http://www.e1.ru/fun/photo/view_album.php?id=32891&pic=0be80dc044fde21be34d49bedcd2e333&page=4#top

lots of good pictures there.

Maybe, but that all seems less probable than a UFO coming down, aliens attacking the tent, shooting 3 of the group with some kind of force beam that sends them flying into a ravine, then heading over and taking a nice self-contained tissue sample (or trophy?) then taking off again, the thrusters of their ship giving the horrified onlookers bright orange skin and gray hair.

This leads me to believe it was some type of military testing.

- Was the direction of the supplies though the trees?

- What was in the supplies?

Can anyone clarify?

Also, does one, even in total hysteria, and even moving downhill, run 1.5ks before regaining one’s wits?

In the middle of the night, due to the snowstorm, the tent falls in on the sleeping people. Somebody screams as they wake, others wake, disorientated, panicked, restricted by the fabric, and start screaming too. The people, unable to find the entrance of the collapsed tent start tearing their way through with whatever comes to hand. Hysteria takes over. They assume that something has attacked the tent. They run the kilometer and a half to the tree line, and then begin to gather their wits.

They are still afraid; some think the tent was under attack, some don’t, and some are unsure. To calm the hysteria, a couple builds a fire. They say, ‘Hey yesterday we built a storage area and left supplies there, and it’s just a little further down in the valley. You people who are least clothed stay here by the fire and keep warm, and four of us with the most clothing will hike a little further down the valley, get some warm material for you, and maybe even some supplies to fix up the tent we destroyed.’

The four go off, but in the darkness, they fall into a ravine. One is knocked unconscious, three sustain fractures or broken bones. They all can’t climb out and die. A wolverine comes along and eats a tongue. Eventually four meters of snow builds up on top of them; the pressure further damaging the bones, making it look like an extremely high force injury death.

Back at the tree line, the five freaked-out fire people begin to realise that the storage supply group is not going to return. Two of the fire group have now died from hypothermia whilst waiting. The remaining three take their clothes and start heading back towards to tent , but they have waited too long and they’re too cold and exhausted and they’re lost and they drop as they make their way back up hill.

Granted, this theory doesn’t explain orange tan, grey hair, orange spheres, and radiation. So let’s maybe say that the mortician messed up the skin and hair, the area had previously been used for atomic testing well before they arrived maybe, and the other campers were lying about the orange balls.

why did they evacuate so quickly they did not dress for the cold? they needed to be out so fast that they cut the tent open destroying their only shelter? What would make someone evacuate so quickly? Besides environmental reasons(earthquake, tornado, etc), wikipedia lists other reasons to evacuate as “Other reasons include: * military attacks, * industrial accidents, * nuclear accident * traffic accidents, including train or aviation accidents, * fire, * bombings, * terrorist attacks * military battles * viral outbreak”.

Did anyone exit out of the regular exit in the front? Anymore photographs of the crime scene?

I have some thoughts on why the group was separated. People naturally look to the leader for direction and understanding during a disaster, and the leader must meet these needs or the group will form their own thoughts. If Igor Dyatlov was also in shock or without any understanding of what was happening that could explain why the group was so split up.

Also, people cluster in areas of perceived value. What was valuable about the wet pine tree? Only a view of the tent they fled? Maybe there wasn’t a view, but they were scouting for the tent? Maybe the proximity of the wet pine tree to the tent has no meaning at all. Perhaps the wet pine tree was simply taken advantage of by chance, after all they were 2 kilometers away from the tent and freezing. How close by was the dry kindling?

–Is it a reasonable assumption that they probably ran the majority of the 2 kilometers before wandering to the tree as a landmark?? That is an awful long run. That would use up a lot of their energy needed to stay warm.

Maybe the leader suggested “We should just stay together by the only visible landmark for now, the forest.”. Following that suggestion, someone tried to start a fire and keep warm with the closest tree nearby where he was informed he must stay during the evacuation?
Maybe that was the easiest thing for a group sent out to scout for their tent to find when they return with clothing etc?

–Would the small tent 2 kilometers away even be visible (even if it wasn’t snowing)?? I don’t think being 5 meters up in a tree would make a bit of difference at that distance

Looks as though they were making an attempt to return. Which brings me back to wondering just what the hell caused them to evacuate their tent in such a hurry they would leave behind the appropriate clothing and even ignore the directions back??

