My Paltry Two Cents Regarding the Dyatlov Pass Incident
By Wahabah Hafsa Al Muid
By Wahabah Hafsa Al Muid
So much work has been done on the Dyatlov Incident that it almost seems redundant or immodest to suggest yet another possible scenario for what occurred. Not even the recorded “facts” are in agreement since it’s pretty clear that Soviet officialdom took an unusual interest in the case and hurried the investigation along. At worst, this points to some kind of cover up, and at the very least may have, and probably did, result in sloppy or hasty forensic work both at the sites and with the autopsies.
I’m but a newbie with this case and have only examined the information that is immediately available: the various publications which have recently come out detailing what information is forthcoming, as well as the most recent Russian documentary that was made interviewing many of the principals involved with the investigation and who knew the victims. Yet, even with my limited exposure, I do have a theory.
It’s a theory that could incorporate some features of other scenarios, certainly not rule them out, and yet is rooted in a more mundane explanation of events. There are times when a perfect storm of unfortunate events does seem to descend upon a person, or persons and when everything seems to simply “go wrong.” The Dyatlov Incident may reflect one of those moments. We only see the results of that cascading disaster and they seem so weird to us that something more prosaic seems impossible.
I like to remember that powerful tornadoes do really, really strange things because, just for a moment, in one place, circumstances and conflicting wind speeds come together just right and bam–a bath towel is driven through a hardwood door with such force it cannot be removed by a strong man, or, a soft brick can remain intact after being punched through the steel door of an old automobile and yet crumble to the touch when examined; or a pile of freshly folded dish towels can be picked up from a kitchen table and deposited, unsullied and still folded, on the remains of a bed in a back room while the rest of the house explodes. All these events, plus many more, occurred during the 1967 Topeka tornado, still in the top five of the most powerful and expensive tornadoes to ever hit a metropolitan area. Weird crap can happen. The Dyatlov Incident may have been the unfortunate result of a lot of weird crap.
The Dyatlov Pass Accident
Creepiness warning. This is about the Dyatlov Pass Accident, the mysterious deaths of nine young skiers in Russia in 1959. I’d never heard of this until recently, but it was big news in Russia at the time. Then it was covered up, possibly by the KGB, and more or less forgotten about until the collapse of the Soviet Union. That brought out new records and new witnesses, but by no means solved the case. What happened to the nine skiers that long past dark February on the slopes of Kholat-Syakhl mountain?
The basics of the story are simple. Nine experienced cross country skiers went out on a two week cross country ski trek. Actually eight men and two women set out, one of the men got sick and left the trek very early. They set out January 27th 1959. After a few days travel they got delayed or sidetracked by bad weather crossing Dyatlov pass, and set up camp on the slopes of Kholat-Syakhl mountain. This much was reconstructed at the scene and by reading their diaries and developing film found in their cameras (shades of Blair Witch!)
And that was that. They were supposed to return no later than February 12th. When they didn’t return on time, it took awhile to get a search underway. (Being a few days late was normal for a trek like that.) However, as the time went by and there was no sign of them, the search got more and more serious. On February 26th, nearly a month after their departure, their abandoned camp was found. What had happened? They had cut or torn their way out of the tents, and run downhill toward a wooded area some 1.5 kilometres away. They were wearing few if any clothes, and all of them apparently died of hypothermia. What in the name of God would make experienced winter campers flee their tents almost naked and die in the 25-30 C below zero weather?
It gets weirder. While six of them died of hypothermia, three of them had crushing injuries consistent with being struck by a car. One of them was missing her tongue. None of their belongings were gone, and there was no evidence that anyone else had been at the scene. Those are the basic facts. It’s also alleged that Russian military helicopter crews refused to transport the bodies, and that a civilian helicopter was eventually hired by the families for that purpose. Some of the bodies may have been radioactive, and some family members reported the victim’s skin was orange or burned and that all of their hair had turned grey. A group camping to the south of them reported seeing strange orange spheres in the sky over the doomed group the night they died.
VIDEO HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjJUP-PWLtw
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