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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In January 1959, nine Russian hikers went on a trip of a lifetime. They laughed, they joked, and they shared stories.
Little did they know this would be the last good times they ever had. The hikers went up Dead Mountain, but never returned. Months later, their remains were found, but some of the victims were missing their tongues and eyebrows. What exactly happened on Dead Mountain that fateful day? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 176, The Dyatlov Pass Incident. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Thank you so much, Zachary S., for becoming the show's newest supporter. To support Forensic Tales, please visit patreon.com slash Forensic Tales or simply click the link in the show notes. You can also support the show by leaving a positive rating with a review. Now, let's get to this week's episode. In late January 1959, nine Russian hikers went on a trek of a lifetime.
23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, a recent college graduate, led the group of seven men and two women into the Ural Mountains, a mountain range that runs through Russia from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural in northwestern Kazakhstan. The group was on their way to one of the mountain's peaks, but they never made it. And the events that took place between January 25, 1959, and February 1, 1959, were not
would become one of Russia's most enduring mysteries. Spawning conspiracy theories like military cover-ups, UFO sightings, abdominal snowmen attacks, radiation fallouts from secret weapons tests, and much more. But with so many wild theories, what actually happened during the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident? What does the forensic science tell us?
Can forensic evidence help put some of these conspiracy theories at ease? Can the facts finally answer the infamous question, what happened to this group of very skilled Russian hikers? The group initially consisted of 10 highly experienced hikers who were, with one key exception, all students and recent graduates of Ural Polytechnic Institute.
The odd man out in the group and was the only one who wasn't a student or recent graduate was a 36-year-old man. Not only was he the oldest in the group, but he was also a last-minute addition. All hikers in the group were very experienced and had spent many hours on the mountain. Everyone was an experienced grade 2 hiker with Sky Tour experience, and when they returned from their trip, they would have all earned the grade 3 certification.
This meant all were experienced hikers because at the time, grade 3 was the highest recognized certification in the Soviet Union. During the first few days of the trip, the hikers traveled by train to the city of Ivdel. After that, they hopped on a bus and headed towards Vesey. Then after getting on a truck, they headed to Sector 41, a woodcutting settlement.
Their first stop before heading up the mountain was on a settlement called Nord 2. Here the group of hikers could gather, rest, and prepare for the grueling hike ahead. But this is also the place where the group experienced its first hiccup. One member of the group suddenly decided to turn around and go back.
He wasn't feeling well and decided that he didn't want to slow down the group. His knee had been bothering him for weeks before the expedition, so he wasn't sure that he could keep up, especially on the more difficult parts of the trip. So he decided to head back and allowed the other hikers in the group to carry on as planned. From there, it was only nine hikers in the group.
Throughout the first few days of the trip, most of the hikers kept diaries about their experience on the mountain. Some wrote letters and others documented the journey by taking photographs with their cameras. Most of them talked about how excited they were about the trip and how they looked forward to what was to come. By all accounts, the first few days were completely normal. Everything went as expected, but all of that was about to change.
Ten days into the trip, on February 1st, they set up a campsite for the night on the eastern ridge of Height 1079, a spot also known by the area's indigenous people as Dead Mountain. Moments after the group pitched their tents in Height 1079, tragedy struck. What exactly occurred has turned into one of Russia's biggest mysteries of all time.
The group was expected to return down the mountain sometime around February 12th. But like many expeditions, this was subject to change. They might make it down a few days early or a few days late. So no one was too worried when the group of hikers didn't make it down by February 12th. Most people just assumed they were running a few days behind schedule.
A lot of the hike relied on weather conditions on the mountain, so if the weather had turned for the worse, this might have caused a delay in their schedule. But then February 12th quickly became the 13th, then the 14th, the 15th, 16th, 17th, and there was still no word from the group. By February 20th, the group was over eight days late, and they still hadn't returned down from the mountain.
That's when some of the missing hikers' family members contacted the local police. They wanted a search and rescue team to be sent to the pass and see if they could find the hikers. But locating them was challenging. Not only did they have no idea where they might have stopped along their route, but they also had the weather to deal with. At the time, it was less than negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit on the mountain.
