They had cut their way out of their own tent
from the inside, their personal items and even a fresh meal perfectly laid out and ready
to be eaten. They fled in a panic, most shoeless and some
without even socks, and with none of their cold weather clothes despite the temperature
being -13 degrees (-25C). A few hundred yards away, two bodies were
found. Several hundred yards past them, two bodies
were discovered under a tall tree clothed only in underwear. One of the bodies had third degree burns and
a chunk of flesh from the right hand was in its mouth. All bodies found were covered in bruises,
cuts, and scratches. The rest of the bodies wouldn't be found until
months later, and the shocking details only deepen what is the greatest mystery to ever
come out of the Soviet Union Late January, 1959, and a group of nine college
students and recent graduates are embarking on the trip of a lifetime. The group is made up of experienced hikers
and skiers, but they've plotted a route that no Russian had ever taken. The trip would take them on a sixteen day
trip across the Urals and through territory of the native Mansi people. It would be a grueling ordeal, exposing the
group to bitterly cold temperatures and high winds, but the route avoided the dangers of
trying to cross mountains in winter by sticking to the lowlands. The trip would require great endurance, but
the group of young Soviets was well-prepared for the ordeal
The Ural Polytechnic Institute's sports club had sponsored the trip, brainchild of Igor
Dyatlov, who could have no way of knowing that his name would go down in infamy as he
dreamt up the expedition. Right before leaving however, the university
administration mysteriously added a new member to the expedition, Semyon Zolotaryov. At thirty seven years old he was fifteen years
older than most of the rest of the group. A hardened World War II veteran covered in
tattoos, Zolotaryov cut an imposing figure. His inclusion to the trip is never explained
by the university, despite suspicions that Zolotaryov was actually KGB. On January 23rd, the group leaves for Sverdlovsk,
their jumping off point for the expedition. Using personal journals and one communal journal
discovered with the remains of the tent, investigators are able to piece together a very detailed
picture of what happened in the days leading up to the mystery that would claim all their
lives. Photos recovered from the group's cameras
painted a perfect picture of a young group of happy-go-lucky college students and grads,
out on a grand adventure. As the group nears Sverdlovsk, Yuri Yudin
has a painful flareup of sciatica. The crippling pain forces him to abandon the
trip, much to the group's dismay. Yudin hugs his friends goodbye, having no
idea he's just cheated death. On January 28th, the group heads off into
the mountains. They are never seen alive again. Eight days after the group's expected finish
date, frantic family members and loved ones begin calling the university and local bureau
of the Communist Party. Search parties are immediately sent out, assisted
by local Mansi hunters. Fellow students, prison guards, police, and
even the Soviet military join the hunt for the missing trekkers. Five days later one of the search parties
stumbles onto one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century. The group's tent is discovered on February
26th, after following their ski tracks for a full day (use photo: https://i.insider.com/602daf9f42b84000192f4188?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp). The tent is above the tree line on a mountain
the Mansi called Kholat Syakhl- or Dead Mountain. It's partly buried in snow, and most mysteriously-
all of the group's equipment is still neatly laid out as if they had just settled in for
the night. Ski boots and equipment is stacked by the
door to the tent, and even food is laid out as if about to be eaten, completely untouched. What's not found is a body. Even more mysteriously, the tent has been
slashed open on one side. Police wonder if someone slashed their way
in for some reason until a seamstress visiting the police station where the tent is stored
stuns investigators by pointing out that the tent was cut open from the inside. That would explain the missing bodies. But what in the world could cause nine healthy,
strong Russian hikers to slash their way out of their own tent, apparently in such blind
terror that they left behind all of their vital cold weather clothing, including boots? Further investigation of the scene revealed
the trackway of the hikers as they made their way to the tree line below. The prints clearly show that almost all of
the group had not put on their boots as they fled the tent, and some were walking barefoot. The prints continue for several hundred yards
until they vanish at the tree line. There amongst the trees, two bodies are discovered
under a tall tree. The bodies lay next to the remains of a small
fire, and yet mysteriously they are clothed only in their underwear. Even stranger, twelve to fifteen feet up in
