The strange case of the Dyatlov Pass incident: Did UFOs Kill 9 College Students in 1959?

Did UFOs Kill 9 College Students in 1959?

From Dateline Zero — Decades before a group of campers fictitiously died in the film The Blair Witch Project, a group of college-aged campers were killed in the mountains of Soviet-era Russia under extremely suspicious circumstances. For real.

Now Hollywood Reporter is reporting that director Simon Fellows is planning to make a film of one of the creepiest mysteries of the 20th Century: the Dyatlov Pass incident.

This is one of the creepiest mysteries of the past 100 years, but also one of the least known; although this will probably change when the movie comes out. In my opinion, this is a mystery on the level of the Mary Celeste — that ship that was discovered with the entire crew missing.

The director is known in the UK for his film Malice in Wonderland. I’m looking forward to seeing it, and I’m also looking forward the inevitable books and documentaries that will follow.

The Dyatlov Pass incident happened in the northern Ural mountains in 1959. A group of 10 Russian hikers from Ural State Technical University were led by Igor Dyatlov. One of the members of the group became ill and wasn’t able to join the expedition for the final leg of the journey. The final 9 went ahead. What happened to them might never be settled — and not for lack of evidence. In fact it’s the evidence is what makes the case so compelling, and creepy.

The mountain’s pass was, as you may have guessed already, was named after the group’s leader following the incident. The mountain’s name is Kholat Syakhl (Холат Сяхл); a Mansi name, meaning ‘Mountain of the Dead.’

The group consisted of eight men and two women. Most were students or graduates of Ural Polytechnical Institute (Уральский Политехнический Институт, УПИ), now Ural State Technical University. Here’s the list of names, from the article at Wikipedia:

• Igor Dyatlov (Игорь Дятлов), the group’s leader
• Zinaida Kolmogorova (Зинаида Колмогорова)
• Lyudmila Dubinina (Людмила Дубинина)
• Alexander Kolevatov (Александр Колеватов)
• Rustem Slobodin (Рустем Слободин)
• Yuri Krivonischenko (Юрий Кривонищенко)
• Yuri Doroshenko (Юрий Дорошенко)
• Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle (Николай Тибо-Бриньоль)
• Alexander Zolotarev (Александр Золотарёв)
• Yuri Yudin (Юрий Юдин)

What actually happened is unknown. In the last communication, with Yury Yudin who stayed behind due to illness, Igor Dyatlov said it was possible they would be running a few days behind schedule. But when the group failed to show up several days later, the families contacted the authorities.

For whatever reason the group had set up camp out in the open, away from the woods. It would have made more sense to set up camp in the nearby woods, for better protection from the elements. Perhaps something was seen inside the woods that prompted them to stay away?

The tent was torn when it was found by the search team … torn open from within. All belongings and clothing was left behind. The bodies were found wearing only pajamas and undergarments. The corpses showed no signs of struggle.

Two victims had fractured skulls, two had broken ribs. As I said, no external signs of struggle. No external wounds at all. “It was equal to the effect of a car crash,” said the doctor, Boris Vozrozhdenny, according to case documents.

One other thing: one of the victims was missing her tongue.

Not weird enough? How about this: Near the location of the bodies, broken branches were found scattered across the ground and the charred remains of a fire was found. Some of the victims’ clothing contained “substantial levels” of radiation. At the funeral, many of the victims bodies had turned a strange orange color, and the hair had turned white.

Continue reading, from the full article at Dateline Zero.