In order for someone to be content evacuating an area they must be constantly reminded of why they left. Especially if the area they evacuated to(outside of the tent in the cold without clothing) is very unfavorable. They must have had a continuous reminder, especially with the constant nagging of their freezing bodies.

Where was the ravine in relation to the forest, the 2 frozen on their way back to the tent, and the tent? The last 4 survivors found in the ravine were wearing clothing from the other 5 deceased. This means that the forest almost 2 kilometers away could have been their first resting point after evacuating the tent?

Another question I must ask, the article states “It seems that those who died last removed clothes from those who died first. The clothes all contained high levels of radiation.” Is this implying that The only clothes with high levels of radiation on them were the clothes taken from the first 5 deceased?
Also regarding the two who were found frozen to death as they returned to the tent: Their clothes were taken by others after they deceased? Maybe they were the first search party sent out to find the way back to the tent and return with their goods?

—What other reasons are offered that the victims behaviors indicate blindness? The article gives using the wet wood for fire as an “example”, This suggests there is other examples?

If you have any responses or anything you’d like to add PLEASE do!

>It was noted that the skin tone of the hikers had turned orange.
I think this might have been caused by some kind of shockwave that caused small bloodveins under their skin to ripture. It might also have been post mortem. I do not know if this is at all plausible, I am not a forensic specialist, but it seems reasonable to me.

If there was a blast that caused the trauma and it was nuclear in nature it would account for:

- The seemingly blindness of the victims (being unable to tell directions etc)
- The radiation levels.
–> The fact that their clothes were now a radioactive source -it suggest they received fallout (which again can be postmortem). Logically: they’re dead, so it probaly was before they died.

The fact that the bodies remained intact points to a high altitude detonation, such tests release less fallout the higher the explosion takes place. That other people 50 KM south of it also noticed orange spheres in the sky would also be easy to explain. A high atmospheric test would be visible from afar.

Radiation poisoning can have a wide range effects on a human depending on the dose. But it can sap people of their energy and in a hostile enviroment like that, with really low tempratures, i have no problem seeing how it would kill you.

If we assume they fled their tent at first and ended up at the edge of the forest, where the first people died, and assume it was night when they arrived there, they would have been able to survive into the morning if they all got together, cuddled up and shared their clothes, maybe even with some protection from the wind.

If they were already a few hours into the night, they would have made it, found a way out. Instead they all died in the same area. Which is why I think they were already sick from radiation poisoning.

In that time, there were a lot of tests going on. People knew little about all the dangers and goverments would throw a nuke for as little as wondering wheter it would show up on radar. in 1959 there was a global spike in fallout levels- more tests, so the likelyness of this catastrophe being a weapon test are, IMO, very high.

At some point during the night, there is a heated argument between this girl and some other particular member of the team - the dispute turns violent inside the cramped tent; which is cramped enough that she cannot quickly exit by conventional means, so being cornered and out of options she frantically slices her way out and runs outside, followed immediately by her attacker, and not far behind the entire rest of the team, doing their best to calm/resolve the situation.

Dyatlov quickly places the flashlight atop the tent thinking that the chase won’t take more than a hundred yards or so and then everyone will promptly return to the tent. This point is crucial - had some large event taken place that caused the entire team to flee as in an emergency, the team leader would have without question taken the flashlight with him. He instead left it as a short-distance beacon.

The chase drags out for over a mile until the girl can run no farther, and the attacker finally is upon her with a knife (perhaps her own) and proceeds to remove her tongue. The team then wrestles with the attacker in complete darkness, which results in four of the group falling into a ravine and dying instantly.

The remaining five now have no idea where they are, and immediately plan for survival; They quickly build a fire and set up an impromptu camp. There are a few different ways the story can progress from here (the least experienced stayed behind and the most experienced tried to trek back, some died quickly so the remainder then left for the tent, etc), but in the end, they simply didn’t know how far they were from the tent, or even what direction they were in relation to it, aside from “downhill”. This would indicate that it was dark enough that they couldn’t see their own footprints in the snow.

I’d attribute the snow on the one side of the tent to be a simple snow drift on an unmaintained tent. It’s clearly not enough to be a small avalanche, and even if it were, the team wouldn’t have run that far.

The radioactivity that was found wasn’t enough to cause burns or even create a symptom of its being present, which would indicate that it was very low-level, which could be attributed to anything; In an era where pottery and watch-faces were highly radioactive, having an article of clothing that registers modestly on a Geiger counter would probably not be so unusual.

