Do Go On - 37 - The Dyatlov Pass Incident

Episode Date: July 6, 2016

In January 1959, ten Russian students go on a hiking trip, deep into the Ural Mountains. But something mysterious will interrupt their trip and cause them to suddenly flee their tent in the middle of the night, barefoot into absolutely freezing conditions. This mystery is our most requested topic ever.Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPod  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. I've been told to take it away, ladies and gentlemen. Hello and welcome to DoGo on the podcast with myself, Dave Warnocky, and of course it's not just me. It's also Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hello, gang.

Hello, Dave. Hi, Dave. Just a quick question. Oh, no. I mean, in the form of a statement, when we started out, it was Dave, Matt and Jess, and it slowly morphed into Dave welcoming Jess. and Matt. I'm just wondering what the fuck is going on with that. Well, the only thing that matters is that Dave comes first.

That is all the listeners want. And I'm here for you, listener. That's how his love life operates as well. Oh, Dave comes first. All that matters is Dave comes first. Selfish. He's a selfish lover. But.

And a Nazi sympathizer. No. With a tiny little pecker. Only one of those things is true. I'm a selfish lover. but I'm quite a good friend so that's why I'm not going to crack it at you too for picking on me at the start of the episode

where I'm going to be doing most of the bloody talking but apart from that how are you both yeah we're fine yeah pretty good thanks Dave it's good to be here these are my favourite episodes as you know when you're giving the report mine too mine too

you're my favourite reporter thank you other than Peter Hitchiner obviously what a bloody legend of screen what a great news reader Does he follow us on Twitter? Because he follows a lot of people. He follows me on Instagram.

Does he? He's been in this very podcasting studio. Get out. The hitch. The hitch, yeah. Exciting. He did an episode of Rusty Fragment. He once tweeted me saying he was interested in coming to my comedy show.

What? I followed him on Twitter. Then he followed me back. And I said, oh my goodness. So happy to have you following me. I'm a big fan. My parents watched Channel 9 News. I grew up watching him.

weeknightly. And, yeah, he tweeted back some of my buyer was like, oh, you know, new comedy festival show. And he's like, that sounds interesting. I'll have to check the calendar and I hope to check it out. Oh, what a sweet man. I know, but when he didn't come, I was very upset.

Of course, of course. Well, I take back my sweet man statement. I also once got a, we just had an election in Australia over the weekend. I once got a letter from my local member saying, congratulations on doing the comedy festival. That's very cool. What?

Didn't bother to come along though, did you? But they said that. Who was your local member out in the Aflnese there? I can't remember who it was. Some toff? Yes, some absolute toff. I imagine it was a Tory type. Well, now I live in a seat that has never not been right-wing, never not been liberal.

And one of the few seats... That'd be confusing to overseas listeners. Our right-wing party here is called the Liberal Party. That's right. And... I'm in one of the few seats that the Liberals' approval rating actually went up. Wow. That's how affluent we are, baby.

Love that money. Making it rain. Love that money. That's right. Living in the shitters house on the shitter's street and the nicest suburb. That's the way to do it. No, no, it's not. No, that's the way to do it if you own the property, but I rent, so I'm making no long-term gains.

Very good. Very good. Very good on you, Dave. Sound investment. Thank you. Thank you. No, good on you. Good on you.

I love that silver spoon up your butt. Good on you, mate. I was born with a silver spoon in my heart. That's right. It's a weird thing Rich people do. Put silver spoons up in a butt. Yeah, it's really strange.

Well, I mean, don't knock it until you've tried it, mate. Yeah. It's a good point. One day, you know, I'm aspirational. One day I hope to be able to put a Annal spoon up here. Some sort of an eating utensil up my butt and... May I suggest a ladle?

Ladle. Okay, yeah. Start with wood. Make it to metal. Yeah, you want to start with the splinters. You want to get those out of the way early. Maybe you can do that. If you were, if you're going to choose one,

what would it be? One what? One eating utensil. But do you also get to decide which way it goes in? Yes. Well, then you just go like a wooden spoon and just like the handle. Okay. Chopstick.

Chopstick. I'm with you on chopsticks as well. I'll have the other chopsticks. Thank you. What the fuck is this conversation? No, come on. I hope it matches well with the topic today. Absolutely not.

It's not anal probes. Everyone else is looking at the topic, which is like, if it was last week, it's like some full-on serial murderer. We're talking about. And this starts off with a little bit of light utensil butt plug-in. What would you put up your butt if you had the choice? Colin now. It's got to be a hashtag for that.

It was a hashtag. Hashtag a cutler in butt block. You've really lost it, Jeff. You used to be so quick on these. Well, I wasn't, you put me on the spot there. All right, well, you think about that while we take the time to do a big shout out to all of your dance. Thanks, everyone that's tweeted in for hashtag my dad's name is.

There's at least 15 of you, so we appreciate that a lot. It's so great. 15 people that have dads. Yeah, congratulations on having dads. And the rest of you, well, good luck to you. We have names. What a funny thing to have happened. And yeah, no, it was really nice.

Yeah, it's lovely. Thanks. It was nice to get to know your dads on a first name basis. It really was. All right, guys, so we're going to get into my topic, which I have taken from Matt's hat. How did you get in there? It's the group's hat. I've got to stop calling it Matt's hat

because he's going to start claiming ownership, he's going to start locking us out, I'm going to have to apply for custody or rights to see the hat. You know what's interesting, Dave, is that the reason that we do call it Matt's hat is that he is typically wearing a hat.

And today, what's missing in Matt's ensemble? He is Sans Hat. San's hat for you, Matthew, and I can see your gorgeous Auburn locks. Auburn? Auburn, thank you. That's what I put down on forms that ask me for hair colour.

What kind of forms are asking you for hair colour? Online dating websites. That's a very good question. I can't think of a good answer. Your American driver's licence. American driver's licence is one. Does it say hair colour? It must because it says eye colour and height.

When I fill out my... Americans, let me know if it says hair donation form. Hair donation, which you do frequently. You're a hero? Yeah. Hero to the hairless. Now, there's a hashtag for you. Max Stewart, Hero to the hairless.

Love it, I love it. It's beautiful. Anyway. What was the question? Yeah. Well, I'm getting... You've taken the topic from the hat. I'm taking the topic from the hat.

And we always start with the question. I've got two here. First one is... Two questions. What is our most requested topic ever? This one has not one. Not two. But three listeners that have tweeted or or emailed in saying,

Hey, can you do this? Really? Oh, is it that one that I've only ever read and it includes an incident in it? Possibly. Does it include an incident? It does include the word incident. So Matt seems to know this, but Jess, have you... I can't think of it.

You don't spend enough time on the hat, but Matt, he's gotten it memorized, so it's hard to pick a topic that Matt hasn't already... Well, no, that's not true, but this one, because it has come up so much, I've put on a little piece of paper and dropped into the hat, thrice. Next to my head lice. Hey, rhyming. I'm back on. You're getting better.

Thank you. I don't have head lice. We've been doing lessons. I hope you don't have headlice. You're donating hair to ball people. Hero to the hairless. Hero to the hairless. Is it something like Dilotov pass incident?

Oh, that's close. It is, do you know this topic at all? It is the Deyatov Pass incident. What did I say? Dilotov. It's close enough. I mean, it's a word I'd never heard of before. I'm willing to pay it.

That's great. I have no idea what this is. It includes like a tent. I know that much because I did a brief look. It includes a tent. Because my follow-up question was going to be, have you ever been camping? Yes.

Yes. We camp together. I know we have. Which was only the second time I've ever, no, third time I've ever been camping. No, at that stage second.

You guys went camping with me? What an interesting fact. You went camping with him? We're into the Meredith Music Festival. You should come and she did. Oh, yeah. You were invited. You were informed.

I mean, camping, camping is probably... Was it glamping? Were you glamping? We were glamping. Well, it's not really glamping. I've never heard of glamping, but I think... It's glam camping. I don't think it is glamping.

It's music festival camping, which means you go to bed for about two hours and drink every other moment you're awake. Oh, man. Is that glamping? Glamping sounds like it'd be like glittery. No, glamping's just like... It stands for glamorous camping. Yeah, it's luxurious.

Luxurious. I was saying like glam rock. I literally said glamorous camping before. Whoa! Yeah! In which case, yeah, it kind of would be. Great. You're sleeping in a motley crew tent.

Was this the incident when you peed so much that you got, was it 11 dips in there? That was the third time. See, I'd never been camping except one time in high school. We went on Year 11 camp, so that's probably not even proper camping. Then I went to this music festival with Matt, and then the month later I went to the Falls Music Festival, and that's when I set that record for the most dips in a port-a-lu. If you haven't heard that one list of this, we've got is Port-a-Luilus in Australia

where you piss onto a paddle and every time it gets enough weight on the paddle, it dips. And I did about three times as many dips as anyone else, despite being one-third of their size. That's got to be it. That can't be an Australian-only thing. That paddle thing is international. No, but I just think there's different types of Port-a-Lu.

I mean, I've even experienced a different time. Hey, Dave, you know how you write super-long reports? I feel like we are getting bogged down. Okay, okay. So, well, we'll get into this incident. Yes. Which does involve camping and a tent. Well done, Matt.

But before we do that, we have to give a shout out to not one, not two, but three listeners. Oh, yeah, of course. For requesting this topic. In the order they came through, we have Dylan Byrne. Dylan. Dylan. I like that. I like that.

I like that. Thanks, Dill. And we've got Chris Brown. Chris. You got a black and a brown so far. And, uh, not. Oh, hang on. Also, I thought you were going to make a joke

Stephen White. I thought you were going to make the joke that it's like Chris Brown and I was going to say it's neither the rapper nor the Bondivet. Oh, nice, yeah, I was going to make a Chris Brown joke. Brown was an E on the end and this is his at ardent underscore drub. Drubb, cool. I like that. Thank you, Chris.

And then someone with a surname which we shall dub Sir White, Brett White from email, Brett Whiteley. No, Brett White. Brett White, there you go, Matt. You've got the whole spectrum. You're happy? We are the world. I mean, as far as spectrums go.

