. The orange lights people saw in the area could be missile engines or the engines of jet fighters delivering the ordnance.
If people had time to carry away wounded, as is evident, and to stop and cut away the clothes of the dead, whatever drove them from the tent area was clearly not chasing them. But the tent area remained so frightening that they’d rather freeze in the woods than go back. Seems to me they were avoiding an area where they felt they were a target.
Ben:
In this discussion, we treat “weapons testing” as if it was some naturally occuring, unpredictable phenomenon. Now obviously, in the 1950s the Soviet army wouldn’t be very open about their activities. But very surely they followed the investigation, and they must have known whether they were behind it or not. That also means that there must be some record of it, as bureaucracies always keep one.
27 June 2008, 1:54 pmTo my mind, the key to a solution lies in the archieves of the Soviet military. Any idea about the accessability of such archieves today or in the future?
rick:
I really do think that an avalanche is the best possible explanation. Perhaps there was a minor avalanche and these folks hurriedly cut the tent and got into the forest to wait out a possibly larger avalanche. The use of the fire seems to indicate this. There’s also been speculation that the first to perish had their clothes taken by the last to perish. The only thing is the traumatic injuries(except for the tongue, your explanation-death throes-is probably the best I’ve heard). I don’t know whether it’s possible for four feet of snow for a couple of months to collapse bones that maybe have been weakened by the cold and the fact that the people are dead, but until I find that out, it seems more likely than something supernatural.
28 June 2008, 11:44 pmMike:
Looking at maps, topography, the photos including a very clear panorama from Google Earth doesn’t lie. Avalanche is all but impossible. There are no steep mountains and the one thing an avalanche needs is a serious pitch to even get started. There are none. What they call mountains, are really nothing more than hills to people from Switzerland and Colorado or Canada where avalanches occur. And I agree with a comment above, if it was a military test, why let the police come in at all, why notjust have them disappear? Disappearing 9 people in the mountains in the winter fouldn’t be that hard for the KGB back then. So I think the government weapons test seems to convenient. More importantly, why, why would they go for a ski trip in January? Was this some sort of prove your strength like a modern iron man competition?
11 July 2008, 2:34 amHaflidi:
I have a theory that can’t be proved or disproved due to lack of vital information. I think cold war hysteria plus post WWII trauma caused this tragedy. Most of the victims died of exposure to extreme cold due to panic, most likely caused by some natural phenomenon. Maybe they thought they were at place of some conflict.
11 July 2008, 5:14 amdstalker:
Haflidi:
My parents are of the same generation that Dyatlov groups members. I should say your speculations on their hysterias and traumas are ridiculous. Be sure, psychologically that generation is much stronger than all following ones.
NO evidence of panic except for hasty abandoning the camp. They got a fire, they took care of damaged fellows, they tried to survive as far as it was possible.
11 July 2008, 10:34 amHaflidi:
sdtalker:
14 July 2008, 4:12 amYou are probably right. But my speculations, which I admit are based on ignorance are not more ridiculous than UFOs or supernatural force.
dstalker:
Yes, but at least, there are evidences that allow to say about UFO whatever it was (observing of “orange spheres” etc). Dying of panic exposure to cold (aka “paradoxical undressing”) which seems to be popular is absolutely unfounded. Yes, they were dressed inadequately to the conditions, but it means only that they were forced to leave the tent during night sleep. They did not undress after abandoning the camp. All clothes of two men who were found almost naked were on damaged persons - someone ripped it from dead bodies to wrap those who was not died yet.
14 July 2008, 5:07 amHaflidi:
The difference between my speculations and those of UFO‘s are that cold war hysteria, post WWII trauma and panic exposure to cold are all very much real while existence of intelligent aliens have yet to be proven. If it happened during middle ages the „orange spheres“ would be a proof of witchcraft. Why not that?
14 July 2008, 5:27 amdstalker:
For me, UFO is only “unidentified flying object”, not intelligent aliens or anything else.
14 July 2008, 5:36 amAdits:
Paradoxical undressing occurs with hyPOthermia (overheating), NOT hyPERthermia (freezing) which the victims suffered from. Lack of basic fact checking and shoddy research makes the rest of your investigation suspect.
18 July 2008, 12:39 pmAndy Kaiser:
Adits,
I’m not sure where you’re doing your own fact checking, but I think you’re incorrect: hyPOthermia is freezing and hyPERthermia is overheating. The above reference to paradoxical undressing is correct, though please correct me if I’m missed something so I can improve the article.
Thanks,
Andy
18 July 2008, 2:02 pmdstalker:
Right, paradoxical undressing is a rare symptom of hyPOthermia (freezing), but again, no facts to say about it in the case of Dyatlov’s group.
18 July 2008, 2:15 pmkklement:
Three facts seem very strange for me:
1. There were 2 groups of bodies.
2. One group was half naked, the second
not.
3. First group spent some time at the edge of the wood - long enough to try set a fire.
Did all of the victims die in the same time ? Did they all leave the tent in the same time ?
18 August 2008, 3:48 pmdstalker:
kklement:
1. Exactly, 4+2+1+1+1 - a group of four, of two, and three separate bodies
2. Two were undressed after their deaths to help damaged fellows with clothes
3. Yes, it’s an important point - as it follows from (2), the two were died before the four (of which three had fatal damages). But they were near the fire (the four were not), so their quick death of hypothermia looks strange. As for what they were doing at the edge of the wood - it looks like they maintained the fire as a mark to help others getting together.
>Did all of the victims die in the same time ?
Obviously, not (see 2)
>Did they all leave the tent in the same time ?
18 August 2008, 11:53 pmBy the traces near the tent, yes. Probably something was happened on their way to the wood that led to dispersion of the group (and, probably, damages of some people)
kklement:
Publication of entire files of investigation would be very helpfull for reconstruction of this accident. But it could be so:
1. Something ( let’s call it factor 1 ) causes panic and leaving the tent.
2. All 9 persons run to the wood.
3. Four of them is still in panic, they run deeper in the wood.
4. Something ( factor 2 ) causes their massive injuries and death.
5. Five stay on the edge of the wood, they aren’t in panic, but still affraid to come back to tent.
6. Attempts to set fire and warm themselves with it failed. They start to die of hypothermia.
7. Faced with death 3 survivors begin their walk back to tent. But it is to late for them. They die, one by one …
And somethin about radiation. As we today know, in ‘50ies SU authorities paid no attention for safe handling with nuclear materials ( for example detonations in atmosphere near of the cities in Kazakhstan or even over an army of 40 000 soldiers - just for curiosity, how it affects living humans ). Sverdolvsk was of the centers for nuclear reserch, wasn’t it ? And Sverdlovsk was the point, where the group members met and started their voyage ? So is it possible, that some of the victims had contact with radioactive contamination before ? As I read in materials, not all of the victims clothes were radioactive contaminated ?
19 August 2008, 7:07 am