The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 39: Bigfoot Aliens KGB? Dyatlov Pass explained -- and solved

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

KGB, BIGFOOT or ALIENS? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT DYATLOV PASS?   When the helicopter rescue team arrived at the Dyatlov Pass in February 1959, the nine missing hikers had been dead for weeks.   The more the investigators tried to piece together what happened, the more the story didn't seem to add up.   Their tent had been cut open from the inside and abandoned, but there was no sign of a struggle.   Over a half-mile away, two victims were almost completely naked. Though temperatures were 30 below zero that night. Other bodies were found even farther away.   Two had fractured skulls, two more had major chest injuries, one was missing his eyes; another was missing her tongue. And reports show that two of the hikers had been exposed to unusually high amounts of radiation.   Soviet investigators listed the cause of death as "a compelling natural force," and closed the case a few weeks later.   The Dyatlov Pass Incident has been a mystery for over 60 years. Theories include a military cover-up, a KGB operation gone wrong, a bigfoot attack and of course -- aliens.   One researcher believes he knows what happened that night.   Others are not so sure.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish.

Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer. Do you have a phone? Of course

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You don't want to support your kids? What are you, my wife's lawyer now? Never mind. And I don't know if you noticed, but all Y-Files episodes are video, too. And there's a ton of other features, but you... But we can't be here all day. Will you settle down? I need you to hurry up with this stupid commercial.

I got a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for Podcasters. It's free, no catch, and a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for podcasters. It's free, no catch, and you could start today. Are we done? We're done, but you need to check your attitude. Excuse me, but I don't have all day to sit here and talk about Spotify. This would go a lot faster if you would just let me get through it without. When the helicopter rescue team arrived at the Dyatlov Pass in February 1959, the nine missing hikers had been dead for weeks.

The more the investigators tried to piece together what happened, the more the story didn't seem to add up. Their tent had been cut open from the inside and abandoned, but there was no sign of a struggle. And over a half mile away, two victims were almost completely naked, though temperatures were 30 below zero that night. Other bodies were found even farther away. Two had fractured skulls.

Two more had major chest injuries. One was missing his eyes, and another was missing her tongue. And reports show that two of the hikers had been exposed to unusually high amounts of radiation. Soviet investigators listed the cause of death as a compelling natural force and closed the case a few weeks later. The Dyatlov Pass incident has been a mystery for over 60 years. And theories include a military cover-up, a KGB operation gone wrong, a Bigfoot attack, and of course, aliens. Now, one researcher believes he

knows what happened that night. Others are not so sure. Let's find out why. In the winter of 1959, nine Russian adventurers were on a 200-mile cross-country hiking expedition making their way through the Siberian wilderness. This was difficult terrain, but the seven men and two women were young, fit, and highly experienced skiers and mountain climbers. They were led by 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, a promising student studying engineering at the Ural Polytechnic Institute.

A few others in the group were classmates of his at UPI. Now, before he left, Dy Yotlof told his friends back home that he would send them a telegram as soon as the team returned. Well, that letter was never sent, and none of the group was ever seen alive again. The hikers documented everything. They kept journals, and they took tons of pictures. They took selfies? Tons of them. Now, sure, there was lots of snow and frigid temperatures, but everyone was in good spirits and things seemed to be going predictably until February 1st. That day, the group was making its way through Dyatlov Pass, though back then it didn't have a name. And as they tried to push through, they were hit with high winds and snow.

The decreasing visibility pushed the group off course, and they accidentally ended up on the side of a mountain called Kolatsiakl by the region's indigenous people. Kola, Kulats? Kolatsiakl. Right. We got a translation? Dead Mountain. Oh, boy. This is a photo of the group, in deep snow with almost zero visibility, digging out a platform for their tent. This is the last photo of them alive.

The final entry in the group's diary reads, It is difficult to imagine such a comfort on the ridge, with shrill howling wind, hundreds of kilometers away from human settlements. And then, nothing. During their journey, members of the group sent postcards and letters to family and friends, informing them of their progress.

But weeks had gone by without a single word, so people began to worry. On February 26th, almost a month later, a search party was finally able to locate the campsite. And when they did, it was obvious something had gone terribly wrong. The tent, where the entire group slept, was discovered under a thin layer of snow. It had been cut open from the inside, but there was no sign of a struggle. Food, clothes, gear were still neatly stacked inside the tent.