We are the world. It's not exactly a rainbow, is it? Brown, black and white. Yeah, we'll leave him hanging there. All right, so we're going to... Sounds laughter. It is a long topic. So thank you, Dylan, Chris and Brett for baiting me into this.

Let's get into the Dietalo. past incident. So, background. The year was 1959. The month was January. And in Svodlosk, there are a lot of Russian words in this because it is in the middle of Russia, is where this story takes place. Then the Soviet Union, so heart of the Cold War, some students from Ural Polytechnical Institute, which is like a uni, decided to go on a very physically challenging hiking slash ski trip and climb Mount...

One on Hatelugi. Well, it's called Mount O'Ton, Mount O'Torton, which in the indigenous mansee language, the people that live in this area, O'Tortan translates as, Do not go there. Okay, well. Perhaps warning sign of the incident, number one.

Number one, yeah, I would say, if I, if, like, if in English, if we were going to a mountain, if you guys wanted to go on a camping trip, for example, and actually invite me this time, and you were like, Jess, we're going to go camping on Mount, stay the fuck away, I'd be like, what dates? Nah, busy. Why did they set up a music festival there?

So this is perhaps a warning sign, but the trip consisted of ten people. Ten people. Eight guys, two girls. All very experienced hikers and skiers. So let's meet them now. I'm going to go through and give a brief background on all ten of these people. Should I take notes on all ten of these people?

Because their names are Russian and often quite similar, I'm just going to refer to them as their first names. Just otherwise, I'm going to offend a lot of Russian people. Okay. Matt just showed me his piece of paper, and he's just written his name down a lot of times. Good on you, Matt. The name Matthew will not come up once.

Good to have you on board. Not a very Russian name. Matt, are you bloody listening over there? They're all? Good. Good. Great, we got him. Okay, so there's 10 of them now.

So the leader and the blue ninja turtle off the group. It's a man named Igor Diatelov. He's the one that this incident is named after. Oh, okay. It's the namesake. Interesting. Diathlov passed named after Igor Diatelof. Igor is a great name as well.

So he is the leader of the group. It is great, isn't it? He was 22 years old studying radio engineering, of which he was very gifted and even designed his own radios. Oh, hello. People who knew Igor described him as a thoughtful man who never rushed with his decisions. Apparently, he had a thing going on, or was at least trying to court fellow hiker Zina.

Okay, so it was. probable thing going on there. He was a very experienced athlete and had planned and led many trips before. He sounds like a total fox. He can see photos of all these people and he is a bit of a fox. 22. You said they're all experienced, but I mean... How experienced can you be at 22?

Well, I think the thing is that they grew up in this very cold, snowy place. So they've probably been skiing since probably before they could walk. So they've got a bit of toboggan experience. So, right, mate. Much like Dave and I grew up in the Affleon East. So we have plenty of experience. experience spending money. That's right.

Withdrawing money, spending money, and begging our parents for more money. Yeah. Daddy. That's how I do it. Daddy. Oh, daddy.

Hashtag. My dad's wallet. Then we have Zena herself, as the girl I was talking about before. Also 22. Also studying radio engineering. So they were match made in heaven. Got a lot in common.

So cute. With Igor. She was also very experienced and as a testament to how much of a bad-up she was. So a lot of these people are quite badass. We'll say this. During a previous trip, she was bitten by a viper.

Very dangerous snake. And despite her injury, refused to lighten her load. She didn't want to increase the other stuff that her friends had to carry. So she just soldiered on after being bitten by snake. Yeah, we've all been there. Yeah, I've been there. Once I was bitten by two vipers and I said, well, actually, give me your bag, Sina. Double my load.

I'm whatever. I'm fine. I feel better than I've ever have. And then I died. But you died? A noble, noble man. A noble, orban-haired man. Igor came in and stole your girlfriend.

I will not forget my hat again. This is why I wear a hat because I'm sick of being teased for my Auburn-orban hair. You're gorgeous. You're bloody gorgeous. I wish I could pull off that colour. Anyway, do go on. I wish I had hair.

Donations coming Yeah, please, Matt, please. You're growing up for me, right? Other lady in the group was called Lyud Miller. Less cool than Zena. Lyud Miller. 21 years old, studying engineering and economics, double major. Lyud.

Is Miller... M-I-L-A. All part of the name? Yeah, so all... This is just her first name. Lyud. Lyud. Lyud.

L-Y-U-D. L-Y-D. Interesting. Interesting. Also, a goddamn. damn badass and not wanting to be outdone by Zena's or Matt's two fibre injuries. On a previous trip, she had suffered a gunshot wound when someone was cleaning their gun and accidentally shot her.

Well, you know what? One time when I was hiking, someone was cleaning... Two guns. Have I told you this before? Yeah, you said it on episode two. Oh, sorry. No, but new listeners, please continue the story. What happened after you...

Two guns that were being cleaned? Oh, no, well, I mean... Safely, I imagine. Yeah, they cleaned them really good, great shine out of them. Yeah, it was actually, it was really good. I'd remember that day well for just how clean those guns were. And we all got to the peak of the mountain safely. Interesting. Yeah, great.

Oh, and also I fuck the snake. What a pullback and reveal. I don't think even he knew those words were going to come out of his mouth. Surprise myself. She got shot. Apparently was in good spirits and good spirits and made jokes about it the whole way home. I would fucking make that guy carry my bag.

Hey, Dick, remember when you shot me? Yeah, I think first round on you at the pub. Yeah, he definitely has... First round of bullets. It's crisp. We have Alexander. Classic name. 25 studying physics.

Before going to... Back to study after school, he had worked with metal and worked in a secret institute for the Ministry of Medium Machine Bill. Medium machine building? Hey, can you build a machine for me? How big is it? It's pretty large.

No. No, sorry. Not qualified. No, just something really small. No. We'll not touch it. Don't denigrate me. Don't offend me by asking me to build a microwave.

This is what he goldie walks of machine builders. This guy, am I right? Yeah, very good. Thank you. Has he been shot or bitten? No, but the building, the Ministry of Medium machine building, it was called, known because it was a secret. and this is the USSR, it was merely known by a serial number.

I work at 3394. Cool. Less cool than being bitten or shot. He was also a ski instructor. Oh, okay, that's a bit sexy. Pretty cool. How do you know where Lyud was shot? Like, wearing her body?

I don't know. What do you want a good guess? I'd say. Arm? Probably not face. Yeah, I'm guessing something like... And no, like, vital organ probably. Yeah, probably like top edge of the arm.

Yeah. Maybe... Uh-oh. Here's another question. Where would you choose to be shot if you could? Someone's got a gun that said, million bucks. Where would you take the bullet?

I reckon through like... Oh. Are you pointing to your stomach? I'm thinking like, you know, if you could avoid any bones or organs is where you want. So you're pointing to where your kidney is. Yeah. No, I'm just like just the very edge.

I'm going to, I'll be like this and go shoot that to do. Matt is pulling out his skin just above his hip. Just shoot through that. And then I'll chuck a bloody bandaid on it. We'll get on with it. this. It's still hurt. Oh, it'd hurt.

But I mean... A lot of recovery time. I'm thinking what would like... What wouldn't... If I got shot in the leg, for example, then you couldn't move or you couldn't walk all that comfortably. So maybe arm, but right arm, because I'm left-handed. I don't know if I've mentioned that at all on this podcast ever before.

You haven't been in a little while. Yeah, I haven't. Dave? I don't know. Like, every... I am just bone, so there's no way to avoid one. Like, I can't pull out a bit of skin on the side and sell them to shoot it. All right.

Jeez, sorry. and old tubs over here. But like everything, like I look, even I'm like, oh, maybe my hand and I'm like, oh no,

maybe. Because that wouldn't heal very well and then you wouldn't be able to use that hand. I'm trying to think of what will heal quickly and, you know, not do any damage. I'm going to go upper arm.

Upper arm, yeah, just off the edge there. Yeah. That's what they do in the movies. Exactly. And they keep running. I'd get to my earlobe

and I want the bullet really small. Oh, yeah. Earing size. You'd look so done with an earring, though. Yeah. Fair enough, I should probably take you in the leg. I could picture it a day of a little Diamonti stud. No, even worse, like a pirate earring, like a really big one.

Have you ever done that? Even worse? Even worse than a little Diamtie, is it? All right, back to the crew. We've got a couple more to go. Playing the mandolin and providing the soundtrack to the trip. This is me on this trip, isn't it? You so are, with your little ukulele. Yeah.

Was Rustum, R-U-S-T-E-M, Rustum. He's 24 and the son of a wealthy professor and the character that I associate myself most with because of the wealth. I, Rustum, R-U-S-T-E-M, but I, the reason I, because I feel like he's probably one of the most useless. That's why I was like, yeah, this is me. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, but I got my mandolin, you guys. Fuck off, Rustum. Which was a treasured item on the journey.

Really? It was a source of a lot of their entertainment was singing their own songs. Get an iPod. Bluetooth speakers. Do we know when this is? 1959. I wrote it down because I wasn't writing Matt Stewart all over a piece of paper. What was that the second or third generation of the iPod came out that Christmas?

Come on. No, no, 59. Also on the trip was Yuri K. Oh, yes. I love the name Yuri. Yuri. While working in a secret nuclear facility, he experienced a disaster that became known as the Kushtumkoy accident.

It was the third, and still it's the third most serious nuclear accident ever recorded behind the Fukushima disaster and Chernobyl that we've already spoken of. UriK was one of the people sent to clean it up. He had recently graduated from the university. So this was it before he went back to uni, he cleaned up nuclear stuff. Cool.

Then we have Uri D. Oh, is it two Uri's. He's the second of three Uri's. Oh, yes. How many people are starting aboard with his list? There are many of these to go? There's like two more after this? Oh, the fuck so.

