Dyatlov pass accident
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Mysterious accident with death of 9 ski hikers in Northern Ural mountains. The accident was happened at night of February 2, 1959 on eastern shoulder of Kholat Syakhl (Холат Сяхл) mountain (the Mansi name which by strange coincidence means "The mountain of Deadmen"). The mountain pass the hikers group walk down has been named after the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov (Игорь Дятлов) - "Dyatlov pass" (Перевал Дятлова).
Due to inscrutable and extremely mazed circumstances, the causes of disaster are still unclear and controversial. Neither official inquest nor many attempts of unofficial enthusiastic investigations still gave no certain and unchallengeable answer what happened on the Pass at winter night of 1959.
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[edit] Travel
A group for the ski march across the Northern Ural was formed in Sverdlovsk (Свердловск), now Ekaterinburg (Екатеринбург). It involved 10 members (two of whom were the women), mostly the students of Ural Polytechnical Institute (Уральский Политехнический Институт, УПИ), now Ural State Technical University (Уральский Государственный Технический Университет, УГТУ-УПИ). The goal of expedition was Otorten (Отортен) mountain at 10km on north of the place of accident. This route in that season was estimated as III (highest) rank of complexity. All members were trained sportsmen experienced in long ski marches and mountain expeditions. For many of them (including Dyatlov himself) that march was an opportunity to get a higher degree in a sport graduation.
The group was arrived to Ivdel (Ивдель) city (the center of northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast) by train on 01/25 Then a truck drove them to Vizhai (Вижай) - the last inhabited settlement on the north. They started the march to Otorten from Vizhai on 01/27 The day after that, one of the members was forced to leave the team and go back because of health problems. So, the number of hikers had been reduced to 9.
Due to diaries and cameras which had been found in their last camp, it is possible to track their way down to the day preceding the disaster. On 01/31 the group arrived an edge of a highland area and begun to prepare for climbing. In a woody valley they built a storage for exceeding food and equipment which should be left here for the way back. On the next day (02/01), the hikers started to move through the Pass. It seems, they planned to get over the pass and make the camp for the next night on the opposite side. But because of worsened weather conditions, snowstorm and declined visibility, they lost a direction and deviated on west, upward to top of Kholat Syakhl. When a mistake got obvious, the group decided to stop moving and arranged a night camp right there, on the slope of the mountain.
[edit] Search
By agreement, Dyatlov should telegraph to their sports club as soon as the group returned to Vizhai. It was planned to do not later than on 02/12, but when there was no message received on that date, nobody of the club direction got worried. As they explained later, delays for few days were common in such expeditions. Only when the relatives of travellers had demanded for searching actions, the headship of institute sent few search groups of volunteer students and teachers (on 02/20). Later, the army and police forces with airplanes and helicopters were ordered to join the search groups.
On 02/26 the searchers found the abandoned camp on Kholat Syakhl. It was obvious that the camp was left hastily - the tent had been ripped from within so it looked like the inhabitants hurried so much so they had no time to open the normal exit. The chain of footsteps led down to edge of near wood (in 1.5 km north-east) but after 500m they were overwhelmed with snow. At the wood edge, under the huge old pine the searchers found remains of fire and first two dead bodies - shoeless and dressed in underclothes only. On the straight line from the pine to the camp the searchers found yet three corpses - they died in dynamic poses directed to the camp - as they tried to return to it. They were found at the distance of 300, 480 and 630 meters from the pine.
Searching of the rest four travellers took more than two months. They were found only on 4th of May under the snow of 4 meters in depth, in a stream valley farther in the wood at 75 m from the pine.
[edit] Inquest
A legal inquest had been started immediately after finding first five dead. A medical examination found no damages which might lead to death. It was defined that death of all came as a result of undercooling. One person had a little crack of the skull but it was not acknowledged as fatal.
An expertise of four bodies which were found in May changed the picture. Three of them had horrible fatal injuries - one had copious skull wrecking and other two had the whole chest fractures. The power which caused those damages should be extremely strong - an expert compared it with power of a car crash. Noticeworthy, the bodies had no external wounds - it looked like they were crippled by very powerful pressure.
Though there was very low temperature: -25°...-30°C and stormy winds, all dead were dressed only partially and inadequately. Some of them had only one shoe, while others were shoeless or had the socks only. Some people were found wrapped in snips of ripped clothes which seems to be cut from those who were already dead.
The inquest established that:
- The six of the group members died from undercooling and three from fatal injuries.
- There were no traces of presence of another people except for nine travellers on Kholat Syakhl and in adjacent area.
- The tent had been ripped from within.
- Traces from the camp showed that all group members (including those who were found crippled) left the camp by their own forces, on feet. It implies that the crippled persons had been injured after they left the camp.
- Fatal injures of three bodies could not be caused by another human.
- A radiologic expertise had shown high dosages of radioactive contamination on clothes of some victims (but the results of probing was not included into a final verdict).
The final verdict was that the group members died because of "unknown compelling force". The inquest had been ceased officially in May, 1959 by reason of "absence of the guilty party". The files had been sent to a secret archive. The photocopies of it got available only in 1989 but some parts were missed in copies and are still unknown. The bodies were buried at Sverdlovsk cemetery.
[edit] Some facts ignored by inquest
Some researchers pointed on the facts which were ignored by officials:
- As relatives told after funerals, skin of victims had strange orange tincture. They said also the travellers were completely grey-haired.
- Former investigating officer told in private interview that his dosimeter had shown a high radiation level on Kholat Syakhl. It was a reason to set the radiological expertise of the bodies. But there was no answer on a source of contamination.
