Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Eichar, Donnie

  On May 22, the Dubinin, Zolotaryov, Kolevatov and Thibault-Brignoles families gathered at the Sverdlovsk military hospital for a closed casket funeral. The families had requested open caskets, but Ivanov denied this request due to the advanced decomposition of the bodies. He later regretted this decision, as revealed only decades later in a 1990 interview with a Sverdlovsk journalist, S. Bogomolov. “I should be blamed a lot by their relatives. I didn’t let them see the bodies of their children,” Ivanov said. “I made the only exception for the father of Dubinina. I opened the coffin cover a bit to show that his daughter was dressed properly.” The reaction of Alexander Dubinin might have vindicated the investigator’s decision to keep the caskets closed. Dubinin was so horrified by the condition of his daughter’s body that he fainted on the spot.

  A week later, the radiation tests came back from the city’s chief municipal radiologist, a man named Levashov. According to Levashov’s report, the hikers’ organs revealed the presence of the radioactive substance potassium-40. Though this might have seemed cause for alarm, Levashov quickly pointed out that separate samples taken from the victim of a fatal Sverdlovsk car crash revealed the same levels of potassium-40, suggesting that this was a naturally occurring isotope.

  The radiation measurements of the hikers’ clothing, however, was a different matter, and Levashov’s own interpretation of the data is one of the central reasons the Dyatlov case has continued to spawn conspiracy theories some five decades later. Levashov stated that the Soviet Union’s “sanitary standards” for beta-particle contamination were under 5,000 decays per minute per 23 square inches. If the hikers had been exposed to natural levels of radiation, why then was a brown sweater belonging to one of the hikers (probably Kolevatov or Lyuda) found to contain almost twice this number—9,900 decays per minute? According to Levashov, this level of contamination “exceeds standards for people working with radioactive substances.” It turned out that the other pieces of clothing found on the hikers also measured at levels above the normal 5,000 decays per minute. And because the clothing had been sitting for days in melting snow and water, Levashov suggested that “one can suppose that the initial contamination was much higher.” When the question was put to Levashov if the clothing could have become contaminated by radioactive substances under normal conditions, he said that this was impossible. “The clothes are contaminated either with radioactive dust from the atmosphere or by contact with radioactive substances. As I’ve said, this contamination exceeds standards for people working with radioactive substances.”

  But the radiation tests and their alarming implications would have no bearing on the active criminal case. Just one day before the radiation tests were to come back from the lab, Ivanov bowed to pressure from his regional superiors to terminate the criminal investigation, effective immediately. Though Ivanov did have the option to apply for a one-month extension, it would have been unusual to do so in a case in which the bodies had already been found. Additionally, applying for an extension would have put immense stress on Ivanov to produce conclusive new evidence within a month. And so on May 28, without being able to follow through on the tests that he himself had ordered, Ivanov closed the Dyatlov case, citing no particular cause for the hikers’ deaths.

  In the coming days, the hikers’ families would become outraged by the lack of communication from the prosecutor’s office. The parents of the victims were shown and told nothing, and probably had no idea even that radiation tests had been performed. Yuri Yudin remembers that the only decisive action the authorities took was to close the northern Ural Mountains to hikers for three years. (Hiking permits were denied. But given the remote nature of the terrain, people could still venture there at their own risk.) There were also the expected punishments doled out to various organization heads for their failure to prevent such a tragedy. UPI, for its part, dismissed the sports club director, Lev Gordo, for giving students leave to explore avalanche-prone areas of the Urals. The director of the university, N. Siunov, was officially reprimanded for failing to adequately oversee the sports club, as were Valery Ufimtsev and V. Korochkin at the municipal level. And, finally, Party secretary O. Zaostrovsky was reprimanded for his part in failing to police all the sports clubs, both university and city.