Over the next six days, the local police and members of the Russian army conducted searches. Helicopters and planes were brought in to search the route the hikers would have taken. But for six entire days, the searches came up empty. There was absolutely no sign of the hikers. Weeks after the group started their trek, one of the search parties found something. But it wasn't what anyone had hoped for.
On February 26th, they found the group's abandoned and badly damaged tents on the side of Dead Mountain, but still no sign of the missing hikers. Inside the tents, they found the hikers' boots, clothes, and maps. They also saw that some of their food looked like it had been laid out, like maybe they were about to sit down and eat right before something happened that forced them to get up.
But the most disturbing part was the tent itself. It had been slashed open from the inside, a sign that suggested whoever was inside the tent was desperate to get out. After rescuers found the hiker's tent, they followed nine pair of footprints in the snow. No, not shoe prints, but footprints. Prints made from bare feet out in the freezing cold snow.
The prints started from the slashed open tent and led the rescuers to the woods nearby. Then they eventually stopped at a large cedar tree at the edge of the forest. It's at the base of the cedar tree where they finally found two of the missing hikers, 21-year-old Yuri Dershenko and 23-year-old Yuri Krivoshenko. They had no shoes on and they were only wearing underwear.
Next to their bodies, the rescue team found evidence the two might have tried to start a fire. There were some burned branches nearby and a makeshift fire pit. Above their bodies on the tree were several broken branches. Like maybe they had tried to climb it, but couldn't get themselves any higher than about five meters off the ground.
Several hours later, the bodies of three more hikers were found deep in the snow between the abandoned tents and the forest. When they died, it was almost like they were trying to return to the tents. One of them was found about 300 meters from the tree, the other 480 meters, and the farthest one was about 630 meters away.
The search for the last four hikers continued for the next three months. For 12 long weeks, they searched everywhere. And they continued to hope that maybe, just maybe, the four remaining hikers had somehow managed to survive. But sadly, hope wasn't enough. In May 1959, three months after they abandoned their tents on the mountain, rescuers found all four of them.
Their bodies were at the bottom of a ravine near a shelter they'd attempted to carve out of snow, but their bodies were covered in nine feet of snow. All nine hikers were dead. Nobody survived. This group of hikers seemed to be more dressed than the others who were only in their socks and underwear, and some of them had more clothes on than others, suggesting they had removed the clothing from each other.
Maybe they removed them from those that died first. The bodies of all nine hikers were sent down the mountain for autopsies. And this is where the mystery surrounding their deaths really begins. The bodies of the first two hikers found in the forest had died from hypothermia. Not surprisingly, since the weather was freezing out there on the mountain. But both had very strange injuries not consistent with your typical case of deadly hypothermia.
Both hikers had burn marks and multiple cuts and bruises to their entire body. The three hikers found in the snow between the tents and the forest also had very strange injuries, including a fractured skull, although the fracture wasn't bad enough to be considered fatal. Then there were the four bodies found three months later. Their injuries seemed to be the most bizarre out of all of them.
Three of them didn't die from hypothermia like the rest. Instead, they died from fatal blunt force trauma injuries. One had major skull fractures and the other two had significant chest fractures. The one with the skull fracture had been struck in the head so hard that it caused the skull to cave in completely on one side.
According to the medical examiner, their injuries and fractures were consistent with being involved in a fatal car crash. Like the others in their group, they would have died long before hypothermia set in. But the injuries get even stranger. One of the hikers with a chest fracture also had what the medical examiner described as a, quote, deformed neck.
He couldn't explain the type of neck injury, which wasn't consistent with the other hiker's injuries. This hiker was also missing both of his eyebrows. The other two hikers who had chest fractures were both missing their eyes, and one of them was missing his tongue. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. A Russian prosecutor named Lev Ivanov carried out a criminal investigation into the hikers' mysterious deaths.
But his investigation into the case only led to more questions and widespread speculation about how the hikers died. According to the Russian prosecutor, quote, the cause of their demise was an overwhelming force which the hikers were unable to overcome, end quote. What was this so-called overwhelming force? How do nine incredibly experienced hikers suddenly die?
And how could none of them survive this quote-unquote overwhelming force? Then what about the mountain itself? When the search and rescue team got to the hikers' campsite, nothing about it made sense. Why was the tent cut open from the inside? And why weren't they wearing any clothes besides underwear and socks? And how do you explain the food and supplies left inside the tent?