- Another hikers group (at about 50km on south) reported that they saw the strange orange spheroids on the night sky on north (probably in Kholat Syakhl region) at the date of disaster. The similar "balls of fire" were observed in Ivdel and adjacent country continually during the February-March of 1959 by various independent witnesses (including meteorology service and military watch). The searchers of the bodies reported that they have observed the same ball above Kholat Syakhl at 03/31.
- Some things found near the camp were not identified as properties of group members.
- Some reconstructions of victims behaviour after disaster suggest that they probably got blind.
- One victim (a woman) had no tongue.
[edit] Mystics
- The local toponymics is full of mystics. Otorten (the goal of expedition) is translated from Mansi language as "do not go there", Kholat Syakhl (the place of disaster) means "the mountain of Dead".
- There is an old legend of Mansi (indigenous people of that area) that Kholat Syakhl had been named so after nine (!) Mansi men were died there in ancient times.
- This territory is acknowledged by local Mansi as "damned". They avoid to visit it for hunting or when they travel following their deer herds. Though, it is known that there were no any explicit taboo to visit this place (against the version that the travellers were punished by local people for pervasion into a sacral zone).
[edit] Versions
[edit] Weird things
The proven fact of UFO activity in this region, observing UFO's at the time of disaster and strange attributes of victims bodies (orange skin, radioactivity) causes the version that they were died as a result of contacting with UFO. Notesworthy, the officer who had prosecuted an initial inquest believed in UFO version and he advocates it up to these days.
Other "weird" versions are inspired by Mansi legends (or esotheric neopaganistic and "arian" occultism) and claim that the group was killed by magical evil spirit which had been avoked by travellers. Somebody also thinks it was a Yeti there.
[edit] Murder
All versions that the group had been attacked are facing with a strong counter-evidence - no traces of another people were found around the camp. There only two questionable things there: a sheath of an army knife and a piece of cloth like a soldiers greatcoat which were found near the tent and near the bodies in the stream valley. The survived companion of the victims (the one who had left the team at start) had undoubtlessly identified the owners of every thing and every piece of clothes found around there, but not of those two.
There are several versions on who the attackers might be:
- Mansi shamans who killed the hikers because of taboo violation (or for another ritual purposes). It seems to be completely wrong though it initially was the first version of the official inquest. As it was already said, despite of the dark legends neither Otorten nor Kholat Syakhl were the sacral or tabooed places. The peaceful Mansi people are very friendly to Russians and many of them helped to search the group (they are excellent hunters and pathfinders). And their beliefs are not related with ritual murders by no means (they are the Christians, by the way).
- Escaped prisoners. The SevUralLag at Northern Ural was a big part of the GULAG system. There were numerous labour camps around Ivdel and the nearest one was in Vizhai from where the group started its way. But this version seems to be quite wrong - no one will run away from the prison in sub-polar winter with 2-4 m level of snow and having no ski. The ski of travellers were untouched as well as their food, money and the bottle of spirit.
- The security guard of a secret experiment. There is a version that the hikers accidentally enter the zone of secret weapon testing or so and were killing for secrecy by a crew of special security guard.
- Wild animals. Seems to be quite naive and wrong. No one of them would run 1.5 km away because of the wood beast. Dyatlov's friends remembered that in another expedition he faced a bear and made him to go away.
[edit] Soviet secret weapon
The popular version is that the group had entered the range of experiments with a secret weapon or by chance got in an unscheduled accident with new weapon or spacecraft. Advocates of this version point to the known facts: strange light effects in the night sky, radioactive contamination, orange skin colour (which might come as a result of rocket fuel intoxication) and a level of secrecy around the accident. Few years ago the researchers found the ring of metal nearby. It looks like a rocket component, but some experts believe it was not so old as 1959.
The opponents mind that there were no traces of explosion or fire near Kholat Syakhl. There also no records of Soviet rocket launchings at that time. Moreover, there were no launching sites from which a rocket can reach Northern Ural (Plesetsk spaceport was ready to launch the rockets only in the end of 1959). It is doubtful also that the weapon experiment had been planned in a unarranged place, instead of a special safe ground (like near Semipalatinsk) provided with all infrastructure for observing and registering a weapon effect.
[edit] Avalanche
This version comes from the experienced climbers who criticized Dyatlov for picking a dangerous place for the last camp. They say that the slope of the mountainside where the tent had been raised was steep enough to be in danger of an avalanche. By this version, snow on the slope above the camp was affected by tent mounting. In a few hours it had slid down and closed the entrance to the tent. This explains why the people inside were forced to rip the tent to exit. The snow may have also had the power to cripple the bodies, but the rescuers mentioned nothing about traces of an avalanche near the camp. Moreover, it is unlikely that after the avalanche, the victims were able to travel 1.5 km to their resting place.
[edit] Books
- Yuri Yarovoi (Юрий Яровой) - "Of the highest rank of complexity" ("Высшей категории трудности"). The fiction novel of Sverdlovsk journalist who was involved into the search of Dyatlov's group and inquest. The novel was inspired by this disaster but had been written in soviet era when the details of accident were under high secrecy. So Yarovoi made no attempts to uncover anything on subject except for the facts well-known for everybody (though he undoubtlessly knew a lot). The book is full of travelling romantics and have a much more optimistic final than the real events.
- Anatoly Gushchin (Анатолий Гущин) - "The price of secrecy is nine lives" ("Цена гостайны - девять жизней"). The author concentrates on the variants of the version of "the secret weapon experiments".
- Anna Matveyeva (Анна Матвеева) in 2000 published the fiction/documentalistic novella "Dyatlov pass" ("Перевал Дятлова" :"Урал", 2000#12) on base of the available files of official inquest, diaries of victims, interviews with searchers and other documental material. The fiction line is a life of the woman (most likely, the alter ego of the author herself) who tries to resolve the mystery of that accident. Due to plenty of documental citation it can be a good start to learn more on the subject.
