Mystery of the Dyatlov group death

The most tragic and unclear riddles arose after forensic medical examination of last four bodies conducted by the forensic scientist Vozrojdenniy and pathologist Hans. They discovered that Kolevatov as well as previous five people died from freezing. But the other three victims had severe internal injuries which have not been identified during the external examination. Nicolay Thibaut-Brinyol had «…the depressed fracture of the right parietotemporal area in the site 9x7 cm in size… with dehiscence of the bone edges from 0,1 to 0,4 cm…». They have also found a crack in the base of skull 17 cm in size, as a result of a compression fracture (as concluded by the examination). Nicolay’s death was caused by these fractures having lifetime origin under cold weather conditions (they couldn’t discover the main reason because of tissues decomposition). In the right shoulder there was a diffuse bruise 10 by 12 cm in size on the anterior-internal surface against middle lower third of the shoulder.

Flooring excavation in a stream hollow (B.E. Suvorov is standing by the flooring)

The excavation in the site where the victims have been found (the flooring excavation can be seen in the hollow above)

From Zolotaryov: «… the fracture of II, III, IV, V, VI ribs is determined along the absternal and middle axillary line together with hemorrhage into the adjacent intercostal muscles… The death was caused by a multiple fracture of ribs on the right side with internal bleeding into pleural cavity in the presence of cold weather… The above mentioned multiple ribs fractures … were life-time and resulted from strong exposure on Zolotaryov’s thorax at the moment he was falling, was being squeezed or thrown back…»

And from Dubinina: «… On an external and anterior surface of the left hip in the middle third there is a diffuse bruise of cyanotic-lilac colour in the site 10(5 cm in size… with hemorrhage of thickness skin integuments… The size of the heart is 12(4(5. The right ventricle has the wrong oval hemorrhage 4(4 cm in size along with a diffusive impregnation of the right ventricle muscle… at the right there is a bilateral fracture of ribs II, III, IV, V along mid- clavicular and middle axillary lines, at the left there is a fracture of II, III, IV, V, VI, VII ribs along mid-clavicular line. There are diffuse hemorrhages intercostal muscles in the site of ribs fracture. The right presternum has a diffuse hemorrhage… Dubinina's death was caused by extensive hemorrhage in the right ventricle of heart, multiple bilateral ribs fracture, excessive internal chest hemorrhage. The described injuries could possibly result from strong exposure which has caused a heavy closed fatal injury of Dubinina’s chest. And life-time injuries are also a result of severe impact after which Dubinina fell, threw herself or injured her chest».

And as a result, all three victims had severe injuries: «Death of [surname] is violent».

The investigation was puzzled by the information provided by forensic medical examination. There was no explanation how these internal injuries have been done without any visible external damages in the load points. Prutkov, a skilled surgeon, didn't find these injuries when he conducted the external examination and palpated victims in Ivdel. One cannot understand how these injuries could arise from falling because the slope they went along didn’t have any abrupt faults and large stones. And falling from your own height cannot cause injuries of that kind. «Squeezing» or "throwing back"?.. What, why and how?..

The positions of victims on the slope of 1096 Kholatchal mountain

There were other questions which the investigation didn't find answers to. At first investigation was conducted by the district prosecutor's office in Ivdel, and then by the regional one in Sverdlovsk. The police didn’t take part in it. «Parallel» investigations at that time didn’t exist. Before 1961 the police didn’t have a legal mechanism of preliminary investigations; they carried out only operational search actions but did not investigate. KGB could take the case away from prosecutor's office but it didn't happen.

Initially the investigators from the prosecutor's office were looking for traces of criminal offense, but could not find them. They didn't find any credible evidences confirming the presence of any strangers in the accident site before arrival of search groups. The investigators interrogated all people who were near to the place of the accident, first of all, hunters and locals. According to these evidences the investigation followed the track of Dyatlov’s group on their way to the Second Northern mine.