It looked like whatever happened to them happened so fast that they didn't even have time to put on clothes or put the food away. Finally, what about the injuries? What type of quote-unquote overwhelming force causes fatal skull and chest fractures? And what about the missing eyebrows, eyes, and tongue? The Russian prosecutor assigned to the case couldn't answer any of these questions because
And the prosecutor's silence only fueled the fire about what people already thought might have happened to the hikers.
The silence from the Russian government led to wild speculation that ranged from serial killers, avalanches, animal attacks, secret weapons, a military cover-up, gravity, a fire in the tent, killer snowmen, UFOs, and temporary insanity caused either by drug abuse or infrared. Early on, people wondered if the hikers could have been killed.
But who would kill these nine experienced hikers in the snowy mountains? Well, the only people they could point to were the Monsi or the indigenous people who lived in the region. If the indigenous people from the area killed the hikers, there were two popular theories why they were murdered. First, the indigenous people didn't like the hikers being in their territory, so they killed them.
Or second, they were slaughtered to fulfill some sort of tribe ritual. In some of the hikers' diaries and journals recovered from their campsite, the hikers talked about finding writings in the area left behind by the indigenous people. They said they saw the writing on some trees and on the side of the mountain.
One of them wrote in their journal, quote, we often see Monsey signs on the trail. I wonder what they write about. Another wrote, quote, Monsey writings appear on trees, all sorts of obscure, mysterious characters, end quote.
So it wouldn't be too far-fetched to say maybe some of these Native people were in the area when the hikers were killed, and maybe they didn't like them in their area. Those who speculated that the Native mountain people could have murdered the hikers also say this theory explains some of the injuries, like why the eyebrows were missing or the eyeballs and tongue. So maybe the murders were related to a tribe ritual.
But this so-called Monsey theory has largely been debunked over the years. And the more we know about the case, the less likely this theory becomes. For example, there's been no documented case of the locals murdering hikers who pass through the area. And they don't have any rituals that involve murder or cutting people's eyeballs and tongues out. So the Monsey theory seems highly unlikely.
Another possible theory, and a popular one, was the espionage theory. Two hikers from the group have become the focus of this theory, and here are the details.
The oldest hiker in the group was 37 years old. He was the only one in the group in his 30s and much older than the rest of them. Most of the hikers were barely in their 20s and were recent college graduates. So he was considered by many as the odd man out in the group of all young, recently graduated college students. And it wasn't only his age that rang some alarm bells.
Initially, this man wasn't supposed to go on the trip. He was the last to commit to the expedition and joined only a few weeks before they left. So not only was he much older, but it seems strange that he suddenly decided to join the group of much younger hikers. Then there was the fact he was a World War II veteran. He was the only one in the group with any type of military experience or background.
So people wondered, what attracted him to this young group of hikers anyway? Another member of the group also supported this espionage theory. It was later discovered that one of the younger hikers had helped to clean up a radioactive leak at a secret Soviet nuclear facility a few weeks before the hike. This led people to wonder, did this secret job have anything to do with their deaths?
Did he discover something about the Russian government while cleaning up this radioactive leak that he shouldn't have? But the espionage theory doesn't end there. According to one theory, two, maybe three of the hikers were reportedly working for KGB and had joined the hiking group to meet up with CIA agents in the mountains.
While handing over radioactive materials and fake nuclear secrets, the Russians were supposed to take photos of the American CIA agents. And the theory goes that the American agents figured out what was happening and then murdered all nine of the hikers.
In 1990, the Russian prosecutor initially assigned to investigate the case released an article about the investigation that led to crazier theories. In 1990, the prosecutor said that he was ordered by the Russian government to, quote, censor his findings about the investigation. As a result, he claimed he was never allowed to tell the truth about what he uncovered related to the hikers' deaths.
And according to him, this is what he uncovered during his investigation. When the hikers' bodies were discovered, the original team of rescuers said they saw unusual char marks on the trees next to them. They said the char marks looked similar to burn marks. It was almost like the marks came from some sort of fire or laser.
In the prosecutor's own words, he said this discovery, quote, confirmed a source of heat ray that had been purposefully aimed at some of the hikers, end quote. But what could these char or burn marks actually mean? Well, this gave way to the following two theories, and they involved UFOs and the military.