The orange skin and white hair would most likely have something to do with the mortician - even if their hair were white when they arrived, the mortician would have the option to dye it. That he didn’t would indicate some error or aesthetic taste on his part.

After a google search, it looks like the area is inhabited by brown bears, wolverines and lynx. Any of these three would be more than enough to scare the crap out of a bunch of sleeping campers IMO. Bear prints would have been noticed at the campsite, so that can be ruled out, but wolverine prints would probably have been expected in the woods where there was a bunch of fresh meat - therefore ignored.

“Wolverines, as other mustelids, possess a special upper molar in the back of the mouth that is rotated 90 degrees, or sideways, towards the inside of the mouth. This special characteristic allows wolverines to tear off meat from prey or carrion that has been frozen solid and also to crush bones, which enables the wolverine to extract marrow.”

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

First of all, I doubt the weight of snow piled onto a corpse would selectively break certain bones and not flatten the entire body. After all, we’ve found corpses frozen in snow from thousands of years ago with no major skeletal damage. This makes me think though, you wouldn’t have any hemorrhaging or bruising if the soft tissues were frozen at the time of the breaks, would you? A scenario in which somehow the bones were crushed after death and freezing might explain that unusual circumstance, however I think this is something they might have been able to determine in autopsy.

Secondly, the scavenging animal or tissue degradation theories might explain the tongue loss, but these seem inconsistent being that only one of the party suffered from this type of trauma. As others have mentioned also, the eyes seem likely target for a scavenger, and nothing was noted about that that I have read. It seems to me that, again, a thorough autopsy should have revealed whether it was even possible for the girl herself to bite off her own tongue. Since this was not mentioned in the information I’ve read, I can only assume it was ruled out by the extent of the damage. As Igor mentioned above, apparently the entire oral cavity had been removed. If the tip of the tongue, or even half of it was cleanly sheared with teeth marks, that would answer the question, but I have not read anything to indicate that.

Next, it’s important to establish a timeline of events, and all possibilities of a timeline. Perhaps the group at the tree did indeed go deeper into the forest, but came back to that point later? If we had some maps of where the bodies were found we might be able to establish a clearer route of escape. At this point we don’t even know if they all left the tent at the same time or not.

I like the reasoning that Dan presents, that these were definitely experienced hikers who were more aware of the dangers present in that environment than probably any of us are. This alone lends a lot of weight to the argument that it was not simply an avalanche that moved them from the tent. However I would argue that when faced with a wave of snow, the natural instinct (whether logical or not) would probably be to run as fast as possible, and that would lead you down the slope. Any life-threatening situation would probably lead you in the same direction with the same intent, though, so an avalanche again seems less likely. Also I would imagine an avalanche would have been detectable by the search party, and would absolutely have covered tracks around the tent that they found.

The lack of facts and evidence here is painful. I wish I could read Russian and could dig deeper into the information, or contact those who might have first-hand accounts of the rescue effort. I think it’s important this information be gathered as quickly as possible, as no doubt these surviving witnesses are getting on in age and we may not have that option in a decade or so.

Final thoughts.. it strikes me that perhaps some of these people may have been awake a moment or two prior to escaping from the tent. I doubt my first reaction upon being awoken by an atmospheric nuclear blast or a UFO or a yeti or anything would be to immediately flick open my knife and cut the tent apart. Most theories I’ve seen seem to conclude that it was some kind of mad dash immediately upon waking up. I think if I were woken up in a tent by noises outside, or perhaps even a plane overhead, I might rouse enough reasoning to grab my knife or some matches, and I think that’s something to consider. Perhaps they had some time to quickly collect themselves prior to the urgent need of escape. Also I really can’t help but feel that our information on the state of the bodies is just too shoddy to make any real conclusions. I wonder if it’s possible to track down some kind of coroner report, or as others have mentioned, military testing records from the time. There’s just too much of the picture missing, even parts of it that the investigation at the time should have filled in.