A meal had been set up, but the food was untouched. And there were no bodies. The next day, nine sets of footprints were found leading down the mountain into the woods. The tracks were evenly spaced and they weren't deep. And this told investigators that the group was moving calmly and orderly. They weren't evenly spaced and they weren't deep. And this told investigators that the group was moving calmly and orderly. They weren't scrambling, they weren't running, and they weren't fighting. But the tracks were odd. They weren't made with boots. The tracks were made by people wearing socks or barefoot in sub-zero temperatures. Searchers then came across

a cedar tree where they found the remains of a campfire. And near the fire, buried in the snow, were the first two victims of Dyatlov Pass, Doroshenko and Krivonishenko. They were almost naked, wearing only underwear, though temperatures were 30 degrees below zero that night. Krivonishenko had blackened fingers and third-degree burns on his shins and feet, and for some reason, in his mouth was a chunk of flesh that he had bitten off his right hand. The tree limbs above the fire were broken over five meters above the ground, and pieces of flesh were found in the tree bark,

and scraps of clothing were found in the branches. Now, why would they climb a tree? Was visibility so poor that they were looking for a way back to the tent? Were they gathering wood for the fire? Or were they trying to get away from something? You searched for your informant

who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen.

Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Rescuers expanded the search area and about 200 feet away, they found three more bodies, including Igor Dyatlov. They were positioned as if they were running away from the tree, trying to get back to the tent. Investigators said all of them had died of hypothermia as they had no damage except for superficial injuries and what would be caused by exposure to cold. But this doesn't explain why Dershenko, who was found under the tree, had skin that was brownish purple or why he had gray foam and gray liquid coming out of his mouth. It didn't explain the burns, the flayed limbs, or why someone would bite off a chunk of their own hand. The second set of bodies was also confusing. One of them had multiple skull fractures consistent with falling and tumbling over and over again, But there were no bloody rocks or stumps or any evidence anywhere that a fall had occurred.

The only explanation at this point that despite being highly experienced at outdoor winter survival, they had suddenly fled into the dark and the cold without adequate preparation and were frantically trying to make do before succumbing to the elements. That's only five. What? Well, it's only five out of nine hikers. Did they find any out of four? They did, but not until months later.

And when those bodies were discovered, the story gets even stranger. Four bodies were still missing for months. But in May, when the snow began to melt, a local hunter found a makeshift snow den in the woods about 250 feet from the cedar tree. A deep hole was cut in the snow and the floor was made of branches. Pieces of clothing were found scattered around the den. Black sweatpants with the right leg cut off, the left half of a woman's sweater. Another search team arrived and they uncovered the four remaining victims lying together in at least 10 feet of snow autopsy reports say that these people died not of exposure but of massive injuries and at

this point criminal investigators were brought in to determine if there was foul play three of the bodies had severe injuries crushed body cavities broken ribs and internal hemorrhaging one had a skull fracture so severe that foul play was eliminated because no human could generate the kind of force to create this level of damage. Instead, the injuries were consistent with being in a car crash or near the explosion of a bomb. But no soft tissue damage was found and no external injuries. A careful inventory of clothing recovered showed that some of the victims were wearing clothes taken or cut off the bodies of the others that died before them.

Avalanche? Well, that's what they originally thought, but an avalanche would have flattened the whole campsite. But if you look at the photos of the tent the searchers found, you can see that the skis and ski poles are still upright. There was no damage to the tree line, and there was no debris. And people who die of avalanches usually asphyxiate. But postmortem analysis shows no sign of this. They either died from injuries or died of cold. But either way, when they died, they were still breathing.

The locals say that the outlaw passed doesn't get avalanches. No more reported before the incident and none have been reported since. And what's even more strange is two of the hikers eyes were missing and one of them was missing her tongue. Avalanche's don't do that. They don't. And maybe the strangest detail of all, two of the hikers clothing had significant levels of radiation. They were radioactive.

Yep. Now, despite all of the strange evidence, the case went nowhere due to what was called an absence of a guilty party. The investigation was closed a few weeks later. The final conclusion was that the cause of death was an unknown, compelling force which the hikers were unable to overcome. And that was it? That was it. But the victims families weren't satisfied, so they started demanding answers from the Soviet government. How did the Soviets respond?

Well, all files, journals and photographs were classified. The area was made off limits and all evidence collected was destroyed. Of course. But there is no shortage of theories about what happened. Can we? We can. Theories about what happened at the Dyatlov Pass. There are some good ones. I'll cover a few, but I'll link to the full list in the description. The first theory is- Aliens?

Be patient. Sorry, sorry, go ahead. Remember that a lot of the hikers were students at the Euro Polytechnic Institute or connected with UPI in some way? Well, UPI was constantly turning out recruits for nuclear research and the Soviet military. Ooh, I like where this is going.