the tree investigators find bits of torn skin and clothing on the trunk, along with some
broken branches. One of the bodies has blackened fingers and
third degree burns on the shin and foot. Inside of the mouth is a lump of flesh bitten
out off the right hand. The other body has burned hair on one side
of the head and is wearing a charred sock. Next, investigators find two more bodies back
up the slope facing the direction of the tent It's clear these two were trying to make their
way up back to the tent. A fifth body is found a few days later, also
apparently trying to get back to the tent This one is found with a small fracture on
the skull. All of the bodies however are covered in cuts,
bruises, and scratches. Investigators are now assuming a homicide
has taken place, yet none of the evidence points to the presence of anyone not from
the original group. No murder weapons are found, and no signs
of foul play. Toxicology reports come back clean. Investigators hope that the discovery of the
four missing bodies may help shed light on the mystery. They would be wrong. As the snows begin to melt, a Mansi hunter
discovers the remains of a makeshift snow shelter two hundred and fifty feet from the
tree where the two burned bodies are found. Inside the shelter is bedding made out of
branches, along with black cotton sweatpants missing one leg, and the left half of a woman's
sweater. Authorities begin to probe the snow in a search
for the bodies, and soon discover the four missing bodies buried under ten feet of snow
on a rocky streambed. One of the bodies has a head injury so severe
that pieces of bone have been driven into the brain. Two others have crushed chests and multiple
broken ribs. One has a hemorrhage in the right ventricle
of the heart, another is missing its lips, and a third is missing the eyes, tongue, and
part of the upper lip. The medical examiner remarks that the injuries
would be similar to what would be expected if the bodies had been found at the scene
of a bad car crash. The bodies are also discovered to be wearing
pieces of clothing removed or cut from the five bodies discovered earlier, indicating
these four survived longer than the five first found. Greatly deepening the mystery, several of
these clothing items emit very high levels of radiation, and a radiological expert testified
that as the bodies had been exposed to running water for several months, the original radiation
levels must've been much higher. The investigation is abruptly closed on May
28th. The original intent had been to determine
if a homicide had taken place, and whatever happened to the group of nine, it was clear
they had not been murdered. At least not by anything human. Independent investigations are immediately
launched, with dozens of different theories offered on what exactly happened to this group
of seasoned hikers in great physical shape up in the Ural mountains. What could possibly have caused nine people
to cut their way out of their own tent, flee into a raging blizzard with no cold weather
gear or even shoes, and then be discovered with high levels of radiation, broken and
mangled bodies, and third degree burns? Theories fly wild and free. One investigator discovers burn marks on several
trees and concludes that some sort of heat ray was used on the hikers. He backs this conclusion up with reports from
locals of having seen strange balls of light in the sky in the area. The very last photo in one of the group member's
camera is of strange flares and streaks of light against a black background- though this
is common of the final photo taken with a film camera. The possibility that the group was attacked
by a Yeti is also raised, as one of the other group member's photos shows a dark, hulking
figure amidst some trees. Yet no tracks except for the group's are ever
discovered. Perhaps the Americans did it. Why was 37 year old Semyon Zolotaryov attached
to the expedition at the last minute by the University? His service record contains large gaps indicative
of someone who likely was in fact working for an intelligence agency such as the KGB. Could the group have run afoul of CIA operatives
or American mercenaries, after a deal gone wrong with Zolotaryov? The most popular theory however is that the
group inadvertently wandered across a test of a secret Soviet weapon. It's believed that some sort of missile launch
went wrong and rained debris down on the tent, forcing the group to flee. That would explain the third degree burns
discovered on two of the bodies, and perhaps even the presence of a potential KGB agent,
perhaps attached to the group to monitor them as they passed through a secret military testing
site. Yuri Yudin, who was forced to abandon the
trip due to his sciatica, would go to his death claiming that the group was removed
from the tent at gunpoint and killed- either by American CIA agents or the Soviet military. Now however, we finally know what really happened