Matt's hungry I'm trying to paint a bloody picture here Yeah well you're painting a list And it's boring I think it is I think it's great Well when you start writing the best reports You can comment

We have Yuri D Second of three Uries He had been dating Zena But they had broken up Apparently they were quite seriously He'd even met her parents Which in 59 59 Soviet Union

It's probably a big deal But apparently they're still on good terms despite the fact that the leader of the group is now hitting on his girl. So that's Yuri D. Third and final Yuri Udh is Yuri Udun. I was going to call him Yuri Y, but I think Yuri Udun is such a great name that I want to call him that. Yeah. Yuri Udun.

At 22, he was a fourth year student who had a few physical and medical problems, of which we'll talk about later. Talk about that later. It's a problem. I'm just going to write problems. Problem child. Uri Udard. Problem child, okay.

And our 10th and final member of the expedition who at 37 was much, much older than the rest, and the most mysterious of the group. Oh no, this guy killed them all. And without a doubt. Most definitely. If that's what happens. Something bad's going to happen. It's an incident.

I bet the old man. Oh, wait, he doesn't fuck him all, does he? Oh, Dave. Well, I'm about to tell you, he has the, he's the most matured is he has the best name of the group. It's fuck'em all. Well, it's apparently he pronounced salmon, but is spelled semen. S-E-M-E-N. Seaman.

And he's 30 what? 37. So 12 years older than the closest one. Because before, I think it was Alexander, who was 25, and I was like, ooh, the oldest of the group so far. Oh, no. No, we got semen. We got semen on the wing. Oh, what is seam?

I've got a bad feeling about semen. Let me put those at ease. He's a native of the North Caucasian Cuban Cossacks, who survived the Great Patriotic War, which is what Russians called World War II. He served for five years. Survival rate for people born in his generation and went to the front was 3%.

Wow. So he was fighting for five years. He was a very, very lucky man. Oh, my goodness. Slash talented father. For an amazing fighter. He had many. tattoos hidden around his body, which is quite different for the time.

And he's a bit of a tough guy. Okay. Oh, I kind of like Seaman. I've come around to Seaman as well. I think I'm on my board. At first I hated Seaman, but now I'm all about Seaman. Yeah. I can get around Seaman. I'm not going to comment on him much. Comment on Seaman. Yeah, I'm not going to comment on Seaman.

Okay, now we're going to go through. That's the list, Matt. I'm sorry that was so boring for you. mate well it was a good chance to have a little nap Did it pick up at the end when I'm talking about Seaman was great Good Steven saved the best for last Honestly when you got into a little

You were basically You were listing people named Yuri for a while So I mean When it came back to Seaman I was back on I just wanted you imagine this group Of cool young people plus Seaman And so I'll just give a

background of what they were doing I've got you to visualize I've got to get you to visualize on map where this is So if you imagine Russia Which as we all know It's the biggest country in the world The region we're talking about is about three quarters of the way west

So you go towards Europe Above Kazakhstan And about halfway up the map of Russia So it's on the edge of Siberia Which is pretty isolated and cold I knew that I knew it was in Siberia when you said You talked about the native

Musa The Marcy people Oh do you know much about them No I was just I was looking them up recently one of my trivia jobs and they because there was a question about a dog named after native Siberia.

Oh, that's really cool. Do you know how I knew it was near Siberia at the point in the sentence where Dave said near the border of Siberia? That's where I was like, hang on, I reckon this might be near Siberia but that's just my geography knowledge so. That's right.

Remember when you guys didn't know where the Middle East was? I still don't. This is not that far. from there. I mean, it is a tricky thing. Middle East, Central Asia. And what else was there?

There were all these. I, yeah, good. My geography is no bad. Slightly better than Jess's. Slightly. But you know what this is? It's sort of, what I've got to make, get you to imagine pretty much.

It's in the middle of Russia in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. What's the closest city we've heard of? Siberia. I feel like you answered that before you heard the question. I did. Well, it's a long way away from like Moscow and St. Petersburg,

which is all on the west. Right on the west. Yeah, okay, yep. And it's just like... You'd have to drive for a couple of days to get that. No, I think your explanation before was excellent. It made me visualize it. I got it.

And now I know, and even me being awful at geography, you know where they are. I get it. I know where they are. I could find them, is what I'm saying. Give me a helicopter, I'll go find it. They lost. Also, please teach me to fly a helicopter, and then I'm done.

Now, you know where they are? I know where they are. The next question is, what motivates a group of kids to go out into the elements of harsh winter. By the way, it's winter time. Fucking idiot. On the edge of Siberia, in the middle of nowhere, And the answer is they're all members of a uni sport club.

Okay. Well, there's your first mistake. And they were referred to as tourists. Don't ever get involved in uni clubs of any kind. Okay? Or sports. Do what I did. Make one friend at university.

The 37-year-old man named Seaman. Jess and Seaman had a lot of great times at uni. Well, maybe that was just me. Oh, no. Oh no, no, no. This is going to get awful. Now, so the group is people that go on hikes in Russia at the time are referred to as tourists. Oh, okay.

It's not like what we imagine the word means. It's just people that go on these crazy big hikes. The route in February, which is when they were going to go off, was estimated as a category three, which is the most difficult kind of route you can go on. I don't understand why this is fun for people. Challenge yourself, Jess. Well, they were doing it to get a Masters of Sport certificate, which is like, I don't know.

I've mastered sport. Yeah, it's pretty much the... I've mastered sport, everybody. You've got to do this crazy big journey and then you come back, you prove that you did it, and then the uni goes, great, here's the certificate. Now maybe you can be a teacher of this, I don't know. Who gives a fuck? You did a whole episode about clocking Everest, not too long ago.

Yeah, it's the same thing, but kids and semen. I'm not saying it was a good idea of theirs. Okay, I'm not a fan of... It's cold in Melbourne at the moment, and we're in a studio, and I feel like we're kind of heroes for podcasting in these conditions, okay? Last week I was wearing gloves. My nose is really cold right now, but I'm a fucking hero, is what I'm saying. Trooping on. I'm a trooper.

I'm just saying these people. Do troop on. These people had an option to just stay inside and play chess. Dave's over there cleaning guns, and that's not stopping you. I'm fucking a snake over here, and you seem to be non-enobes. No, plus. Anyway, please Dave, do you go on. I'll stop getting angry at innocent children.

So their target is to get to the top of Mount Orton. Wonoh-a-Holugi. Don't go there, that mountain. Yeah, Mount. Stay the fuck away from here. It is a 1234-meter mountain, which I enjoy that. One, two, three, four. Yeah, that's pretty good, actually. I like that. The previous year, Diathlov himself, Igor,

had led a different group on these very similar route, if not the same route. So when they left, they were pretty confident that the journey of God. for that hitch. Had semen been on that route? There was no semen on the previous route. It was a dry route. Root means boning in Australia. Oh yeah.

Is that a thing? I think that's a thing anywhere else. Money was tight for the group, although they'd been given some money by the university to do the trip. And their daddies. And their daddies. Well, only one of them,

the son of the professor, is rich. Everyone else, I think, is pretty working class. Well, I say working class. I mean, in Soviet Union, so everyone earns the same, right? They packed as much food and supplies as they could,

including three kilograms of salt, which to me sounds like a lot of salt. And remember, this is at 1990s Turkmenistan where salt is free. It's communist Russia. I imagine salt costs quite a lot. What are they using salt for? Do you salt the snow?

Do you know what's going to say? Oh, Matt, God, I was going to say this. If I learn anything from home alone, is that the scary old man salts driveways for some reason. I think it stops the, because salt melts snow. But I don't think, I said this a lot, but I think you're going to need a lot more than three kilos to note. to melt the Ural Mountains.

Maybe it's just to, like, when they're setting up their tents or something. Or just cleaning their driveway of their new tent. Their first step. Yeah. Put up your little driveway in your letterbox. Yeah. Always how people send you notes. Everywhere they go, they set up a letterbox.

Oh, that'd be cute. No junk mail. Hey, Dave, something that's been troubling me is that you gave Igor the title of Blue Turtle and no one else other. Oh, Matt. It's because if you remember way back to the first episode, the blue turtle is my favourite and the only one I care about. Okay.

Well, I'm going to say that... No. You had a go on him for making the list. All right. So Donatello is Yuri K. Michael Andrews, Yuri Y, and Yuri Udn can be Raphael. Great. Done.

Nailed it. Is he... He's the one who's a little bit... Cantankerous? His body is not up to the journey. Oh, no. Is that a clue? Oh, you're foreshadowing.

Thank you. I couldn't think of the word foreshadowing. I may be foreshadowing or I may be foreshadowing, or I may be throw it. throwing out the old red herring or a purple Donatello herring. So now they've got to get there. All the information in the next part

is based on diaries that the group kept. Oh, dear diary. Dear diary. Wait, are you saying that there was no, if it was all diaries, does that mean no one was able to... Tell the story. I don't know that just published their diaries afterwards.

It is... I will say, now we're going to get into the episode. It's another mystery, baby. Oh, no. Is it... Are we going to be just... frustrated and unsatisfied at the end? Possibly.

Damn it. Maybe we're going to solve it here tonight. Yeah, we've done that in the past. We've solved many mysteries. We're like Scooby-Doo. So they set off on January 25th, 1959, leaving their town. They travelled north by train,

and then they got on a bus, then they had to hire a truck before their hiking and skiing could begin. Another guy called Nikolai Popov, who had already graduated uni was supposed to meet them on the first train, but he missed it. And I will say for Shadow Wing again, that this was a stroke of luck for Pop-op. On the train, the group amused themselves with the music of the mandolin, and Seaman, the older

man that no one knew that well, so he was just an extra person. He was going to go on a journey with other people, but for some reason that journey didn't go ahead, so he asked I had love if he could come along. And at first thought a bit wary of this older man, but he impressed them all because he knew songs on the mandolin that they'd never heard before because he's a bit older, he's been to the war. And you've got to remember that this... Easily impressed.

No, I was going to say... Oh, you can play songs I've never heard of. That's not impressive. Well, I've got to say, the government of the time wouldn't let people listen to radio and music. So that's the only songs that you play yourself is that's all the entertainment you got. All right, I'm impressed.

