The Unsolved Puzzle of Dyatlov Pass: Here’s What We Know About the Mysterious Incident

Recent scientific findings may shed some light on what really went on with the missing hikers. However, we must warn you that their story contains some horrific elements that may upset some readers.

The hikers were found again eventually, but their bodies were frozen solid and covered in strange injuries. The more the search party found, the more confused they became. One thing was clear – this was not a simple case of getting lost and freezing to death. 

Each discovery should have brought them closer to the truth, but the opposite happened – the more they uncovered, the more confusing the scene became. A troubling question soon emerged in the minds of the rescuers: Who — or what — killed these young, fit, and highly experienced trekkers? 

Nine young, hardy adventurers were dead, and while Siberia is famous for its harsh environment, their camp offered none of the clues you’d expect to find. Instead, it was a place of strange and eerie anomalies. So, from aliens and Yetis to political espionage, conspiracy theories began to spread.

Well, that’s what the conspiracy theorists thought anyway, and they had no intentions of calming down. The Dyatlov Pass Incident soon became Russia’s most famous unsolved mystery, inspiring theories of abominable snowmen, secret military projects, and even evil arctic dwarves! 

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia released an announcement that thrilled the nation and conspiracy theorists the world over. They were launching a fresh inquiry into the deaths of the hikers to stop the “growth of rumors and establish the truth.” 

This is an incident that has been mulled over, analyzed, and debated for decades, not just by conspiracy theorists but also by respected journalists, scientists, and academics. Could the Russian investigators really figure out something these experts failed to catch? 

The photo you’re looking at was, from what the investigators were able to gather, taken the day before the hikers died. You can see how heavy the snow was and how exhausted they were. 

Though it seems crazy that a reenactment expedition guided by a Disney movie could solve a 63-year-old mystery, it seems those intrepid researchers may have stumbled upon the truth. There’s just one problem with the discovery they made – not everyone believes them. 

At that point, the hikers were eight days late, so it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that they were still alive. After all, they were in rugged terrain, so it wasn’t all that out of the ordinary. 

It seems the Indigenous Mansi people knew what they were talking about when they named the mountain. Soon after arriving, the search party saw that something had gone terribly wrong on Dead Mountain. 

According to Mikhail Sharavin, one of the rescue party members, “it was empty, and all the group’s belongings and shoes had been left behind.” Around the tent, they saw several sets of deep footprints, but there was something wrong about those, too. 

What could have driven the hikers to rip their tent open and abandon it? And, how on Earth did their deep footprints just disappear? The snow was equally thick everywhere, and it wasn’t like a snowstorm would have magically avoided the tent, leaving only those footprints intact.

The rescuers had no choice but to put their search on hold until morning. They set up camp and spoke in murmured tones about the strange discoveries they’d made – all while sipping on a flask of vodka they’d found near the slashed tent.

“Best not drink to their health, but to their eternal peace,” he apparently said. As it turns out, he was 100% right. When they resumed their search the next day, Sharavin and his colleagues had nothing but gruesome discoveries in store. 

This picture shows Yuri Doroshenko, who was only 21 years old at the time it was taken. To modern eyes, he looks like a man in his 50s. We put this down to the fact that he was a rugged outdoorsman who was partial to vodka.  

The broken branches stretched more than 16 feet up the trunk of the tree. Had Doroshenko broken them off? Or was it something else? Doroshenko and his companion, Krivonischenko, also had matching burns on the palms of their hands. 

In the picture above, you can see Zinaida Kolmogorova, who was 22 years old at the time of her death. She and her companions, Slobodin and Dyatlov, also succumbed to hypothermia.

As for the other four crew members, their bodies were not found until months later, when the deep winter snow had melted. They were in a far worse state than the first five, which only served to deepen the mystery. 

While the first bodies had been found in strange circumstances, the final four were in a condition that was nothing short of brutal. There was no question that something violent and unthinkable had happened to them. 

The oldest member of the expedition, 38-year-old Semyon Zolotaryov, had injuries that almost perfectly matched Dubinina’s. All three of these young people had died from their injuries, not from the cold. 

Though this sounds like the work of a Dahmer-esque serial killer, one of the examining doctors suggested that the injuries seemed to have been caused by a powerful blast of some sort. No one could come up with a rational explanation for the bizarre and brutal clues found at the site. So, after months of examining the bodies and combing the area for evidence, the government declared the cause of death to be “an insurmountable force of nature.”

In fact, the government secrecy only served to fuel the flames of conspiracy theorizing. Many experts settled on the idea that an avalanche had caused their deaths. However, an examination of the terrain revealed that this was highly unlikely. 

With no access to the records, conspiracy theorists went wild, suggesting it might have been a failed alien abduction, a Yeti attack, or some kind of bizarre gravitational anomaly. 

The problem with all these theories is that not one of them could account for all the evidence. The coroner made it clear that no human being, no matter how strong, was capable of inflicting the damage he found on their deeply traumatized bodies. 

The Cold War was well underway in 1959, so it isn’t beyond the scope of reason to suspect that the Russian government may have been using Dead Mountain for weapons testing. 

Meanwhile, the radiation may have been from the thorium found in the group’s gas lanterns. This left parachute mines as the most likely military explanation. Indeed, friend of the group Yuri Yudin was a vocal proponent of this theory. 

Snow experts, geotechnical engineers, and other relevant professionals used the new evidence gained to develop a fresh take on an old theory. Though Dead Mountain’s incline was not steep enough for a normal avalanche to occur, there was another possibility to explore.  

This is where Frozen comes into the picture — Disney gave the researchers access to the animation codes they used to make realistic snow scenes in Frozen. These codes enabled them to create a simulation of the slab avalanche, confirming that it would have hit with the force of a four-wheel drive.

The theory could also explain why the hikers ripped their tent open and fled without getting dressed. It may also explain the branches torn from the tree – perhaps they were simply trying to get a fire going to stay warm. As for the missing body parts, the scientists theorized that wild animals may have scavenged their bodies. 

The scientists behind this new theory do admit that the slope is only just steep enough to allow for the possibility of a slab avalanche. However, they’re convinced that their theory is sound. For many others, however, the fate of the Dyatlov expedition will forever remain an enigma.