I think the only answer is - there was some evidence that made those things absolutely impossible (doesn’t worth even a testing) for people who visited this place at this time.

fact 1. I don’t have any experience in winter mountaineering but I’ve been through a few ‘crisis situation’ in my life - situation when you think you are in potentially fatal danger. Regardless of that threat being real or only perceived, my experience is that a person with right ’survival instincts’ - by this I mean a psychological profile that enables one to think clearly in such a situation - immediately starts to focus on the tasks of surviving the most immediate danger at hand, period.

fact 2. We don’t know what age the rest of the group was, only that of Dyatlov (23), but I think that it’s fair to assume that they were probably all in their 20s. This means that IF they were all experienced ski hikers - which they had to be, considering that this trip was a cat. III hike in January - they must have started practicing wilderness skills at a juvenile age. This means that they had tremendous experince. They were also in their physical prime. To sum it: young, experienced, well-prepared, both mentally and physically. As for their equipment, IMO it didn’t play any significant role in their demise.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that the 3 deaths of physical injuries were caused by falling into the ravine they were found in. What they were doing isolated from the group is a good question, but we leave that there now. Still, 5 of them were presumabley in good condition, a mere kilometre or so from the tent. Of course, surviving in -20 centigrade without clothes is questionable, to say the least; still, we have no reason to think that they were in bad shape right after arriving at the pine tree where they stayed. The most, no, the only logic action after this is to get back to tent, period. Few of them had no adeqate clothes at all, and even those with warm clothes were in risk of dying of exposure before daylight sets in, especially if conditions were windy, which obviously speeds up the loss of body temperature. I myself have been in the mountains at winter only a few times and have never been in such a situation, but I would know it. That’s just simply how it works! The sole thought in Dyatlov’s and the other’s mind must have been: ‘Get shelter. Now.’ And still, they waited untill they froze to death; with all their experince and skills.

Avalanche? Let’s suppose they were running from the avalanche when they left the tent (although according to dstalker they chose the worst possible direction to run from it, it might have been caused by disorientation, spur of panic etc.) I don’t no nothing of avalanches, but I am dead sure that I would try to get back to my tent before I dye of hypothermia, even if it is 99 pert cent that I die from the next avalanche! Also, it is hard for me to concieve that avalanches come like this, continously, wave after wave, for hours on.

What I try to point out is the chilling fact that for all their youth, their strength, they simply didn’t dare to go back to the tent. They were so terrified of something that they chose certain death instead of trying to get back - or, it took them so long to gather courage to try and return that by the time they did it was too late. And it must have taken hours. They tried to make a fire instead walking 1000 metres! And they should have simply follow their footprints in the snow. As for visibility. Anyone who has been outside at winter when everything is covered with snow knows that very, very little light from the moon and stars is enough to see quite well, that is, visibility even with a new moon should have been at least 5 meters, more than enough to see their footprints and find their way back. On the other hand, if it was overcast, than it took way more time to die for hypothermia, because with overcast temperatures are generally higher and obviously there’s no strong winds. Also, the rescue party which arrived weeks later had no difficulties following their footprints which to my thinking nullifies the possibility of both avalanches and a blizzard.

We might never know what did they encounter that night, but it must have been profoundly shocking. Nothing is further from me that it was paranormal, UFO, yeti or whatever; but that they DID perceive it as the most dreadful thing conceivable seems quite certain to me. Just imagine Dyatlov there, staring into the dark, with all his sane mind urging him to go back to the tent and save himself - and even more his comerades in underwear - and still being unable to do so. Those people, out there that night, were frightened to death - quite literally.

Sorry me for naturalistic details, but the corpses found in May were in very bad condition - semi-decomposed, in fact. They had been frozen, then unfrozen and were in water under the snow for a long time.

It’s unsurprising that some tissues were missing.

I’m not fully buying your thing about the missing tongue. If an animal had been scavenging the corpse, there would be other signs of that. Eyes missing, for example. Most small scavengers go straight for the eyes. Scratches to the lips that did not bleed.

I guess it’s *possible* that she bit her own tongue off. Such things have happened. If there was some sudden and horribly concussive blast right while she was talking or had her tongue out then it could happen. Biting one’s tongue completely off rather than just badly hurting it is extremely unusual but possible.

You’re right on about the cutting of the tent and the missing clothes. But I don’t think that any of this actually gets us any closer to understanding what caused the injuries that both directly and indirectly caused these people’s deaths. Just saying ‘a weapon’ is so vague as to be useless.

“One of the clues I picked up over the years from studying the USA cattle mutilation mystery is that tongues and rectums are removed from the animals. This is possibly to study the tissues, as the soft tissues of those organs absorb radioisotopes & are easier to study for traces of biological contaminants, IIRC. The inference being that the mutilations are done by earthly organisations studying radiation damage or other biological traces.