Okay. I've come around. It's their only form of entertainment. And they could watch... That is impressive. Like, watch some black and white movies. At one of the stations, Uri K was grabbed by a policeman for singing and disturbing the peace of other passengers. Classic Uri K.

It's kind of like the 1950s communist equivalent of that annoying person on the tram that plays music out loud on their iPhone. And he was nearly arrested for it. But he was eventually let go, talked his way out of it, and the group continued on. The area they were travelling through had many military facilities and prison camps. So it was not surprising security was pretty tight. At the halfway point They had a whole day to kill in between trains Yuri Udin was in charge of the diary

And he hoped that they could kill time By visiting a local factory Were they sharing a diary? Yeah, so every day they each take it in turns And then they sign off And they write little notes It's a bit cute It is very cute

But he's like, guys, we've got a whole day Let's check out a factory Well, that's, I know it's kind of like what communist Like he's because he's a hardcore communist Tell me it was a box factory Well, I'm really sorry to disappoint you and Yuri Uden because what they did to pass time was run training drills Also what communist did for fun

Oh my God And at midday they visited a local school So Udn didn't never went to a... What was the point in visiting the school? Well, they were... Seaman probably wanted to just be near some kids Well, they were near a lot of kids Because in a very cramped room

They gave a lecture What? Of what they were doing to all the kids Why? The kids were a bit average I love this sentence, make sense now. The kids were a bit apprehensive of semen, so they were scared of the older guy, but they particularly love Zena,

and after two hours, the kids didn't want them to leave, so they did this two-hour, like, story, because the kids are pretty fascinated they're going on this journey, and they told them what they were doing and all the details. The kids liked them so much that the whole school accompanied them to the station

to see them off. Oh, my God. She probably got a couple hundred kids. Bye! Bye, Simon. See you later, Seaman. But it got to be a bit. bit awkward at the station though.

When the group, when the group, what they describe as a local alcoholic, this is in the diary. A local alcoholic. Accused them of stealing his wallet. So for the second time in a day, the police came down.

The group were cleared of any wrongdoing and they got on the train to go. Although it must have been weird for the kids, like they're waving off their heroes and then the police have to come down. They all get arrested. What's going on? Where's Seaman and Zina going?

On their 5.5 hours train trip, the group had, quote, garlic bread and no water. Okay, well, you had me at garlic bread, but I would want some sort of beverage. I don't know why they didn't, they commented they didn't have water. What drink would you have to go with garlic bread? Garlic bread? Probably like a light red wine, maybe like a pinot noir. Oh, now you're talking.

Great choice. I was going to go like a soft drink, like a Coke or something, but, or a beer maybe, but fuck, a pino. No noir. Now we're talking. Look, I know I think I too about stuff, so... You're the seaman of this group. The older bearded, mysterious man that's just always there. I know a few mandolin tunes.

I know those songs you've never heard. If you catch my drift. They got to their destination, V. Shea, after a bus trip. And I love the tone of their diary. Quote, "'Slept in a so-called hotel. Two people per bed Alexander and Yuri slept on the floor between beds

Work up at 9 a.m. Everyone sleep well Despite the fact we did not completely close the small window And the room got a bit cold Because the outside temperature It's minus 17 degrees Celsius Great Who forgets to close the window

When it's minus 17 outside That's how used to the cold these kids are And you know how I was complaining about how it's cold here I'm just pulling out my weather app At the moment in Melbourne it is a little 11 degrees Celsius. And I'm like, it's bloody freezing. That's pretty cold.

So just imagine this weather, minus 28, and you keep the whistle with the window open. Can you tell us what 11 is in Fahrenheit? No. Cool. So minus 17 in Fahrenheit is 1.4 degrees. Oh, that's not so crazy. That's quite cold. It's very cold.

And then what's just as, what's our current temperature in Fahrenheit for our Fahrenheit friends? Sorry, I think, Matt, you've misunderstood. It's minus 17 degrees Celsius. which in Fahrenheit is 1.4. Yeah, see, he did say Celsius. So Fahrenheit is... Yeah, so all the temperatures I'm going to read out

are in Celsius. Sorry, Americans. Just Google it. I think you're going to have to... 11 degrees is 51 degrees Fahrenheit. So that's what we've got right now and they had one degree Fahrenheit. They had breakfast at the hotel

and Diatlov said, if the tea is cold, then go out and drink it on the street. Then it will be hot. What? Because it's so cold outside that even if you've got a... A cold tea. A cold tea. If you go outside in one minute.

He's the leader of the group and the group comedian. Andy wrote that joke down so he obviously likes his own jokes. No, he did not write it down. What a weirdo. Jess, can we go through your notebook? Nope. Let's read her mouth. Dear diary.

At the podcast tonight, I had a classic zigger. The next part of the journey was on the back of an open flatbed truck. Just like ACDC and their classic film clip, long way to the top, was filmed in the streets of the Melbourne CBD. That's right. Yes. Great. I'm glad Matt's finding a way to associate with the kids.

Is that your play school voice? I don't know what that was. I liked it. Thank you. So they're on the back of an open truck, which is kind of crazy because they're exposed to the freezing elements for three hours. So it's in this minus 17 degrees. Although they were very rugged up,

it was understandably brutally cold. The group tried to keep their spirits up with more mandolin songs. And heated discussion about love and their frustration about the lack of cure for cancer. It's all in the diary. What? It's in the diary. So they're talking about love and the cure of cancer. No, fair enough.

What's your favourite mandolin song? It's got to be that REM one. Yeah, it's the only one I can think of. Me too. Losing my religion. Great tune. Yeah, me too. Wow, unanimous.

Top 100. All right. Triple J's hottest 100 mandol. songs They probably have done that list Either that or one of something from Robin Hood days Is that mandolin

style? No, I think that's a lute Lute. Lute. Same do. Wow, many mandolin players

out there are so offended right now. Which is a large percentage of a fan base. Huge percentage. We're huge in the Mandolin fan base page on Facebook.

Oh, go on. The cold particularly affected poor old Yuri Udn who had previous back and leg problems which were exacerbated

by the freezing temperatures. So his body's not doing too well. He's only 22 years old and he's got back and leg problems. Yeah, he's got like a history of it. Oh, he's the one who's got problems. He's got problems in his mind and his body. They stayed in another hostel and the next day they made an agreement with the locals to hire a guide and a horse to get them to their next stop, which was an abandoned settlement.

What was the horse's name? Uri. What a weird coincidence. That's a fourth Uri in the gang. Uri horse That was how they told them apart Either way Uri K

You're looking at the horse again mate I'm sorry Sorry He looks so similar So they're standing in an abandoned settlement Which is a little bit scary A little bit Scooby-Doo again It had been used by geologists

Raggy When they were working in the remote area But it was no longer occupied So it's pretty much an abandoned cabin in the woods Cool That seems like to try to place I'd like to be on holiday I'm trying to get the spook factor going on here.

Of the 25 buildings in the settlement, only one wasn't falling down, so it was very lucky they were able to find it, because by the time they got there, it was dark. Very, very cold. They started a fire to keep warm. Another quote from the diary. Several people pierced their hands with old nails. Everything is good.

Then the horse came. We were talking and throwing jokes till 3 o'clock in the morning. It's very disjointed diary. Several people pierced their hands. everything is good then the horse came then the horse came I like it a lot

where the horse come from Matthew Yuri Uden was getting worse and by now Wait Yuri Udn is the horse

right No that's Uri horse Oh sorry You know that Jez Oh Yuri Udun the man

Not the horse Was getting worse And by now He developed sciatica Imagine the horse Had it Oh he's having a good chuckle about this poor man's poor

What's sciatica? As a medical condition of pain Going down the leg The lower back Everyone knows that Thanks for asking Oh that's no good He decided he would not be able to continue

And he had to head home That sounds like a stroke of luck No no but at the time The girls in particular Were very sad to see Yuri go Why Why are they so sad Was he one of the hot ones?

Yeah And there's actually like a Well, now a very sad photo of them hugging him goodbye. And he would be the only one of the ten people to ever be seen alive again. Oh. Just threw that in there to try and build the suspense. Well, no, you haven't built the suspense. Like you killed it. Well, no, to build the, well, now you're suspenseful.

You're like, what happened? What's going to happen? Yeah, but now I know they're all gone. They're all going to die. I think you gave that away. Yeah, Jesus. Not Yuri Uden. In his later, in a later interview, Uden,

Yuri mentioned an interesting dialogue between Diatilov and one of the locals. He didn't hear the whole conversation, but he got the general idea that the local man warned Igor about something mysterious coming up. Igor brushed it off the warning, but it seemed that it really pissed him off. When Yuri approached him and asked, hey, what did that guy say to you? Diatalov simply answered that they will decide which path to take once they get to the river. Yuri thought this was strange as Diatelov had planned the journey weeks before. So he felt like something that the local had said had rattled him a bit.

And the local that he was talking to, that was the horse. That was Yuri horse. Right? Right. Okay, I get that. I wasn't fully following, but now that I know that was a horse. The horse was like, don't go up there. And Eagle was like, no, I'm going to.

Yeah, I like it. I like Eagle's attitude. Me too. Yuri Udun had gone home now. So the next day was the first day of the hike That sounds brutal, doesn't it? Now you, he's gone, we can start the fun. Hooray!

I felt bad. Fun hike. The groups got on their skis and started their trek. There was less snow than the year before, and they often had to stop and scrape the melting snow from their skis. So despite the fact that it's like minus 17, it's melting a bit. I don't really get that, but there you go. They spent their first night together in the tent

and sat around the campfire outside, again talking about love. But this time cancer was not mentioned. Weird. Weird. Nobody wanted to sleep next to the portable stove in the tent. And to his annoyance, Uri K was voters the one who should. There's a diary quote. Yuri moves to the second compartment with terrible cursing

an accusation that we betrayed him. Poor old Uri K. Why doesn't he want to stay next to it? It sounds like that's warmer. And what a weird thing to be voted as the person who should do it the most? Surely it's more like a volunteer. A volunteer or a shorter straw kind of thing. Sorry, mate.