  The case files, however, came to no conclusions about the night of February 1, avalanche or otherwise. Before Ivanov shut the casebook forever, he cited the cause of the hikers’ deaths as “an unknown compelling force.” For the next forty-plus years, the families and friends of the hikers would have nothing more than this cryptic summation to explain the secretive behavior of their government and the harrowing deaths of the people they had loved.

  26

  2013

  BACK IN LOS ANGELES, IN WHAT HAD ONCE BEEN THE garage of my house, I built something of a command center. In the year since my return from Russia, I had struggled to make sense of the evidence and investigative materials surrounding the Dyatlov case. The focal point of the room was a wall of photographs I had mounted to illustrate the progression of the hikers’ journey and the timeline of the investigative case.

  What I had learned on my second trip to Russia was of immeasurable value, but I had left the country without an answer—without the answer. But then, of all those who have trekked to Holatchahl mountain, why had I assumed I’d be the one to solve this puzzle? Was it because I had gone in the middle of winter and had trudged through knee-deep snow? Did I think that by retracing the hikers’ footsteps and standing on the slope where they had pitched their tent, the answer would be handed to me?

  My entire strategy thus far had been process of elimination, not unlike the oft-quoted maxim of Sherlock Holmes: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” In that spirit, I had been able to eliminate the following theories with a satisfying degree of certainty:

  1. MANSI ATTACK. Though initially considered a viable angle in the 1959 investigation, it was quickly discarded. At the time of the incident the nearest Mansi settlement was 60 miles away. Besides, the Mansi tended to stay away from Holatchahl mountain; there was no hunting to be had on its bare face, nor did it hold any religious or sacred value to the group. Aside from there being zero evidence—physical or otherwise—of a native attack, such behavior is not in the nature of the Mansi: They are a historically peaceful people, a fact evident in their generous assistance from the beginning in the search efforts.

  2. AVALANCHE. I had been able to judge the steepness of the slope for myself firsthand. In addition, measurements of the incline pointed to an avalanche in the area being unlikely, if not impossible. There are no records of an avalanche occurring on Holatchahl mountain—certainly not in the fifty-four years since the tragedy. Furthermore, investigators who had visited the slope in 1959—including Ivanov and Maslennikov—had not entertained an avalanche as a possibility, nor had they found any indications of one. After all, the tent had been found largely intact and secured to the ground. During my own research on the subject, I contacted Bruce Tremper, one of the foremost experts on avalanches in the United States. He is director of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center and author of Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain. After reviewing the data, he concluded: “It is highly unlikely that an avalanche hit the hikers’ tent or surrounding area.” Given all of the above, it is surprising that the theory continues to have such staying power among skeptics.

  3. HIGH WINDS. The hikers had been warned about dangerous winds on the pass, most notably by the Vizhay forester Ivan Rempel, who had told stories of locals being swept away. This was also an angle seriously considered by investigators at the time. The idea was that one or two persons outside the tent—those presumably wearing the cloth boot liners—had stepped outside, possibly to urinate, when an overpowering wind took them by surprise. Their cries roused those inside the tent not only to jump outside to save them, but also to cut through the canvas in their haste. But this theory supposes that all the hikers would have flung
themselves into the wind to save their friends, one by one, heedless of the dangers. This does not seem likely. One of the hikers would surely have put on a pair of shoes. The theory also requires the winds to have been powerful enough to blow all nine hikers off the face of the mountain, yet not strong enough to blow away the tent or Rustik’s knit hat (which was securely on his head when he was found). According to Borzenkov’s weather analysis, the winds had indeed been strong that night—up to 40 miles per hour—but they would not have reached destructive levels on the Beaufort wind scale, let alone anywhere near hurricane-force (74 mph and above). Of all the theories, this had initially struck me as the least improbable. But given the intelligence of Igor and his comrades, and the strength of the winds that night, I could now eliminate it with confidence.