on that fateful night in 1959. In 2019 the case was reopened for investigation,
and Andrei Kuryakov, a prosecutor, was put in charge. Using photogrammetry from the original investigation's
photos of the scene, his group was able to better estimate the real location of the tent
several hundred feet from where it was originally believed to have been located. This would prove crucial to understanding
what happened that night. This new location placed the tent on a much
steeper section of the mountain. Weather reports from the night in question
show that winds had been gusting at up to sixty five miles per hour (105 kph), with
temperatures at minus thirty degrees. Photographs from the hikers show that they
had cut deep into the snowpack at a right angle to the slope as they pitched their tent,
trying to shelter themselves from the incredibly strong winds. What would normally be a smart survival move
would prove to be fatal. The group's cutting into the snowbank had
inadvertently weakened the entire snowbank. As the blizzard raged, additional snow was
heaped onto the structurally weakened snowbank. Sometime in the evening, the snowbank gave
way, and a three-foot thick slab of snow slammed into the tent from above. With up to a thousand pounds of snow smashing
down on the skiers, immediate injuries would have been severe for those in the most unfortunate
locations inside the tent. The incredible weight would have also prevented
the group from getting to most of their gear, but even more importantly the sudden shift
in the snow would have triggered an instinctual fear familiar to every mountaineer in the
world- avalanche. This would explain why the hikers cut their
way out of the tent and fled into the night, downhill and towards the tree line. The suddenly shifting snow would have appeared
to them as the beginning of an avalanche, and their only hope of survival would have
been amongst the trees. There was simply no time to retrieve any clothing
or cold weather gear. The group eventually took shelter under the
cedar tree where two of the bodies were discovered. They built a fire, but somebody was forced
to climb up the tree to find dry branches nearer the top, explaining the skin and bits
of clothing found on the trunk. With massive wind gusts however, no fire could
warm the ill-equipped group, and it would not have taken long for two of them to succumb
to hypothermia and die. The third degree burns discovered on the body
could have been from a desperate attempt to get warm, or from falling over into hot coals
after death. The flesh discovered in one of the corpse's
mouths was likely a result of delirium, the individual biting savagely into his own hand. The seven survivors then cut the clothes off
their two dead comrades, explaining why they were found in their underwear. The group now split up, with three of them-
likely the strongest- heading back up the mountain to the tent to attempt to retrieve
their cold weather gear and supplies. At this point the group likely realized an
avalanche was not coming, but in the driving snow and dark of night, there would have been
little hope of them finding their way back to the tent. Thus the three froze to death on the slope
of the mountain, only a few hundred yards from the salvation of warm clothing. The other four decided to build a snow survival
shelter and huddle for warmth, likely to wait out the night and seek out the tent in the
morning. However, the group hit yet another stretch
of bad luck, as the spot they picked to dig lay right above a stream. This particular stream doesn't freeze in winter,
and instead hollows out a deep tunnel under the snow and ice through which it flows. As the group dug down into the snow, they
accidentally breached the tunnel causing it to collapse. The four fell to the stream below and were
buried under fifteen feet of snow, the crushing weight of it causing the injuries discovered
on the bodies. From here, scavengers discovered the bodies
and ate the various missing parts of the corpses' faces. This still left the mystery of the high levels
of radiation though, but that too could be solved with some background info on the skiers
themselves. One of the hikers had actually worked at the
site of the world's third worst nuclear accident, the Mayak nuclear complex. An explosion of radioactive waste had spread
a plume 200 miles north into the east Urals. This hiker had even helped with the cleanup,
and one of the other hikers lived in a village inside the contaminated zone itself. High levels of radioactivity would thus be
likely amongst the personal clothing of both these individuals. The explanation has not satisfied everyone,
but to date remains the most realistic and plausible explanation of what happened to
the nine hikers on that fateful night in the Urals. Ultimately, the only people who know the truth
tragically died in the prime of their lives, and if the Soviet government was truly involved
then they've kept the secret of their deaths for sixty years.
