Dyatlov Pass incident

[Dowly]

Heya,

I remember we had small discussion about the incident few years back in another thread, so decided to start own topic for it.

Stumbled upon this site last night. Seems to have some pretty good info about it.

Page 1 - Overview, purpose of the trip, the skiers and timeline

Page 2 - Different theories on what might have happened, observations

Page 3 - Answers to common questions about the incident, clears some of the myths surrounding it


Discuss.

[CCIP]

Very cool read!

I think given the number of questions, rather than answers, raised by this, it's kind of hard to come up with a definite answer here. Without those answers, certain theories are just convenient fragments that match up...

Personally, I would lean towards the "Attack by Mansi natives" theory as most rational. I'm not really convinced about the others holding too much merit, and the UFOlogical explaination is just a little too convenient here.

[Dowly]

I think given the number of questions, rather than answers, raised by this, it's kind of hard to come up with a definite answer here. Without those answers, certain theories are just convenient fragments that match up...

True, mostl likely we'll never know what happened, but it's always nice to see what other people think happened.

Originally Posted by CCIP

Personally, I would lean towards the "Attack by Mansi natives" theory as most rational. I'm not really convinced about the others holding too much merit, and the UFOlogical explaination is just a little too convenient here.

At first I was leaning towards the avalance theory, but then again (according to the site) there had been no avalances in the area that anyone knew about before or after the incident. Also, the first bodies found were in the surface IIRC, guess they should've been buried under much more snow if it had been an avalance.

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

From my brief flick through the site I would guess at one or more went beserk, through the onset of hypothermia (confusion, irrationality and amnesia are just some of the symptoms) or some hallucinogen. This scared the others so much they fled and unfortunately didn't make it very far.

I've seen this theory around on other forums discussing the incident. The flaw with it seems to be that the bodies were found together, meaning they fled and stayed as a group (for a short time atleast).

[CCIP]

For the military testing and UFO theories, I kind of wonder about...

-The types of injuries are not really something you'd expect from weapons testing - more than anything, they seem like blunt, brute force attacks, and military weapons would not cause that. Likewise, it seems like the injuries are far too random and not incisive enough for any sort of "alien abduction" - it honestly seems that if they were attacked by someone, the intent was to knock out and kill them.

-The radiation evidence is pretty shaky - again, there's questions left about that, but it seems like "trace" amounts found only on a couple of the bodies but not the rest could just be a kind of red herring. In theory, it could be just clothing exposed to radiation in the past. Heck, it might even have had to do with what they did in university, which by the way we also don't know. And we don't even know what kind of radiation it was. However I think it's kind of logical to assume that trace amounts of almost any sort of radiation are probably not that outlandish in normal life.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by CCIP

For the military testing and UFO theories, I kind of wonder about...

-The types of injuries are not really something you'd expect from weapons testing - more than anything, they seem like blunt, brute force attacks, and military weapons would not cause that. Likewise, it seems like the injuries are far too random and not incisive enough for any sort of "alien abduction" - it honestly seems that if they were attacked by someone, the intent was to knock out and kill them.

-The radiation evidence is pretty shaky - again, there's questions left about that, but it seems like "trace" amounts found only on a couple of the bodies but not the rest could just be a kind of red herring. In theory, it could be just clothing exposed to radiation in the past. Heck, it might even have had to do with what they did in university, which by the way we also don't know. And we don't even know what kind of radiation it was. However I think it's kind of logical to assume that trace amounts of almost any sort of radiation are probably not that outlandish in normal life.

I would go with this as well. Two fractured skulls. A tongue cut out. Perhaps to silence this person. I would say these people were attacked and herded to a spot. Killed after a while. I think the radiation traces is just there for some good mystery telling.

[Dowly]

Read the page 3, it gives answers to many questions.

The tongue wasn't cut nor ripped out, it had decayed.

The radioactive material was found only on one coat and it was only on the surface of it (isotope K40 stuff IIRC without looking).

[CCIP]

Well, in light of another big story of the past day - the big stampede in Cambodia - it's also not unreasonable to imagine that this could have been case of irrational panic or violence. It's plausible that at some point in the night, they or one of them were terrified or otherwise provoked by something (be it a jet aircraft or an argument), which resulted in a panic/confusion/derangement. Maybe one of them freaked out and killed the others, but was also fatally injured by one of the other victims in the ensuing incident. Things like that also happen, especially on cold nights in the middle of nowhere - I think more than anything, strange environments like this can really throw people out of rational balance.

Either way, you can't discount psychological phenomena in this, either. The human mind is a strange place and can really throw very strange behaviours into the mix. The fact that this was a group of university students alone in the Urals, at night in the middle of winter speaks volumes about that!

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I would go with this as well. Two fractured skulls. A tongue cut out. Perhaps to silence this person. I would say these people were attacked and herded to a spot. Killed after a while. I think the radiation traces is just there for some good mystery telling.

The tongue situation is explained on page three - the body was found two months later and the tongue and other mouth cavity parts had been consumed by micro-flora/fauna. I don't think soviet dental hygeine was great.

The people were found in three seperate locations. Those with chest injuries were found in a ravine - a fall is quite enough to explain them. The fractured skulls may have occurred at the same time but the *lucky* recipients strong enough to climb back towards their camp.

The (residual) radioactive material is potassium, and can quite easily be explained as a foodstuff, scientific residue, fire extinguisers (old), livestock feed... the list goes on.

As for UFO, well, maybe it was a US weather balloon launched from somewhere just West of LA

[Herr-Berbunch]

From my brief flick through the site I would guess at one or more went beserk, through the onset of hypothermia (confusion, irrationality and amnesia are just some of the symptoms) or some hallucinogen. This scared the others so much they fled and unfortunately didn't make it very far.

But whether I'm right or not, we'll never know

[AVGWarhawk]

Very interesting. I would go with the attack Mansi Natives as well. As far as the radioactivity in the area.