We all voted on it. It makes the most sense for some reason. We like you the least. We don't like you. It all adds up. Yeah. Yeah, that's weird. Everyone pointed at whoever you think should go in.

Oh, you both pointed at me. Yep, you're E.K. Get in the tent. Fuck. Get in the stove. Sexists. See, I can always play that card, which is good. I was picturing that we're going to point around in a circle, but it just didn't work out that way. When you guys got each other

We just betrayed chest You laughed at you with nowhere to go The tourists I enjoy calling that Continue their journey For the next few days Everything goes off without much of a hitch It's very cold

But they are prepared And used to it Diary Weather Temperature in the morning Is between minus 17 And minus 13 during the day At night

It is minus 26 degrees Nope Perkins is out Weston the Celtias Yeah Celsius So for our American listeners, that is minus 15 at night. Perkins is out. I'm not doing it.

Nope. You're calling it? You're back with Yuri Udun? Big time. Yeah, you should just ride Yuri Udun home. I don't think he's back and held out. Oh, the horse... Sorry, the horse has got the bad back. That's Uri Horse! Not Yuri Udun? Well, this is getting very confusing.

Why do we decide to have a fourth Uri? From now on, we'll only refer to each other as Yuri. It's like the Rook and Armour all over again. Yeah, everybody's Yuri. Everybody's Yuri. Pass the Yuri. Not the Yuri, Yuri.

The Yuri. Are you talking to me? No, I was talking to Yuri. The horse? Oh, no. That's my dad's name. That was a nice little sketch you did there, Dave. Thank you.

Thank you very much. You studied drama, I can tell. Yes, I did. According to their diary, even on a very cold day with low visibility, they walked about one and half kilometres per hour. That's pretty slow. It is pretty slow.

But maybe fast in the snow? The average person walks around 4Ks an hour. But that's slow. So that's on the worst day when the visibility is terribly, can barely see in front of your face. They're really not moving far though. That night on January 35th, that night on January 31st, they are too cold to dig a pit for the fire as the snow cover is 4 feet or 1.2 metres thick.

So it's quite deep. Are they just... Yuri? Can you guys hear a helicopter? Yes. Is the helicopter's name... Is it also Yuri? It's very confusing.

You did ask for a helicopter before, Jess. Maybe that's it just arriving now. I did. I'll go find them. Oh, yeah. I know exactly where they are. They're just Siberia. They're just about halfway up Russia. All right, Captain, where we're going?

Three quarters of the way west. About halfway near Siberia. You know, it's in the Uri Mountains. So instead of doing a fire that night, they just eat and spend the night in the tent. They didn't do a fire. He's been camping three times. He writes 4,700 words on a topic, and some of those words are do a fire. They didn't do a fire.

Hey, I was ad-living that, which shall never happen again. They didn't do a fire. Don't never, never blame the script. please. At this time of year... The bad? The whole episode is scripted by the world reading. At this time of year it gets dark about 5pm.

Same in Melbourne. Right now. Right now. It's not every day for you. On this day, Igor Diatov also stashed us some supplies high in a platform on a tree to make their ascent easier, including the mandolin. So they leave it. They leave it behind.

Which is like their treasured possession. It's just feeling Burke and Wills. They're hoping to collect these supplies on their return journey, so it's easier to get up the hill, or the mountain, I should say, when they come down. They grab everything. I'm going to guess. Just like Birken Wills. They didn't collect those items.

The next day, February 1st, the group continue on and only cover about four kilometers for the whole day, or 2.5 miles. They set a tent around 5pm on a slope of Colat Siakle. That's terrible, which is about... 10 miles away from their final destination, which is Mount Ortaughton, don't go there. But call that Sickle the mountain that I can't pronounce. Its name translates as dead mountain or mountain of the dead. Seriously, why are you going there?

Where would you have gone, Jess? What mountain? Noosa. Mount Nusa. Somewhere sunny? I would have gone Mount... Mount Queensland. Mount Queensland is where I'm going.

Mount... Definitely will return from. I would go on Mount comfortable walk, but not too challenging. Mount a slight uphill gradient is what I would... But pretty views at the top. That's where I would go. Mount Hill. Mount Picnic.

And there's little picnic baskets everywhere. You have little snacks. I like that. Mount first ones at the top gets a million dollars in brackets, but no one else has seen it before so you can take your time and you'll still be the first one, Dave. That's my mountain Oh no, I broke her again

She was enjoying it You could tell But when you said Dave In the name of the mountain Not to tell you your joke back But I'd really tickled her Oh man I wish that was true That's very funny

Wasn't a solid minute of laugh Like last time But hey Hey You gotta have goals Exactly You gotta have benchmarks So on the side of this

Mountain of the Dead It's been speculative So they're not supposed to be camping there. Oh. So we speculated that they plan to get over the pass, you know, their route to the mountain and make camp for the next night on the opposite side. But because of bad weather conditions, including snowstorms and which decreased their visibility, they lost their direction a little bit and deviated west up towards the top of dead mountain.

When they realized the mistake, the group decided to stop and just set up camp there on the side of the mountain, rather than moving back downhill to a forested area, which would have offered shelter from the elements. It's been speculated by Yuri Udin that Diathlov probably didn't want to lose the altitude they'd gained, like going back and then coming back the next day. Which is fair, I guess. Or he decided to practice camping on the mountain slope because they're going to need to do that eventually anyway.

Sure. So it was a practice run, maybe. I guess both are quite reasonable excuses. All we know is that the group will never leave that slope. What? What? Something happened to them. Something that people have speculated about for decades since.

What? So that was it? That's where they got to. Well, from there we have to cut from the diary to the search. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Yeah. Oh, no.

I don't like this day. It's all becoming too real. They're on the side of the dead damn. Is that because I painted such a great picture of what these people are like by listing their names, occupations and characters? sense? Yes. Dave, I made you love them and now I'm taking them away.

Oh my God. I mean, you said that they were probably going to die, but I didn't. I still was kind of thinking you might have been playing. I thought you were going to say, joking. All the Uri's are still alive. Here they are. Come on in now. We get to meet all the Uri.

Yuri gets a car. Yuri gets a car. Yuri gets a car. Yuri gets a salt lick. That's the horse. Three kilos of salt. We knew it'd come in handy. Oh my God.

Okay, so they're on the side of Dead Mountain. Mountain of the Dead. Death Mountain awaits. Death Mountain before or after they died on the mountain? A good question. No, before. So that's the local Mancy name for this area. Local months.

So it's already called all that. But it has been speculated that we'll have read in places that the name is called that because it's such a remote place that no plants or animals live around that area. So it's Mountain of the Dead because it means you can't hunt and live there. Sure. So possibly that. But then there's been other, I've read other places that, no, it's because mysterious stuff has happened on this mountain before. Oh, creepy.

Now, before leaving, Diatelove had agreed that he would send a telegram to their sports club as soon as they returned to Vichet, that halfway point. It was expected that this would happen, no longer. later than February 12. But Diatelav had told Yuri Udin before he went back that he expected to be a little bit longer. They're a bit behind time. And the 12th came and went and no one immediately panicked as it's very difficult to put a date on these things,

often there are a few days off. But by the 20th of February, no one had heard anything, so the families started to worry. Obviously would. So the head of the uni sent the first rescue groups, consisting mainly of volunteer students and teachers. Oh, shit. During long.

But when they found nothing, the army joined them. deployed search planes and helicopters and helicopters. Like I suggested. Like you did. Well, I mean, get me in a bloody helicopter. I'll go find them now. So, uh...

Second, I'd be possible, Dave, can we get... Yeah, can we do that? Do we have the budget for that? To go, to go and pick them up? Yeah, let's go pick them up. Let's go pick them up. Well, we know where they are. Yeah. We can...

We can point to them on a map. They're probably a bit bloody chilly, I'd reckon. Yeah. What can they do? Turn the heater on in the helicopter. So a search party So there's all these different search parties going around But a search party headed by fellow student Boris Slobkov

That was such a cracker Boris Slob Boris Slob was dropped on the mountain He was dropped on the mountain That they were supposed to be They were supposed to be their final destination But he found no sign of them And he concluded they never made it that far

Which was right Correct conclusion Boris Then on February 25th Slobcov and his group Finally discovered the trail of skis that he assumed to be that of the Diatlov Group. The next day on February 26, they discovered the tent on the slope.

Slopkov recognized the tent instantly, as he had helped construct it a few years earlier. He made a big tent by sewing two tents together. Nice. So he instantly recognized that's the group's tent. They found the tent to be torn and empty of people. Inside, however, all the group's belongings and shoes had been left behind. Oh, my God.

This is so creepy. Including all the food. All the food's untouched. Untouched. There's some slices of ham apparently just sitting there like they're about to eat it. Like they're about to eat it. I was thinking it could have been a bear, but a bear would have eaten the meat. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

Although he would have also eaten the people. And there would have been blood. Oh, you say you would have filled up on people like when you fill up on bread. Yeah, maybe it's too full. You were saying, so this Russian guy had recognized the tent because he made it. Slopkov. So Slopkov. He knew them. He sent them out there.

No, he's just a friend from the uni that's been on different trips. He's part of this club. And then when he was dropped on the mountain with other people from the uni, and then they found some ski tracks, and then they tracked them, and the next day they found the tent. And he instantly went, holy shit, that's their tent. And then when they went up to it, it was slashed open, and it had been partially covered with snow, as you would expect, you know, two and a half weeks later.

But it was still intact on the same. the inside like they were about to come you know they could come back any time start eating again and at first they just thought it had been slashed by someone else but later on when they examined the tent someone noticed that it had been cut from the inside that's always the best for spooky things if anything's coming from the inside it's always so good and the normal entranceway to and from the tent had been ignored so they're still zipped up but in the middle they'd someone from the inside had slashed it. Eight or nine sets of footprints

left by people who were wearing only socks, a single shoe or even barefoot, could be followed, leading down toward the edge of a nearby woods on the opposite side of the pass about 1.5 kilometres to the northeast. So they had to make a quick getaway. I reckon one of them's gone psycho.