  4. ARMED MEN. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the theory that a group of armed men—either Soviet military or escaped prisoners—led the hikers to their deaths is a stubborn one that has continued to plague the Dyatlov case. Although this scenario had been briefly considered by Lev Ivanov and his investigators—most notably after knife slashes at the back of the tent were discovered—it was largely dismissed after the cuts were determined to have been made from the inside of the tent. Additionally, only nine sets of footprints were found at the scene. There was no evidence, from tracks or otherwise, of visitors to the tent that night. And there were zero reports at the time of prisoners having escaped from any of the surrounding camps, the closest of which was over 50 miles away.

  Claims that some of the hikers’ belongings had gone missing are overstated. After examining the criminal case file, I found that the toy hedgehog Yudin believed to be missing had, in fact, been found among the hikers’ belongings, though mistakenly catalogued with Rustik’s things. The missing chocolate was most likely consumed by search volunteers upon discovery of the tent. In my interview with Boris Slobtsov, for instance, he confessed that he and Mikhail Sharavin, after locating the tent, had drunk the hikers’ flask of medicinal alcohol.

  To explain the forensic examiner’s discovery of violent injuries on three of the hikers’ bodies—including hemorrhaging, multiple rib fractures and a fractured skull—one needn’t look farther than the ravine in which the bodies were found. The 24-foot-high precipice on one side of the ravine—at an incline between 50 and 60 degrees—would have given the four hikers who had happened upon it in the pitch darkness a nasty fall. Given that there were rocks at the bottom of the ravine, just a few inches beneath the snow, the resulting injuries would have been serious enough for Ivanov to compare the impact to “a large directional force, such as a car.” Ivanov, however, was not a doctor or an expert in such injuries. Additionally, the forensic examiner’s conclusion that three of the deaths had been “violent” is consistent with a lethal fall into the ravine.

  Damage to Lyuda’s tongue can be blamed on the natural decomposition process. One theory suggests that small animals got to her tongue, but because her body had been lying in melted snow, it is more likely that over several weeks, the microfauna in the water decomposed the fleshiest parts of her body.

  5. WEAPONS TESTING.

  • Rocket tests/“Orbs.” He hadn’t been able to say so publicly while he was investigating the case, but Lev Ivanov had believed the orb sightings of February 1959 to be connected to the hikers’ deaths. After his retirement, in his 1990 interview with journalist S. Bogomolov, he revealed, “I can’t tell for sure whether those orbs were weapons or not, but I’m certain that they were directly related to the death of the hikers.” That same year, in a lengthy letter to the Leninsky Put newspaper on November 22, he connected the orbs to the violent injuries of three of the hikers: “Someone wanted to intimidate people or show off power, and so they did so by killing three hikers. I know all details of this event and can say that only those who were inside the orbs know more than me. Whether there were ‘people’ inside that time or any time is yet unclear.” Ivanov was reluctant to say whether or not he thought the “orbs” were a kind of weapon, preferring instead to talk in vague terms of “energy bundles unexplained by modern science.” But elsewhere in the letter, he maintained that “the investigation showed that Dyatlov’s case was not related to the military.” With a Cold War going on, classified rocket launches would not have been unusual in 1959, and indeed there had been such tests in February and March of that year. But none would have affected the Dyatlov hikers on the night of February 1 and 2. In fact, there is no evidence of any unusual sightings on that night. The purported “light orb” sightings of early February were more accurately seen midmonth. Hiker Georgy Atmanaki had originally told investigators he had seen the orbs during the first week of February. But his companion on the same trip, Vladislav Karelin, later confirmed the date was much later, February 17. This coincides with Ivdel witnesses who reported seeing lights in the sky on the same day. For many, including relatives of the hikers, it had been tempting to connect the midmonth sightings with the tragedy of February 1. The “orb” sightings of February 17 and March 31, as described by numerous witnesses, happened within minutes of corroborated rocket tests from the Baikonur testing site—otherwise known as the Soviet Missile and Space Station. Any other rocket tests in the Soviet Union during that period came from Heiss Island, an island in the northern archipelago of Franz Josef Land, which was over 1,200 miles away from where the hikers had set up camp. With the maximum flight range of these M-100 rockets being no more than 100 miles, I could eliminate rocket-related scenarios with certainty.