The investigators quickly came to the conclusion that locals and hunters weren't involved in the tragedy. As well as there were no «strangers» next to the accident site. The hunters Anyamov and Sheshkin who saw the traces of «narrow» skis of Dyatlov’s group on the Auspia definitely said that they would know if there was someone. According to the evidences of hunters (in particular, Cheglakov and Pashin) when Dyatlov's group went along Auspia river they were following a hunter-mansi footprints who was trailing an elk. But then approximately at a distance of 10 km from the place of the accident they went separate ways – the hunter went aside following the elk’s trace and Dyatlov's group went further along the river.

Hunters and locals couldn't tell anything certain regarding the causes of the group death. But everyone pointed to the danger of strong winds on an open woodless top of mountain ridges. They noticed that on the ridge hurricane force wind is capable to freeze a person for a very short time if one cannot take a shelter in woods, in a hollow, i.e. in the place protected from wind. A forester Pashin said that when such winds were blowing he had to wait in the hollows up to 6 days being warmed by the fire. The hunters mentioned that the hurricane force wind could blow within 10 days and more atop, and some old residents noted that they knew the cases when people died from a strong wind in the local mountains. Ryazhnev, Dryakhlykh, Popov and others witnessed that at the beginning of February they observed unusually strong winds and frosts under 30 degrees. Therefore according to evidences of the locals wind played a fatal role in this accident especially taking into account visible causes of Dyatlov’s team death from freezing.

The investigation hasn’t found any objects by which Dyatlov’s group has been injured in such a strange way; nothing in particular didn't help to identify their cause. They failed to discover the place where the injuries have been made: atop, near the tent, on the slope or down in the woods. Vozrojdenniy has concluded that Dubinina could live no more than 10–20 minutes having her heart injured and this seemed to exclude the possibility of receiving any injuries in the tent zone. In fact, 8 or 9 pairs of footprints going down have been found, but it seemed obvious that Thibaut, Dubinina and Zolotaryov couldn't walk down injured like this. They also didn’t find if the wounded were being carried or transported. The slope near the tent was not steep, from 15 to 20 degrees, by different estimates, and a snow like a hard crust didn't suggest that there was a possibility of avalanche descending on the tent. Well, no trace of an avalanche on the slope was found. Although anyone was not looking for this trace thinking that the slope is insufficiently abrupt.

In addition the investigation found that members of Dyatlov’s team died approximately 6–8 hours after the last meal. Three watches out of four on their wrists showed close time: Slobodin-8.45, Thibaut – 8.14 and 8.39 (he had two watches), and Dyatlov’s watch showed 5.31. According to the practice of rescue operations the watches usually stop on a hard frost approximately one hour after the death of the person. But it doesn’t always happen. Nevertheless the watches stop time showed that Dyatlov’s team were lost about 7.00-8.00 in the morning on February, 2th.

The funerals of three victims took place on May 12 on the Mikhaylovskoye cemetery and Zolotaryov was buried later on the Ivanovskoye cemetery next to Krivonishenko.

Lev Nikitich Ivanov, the investigator of the prosecutor's office who conducted the case of Dyatlov’s group couldn't find an explanation for the causes of the accident. He could not overcome contradictions, connect the known facts and construct a scene of the accident.

In the case one can certainly notice a few «lines» that the investigators developed in order to make up different versions based on different assumptions. Such was a line checking absence or presence of outsiders on the Tragedy place, including, first of all, local residents. Such was a line checking actions of the leader relating to compliance of expedition arrangement and actions en route. As well as checking of absence of some nonlegal and conflict behaviour of Dyatlov's group that could result in the accident during expedition. It is important to understand that all these lines have been checked but they gave a negative result, that is why assumptions that created them didn't become «working drafts» of Dyatlov's accident. At the same time other «lines» of the investigation were not «completed» because of lack of information that the investigators didn't have access to or couldn't find. For example, there was incomplete data about meteorological situation on the Tragedy day, launches of missiles and nuclear tests on Novaya Zemlya. Of course, considerable part of information was not available and it was very difficult or impossible to obtain it those years.