Yeah, who do you reckon that could be? He's threatening to kill everybody, so he's like, they've slashed over and just run for it. Were there any semen stains? No, semen fingerprints. Fingerprints. Seam and fingerprints. However, after 500 metres or 1,600 feet, a few people that work in feet, these tracks were covered with snow.

I'm amazed they were even there at all. Yes, it is amazing that they were there for so long, two and a half weeks later. Even when you said they found that, like, their ski tracks, I was like, what as if? No, it's been two and a half weeks. That's amazing. Well, actually, it's been longer. It's been 23 days. Yeah, shit.

See, how does that work? Because it's so pristine. There's no animals or anything to cover it. It's only snow. But maybe the snow, you know, it covers it equally. Equally. So, yeah, like there's still little divvets. Or something like that.

We're feet. But it's amazing they can tell, like, if it's socks or barefoot. I mean, barefoot's probably obvious, the toes and stuff. But the difference between socks and shoes, I guess it'd be clear. I think deeper imprints and stuff. Yeah. They probably also just assumed that because their shoes were still back there. Yeah.

From. They're cool. I think so. I think from examining the trails, they recognised from the tracks that they'd all gotten out of the tent very quickly. Members of the group walked in a single file with a tall man walking in the back. So he would step up. Wait, they're walking in single file. Single file.

His footprints partially covered footprints of his friends who walked in front of him. They assumed it was just one of the group. You know, if you run in a straight line in single file, that different prints cover each other's. Overall, the path gave an impression of organized an uneventful descent down the side. slope at the mountain. Oh, man. However, several trails would deviate from the groups, from the general direction, then rejoin the group, so they'd, you know, sort of trail off a bit and then come back in the line.

Are they drunk? Uri Udun would say that they had no alcohol apart from medicine, like rubbing alcohol for wounds on the trip. Okay. It feels like, so that's one of them's taking them out and got marched them out, right, in a single file. And then go, you go, fetch me a twig. And then they run off and then come back.

Thank you. Now you You go and get me a... Give me a different twig. And they run off and they come back to the quino. Thank you. You get me some... You get me some snow.

No, not that snow. Snow from over there. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I love you all equally. The next morning the search for the tense occupants continued. They explored the valley of a local river

when a tall cedar attracted their attention. So a very big tree. So they saw this big tree and they thought that the tree could provide the search party a better view of the mountain surrounding locations. They're like, oh, let's go towards that tree and we'll climb it on. But both men approached the cedar and stopped because two bodies lay in the snow and the remains of a fire were visible nearby. Who are you guessing?

The two bodies were laid side by side in what looks like careful arrangement. One's a Uri? I reckon one, at least one's a girl, if not both the girls. Zena and Uri. It was Uri D and Uri K. Damn it! We are down to only one Yuri in this report. Fuck!

Fuck! Fuck! No! Not Yuri! I know you'd take guessing at him seriously. I just want to be right always. He's Louise. Was it Louise?

As Yuri D and Yuri K, the two men were shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. Sexy. The branches on the tree were broken up to five metres high, suggesting that one of the skiers had claseless. climbed up to look for something, perhaps the camp, or climbed up to get away from something. Yeah. Between the cedar and the camp, the searchers found three more corpses over the next couple of days. They found Diatelov himself. Okay.

Zena. Zena. And Rustam. Oh no, not with his, without his... Who seemed to have died in poses suggesting they were attempting to get back to the tent. So wait, let's... Just going through the list, so you've got eagles gone. Mm-hmm.

Are you crossing them off? Zena's gone Rustum is gone Uri D and Uri K and Udn's gone home So we've got left We've got Alexander We've got Lloyd Mollard Miller

Lyud Miller And Semen And Semen That's all we got left Oh Semen is firming And there's a fourth one It'd be funny if now He's like

Oh I forgot to mention a person Oh oh Looks like I forgot to mention one guy You're wrong Is it another Yuri? I'm afraid it's not. It's a guy called Nikolai.

Oh, but he missed the train, that guy. No, there's another Nikolai. I forgot to say. Two Nikola has three Uries. And a partridge in a pear tree. I think Nikolai must have been a bit of a tough guy. He bought... Seriously, Sands laughter for that.

Fucking guys. Oh, sorry. I was thinking... I'm sure I laughed at you the first time you did that on a podcast. Have I done that before? Because I do it all the time. It's one of your little catchphrases. Any time you count something, I do it.

And Dave... Dave, in the last two weeks, or two of the last three weeks have said it's a Scooby-Doo mystery. Everything's a Scooby-Doo. I think of... I think of... I think of... I think of mystery, I think of Scooby-Doo, and I think of... And then I do a Scooby-Doo impression that's very bad. God, we're so... We're so predictable. Oh, we are. All right, so I forgot this bloke called Nicolai.

He's one of the four that they haven't found yet. Okay, so it's also a Nicolai. But Diatov, Zina and Rustam, they seem to have died in poses suggesting they're attempting to get back to the something which would have been incredibly difficult in the pitch black night. Or just ever, because it's so goddamn cold and why would you leave the house? And also, they're not wearing shoes. Yeah, that would be. Oh man, that would be the worst.

They were found separately at distances of 300, 480 and 630 meters from the tree, so they separately got a little bit further than the other and spread out, but then collapsed and obviously froze to death. Jesus. Searching for... But you did say that they were like lying down. like they'd been placed there, didn't you? Oh, so the two underneath the tree did.

They're the ones in their underwear, which we'll get back to. Sure, okay. So, so far there's still four missing. Four to go, including this Nikolai bloke, I forgot. Searching for the remaining four travellers took more than two months. Oh, my God. They were finally found on May the 4th, under four meters of snow in a ravine, or like sort of a crevasse, 75 metres farther into the woods,

from the cedar tree. So they went very far. How did they find them under four metres of snow? Well, it had started to thaw because May it starts, you know, gets a bit warmer. So then they found,

hey, I think what I remember reading is that someone had a knee or an arm or something sticking out. And they were better dressed than the others. And their Sunday tuxedoes. Which they had all packed for a party.

And there were signs that those who had died first had apparently relinquished their clothes to the others. so people had died and then that's why they're named... From the second I thought you about like they'd given them their clothes after they died and I was like, hang on, oh no, they took the clothes off. No, no, they took the clothes off. Which sounds pretty harsh, but you'd do it.

To survive. Yeah, you'd take their clothes. So that's why those two... That's why the first two were sort of in their underwear because the others took their pants and stuff. A seaman was wearing Lloyd Miller's faux fur coat and hat, which is strange because Lloyd Miller was with him and her foot was wrapped in a piece of Urike's wool pants

and she was wearing his sweater so they'd chopped up their clothes and tried to warm up or whatever. I feel more aware of this than ever before but it seems like we keep saying things that mean different things in different countries. Pants means underwear in England. Oh yeah.

So trousers. Trousers. I think we have to translate ourselves all the time. No, probably not. Our listeners are intelligent people who I'm sure have... And we say podcast, not podcast. Yeah, okay. Americans, it's the same.

thing. All right, Matt, is that okay? No, sorry. Do you want to pan it to them even more? They're intelligent people. Sorry for caring about our listeners. No, I care too, but I care enough. Well, it doesn't sound like you care.

Yeah, but if I'm watching... It sounds like you just want them to go fuck off and figure it out for themselves. I've never said that. Well, you basically did. If I was listening to a British podcast and they were referring to pants and then in the context of the conversation, it sort of sounds like they'll talk about underwear. I'd fucking figure it out, wouldn't I? Well, I think, but that's because we are more intelligent as a general rule in Australia.

And that's why all the best people, Podcasts come from Australia. Podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts, sorry. Yeah, what does that mean? So these four, the ones in the ravine, had built a den to try and survive the harsh night. Oh, my God.

Probably an idea of Army Man Seaman, as it was a common way to survive during the war. It was freezing when they were fighting in the eastern front. But their bodies were actually found a few feet from their shelter in the deep part of a ravine, sort of almost like, I know, they may have fallen in there. no real explanation as to why they're in this, why they're not in their shelter anymore. But one of the weirdest part about the bodies was that all but three members had significant damage to their bones. Ew. What?

What? Like they were crushed with immense force. What? Doctors compared the extent of the damage to being hit by a car. What? The trauma. Who do you reckon the one who wasn't crushed? Seamen?

No, I reckon that... No, he had a lot of damage. I reckon somebody drove a car into the... tent. But the strangest thing about it was that they showed barely any outward trauma. Like, you know, it wasn't like they'd been hit over the head with a baseball bat because that fractured your skull, but also there's a mark on the outside, but it was just when they open up the bodies for the autopsy, it's like, oh, you have a fractured skull

for some reason. What? In that? So I'll say what. So Rustum had a small crack in his skull. Nikolai, the poor forgotten guy, had major skull. skull damage. What?

Seaman and Leod Miller had major chest fractures, like most of their ribs were broken. What? Yeah, but also notably the body's had no external wounds related to bone fractures as if they'd been subject to a high level of pressure. Weird. This is starting to sound to me, like something from another dimension has come through here.

A car hit the tent. Yeah, you're right. From another dimension. But the tracks were covered up, but the feet were still left. Yeah, that would make sense. And it's up in a mountain. What cars from the 1950s are driving them? A Jeep.

Fucking hell, right. Read a book. Jeez, Louis. We don't all have, we don't all have time to read books all day long. Okay. I think they're actually called Geeps over there. Oh, jeep. And the absolute weirdest part.

Oh, there's more. Oh, yeah. Oh, the weirdest part. The weirdest part. A couple of them. them were missing their eyes. But it's been speculated that because they'd been there for a while that maybe some animals had come along and eaten them out.

