The Dyatlov Pass Incident

[Flesh Thorn]

Nearly 1,000 people were injured in Russia today when a meteor exploded somewhere over the Ural Mountains. But crazy cosmic phenomena are nothing new in the Ural range: 54 years ago this month, the northern part of the Urals played host to one of the most fascinating unsolved mysteries in the modern age.

On the surface, what's become known as the Dyatlov Pass incident seems fairly explicable: Of a party of ten skiiers, nine perished in the middle of a high-difficulty trek in conditions that reached -30 degrees Celsius. But the details, which are mostly based on diaries of those involved as well as records from Soviet investigators, are chilling: On the night of February 2, 1959, members of the party apparently ripped their tent open from the inside, and wandered into the tundra wearing nothing but what they wore to bed.

Three weeks later, five bodies were found, some hundreds of meters down a slope from the original camp. It took two more months for investigators to find the other four bodies, which, curiously, were partially clothed in articles belonging to the earlier-discovered dead. Tests of those clothes found high levels of radiation. Despite that, and heavy internal trauma, including fractured skulls and broken ribs, suffered by some members of the party, Russian investigators reported they could not find evidence of foul play, and quickly shut the case.



Read more: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/dyatlo ... z2Up892Ipb

[Jim]

That is one strange story! Thanks.

[KW Driver]

I'd buy avalanche as most probable, except for their tent being intact by what I'm reading. Radioactivity? No clue.

[Baseplate]

I read about this once. If I recall they said the radioactivity was from these miner type lamps they used to use. It was probably just the abominal snow monster

[Flesh Thorn]

Jimson Weed poisoning comes to mind.