Having studied the evidences of several witnesses (of meteorologist Tokareva about «fiery sphere» flight observed on February 17, the evidences of Atmanaki, Karelin, militaries Savkin, Anisimov, Malik, Novikov, witness Skorykh and evidences of other searchers about viewing of «fiery spheres» on March 31) Ivanov started to assume that the accident with Dyatlov’s group could be connected with some kind of «experiments». He tried to understand the nature of those «experiments», visited the place of the accident once again and investigated the woods. In one place he noticed that branches of fir-trees were scorched. A strange skin color of the victims also evoked some suspicion. That’s why Ivanov decided to make an expert examination and investigate bodies and belongings of victims for radiation. These are his words written down by the journalist Bogomolov for the article «Secret of fiery spheres», a newspaper "Lenin way", Kustanai, of November 22 and 24, 1990: «…Having agreed with the scientists of UFAN (Ural branch of Academy of Sciences of the USSR) I carried out very extensive research of clothes and different body organs of the victims for the presence of «radiation». Besides we made the comparison with clothes and internal of the people who were killed in the car accidents or died a natural death. The results turned out to be surprising. The non-specialists will not be able to understand the analysis results but I will mention only the following ones: the brown jersey of one tourist who had bodily injuries showed 9900 disintegrations per minute, and after the sample has been washed – 5200 disintegrations, i.e. these data point to the radioactive «mud» which could be washed off. It has to be said that before these corpses were found they were intensely washed by meltwater under the snow – actually there were rivers. Therefore at the moment the tourist has died the radioactive «mud» was many times more…". "…When I reported Eshtokin on my findings, fiery spheres and radioactivity, he gave me absolutely explicit instruction: everything to be classified, sealed up, and handed over to a special service and for me to forget about it all. It is needless to say that I executed this order to the letter…»

As a result of all these actions the case was closed by date of resolution on its extension till May 28, 1959. After having been checked in Moscow by the USSR prosecutor's office the criminal case was returned on July 11, 1959, and according to the order of Klinov, the prosecutor of Sverdlovsk, for some time it was kept in the confidential archives (pages 370–378 of the "criminal case" were handed over to the top secret archive). But then it was declassified and handed over to the archives of Sverdlovsk region. There were all indications that Klinov's instructions to Lukin, a head of investigation department in the prosecutor’s office, and to Ivanov, the subordinate of Lukin, to classify the case, were a direct consequence of that Eshtokin's order Ivanov mentioned (and in the beginning of investigation A.P. Kirilenko's instructions not to disclose the facts). After all it is clear that Ivanov reported about progress of the case both to Klinov and Eshtokin. He couldn't «ignore» Eshtokin’s and Kirilenko's instructions as well as he couldn’t hand over them to Klinov as they were orders both for Ivanov and for Klinov. And Klinov followed the order of the second secretary of regional committee to classify the case. It is evident that Eshtokin's decision was based on the information provided by Ivanov. Obviously he had no other information. After having checked the case the prosecutor's office of RSFSR (the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) didn't report any new information and didn't give any instructions to classify the case.

Trying to classify the materials of the case the authorities wanted to hide the information which could be a source of various gossips and, first of all, to suppress the facts about «fiery spheres» and results of radiation analysis. After all such gossips somehow accused authorities that the causes of the accident weren’t still found. The main argument for case was lack of elements of crime. The investigation hasn’t found any direct evidences of crime and they also couldn’t make any certain conclusions on causes of death of the tourists. The results of investigation were limited by the description of events of the accident and represented an ambiguous statement that «death of tourists was caused by force majeure circumstances». But in the description the investigation didn't specify what kind of «force» it could be and the course of events of the accident.

For some years the authorities didn't allow the organized tourist groups to visit the accident site. But several tourists without official route request visited the place of accident trying to find new evidences and a key to an accident. The first organized group (Valya and Toma Yakovenko, Yura Yudin, Zhora Kuntsevich, Sasha Danilin, Volodya Andrushechkin, Olya Khvatkova, Ira Tkachenko) visited the place of Tragedy in August 1963 and on the island hill fixed up a memorial gravestone made by a sculptor A.F. Karas upon the project of Gennadiy Ptitsyn and Yakov Ruvimov.