If there were some military test gone awry, say an explosion of a flying device whose aerial blast injured some of the skiers and frightened the rest, and that device was in some way reliant upon nuclear power, then the hasty cleanup operation by the military might include the removal of a tongue in order to study the radiation levels absorbed by the victim.”

Maybe they climbed the tree (if it was an avalanche they were avoiding) to escape it and one of the branches was cracked off at 5m, maybe that caused the skull crack as well???
just a thought.

The tent entrance had been opened.

The torch had NOT been lighted up.

They picked probably the worst direction to escape avalanche - down its potential bed, along a large hollow - this looks strange for experienced mountain hikers (an avalanche flows like a river and fills all lows). To be safe of avalanche they could move back to just 100m from the tent - up to the ridge they had crossed before camping (between Kholatsyakhil and mountain 880).

>exactly who was wearing shoes
Only one shoe is mentioned - wearing by Slobodin (a felt boot, another from the pair was in the tent). Some others mentioned wearing socks (wool and cotton), shoes of few people are unknown (not mentioned).

>whether the ‘underwear’ was really something quite substantial like long-johns
Yes, shirts and long-johns

>to what degree the tent was buried when it was found, and exactly what was buried
10-15cm, buried more in the middle (this part of the tent had been fallen)

>whether the 4 bodies were found at the bottom of a ravine or on flat ground
in the stream of water filled the ravine under the snow

the sad fact is we are a band of very determined and interested people that will sadly never get to the bottom of this. ideally we could all go back to the following day and conduct the investigation ourselves. but it aint gonna happen.
I say a relatively standard mystery with a few very odd variables thrown in that keep us guessing no matter how logical the explanations are.

a final note. personally i believe an avalanche to be a good a reason as any to suddenly flee the tent. keep in mind these people wldnt have collectively thought, as we have, of crazy indian warriors or horrific weapons that night so an avalanche would be as scary as anything.

im rambling obviously but as i said before as soon as you reach a conclusion on this u instantly forget about the radiation, etc, etc. very odd one indeed.

hopefully we find out one day. sorry for talking c**p for so long.

by the way some of you guys are quite good thinkers.

The 4 bodies that were “crushed” were found buried under 4 meters of snow. The weight of all that snow crushed their bodies slowly over time.

Bingo.

I sympathise, there is a real darkness to this tale; the stench of the bogey man. What horror could have driven those people out into subzero cold?

But an event we know so little about, where our grasp of what happened is so tenuous, what can we hope to learn by attempted resolution?

I was struck by the statement (earlier in the thread): “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…”

But those people are doing exactly what all you guys are, trying to fit the darkness of the unknown into a system they can understand; be it, UFOs, mountain madness, nuclear testing, the evil pixie folk; or whatever. That ‘magical thinking’; ‘fraid its here to stay, and we’re all guilty of it.

Sometimes the unknown is aptly named. As for “accepting reality as it is” (a lovely tautology faking profundity), THAT would be quite a trick…

To abuse a quote of Wittgenstein:

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”

1. It is probably safe to assume the Dyatlov was a pretty sound leader; at only age 23 there were 10 people in his party and he was sensible enough to leave one behind when she got ill.

2. If we accept that the tent was slit open from the inside, then there must have been a compelling reason for not using the entrance. Given Dyatlov’s experience, it is probable that one hazard he was very aware of was avalanche, and if, say, one side of the tent including the entrance suddenly collapsed under a weight of snow, it is very likely he wouldn’t just sit up and say ‘huh?’; he would instead tell everyone to get the hell out straight away. There’s only one torch, half the tent is buried so not everyone can find their shoes, the side of the tent is slit and everyone tumbles out in confusion before they are completely buried.

3. What caused the snowfall? From Google earth it appears the camp was in a gully of snow, and that the slope is compatible with 15 degrees, although the quality of coverage in this area is poor. For all we know a freak chunk of snow broke off from an edge higher up the valley and rolled down the slope and hit the tent with sufficient weight to fool Dyatlov into thinking there might be an avalanche taking place.

