Dyatlov Pass Incident

Secret Soviet death rays. Yetis. Aliens. Just what did slaughter nine hikers on Siberia's Death Mountain in 1959? In temperatures of minus 24! And mystery became horror when an inspection of the tent showed its front flaps still buttoned tightly together but huge knife slashes down the sides — through which the occupants apparently fled.

Inside was like the Mary Celeste, with everything intact — warm clothes, waterproof jackets, blankets and sweaters that would have been essential to survive in the Siberian weather; plus cameras, diaries and cooking utensils, all apparently abandoned in a moment of madness.

So began the story of what became known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident, one that has baffled the world for more than half a century since whatever horrific tragedy overtook the nine in February 1959.

They had been missing for almost a month after trekking out into the bleak wildness of the Ural Mountains — seven men and two women, all of them fit, hardy and experienced hikers on what was supposed to be a short and invigorating break from their graduate studies.

Haunting photographs from the film in their cameras show the happy and relaxed faces of good friends on an exhilarating adventure, capturing their journey by train, road and on foot to this desolate area.

They smile out fresh-faced and jolly from black-and-white snaps, rugged, healthy young people in the anoraks, plus-fours, waterproof galoshes and gaiters of the day, oblivious to what fate has in store for them.

When they failed to return, search parties went out, with every expectation of finding at least some survivors — hopes that were soon dashed.

The first bodies — frostbitten and frozen stiff — were discovered lying in the snow on flat land near a river, a mile from the tent, next to the remains of a long burnt-out fire.

Around 350 yards away lay the corpse of Igor Dyatlov, the 23-year-old engineering student from Ural Polyetchnic who had put the expedition together and was its leader. (His name would later be given to the area where the tragedy took place.)

Nearby, a search dog sniffed out the remains of Zina Kolmogorova, 22, under four inches of snow, and then that of Rustem Slobodin. The bodies were in a line 200 yards apart, as if they had been trying to crawl behind each other back up to the shelter of the tent, but never made it.

Another two months went by before the rest of the group were found, under 15ft of snow in a den they had desperately hollowed out for themselves before succumbing to the cold.

Some of this group had broken bones and terrible internal injuries but, strangely, no external wounds, not even scratches on the skin.

Stranger still, odd bits of their clothing contained higher than normal levels of radiation.

Indeed, post-mortem examinations of all nine bodies threw up a string of bewildering anomalies. Why were-some fully clothed, but others nearly naked? Most disconcerting of all was Lyudmilla Dubinina’s body, which was missing her tongue and eyes.

What had gone on in those dark and dreadful hours on the Mountain of the Dead? What had caused nine highly educated, young adults to plunge panic-stricken into the sub-zero night to their deaths?

The official Soviet investigator into the tragedy, Lev Ivanov, could find no answers. He concluded in his hastily composed report that all nine deaths had been caused by what he described as ‘an unknown elemental force which they were unable to overcome’.

Privately, he told people he thought they’d been killed by aliens in a UFO.

And that was where official investigations ended. Case closed. Access to the entire area was sealed off from prying eyes for the next four years, by which time the authorities believed this incident would have disappeared off the radar, as many strange happenings did in the old Soviet empire.

But the mystery never went away.

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