But Lyud Miller was missing her eyes, part of her lips as well as facial tissue and a fragment of her skull, but she was also missing her tongue. Now the eye part and the, she was found face down in the water and been there in the snows for two months, so it could have like, her lips could have disintegrated. but that doesn't explain why her tongue wasn't there because I was inside her mouth and protected. Did you say an animal had eaten her out? And I laughed at the time, but I didn't say anything.

Just double checking. The rest of the stuff was important as well, but... Oh, Matt. He did not appreciate that. He's so disappointed enough. I'm sorry, Dave, I'm sorry. And he freaked out by the tongue. It freaks me so much.

I'm trying to divert my brain. Oh, I feel so much. More cheerful things. What makes the fact even more mysterious is the lack of coherent explanation or description of the damage. Or speech, because she doesn't have a tongue. Speak up. She's giving me nothing.

You are not getting the certificate, young lady, unless you explain yourself. Oh, yuck. What makes the fact more mysterious is the lack of coherent explanation or description of the damage in the autopsy. All it mentions is tongue missing. But most of the time in an autopsy would say tongue missing. It looks like it's been chopped out or cut out or doesn't say anything like that. So it's very vague, which is mysterious.

You think it'd be like, if it has a... been cut out, there would still be something left. Yeah. You know, like, so you could be like, yeah, that's a clean cut. That's been cut with a knife. Do you think your car took the tongue out as well, Jess? What's... What kind of Jeep is this?

You got a better theory so far, Matthew? I told you. It's a portal to another dimension. Someone slipped through it. There's time for many theories at the end. Oh, God. Another weird factor was Yuri K's sweater and pants showed increased radiation levels. What the actual

So he had worked in radiation cleanup but he probably would have thrown away all of those clothes. Another mystery consists in the fact that officials insisted on checking for radiation in the first place. There was no real reason for checking there's just some kids that got lost in the woods. Why would, when the army

people arrive, would they go, hey, let's just scan the area with our Geiger counters. Mysterious. Oh wait, so when they found them, they checked for radiation. Yeah, it was almost like they knew what they were looking for. Oh, that's spooky. But it was only Yuri's sweater and pants And it wasn't like crazy levels of radiation that would kill you,

was apparently a couple of times what's normal, but still more than is explainable. If they knew what they were looking for, surely it was a secret thing. Why would they report on it? It's very confusing. It is. But Witness reportedly attended the funerals of several of the deceased and noted that they had very dark tanned skin.

But I don't know if this is true, and if your son and daughter had died in such an awful way, you probably wouldn't have an open casket, would you? If they don't have eyes, no. Oh, yeah. So I don't know. I don't know if that's reliable, but I did read that. Yuck.

The tent? I'm holding my face. I know. It's scary, isn't it? It's creepy. I just feel really uncomfortable. I got my hands on my neck for some reason. The tent, I will say, had all the tourist money, valuables in the food.

They're not your hands. Oh, Matt. All their money, all their valuable is still there. Their passports, their smartphones. Also, yeah, all their money, all their valuable stuff, apart from the stuff that's in their pockets was still in the tent. So immediately they were like, well, this wasn't a robbery gone wrong.

And their food was still there. So it wasn't an animal. Oh, creepy. So there was a bit of an investigation by the Soviets. And at the time, it was very quick this investigation. They wanted to wrap it up quickly. Which is kind of suspicious, but also at the same time,

because it was the Cold War, they were pretty secretive about everything. So it wasn't necessarily more secretive than, you know, they want to sweep everything under the, the rug that makes them look weak against Americans. Like, we can't look after our own people in the hills. So maybe they just want to cover it up for that.

Or maybe they got something to do with it. Who knows? At the time, the verdict was that the group had all died because of a compelling natural force. Quotation marks. What fuck does that mean? Which is suitably vague. Yeah. What does that mean?

I'm a compelling natural force. Where were you on the night of that day? Ninety-nine. Any eyewitnesses? No. Someone had a few eyes missednessness. Nailed it. Got it in one.

The inquest officially ceased in May 1959 as a result of the absence of a guilty party, so they can't arrest anyone for this. The files were sent to a secret archive, and the photocopies of the case became available only in the 1990s when the USSR dissolved. What? Although some parts were missing.

Weird. A little bit dodgy. And this area was sealed off to the public for three years following the incident. Like they didn't want people to go there. And again, that could be because they're worried that something might happen or because they know that something might be discovered. Oh, my God. Explanation time.

So you're probably wondering what the hell happened. No, I wasn't thinking that actually. All right, well, we'll wrap it up. I was like, great, well, this is a fun topic. I don't feel sad about the world at all. I thought it was a compelling natural something, something. Compelling natural force. Yeah.

The Jess Perkins story But a lot of Yeah, Jess Perkins The Compelling Natural Ladies and gentlemen Please welcome to the stage The compelling natural force That is

Pupup Perkins And then glitter cannons You're all ready for this Brum Brum Duh It's 10 minute dance sequence And then I tell one joke

And another dance sequence And I'm off That sounds compelling Yeah That's my festival show And natural And natural Very natural

A lot of people have asked the question and there are a lot of theories out there so what happened and I'll give you a few of them and then I guess you can posit your own and then decide what you think is most likely. First possibility that a lot of people say a natural one is avalanche. Maybe the group panicked because they thought an avalanche was coming. The theory is that they cut the hole in the side of the tent to quickly escape, left in a panic and because it was nighttime they're about to go to bed, they're not dressed properly, they're not wearing shoes. So they just start running. They get lost in the dark, then they freeze to death.

Sounds possible, kind of, but there was no evidence of avalanche found in the area that night, even when they found the tent three weeks later, it was still standing practically. So it's fine, yeah. So it's hardly an avalanche had hit the tent. Also going against this theory is that the area had never had any avalanches recorded before that.

Yeah, so it's not an avalanche. And Dyatlov was pretty clever dude. He probably wouldn't camp somewhere where he thought there would be an avalanche. I'm ruling that one out, no avalanche. Matt? I will not rule anything in or out. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting tactic.

Compelling. Okay. Natural. As yet. Sorry, as yet. I'm going to give everyone a score out of ten. I give avalanche a six. Oh, six.

It's pretty good. Yeah. But we don't know how compelling the other ones will be. Sure. Another theory blames the death of the tourists on Soviet special forces that simply got rid of unwanted witnesses. Oh, okay. They saw something. They may have seen something.

People who opposed this scenario point out that none of the rescuers ever reported any other footprints. So you have to cover up your footprints, but not the nine people in the tent. But going against that again is that the footprints were never closely examined because when the search party found the tent, they weren't expecting to find a crime scene. So they just walked everywhere. So they may have covered up the Soviets footprint. I doubt that. I don't know how I feel about that theory.

Soviets at the time were still trying out R12 rockets that they adopted in that later in that year, 1959. And because they're in the middle of nowhere, perhaps they saw something they weren't supposed to. This could explain why the case was close so quickly and sealed for a long time to try and cover up that. So was all the information there dodgy? I mean, why are they cutting out tongues and eyeballs and and bruce and crushing bones without bruising them? Yeah, so that doesn't make any sense. Or is that just all weird? Like, are the reports in on it somehow?

Why would they say all those weird things then? Yeah, why wouldn't they just... A lot of people say... They just say, oh, it's an avalan. Oh, they froze to death. Yeah. Yeah, and other... But possibly they can't because these students have discovered the bodies.

So... Why did... I mean, if they'd killed them, why wouldn't they have gone? Oh, we found these bodies here on a whatever. That's very strange. And also, at the time, Russia has a big history of just simply making people disappear. Yeah. So you could have just killed them.

on the mountain, hid the bodies and then no one would have, packed up the tent. No one would have ever found them. So that's a bit dodgy. I'm giving that one a three. This was the heart of the Cold War with both sides east to west searching for the ultimate weapon to knock the other one out. But there's no evidence of experimental weapon sites within hundreds of miles that they

ever declared. But there has been speculation that they were trying to develop an ultrasonic weapon that would destroy with sound alone or use sound waves to confuse people. And that would kind of explain broken bones. So the theory is like the sound makes you panic. So maybe they ran out of the tent. Sound waves. All right.

I'm bumping that up to a seven. Sound waves? Or is that a new one? Oh, that's a different one. All right. I'm giving that one a seven. Sound waves, possibly. Another quite interesting one that I found was possibly CIA involvement.

Because the FBI, not the FBI, the Soviet's secret police. if it wasn't them then possibly the CIA because they were always spying on each other perhaps the theory is that you know Yuri the one that had the radioactive clothing perhaps he was going to make contact with the CIA in a very remote area giving them the clothing with radiation on it

so they could examine it to prove that the Soviets had been working on radioactive weapons so that's the theory but then the theory gets even crazier because some people think that maybe the Soviets put him up to it to give them a fake jumper. And I don't know if you remember earlier on in the story, he's the one that gets arrested and taken away from the group for a while. So possibly conspiracy people think that at the time when he's taken away,

he's given this jumper to give to the US, the CIA as a, like a dummy. And that he's supposed to meet them in the forest. However, something goes wrong and they decide to kill all the people in the tent. But again, it's a weird way to kill people. You just make them disappear. I'm giving that one a 10. A 10? Not a doubt in my mind.

That's the answer. Not a doubt in my mind. Some of the people, including semen, had signs of injury on their hands as if they'd been involved in a scuffle of some description. A fort. But that could have also been climbing the tree, you know, making the fire, making kind of stuff. Doing a fire. There's also people doing a fire. Another theory, scientific one, is that they were suffering from a bee.

behavior known as paradoxical undressing. Yeah, this is my theory. This is the theory that, and this happens to people. I give this theory a turn already. People that are suffering from hypothermia, their body is in such distress. Basically, as you die, you get so cold that your body starts to think that you're hot. Yeah. So you take off all of your clothes. Which makes it worse. Yeah, and you get colder and you die quickly, but, you know, your brain's not functioning. Six out of nine hikers died of hypothermia, and that's undisputed. But the hypothesis doesn't address why they left the tent in the first place. If you're cold, it's not, it's not, It's not likely that nine people would get it at the same time

and then all run out of, you know, and get naked in the snow. And how did they get those other injuries, Jess? No, that's still 10 out of 10 for me. That's the one. And then we come to aliens, Matt. Here we go. Sorry, I gave my 10 away too early. Yeah, well, I mean, it's similar to Fahrenheit.