First theory, the KGB connection. Alexei Radikin wrote a book called The Outlaw Pass, where he claimed that three of the hikers were KGB agents on a mission to uncover a secret cell of CIA operatives. During the Cold War, a favorite Soviet tactic was to plant radioactive material in places it didn't belong just to set the Americans on fruitless searches. Now, Rattigan says that two or three of the hikers were hired by the KGB to deliver radioactive tainted clothing to CIA agents. And the oldest member of the group at age 37, Semyon Zolotaryov, joined the group at the last minute. He was a combat veteran with years of military service who eventually went to work for the

NKVD, or the Soviet Secret Police. And before transferring to the physics department at UPI, he worked in Moscow at a top-secret scientific facility known as PO Box 3394. And Yuri Krivonishenko worked at PO Box 404-10, where a massive nuclear accident occurred in 1957. Alexei Radikin is convinced that this group was not gathered by accident. The histories of at least three of the hikers show a lot of KGB connection. The true objective of their mission, unknown to the other members, was to deliver radioactive samples to a group of agents of the CIA and take pictures of the spies.

At the beginning of the journey, all the hikers had cameras and journals. We saw them. But when Kolevatov's body was discovered, his journal and camera were missing and he was one of the suspected spies. Now, theory number two. Like, who's this guy? In 2014, the Discovery Channel released a documentary

called Russian Yeti, The Killer Lives. And they used the Dyatlov incident to make their case that the hikers had disturbed the natural habitat of a yeti. And they used this photo as evidence. The doc went on to say that the yeti was the reason the bodies were missing eyes and a tongue. Now, this photo has been authenticated. It's absolutely real. But it doesn't look much like a Bigfoot to me. And that documentary was, well, it was garbage.

So next theory. Aliens. Ball lightning. Close enough. This theory says that the reason for the tent being cut from the inside was not to escape, but to set up a camera on a makeshift tripod. Dyatlov himself had experimented with telescopes and was interested in spaceflight and astronomy. The local Mansi people had reported seeing glowing golden orbs in the sky that same night. And another hiking group camping 50 kilometers away also reported orange floating

orbs in the exact same place at the exact same time. They even recovered photos from one of the cameras that shows some type of lights in the sky. Lev Ivanov, the lead investigator of the incident, said, I suspected at the time and I'm almost sure now that these bright flying spheres had a direct connection to the group's death. He also reported that the treetops in the area were burned above a certain height. In 1990, after Ivanov retired, he published an article claiming that the Soviet government forced him to abandon this theory and they removed everything from the report that mentioned UFOs, orbs or anything unusual. He insisted the deaths were due to heat rays or balls of fire associated with orbs.

Yes. Another scientific theory is that a rare weather event generated infrasound that caused the hikers to suddenly become disoriented and anxious. Donnie Eicher, who spent five years researching the incident and actually visited the site, believes that a wind phenomenon called a Karman vortex street could have produced a terrifying, powerful sound, which has proven to induce irrational fear in humans. We have a video about this on the channel. I'll link below. Nice plug. Now, if hit with infrasound, the group might have fled the tent and fallen victim to the cold before they realized what was happening.

Now, those are just a few of the theories that have been circulating for years. Some say a weapons test went wrong. Others say the military killed the group and staged the scene. Carbon monoxide poisoning is another theory or a bad mushroom trip, though toxicology reports discount those theories. If you believe the reports. If you believe the reports. Nobody has been able to come up with a definitive answer.

That is until this year. Two scientists think they've solved the mystery of the Outlaw Pass and they use the movie Frozen to prove their theory. Did you just say they use Frozen? Yeah. The Disney movie? That's right. Let it go, let it go.

That one? Yeah, that one. Oh, this I gotta hear. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Though the avalanche theory has been mostly dismissed, a new theory has been proposed that the hikers were hit by a very specific and rare kind of avalanche. Johan Gomm, a scientist who studies snow phenomena, was watching the movie Frozen when... Let it go, let it go. I'm a fish and I like water, let it go. You done? I love that movie. Gome noticed that Disney had created very realistic snow movement, so he worked with studio animators to develop a model that shows how the group could have been hit by what's called a delayed slab avalanche. This kind of avalanche occurs when you affect the warm, wet snow at the

bottom of a slope. This causes the entire face of snow to eventually move at once. Now, think about when you have two books stacked on top of each other. You could tilt them and they'll stick together until you reach a certain angle. The top book slides. Now, an avalanche only requires a 20 degree slope to trigger it. Now, the Dyatlov only requires a 20-degree slope to trigger it. Now, the Dyatlov camp was built at 23 degrees. Ghosn believes that when they cut into the snow to build their tent, it started a countdown. They initiated a chain reaction of micro-disturbances that took a few hours to propagate. Trapped under the slab, the group might have panicked and cut their way out.