And right at the beginning of the article Ivanov made a conclusion: «…True causes of death were kept from people, just a few persons knew about them: the former first secretary of regional committee A.P. Kirilenko, the second secretary of regional committee A.F. Eshtokin, prosecutor of the region N.I. Klinov and the author of these lines, who were engaged in a legal investigation. At the moment neither Kirilenko nor Eshtoknn nor Klinov are not alive…».

Pictures from cameras and belongings of Dyatlov’s team made it through to the investigator Ivanov, and after their studying Ivanov allowed Vadim Brusnitsin and Yury Yudin assisted by Boris Bychkov and Evgeny Chubarev to make photos for victims relatives. So there were "photo albums" about Dyatlov’s group which belonged to the families, searchers and case investigators. Over time they were also «added» by pictures from the previous campaigns of Dyatlov’s group and pictures of participants of the search. The photos in the albums were mixed as for time and place. There was no «privacy» in procedures regarding pictures. In 2009 L.N. Ivanov’s daughter handed over the films she kept to the «Dyatlov’s group Fund» (Fund of Dyatlovtsev) to the investigation volunteers Yu.K. Kuntsevich and A.A. Koskin. Some of these pictures can be seen here. In the belongings of Dyatlov’s group there were found 4 cameras which were given back to the relatives of victims, but numbers of all cameras and their owners are known from materials of volume 2 of the case.

A. Mokhov and Buyanov are standing at the memorial gravestone in the island hill of Dyatlov pass in August 2008

25 years after termination the case of Dyatlov’s group death could be erased "under the normal procedure" according to retention period. But the prosecutor of the region Tuykov instructed not to erase a case like "socially significant". Therefore it was kept safe in the archives of Sverdlovsk region and remained intact.

A chronology of searching works (? – the dates cannot be defined exactly):

23.02–05.03 – Slobtsov’s group (from 27.03 – master of sports Maslennikov, a leader of composite group of Slobtsov-Karelin-Chernyshov+Moiseev and Mostovoy with dogs);

27.02–10.03 – Karelin’s group

1.03.59 – (12.03?) – Akselrod-Sogrin’s group.

3.03 – 8.03 – a group of masters Bardin, Baskin and Shuleshko from Moscow (Shuleshko left on March, 9).

7.03 – (17.03?) – A.K. Kikoin’s group (alpinists from UPI)

12.03 (?) – 23.03 – the first group of Martushev.

?.03 —?.03 – a group of military students from Ivdellag NCO school under the direction of senior lieutenant Potapov – 10 students.

?.03 —?.03 – a group of sappers with mine detectors under the direction of lieutenant Shestopalov – 7 sappers.

?.03 —?.04 – a group of sappers of railway troops under the direction of lieutenant Avenburg;

25.03–06.04 – Sogrin’s group;

06.04–17.04 – the second group of Martushev;

17.04–25.04 – Blinov’s group (the relocation of the camp from Auspia to Lozva from April 19 till 22.04.59);

25.04–07.05 – a group of Askinadzi and Nicolay Kuznetsov (till the end of the rescue operation and camp evacuation).

Assumptions and versions: a mix from the truth and misconceptions

Different people had numerous assumptions, gossips and misconceptions about the reasons of the accident and the accident itself. They came from the incomplete information, uncertainty of conclusions of the investigation and the general misunderstanding of specific nature of camping trips including environmental conditions.

Dozens of various «versions» are thought up. But in fact most of them were only assumptions which tried to explain some facts and events, but contradicted to other facts and events. These contradictions didn't allow to put all known facts together in an integral scene of events and to explain all unclear facts. To think up your own «version» of events turned out to be rather easy but it was much more difficult to prove it and to connect with known facts. Researchers didn't succeed in it and the accident was still covered with veil of secrets.