According to the Russian prosecutor, floating balls of light and other weird sightings have been reported over the mountains in February. This was around the same time the hikers were on the expedition and when they died. And this also suggests that the prosecutor believed these floating balls of light might be related to UFOs in the area or it was aliens that might have been in the area.
But besides UFOs and aliens, it also gave rise to the theory that their deaths had something to do with the Russian military. Maybe the strange balls of lights in the mountains were the Russians experimenting with nuclear or chemical weapons. Some wonder if the hikers saw something they shouldn't have during their trip and the Russian military or government had something to do with their strange deaths.
But UFOs and the Russian military were just two more theories to add to the growing list of ideas. One of the wildest theories was that the hikers were killed by some wild mountain yeti or some type of killer snowman. Here's some of the evidence that support this rather outlandish theory.
After the hikers were found, the authorities went through all of their personal belongings to see if they could find any evidence suggesting how they might have died. They went through everything, all of their journals and diaries, their cameras, all their bags were searched. And when they went through one of the hikers' cameras, they found a very strange image on it.
In the photograph, some people believe a strange, dark-looking figure is in the background behind a tree. And if you look close enough, the eerie, dark figure looks like a yeti or some type of snow figure.
Although nothing else can really be seen in the photograph, some people argue the hiker must have taken the shot because they saw the Yeti or this dark snow figure. Because why else would the hiker bring out his camera and take this seemingly random photograph? Nothing else was in it besides this blurry dark figure behind a tree. But the weird picture wasn't the only fact that gave rise to this Yeti theory.
The authorities found something else in the hikers' possessions. They found a parody newspaper article the hikers wrote sometime during their expedition. Somewhere in this article contained the line, the Yeti lives in the northern Urals.
While most people would assume this was simply a joke, other stories in the newspaper, though, were exaggerated accounts of things the hikers actually did. So those who believe in this Yeti theory believe and they argue that because they wrote about actual events in this mock parody newspaper, they might have actually seen this Yeti creature. And that's why they wrote about it.
So the theory goes the hikers saw the Yeti during their expedition. They wrote about it in this newspaper and then they were actually killed by it. One of the most popular theories is the avalanche theory. Simply put, the hikers were killed by a major avalanche that hit the mountain that night. Let's discuss the evidence to support this theory.
When the hikers' tent was discovered, it had a large cut from the inside, and all of their food and personal belongings were left out. This seemed to suggest that the hikers left the tent in a hurry. It also explains why they were found only wearing socks and underwear in the freezing cold snow. Maybe they didn't have time before they had to leave the tent so they couldn't put on any more clothes, not even their shoes.
So one of the reasons why the hikers were in such a hurry was because they heard or saw an avalanche coming down the mountain. And the fastest way out of the tent was to cut it from the inside. Once the hikers left the tent, they went in three separate directions. This is why their bodies were found in three different locations. This could also explain some of their injuries. Maybe the avalanche caused the skull and chest fractures.
But what about the missing eyebrows, tongue, and eyeballs? Could an unexpected avalanche do that? The most likely scenario involving an avalanche is that the hikers experienced a slab avalanche. Slab avalanches are formed by a sliding sheet of hard, dense snow sliding down the slope and are responsible for almost 90% of avalanche deaths.
On the day of their deaths, the snow at the campsite was six feet deep, and the hikers had to dig into the snow to set up the tent. Avalanches can happen on any slope, but are most common on slopes that are steeper than 28 degrees. Now, the slope immediately above the hikers' campsite was anywhere between 22 and 30 degrees.
But the terrain directly above the campsite was very rugged with boulders sticking out of the ground. So some people argue that the avalanche or an avalanche in that particular area would be extremely uncommon. Not impossible, but not very likely. There was also no evidence of a recent avalanche at the campsite where the rescuers found them or found their tent.
So not everyone is buying this so-called avalanche theory either. The full story behind this theory goes like this. Once the avalanche hit, the hikers slashed their way out of the tent in a hurry. The snowfall badly injured some of them, causing broken skulls and chest bones.