It doesn't make any sense to this system. You can just say any number. Right, so the scale actually goes up to 130. Yeah. It's often to put forward that a UFO scared the group and made them ditch the tent out of fear. No, that's true. If I saw a UFO, how'd you react.

We got it. We got it in one. Pulsating orbs. I love the word orb. Pulsing albs were seen... Say no more, mate. We've cracked it. We've already said this is in.

Well, they were seen repeatedly in the area in January, February and March by students, geologists, natives and even local militaries. It's a lot of people saying that they saw orbs mysteriously floating in the sky. Not any orbs, Dave. Pulsating. Pulsating. Sorry, pardon. Pardon me.

Which is the most mysterious of all. I like my orbs pulsating. How would you like your orbs tonight, madame? Pulsating, good sir. Lovely choice. And for you, sir. Got to have the garlic bread and a peanut face. Call back.

On March 31, a group of search and rescue volunteers saw strange glowing pulsating Orbs in the Sky. One of the members, Valentine, described the event. It happened early in the morning while it was still dark. The man who was standing guard that night left the tent and saw a large glowing sphere in the sky. He woke up everyone.

We watched this orb for about 20 minutes until it disappeared behind a mountain. It was moving in the northern direction. This event freaked everyone. We were sure that this was somehow involved in the death of the Diatto-group. That's pretty spooky. Spooky.

And again, this might have been USSR testing rockets or secret weapons. Yeah, I was going to say that seems more likely to be... Than aliens? Well, only because ever since people have got smartphones, you just don't see those videos anymore. It is strange that, isn't it? Now that everyone has the ability to properly document everything that... Ghosts.

Before that, you know, I think that there's hundreds of reports every week. According to the X-Files, which I treat as gospel. Yeah. isn't it? It's a documentary, I suggest it. One of the final things that you'll often hear is a Yeti. Some sort of monster. Yep.

That may, no, yeah, that may... Well, the argument here is that the injuries sustained by the skiers were so grave and extraordinary that a man couldn't have done it, but an inhumanly strong creature. So how do you break bones, though? From the inside. Do you think, do they have... Like, Yetis have such forceful punches yet soft skin or something. Or do they use a pillow?

Yeah, yeah. That old technique. Get the phone book out. Dial a Yeti. Hashtag dial a Yeti. There it is. Look, I think we'll let the listeners decide, but I think we'll see the hashtag with more traction this week, definitely being what kitchen you.

utensil, will you put up your butt? It's a long. It's a long. Can you show on it? So if you've got a Yeti, the Yeti argument is that the slits in the side of the tent were initially made to be quite small, not to escape it, but so people could see out of them. Oh. It's like there were little eye holes to see if someone or something was approaching the tent. Oh, yuck.

And when they saw something, they made the hole even bigger because they wanted to run away real quick. Because they're like, Yetty. And if a Yeti's coming, it's unlikely you'd spend much time gathering your things. You would just run out, you know. I'd take my time. Women. Hang on. Hang on, Yeti.

I haven't got my lipstick. I don't have any mascara. Don't look at me. I haven't done my face. And then the argument there was that they got scared, they ran away, and then when they tried to get back to the tent, they got lost in the dark. And I think if anything like this scared, them is more likely to be a bear, because most bears hibernate, right, but if food supplies are particularly,

low and remember it's mountain of the dead with not much things to eat. They don't hibernate and they'll eat anything, including humans. Were their bears in the mountains? You said earlier that one of the reasons they called it at Dead Mountain was that there's not many things live there, that's right. I listen, Matt. And no one has signs of being bitten or scratched by a bear. Yeah, I don't think the bears would march them in an orderly line and asked them to get

twigs either. Not like a Yetty would. Yeah. Then we get to my favourite. Oh God, there's a better one. The golden woman. Yep. This is very quick.

I'm in. I'm all in. I'm cash and almond chips. A century old horror legend in the urals speak of a fearsome solitoya baba. A golden woman lurking in the area. Yep. I'm in. So that's it.

Those are the possible explanation. No, there's no follow up or no. There's no story of the golden woman in the area. And obviously that is another possible explanation. What do you have a question for that? I told her she was golden, didn't know? What else do you want to? She was in the area.

Yeah, and a woman. Still questions. Okay, Jess. Geez, you are hard to please. Wow. I've been just painstakingly descriptive in my detail. Is she silver? No, she's golden.

Is her name, Yuri? No, it's woman. Oh. My God's so. Listen, for once. You're wearing headphones. Can you hear me? Hello?

Hello, is this thing on? The name is woman. Golden woman. Am I right? And I will wrap it up before you can make your final guesses. Unfortunately, these were not the last victims of the Mountain of the Dead. In the 60s, several airplane crashes took the lives of nine pilots and geologists who were sent to this area. And for a time, flights were totally cancelled in the region.

Yeah, something's fucked about this area. In 2009, another plane crashed in the area. Pilots ignored low standing unofficial no-fly zone. Fortunately, they survived the crash, but it couldn't explain why there actually was a helicopter went down so quickly without warning. Golden woman. We've got the curse of the golden fair,

and I've got the curse of the golden woman. So many curses. Most of the group were buried together. Oh. In a shrine that you can go and visit. is it, except for Seaman and Uri K, who are buried separately from the rest of the group in a cemetery that has been officially closed for several years. Golden Woman.

And do you remember UriK, the radioactive one? Oh. Seamen, the people often say that Seaman, because he joined the group last, and he's from this mysterious army background where only 3% of people lived, that possibly he was working for the secret police, the KGB, and that's why he lived because he would be doing secret missions. and that maybe he was sent along with the group to watch what they were doing. There was something a bit suss about Seaman for sure. I just can't quite put my finger on it.

But yeah, having heard the story, it's a crazy one. Do you have any guesses of Golden Woman? It's just another very unsatisfying. Yeah. I know. It's hard to end these ones. Like, you're looking at me like, yeah, then what happened? I don't know.

Oh, it's so creepy. And I said very early, why leave the house? and do these outdoors, the activities. Well, have you learned your lesson yet? I'd love to know what our three topic suggestors thought. They obviously know a little bit about it. I'd like them to let us know their theories or anyone else's theory. It's apparently, yeah, a bunch of conspiracy theorists.

It's apparently big in their community. They know a lot about that. But I'd never heard of the story. No, me neither. You guys have never heard of Diathlov? No, I never heard of it. Yeah, so now it's just, it's named after Diadlov. And, yeah, Blackburn, Chris Brown, Brett from email, Brett White, if you want to get in contact,

let us know what you thought of that report. And anyone else, I don't know, have you got theories that I possibly, because there's dozens of these, when it's a mystery. There's always so many theories. You can say anything. No, I'm still going, golden woman. Golden woman. It's the only one that really makes sense.

With all the information we have on it. I reckon it was something about sound, the sound guy. Maybe the gold woman does sound. Yeah, she's an audiotech. Audio tech, maybe she's a techie. She bashed him with a boom. Boom bashing. And sadly because, I mean...

Boom. And I'm gold. Gold. Boom, and you're gone. Boom, and I'm gold. That's great. Yeah, very good. Thank you.

And sadly because of... I mean, the USSR roared up a bunch of stuff, but I mean, I don't think they'll ever fully... If they know, admit. Oh, they know. They know it's a golden woman And Yuri Udun, he lived To be quite an old man and only died a couple of years ago Oh boy

I wonder what his theory was Probably favoured the golden woman as well Seems like a reasonable dude Yeah, I think so Yuri Udun Well that was a fascinating report Dave Thank you very much I found the story to be very very interesting

And I will link to a website That's quite comprehensive That poses a lot of these series and also has the diary translated in English and then lots of photos, which is amazing, but very, very sad because you can see them having such a great time.

Yuck. In the back of a truck and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, they're having a great time in the back of the truck and the seaman. Akadaka. Akadaka. Plastic. Out of the mandolin.

What a time. Yeah, added in the mandolin solo. Hashtag favorite mandolin tune. Yeah, is there any? So yeah, that's the end of the episode. much for those guys for suggesting the topic. If you want to do the same thing, you can get in contact with us many different ways, and people are using them all now.

Facebook, you find us Do Go On Pod. Twitter at Do Go OnPod. Email, do go on Pod at Gmail.com. And if you see one of us in the street. Just yell some words at us. No, please don't approach us. We're very... I'm very jumping.

Very shy. Ever since hearing this. If you do want to see Jess Perkins come up, she's touring the Northern Territory, to one of our Northern Territory listeners. No, I'll be in the Northern Territory this week, so can come check out the road show. What are your dates?

Darwin. Darwin is on Friday. Friday, the... Alice on Thursday. If you listen to this straight away. Catherine on Saturday. That's correct. Go along.

Bring a friend. I'll be there. Are you going to be there too, of course? I'm going to be there too. Yeah, we're hitting the road together. I'm just looking up the top 10 mandolin rock songs. Number three is losing my religion. I am. Number two, Maggie May, Rod Stewart.

Number one. Number one, the Battle of Evermore, Led Zeppelin. Good songs. All good songs. There you go, but if you want to add to the list, tweet us in. Get in the official hashtag, my favorite mandolin tune. Greg and Seaman was playing those top three. Oh, definitely. I mean, they weren't around yet, but I reckon maybe he... He knew songs that people hadn't heard, so...

That's why they liked it. The Alien story. Do you think, yeah, Seaman... He was a mandolin alien? Seaman wrote many of the great rock songs. of the second half of the 20th century. He built the pyramid and he wrote many of the mandolin great rock songs.

Busy man. So thanks for listening guys. We'll be back next week with another report. Until then, yeah, tweet us in, email us in, Facebook us in. Five star us in. Five star us in. You know what to do. Thanks very much for everyone.

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