4. After everyone was out of the tent, all is quiet; but Dyatlov decides they had better get away as quickly as possible in case there is another slide. On Feb 2 1959 the moon is only 4 days from new moon and only rises at about 23h30, and it may have been overcast; so it is probably pitch black. Dyatlov realizes that if they leave the tent they might never find it again, so he marks it with the torch. Then he tells the party to head for the trees, which he believes is just a few hundred meters down the slope; if they run, they can cover this in just 2 minutes. Yes it’s cold, and some of the party may only be wearing socks, but perhaps the snow is dry powder and everyone is full of adrenalin, so they think they can do it with no problem.

5. They reach a tree and stop, waiting for further action from the avalanche. Now everyone starts to cool down, and those who haven’t got shoes are feeling the pain of cold feet. Dyatlov’s first priority is to get some heat; fortunately someone has matches and because it’s pitch black and the shoeless don’t want to walk any further, they get the nearest wood from up the tree and try to make a fire. However, it doesn’t burn well because the wood is wet, and 5 of the party are seriously under-dressed.

6. In the meantime, Dyatlov is waiting for further avalanche noises, but nothing happens; he waits for as long as they can bear the cold, and then decides two things: someone needs to go find good wood for the ones who can’t move because their feet are frozen, and he needs to risk going back to the tent to dig out some clothes and shoes. Two of the party decide to accompany Dyatlov, perhaps because he needs them to help dig, perhaps because they want to get to some warm clothes as soon as possible, perhaps because they would rather exercise to keep warm than try to keep warm by a smoldering fire. Four of the better dressed members of the party agree to head off to find dry wood; they rely on whatever light the existing fire provides to find it again, and perhaps they take a burning stick to provide light; it is still pitch black.

7. Dyatlov’s party run into trouble. They are already hypothermic, they are now walking uphill so the going is much harder, perhaps they loose sight of the torch or get stuck in a drift. Perhaps Dyatlov’s respect for avalanches has caused him to loose too much time and heat waiting, perhaps the wind has picked up or is now in their face, perhaps one of the party falters and Dyatlov stops to help. There are many possible reasons why his party is overcome by cold.

8. Those who elected to be part of the wood party distribute clothing to best effect. Then then set out, intending to go just 20 meters or so. But perhaps they were unlucky and the big tree is isolated, or they miss the nearest trees; for whatever reason they ill-advisedly stray 100 meters from the tree and then run into trouble. It is pitch black and the only light they have is from burning brands and matches. Perhaps one of their party falls into a ravine - they are found under 4 meters of snow, so we can guess there must have been near an edge or a gully. The others try to help and suffer similar fates. Remember, it is pitch black, and nobody can see what’s going on, and once they have lost their light, which perhaps happens when the leader falls, then they are lost. Perhaps more than one falls in the first incident, perhaps the accident is more drawn out. A fall of 4-10 meters onto rock or branches is more than enough to break ribs, or strike a jaw with sufficient force to remove half a cheek and sever a tongue.

This is all speculation, and unfortunately we don’t have enough information to confirm it; like exactly who was wearing shoes, whether the ‘underwear’ was really something quite substantial like long-johns (which is what I would expect); to what degree the tent was buried when it was found, and exactly what was buried (the photo indicates snow on the tent, but could this have been wind-blown over a few days?); whether the 4 bodies were found at the bottom of a ravine or on flat ground, and so on. But like most tragic accidents it was probably an accumulation of little incidents and risks that each in themselves were not fatal, but were collectively lethal. It doesn’t take bad leadership, or panic, or stupidity; just bad luck.

As for all the business about classifying the investigation etc, I can easily imagine the following scenario: “Comrade! There is radiation in their clothes!” (maybe it is only 4 x background, we don’t know). In 1959 _anything_ to do with radiation is a state secret, so everything gets classified Just In Case. The army are sufficiently irritated by the whole search & rescue flap that they persuade someone to declare the area out of bounds. Documents filed away are lost or eaten by rats or get moldy and are tossed away. So much for the grand conspiracy.

The orange orbs? Well yes, there’s always a UFO hovering about whenever anything strange happens, and always some codger who will tell you all about it 30 years after the event. Maybe Dyatlov lit off a distress flare, although I don’t think that likely.

“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.”

That makes me cringe… Because of this, however, it baffles me more than any other detail about this tragedy. It would take a great force to pull out a tongue like that. And if it WAS a scavenger, which I doubt, why then was her face not damaged on the outside?