The ones who escaped with cuts and bruises helped the others escape, but they eventually got lost and either died of hypothermia or injuries from the avalanche. Another possible scenario is that all nine hikers survived the initial snowfall without any serious injuries, which could explain why there were no tracks in the snow suggesting anyone had been dragged or assisted.
But after that, two of them succumbed to the freezing cold temperature by the tree. Three froze to death while trying to get back to the tent, and four died down by the ravine. They were likely killed while trying to build a shelter in the ravine, but ultimately froze to death because they didn't have many clothes on. But again, what about the missing eyeballs and tongue?
Well, some people point to the large animals in the area. Those who believe in this avalanche theory argue that large animals could have gotten to the bodies, and it's the animals who picked the bodies after they were dead. Others say it could be decomposition. Since some of the bodies were discovered almost three months later, it's possible decomposition is to blame for the missing eyes and tongue.
Although the avalanche theory seems to be one of the most popular theories, it isn't accepted by everyone. Many people don't believe a major snowfall was responsible for their deaths. Instead, they believe in something far more sinister. The list of possible theories continues on. Serial killers, military cover-ups, drug overdoses, and so on.
In 2019, Russian authorities announced plans to revisit the incident, which they attributed not to a crime but an accident, most likely an avalanche, a snow slab, or a hurricane. The following year, in 2020, the Russian authorities specifically said they believe the hikers died from a combination of an unexpected avalanche and poor visibility in the area.
They might have survived the initial snowfall, but eventually died from snow and cold exposure because they couldn't find their way back to the tent. As the state-owned RIA news agency reported in July 2020, the official findings suggested that a torrent of snow slabs surprised the sleeping hikers and pushed them to seek shelter on a nearby ridge.
But because they couldn't see just 50 feet in front of them, they froze to death before they could return to the campsite. But there are many reasons why people are skeptical about Russia's official statement about what happened.
Number one, Russia isn't known for its transparency in the media. And number two, some people argue this explanation lacks, quote, key scientific details. Here's why some experts say it couldn't have been an avalanche that killed the hikers and why they say the forensic evidence supports a different possible theory.
According to articles published by National Geographic, two big pieces of evidence don't support Russia's official findings. Number one, there was no physical evidence of an avalanche at the hikers' campsite. If such a major snowfall forced them out of their tent that day, why wasn't there any physical evidence? And number two, the injuries.
According to National Geographic, the most common fatal injury found in victims of an avalanche is asphyxiation. Most people simply suffocate and are unable to breathe once they are buried underneath the snow. But none of the hikers died from suffocation. They either died from hypothermia, which is another common cause of death from avalanches, or they died from fatal head and chest injuries.
To challenge Russia's official narrative about an avalanche, two geotechnical engineers used historical records to recreate the mountain environment on the night of the incident. And based on the records, they determined that the entire event could have been caused by katabatic winds or fast-flowing funnels of air propelled by the force of gravity transported snow down the campsite.
Eventually, the accumulating snow became too heavy for the slope to support. This caused the snow slab to fall on the hiker's tent. These two engineers and researchers also found a possible explanation for the hiker's injuries. They believe that heavy blocks of snow could have landed on the hikers as they slept, crushing their bones and causing injuries not typically associated with an avalanche.
If this was the case, the two researchers suggest that those who had sustained less severe blows likely dragged their injured friends out of the tent in hopes of saving their lives. But there's one critical detail missing from these experts' theory about strong winds, and that's why the hikers were found with little to no clothing.
Jim McElwain, a geohazards expert at Durham University in England, told National Geographic, quote,
I can't understand why else they would have behaved in that way unless they were trying to flee from someone who's been tracking them, end quote. But other experts have a different opinion. According to one of the engineers who believed it was strong winds, the hikers may have left their clothes behind because they thought they were trying to save their friends. In the same article for National Geographic, he said, quote,
When the hikers decided to go to the forest, they took care of their injured friends. No one was left behind. I think it's a great story of courage and friendship in the face of a brutal force of nature. End quote. Although the Russian authorities have publicly said that they believe the nine hikers died from an unexpected avalanche, the mystery surrounding this incident still lingers.
Many people still consider the case unsolved even six decades later. The only fact everyone can agree on is this. Nine very experienced young hikers lost their lives on the mountain that freezing cold night in 1959. And nobody, not even forensic science, can tell us why.
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