Quoi qu'il en soit, les skieurs ont quitté la tente en toute hâte, sans prendre la peine de se retourner pour prendre de quoi tous se couvrir, et se sont dirigés vers le bois proche, probablement dans l'intention de faire du feu pour se réchauffer.

Puisque deux d'entre eux sont morts d'hypothermie à côté d'un tas de bois, il semble évident qu'ils n'y sont pas parvenus. Cela peut expliquer pourquoi trois d'entre eux sont morts dans une position indiquant qu'ils cherchaient à retourner vers la tente : sans doute allaient-ils chercher des vêtements plus chauds et/ou de quoi allumer le feu.

L'ancien enquêteur en chef est persuadé que les boules lumineuses observées dans le ciel cette nuit-là ont un lien avec la mort des skieurs et la volonté des autorités d'étouffer l'affaire. Pour lui, il est possible que l'un des membres du groupe ait aperçu une sphère pendant la nuit, ait réveillé les autres puis que la sphère ait explosé alors qu'ils couraient vers le bois voisin, causant les graves blessures retrouvées sur les corps.

On February 2nd, 1959, during the cold winter on Kholat Syakhl ("Mountain of the Dead") in Russia, nine intrepid ski hikers decided to do what they do best, which is ski hike, whatever the hell that is. On February 26th, the first of their very dead bodies turned up. Man, who would have thought such a tragedy could strike on "The Mountain of the Dead?"


But it was the discovery of the campgrounds that added the icing to the creepy-as-fuck cake. The ski hikers' tent was shredded. The skiers were scattered around the grounds wearing either very sparse clothing or just their underwear. Three of them were found with crushed ribs and fractured skulls, but no visible defense marks or other signs of a struggle.

Oh yeah, and one of the bodies was missing a tongue.

In case you weren't already on the phone with Mulder and Scully, trace levels of radiation were supposedly found on their bodies. The official statement on what happened was about as vague and ass-covering as possible, saying it was caused by an "unknown compelling force." In laymen's terms this means, "fuck if we know."

The story has become an internet sensation over the years, with many people blaming aliens, and then ghosts, and then the yeti, or possibly all of them working in tandem.



The Obvious Answer:

So there's six things that freak people out about this one:

1. The no-tongued woman

2. A mysterious orange tan on the dead bodies

3. The ripped tents

4. The hikers' lack of clothing

5. The crushing damage done to three of the hikers

6. The traces of radioactivity

The big fact that gets lost in the re-telling of this story is that the bodies weren't found until weeks later. It's not like somebody turned their back, then five minutes later all their friends were dead and half naked.

That makes the missing tongue a lot easier to explain. As disturbing as it may be, the first thing a scavenging animal is going to go for is probably the soft tissue of an open mouth, especially if it still smelled like the burrito the hiker just ate. Laying out in the sun surrounded by white snow for days also accounts for the weird tan.

The trauma and the destroyed tent points to an avalanche. Their state of undress can be explained by paradoxical undressing, a known behavior of hypothermia victims when their brains start to freeze and malfunction. In other words, it's the kind of behavior you'd expect from a group of injured avalanche victims wandering around in the middle of the night in the freezing cold.

What about the radioactivity? Or stranger details that turn up in some accounts, like orange lights in the sky? Well, there's the fact that none of that stuff turns up in the original documents from the incident, and appears to have been added later by people who just can't resist making things spookier than they are.

It's those later accounts that have stuck in the public memory, because so many of the original reports were destroyed (this was the Cold War-era Soviet Union, which treated casserole recipes as state secrets).

So none of the details on their own prove anything other than a tragic hiking accident. The conspiracy-loving public widely reject this, too busy lighting their torches and getting their pitchforks to go hunt down an, "unknown compelling force."


Otherwise known as "snow."

Autre chose : je crois qu'il serait intéressant d'insérer, à la fin de chaque article, un lien vers le sujet du forum dans lequel le sujet de l'article est discuté.

Peut-on penser que l'un des skieurs ait pété un câble pendant la nuit, déchirant la tente ou devenant très menaçant, ait contraint ses potes à quitter la tente le plus vite possible. Ils ont couru où ils pouvaient dans la neige et l'obscurité, se séparant et se perdant pour finalement mourir d'hypothermie.
On dit souvent que la peur décuple les force (je ne sais si c'est vrai ou si c'est un adage), la folie pourrait-elle faire de même ? Le fou aurait donc pu tuer ceux qui ont des fractures étranges...

The evidence is scanty so the best we can try to do is come up with scenario(s) that do not require anything highly implausible, and are therefore the most probable.

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.