The injuries sustained by some of the group would have been consistent with another slab hitting them at full force. Yeah, but what about all the, you know, the weird stuff? Well, Gomes says. We say that this is possible that such a slab avalanche would have injured them the way they were injured. Everything that happened after the avalanche is out of the scope of our paper. Convenient. Though it wasn't snowing that night, the hikers did have journal entries about howling winds.

These were most likely katabatic winds. And katabatic winds fall down a slope and quickly gain speed due to gravity. And the winds are hurricane force, and they were absolutely detected by local weather stations that night. So the hikers cut their camp into the snow, which disturbed the slab.

Then katabatic winds started blowing snow on top of the slab above the tent. And over the course of hours, the weight of the snow above camp reached critical mass, causing the entire slab to fall. Now, using the Disney snow animation, it was shown that just a small avalanche, maybe five by five meters, would have been enough to cover the camp, but not enough snow that the rescue team would have noticed, especially since they didn't arrive on scene for 26 more days. So given this new information, can we piece together what happened to the outlaw and his friends that night? I think we can. KGB UFOs, orbs of light. These are fun theories, but I think this is what happened. The slab avalanche hits, covering them in a few feet of snow.

The nine campers cut their way out of the tent. Yeah, but... What? Why leave all this stuff in the tent and go out in the cold in their skivvies? Well, it was discovered that they had a second stash of supplies in the forest. So they escaped the avalanche, knowing they have backup supplies. They retreat to the trees and start a fire. The young trees at the bottom of the slope were icy and wet, so they climbed the cedar in search of dry wood. But with temperatures 30 below zero, they had very little

time to save themselves. The two most poorly dressed were probably the first to go. The burned skin probably from being desperately close to the fire. And with hypothermia setting in, they were losing sensation and didn't, they were losing sensation and didn't realize they were being burned. Krivenishenko, losing feeling and probably becoming delirious, bites his hand to test for sensation and he dies within an hour.

Seven survivors cut the clothes away from their friends and dress themselves in whatever they can scavenge from the bodies. Three of the group, including Dyatlov, try to make it back to the tent, but the steep incline and loose snow make it a difficult task. They soon freeze to death in the struggle uphill. The remaining four decide to build a snow shelter for the night.

They find deep snow in a ravine a couple of hundred feet away. But their bad luck continues and they pick a spot near a fast running stream that never freezes. The stream cuts away the snow above their shelter, causing the roof to collapse. They're thrown onto the rocky stream bed and buried under 10 or 15 feet of snow. Now, in general, snow weighs about 20 pounds per cubic foot, a little over a pound per inch of depth. A section of snow that's 20 feet by 20 feet with a depth of 10 feet,

that weighs between 85,000 and 100,000 pounds. That's 50 tons falling on you. So it's like being crushed under a tank. So your injuries would be severe. The missing eyes and tongue probably caused by scavenging animals or just by three months of decomposition near running water. What about the radiation? Right. The lanterns they used,

which were found at the site, contained small amounts of thorium, which is radioactive. And remember, at least two of the hikers worked at a nuclear facility and helped with cleanup after an accident that was almost as bad as Chernobyl. So in retrospect, the nine campers made only one mistake, the placement of the tent. Everything else was by the book. They conducted an orderly evacuation to safer ground. They took shelter in the woods, started a fire, and dug out a snow cave. The textbook wrong decision in an avalanche is to stay put. Unfortunately, that wrong decision might have saved their lives. Now, today, Dyatlov Pass is a popular tourist destination.

People come from all over the world to follow the group's footsteps and see where the tent once stood. People say prayers at the stream and leave flowers under the cedar tree where its broken branches are still visible. And just before the team embarked on their adventure, Krivonishenko wrote a poem addressing the entire group. Here's wishing you camps pitched on mounts afar, routes to hike over ranges untamed, packs that as ever rest lightly on your backs, and weather that smiles upon your quest, and let your footprints trace winding tracks across the map of Russia. It's been over 60 years since Dyatlov and eight of his courageous friends died on Dead Mountain,

but I'm sure they'd be proud to know that not only did they leave their footprints on the map of Russia, but on the map of the entire world. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything today, do me a favor and like, subscribe, comment, and share. Those little favors really help out the channel. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.