In reply to Jenn: paradoxical undressing is not caused by some sort of hysteria. It’s caused by blood vessels in the body’s extremities expanding and allowing warm blood to flow back into them. This causes the very real sensation of the body heating up significantly. The undressing is caused not by a temporary hysteria, but by a real increase in temperature coupled with, perhaps, a lack of clear judgement.

The fact that some of the people were dressed, while other weren’t would seem to suggest that those who were dressed were not in such a hurry to leave the tent. Perhaps some left (after getting dressed) while others stayed in the tent. Those in the tent later fled for some unknown reason, without dressing.

However, it seems odd to me that the group would sleep in just their underwear. If temperatures were so low, would one be able to sleep comfortably in just one’s underwear? I don’t know enough about sleeping in cold climates to give any definitive answer, and would welcome input from those with more knowledge.

The orange skin and gray hair seems quite unremarkable to me. I think the explainations proposed in the article are quite credible.

The missing tongue cannot be attributed to scavenging animals. The tongue is hardly the most accessible of body parts, and why would an animal choose to eat the tongue, eat only the tongue and only the tongue of one person? The tongue being bitten off by the woman herself seems the only plausible explaination. Perhaps she had some sort of convulsions? Or perhaps the force that broke her ribs also pushed her jaw down on her tongue?

Ignoring the dry brushwood could perhaps be because of a lack of light. Presuming they left the tent at night, leaving their torch at the tent (as igor said), they may not have seen the dryer wood.

The broken ribs and damaged skulls, without any outside wounds, would suggest a very strong, blunt force. I think this is compatible with the idea of an explosion nearby or overhead.

At the end of the day, the people’s actions once the left the tent can be explained fairly well with a few small, but not crucial, holes in the story, caused by a lack of information or alteration of the facts over the 50 or so years since it happened.
To me the big question is why they left the tent. Weapons tests? But what kind of weapons tests would make them decide they’d be safer outside the tent than inside it?
They were experienced skiers who knew the dangers of hypothermia, and the decision to leave the tent could not have been taken lightly.

#1: Exactly, there is evidence of rational behavior aimed to collective survival.

#2: It’s unsurprising. Some pines simply have no branches below 5 meters or so up.

An interesting fact noticed by a searcher: the branches were stripped from the side directed to the camp and it looked like a “window” has been cleared in the branches. Maybe, the pine was used as a watch tower to observe what is happening on the place they escaped.

#3: “Blindness” has been supposed only because of the fact they strangely ignored the brushwood around (weak evidence, IMHO)

>I just found this article, and it seems to have more info than anywhere else

Nah, it’s just a compilation of the Wikipedia article plus excerpts of an interview with Yudin. IMHO, Wikipedia was a most full and accurate source on this question in English (however, the article is greatly shortened now)

A futile waste of time really. Aditionally, no good reason to doubt the findings of the inquest have been given. Granted the funeral reports sound a little overblown, but the real evidence is there.

Summary

In general, you have not the expertise or cogent evidence to claim such as you are, and as a skeptic (defined for convenience: “one who does not accept judgements without sufficient evidence in favour of it”) myself I’m going to consider this still a mystery.

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=25093

#1: If paradoxical undressing was indeed a factor, why then did they (some) still somehow have the presence of mind to start a fire? If they were suffering from that level of dementia, it isn’t likely that they would pick and choose what to do/not do…

#2: Also related to lighting a fire, I read that the branches of the tree were stripped up to five meters above the ground. How the heck was this accomplished? If they were desperate to warm themselves, wouldn’t they have stripped branches from the lowest point first? If so, they wouldn’t have had anything to climb up to get to the higher branches. And conversely, why start stripping branches five meters up? It doesn’t make sense.

#3: If they did climb and strip branches, then they were defiantly not blinded. And if they weren’t blinded, they would have seen the dry (or at least dead) kindling and branches all around them, and used those to start the fire instead of live branches that won’t light very well.

#4: Some people have said that stories have changed over the years being passed down. But this happened a little under 50 years ago, not 500 years ago! I’m sure it is documented first hand somewhere, and some family members who saw first hand are probably still around to confirm what they saw. I don’t see why we shouldn’t believe the families and rescue crew when they said the skin was orange, and the hair gray.

I am not sure why I am so fascinated to know the facts with this story. Is anyone interested in translating the page to which Igor referred above??? I’d love to read more of the facts, because I am about to give up on speculating, and I am going to live forever curious…

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 ?