Among numerous «versions» there were also «absurd» ones which reflected the opinion of some citizens, authorities and even investigators. Before Dyatlov’s group has been found there were suggestions that the tourists could «run away abroad». "Such versions" could only belong to those who haven’t travelled even one kilometer through taiga with a backpack (to reach the sea Dyatlov’s group would have to cover the distance 4 times more than all their route). There was also an «internal» criminal «version» according to which the accident could happen because of some intragroup conflict, drunken brawl or fight «for girls». Such «assumptions» were met with indignation and resolute rebuff from the experts who knew very well the true worth of these statements.

There were «versions» mocking at obvious nonsense. For example, «Aktrida dwarfs» «versions» which said about «kidnapping of tourists by malicious «Aktrida dwarfs» living underground as well as the «Aryan version». «Aktrida dwarfs» version probably came from the legends about «the people «sikcherty» (сикхерти») who lived in Yamal in dwellings like «dugouts» or originated from stone dolmens a few hundreds of which had been found in the north of Sverdlovsk region and described by regional ethnographers, according to Alexey Slepukhin. These «versions-parodies» are barely laughing at those who take them seriously. Serious «versions» arise from the following statements:

1 – the accident was a «natural» accident caused by strong natural environmental influence and some actions of group on a route in the conditions of environmental pressure.

2 – the accident was a consequence of «technogenic» factors («technogenic accident») resulting from some technical impact from weapon tests – missile, vacuum, radioactive or technogenic actions in the process of mining or from factories activities (explosions, poison or combustible gases, etc.).

3 – the accident was caused by a criminal action ("criminal" accident) such as attack of criminals or a crime committed by authorities which killed the tourist group having mistaken them for a gang or in order to keep some «secrets» or to carry out criminal «experiments». All versions anyhow related to criminal or secrets keeping are «conspiracy» assumptions which connect the tragedy with some «plot» aiming to commit a crime and hide evidences and traces. This is a conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory is effective if the «plot» to commit a crime and to hide evidences can be proved by facts but in this case the question is who devised a plot and why. But without these facts the conspiracy versions are baseless and have to be avoided because trying to prove such version one has to give validity facts, i.e. names of conspirators and their motivation. If the elements and motives of crime cannot be proved a conspiracy theory becomes harmful because it distracts from true reasons of the accidents and disturbs to prevent them in future. And sometimes it becomes even dangerous because in this case it gives way to slanderous attacks.

4 – the accident was «abnormal», i.e. caused by the «unusual» event which has not been connected neither with «usual» natural, nor technical nor «criminal» events. The "UFO version", «versions» about the unusual (paranormal) natural phenomena ("infrasound", «fireball», «cold plasma») or the accidental poisoning «version» are considered to be these ambiguous and unsupported assumptions.

But ambiguous versions have not been proved by specific explanation about the cause of the accident and whether «UFO» or a "toxic substance» or an «anomaly» took place as well as under what circumstances it happened. As long as neither UFO traces nor any traces of poisoning, nor the evidence of the abnormal phenomena have not been found. The belongings, food and the first-aid kit of the lost group didn’t contain any chemicals which could «stir up their minds».

Since then the opinions of many (but not all) researchers about causes of accident divided into two main directions: natural accident or "technogenic and criminal" accident (conspiracy version). Supporters of natural accident said that Dyatlov’s group accident is a failure usual for tourists and it wasn't connected with secret weapons tests or any crimes. There were attempts to unite «natural» and «technogenic» versions but such attempts didn't succeed. Supporters of «natural» accident also didn’t come to complete agreement.

The master of sports on tourism Moisey Abramovich Axelrod proposed a version about an avalanche being a main cause of accident. He has built a connected scene of events and pointed to many peculiarities in behavior of Dyatlov’s team and details of events. His «avalanche version» also included the steps describing loss of equipment and subsequent freezing of Dyatlov’s group under the conditions of cold weather, wind and snowstorm. Axelrod thought that after descent of an avalanche and having been injured Dyatlov’s group were rescuing the wounded and tried to return to the camp but lost their way because of the dark and snowstorm. Their attempts to come back to the tent on the mountain opened to wind appeared to be doomed. Axelrod didn't refuse the «technogenic» causes of the accident believing that the descent of an avalanche could be externally stimulated by weapons tests or military maneuvers.