  The final photo taken on Georgy’s camera—featuring an unknown light source—has fueled much speculation about the hikers having encountered weapons testing or UFOs. I myself had been tempted to connect this photo to something the hikers had been trying to photograph in their final hours. I determined that the octagonal shape at the center is a flare resulting from the eight blades on the camera’s aperture. Though the source of light is nearly impossible to determine, the lack of focus of the image, and the smear of the light source, is consistent with it having been taken accidentally—by the hikers or even possibly by the search party or the investigators.

  • Radiation-related tests. The radiation that had been detected on the hikers’ clothes is largely responsible for the idea that some weapon, potentially nuclear in nature, had exploded above or near the campsite and had forced the hikers from their tent—causing injury and affecting their vision. After the autopsies, two sets of the hikers’ clothes tested two to three times higher than normal for radiation. I submitted these test results to Dr. Christopher Straus, associate professor of radiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center to find out if the original verdict would hold up. Dr. Straus was able to determine, upon first glance, that by today’s scientific understanding of radiation levels, the beta particle decays cited in the criminal case for the hikers’ clothing were nowhere near an abnormal range. They would have had to be 50 to 100 times the level detected to reach dangerous or alarmingly abnormal levels of radiation. The slight positive result in the hikers’ clothing could easily be explained by environmental contaminants—for example, radiation from nuclear tests conducted that winter on the islands of Novaya Zemlya, 850 miles to the north of the hikers’ location, could have found its way to the northern Urals through the atmosphere and water cycle. Additionally, the dark or “orange” color of the hikers’ skin is more plausibly explained as a severe tan or sunburn, rather than exposure to radiation. Before becoming buried in snow, the bodies likely had lain out for many days. Even with no sun, UV rays would have penetrated the cloud cover. Dr. Reed Brozen, medical director of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s Advanced Response Team, and an expert in wilderness medicine and hypothermia, explained to me that “with the altitude, UV light, and zero percent humidity, the bodies could have become mummified over time.”

  6. “IT’S CLASSIFIED.” Many Dyatlov case enthusiasts—the Dyatlov Foundation’s Yuri Kuntsevich among them—still believe the answer to the Dyatlov mystery lies
in classified government documents that have yet to be released. However, the behavior of both Soviet and Russian officials hardly points to the existence of secret files. Per Soviet law, criminal case files were to be stored in the prosecutor’s office for twenty-five years. If no appeals were filed for the case during that time, the entire case could be legally destroyed. The Soviet government had its chance to completely destroy the Dyatlov case files, but it chose not to. Despite the fact that there were no appeals filed for twenty-five years after the close of the case, the Sverdlovsk prosecutor’s office chose to leave the case files intact in their archives. The files were later released in the late 1980s and early ’90s, during glasnost. Considering that much of the Stalin archive was released during that time, thereby revealing many incidents deeply embarrassing to the country’s government—including the 1962 Novocherkassk massacre in which Soviet troops with machine guns mowed down a group of factory protesters—what would be so special about nine hikers dying in the northern Urals? Conspiracists will likely never give up on the theory of a government cover-up, but the idea that the Russian government is holding onto secret case files is implausible.

  7. SPACE ALIENS, ETC. There were, of course, those who would put forth interstellar visitation as the answer to Sherlock Holmes’s “whatever remains, however improbable.” But I was holding out hope that I could find an explanation that didn’t involve extraterrestrials. I’m not saying I don’t entertain the idea of life existing out there somewhere in the vast universe, but if one is going to fall back on malevolent alien visitors without backing it up with evidence, one may as well throw ghosts, the hand of God, and devious subterranean gnomes into the mix. Aliens were off the table.