Oct. 7, 2024

Terrifying & True | Dyatlov Pass Mystery: What Happened to the Nine Hikers?

Terrifying & True | Dyatlov Pass Mystery: What Happened to the Nine Hikers?
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The chilling story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, where nine hikers mysteriously died in the Ural Mountains. Explore theories about what happened that fateful night.

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🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
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WEBVTT

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In the wild cold mountains of the Soviet Union, A

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group of skiers have their work cut out for them

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as they're hiking a major slow but when they never

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return home, questions begin to rise, and unfortunately, after they

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were found, there were even more questions. What you were

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about to be spurn Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and

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public record, this is terrifying and t for many who

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are elder millennials, such as myself. The Soviet Union is

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mostly a concert one cobbled together from documentaries and textbooks,

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as well as television shows and movies of a bygone era.

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But when it comes to the USSR, one thing is

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for certain. They were very secretive, but they were also

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always watching their citizens through the notorious KGB. Tonight's mystery

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is even more enigmatic because it took place behind the

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Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union, where a group of

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young people met a fate no one could have expected,

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and the Russians had no idea how it happened, or

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at least that's what they claim. We'll talk all about

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the diet lave Past incident after this. In the winter

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of nineteen fifty nine nine, experience cross country skiers died

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under mysterious circumstances while on a multi day expedition in

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the Russian Ural Mountains. Something caused all nine to suddenly

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evacuate the safety of their tent in the middle of

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the night without proper clothing, leading most of them to

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die of hypothermia. Others were found to have succumbed to

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severe injuries of unknown origin. The cause of the incident

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has been widely debated, spurring many theories, including ones involving

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UFOs and cryptids. On January twenty eighth, nineteen fifty nine,

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a party of ten skiers, consisting mostly of students from

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the Ural Polytechnic Institute set out on a trek to

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reach or Torten Mountain in what was the Soviet Union

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at the time. The route was considered a Category three

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hike and had been approved by this spurred Loss City

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Route Commission. The entire group was made up of certified

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Grade two hikers, all of which would be awarded their

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Grade three certification upon their return. Receiving a Grade three

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certification meant hiking at least one hundred and ninety miles

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and was the highest hiker certification given in the Soviet

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Union at the time. Suffice to say this was a

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group of very competent individuals, but it's their experience that

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may have led to their demise. On the evening of

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February one, nineteen fifty nine, the hikers, save one who

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had turned back due to an injury, set up camp

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for the night on the slope of colat Siakal, which

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ironically means dead mountain in the language used by the

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local Ugric indigenous people. According to diaries kept by the campers,

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which were later found a ban in the tent, this

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was not their original intent. Limited visibility due to a

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snowstorm caused them to head in the wrong direction and

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end up on the side of Colatsiako instead of across

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the mountain pass where they'd hoped to set up camp.

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Realizing their mistake, the group decided to camp on the

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mountain side, making a cut in the snow to protect

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their tent from the wind. Given the weather conditions, it

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would have made much more sense to camp slightly less

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than a mile downhill in a forested area as the

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storm raged, but for a reason we can only ever conjecture,

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they stayed put on the slope. This decision would turn

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out to be a crucial mistake responsible for cutting their

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lives short. During that night, an event occurred that caused

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the entire party to leave the tent, some only partially

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clothed and others naked, in temperatures likely lower than negative

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twenty four degrees celsius or negative eleven degrees fahrenheit. It

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wasn't until February twentieth that a search party consisting of

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students and teachers from the Eural Polytechnical Institute was assembled.

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Ivan Yetlov, the leader of the cross country hike, was

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supposed to telegraph the institute when the team returned from

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their expedition. He had expected that to be no later

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than February twelfth, but when no communication was received that day,

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it didn't raise alarm bells. Family and friends assumed they'd

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just underestimated the time needed to complete their journey. By

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the twentieth, it was clear that something was wrong, and

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a search party of students and teachers from the institute

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was assembled. An air search was also initiated by the

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military and police soon after. On the twenty sixth, members

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of the search party discovered the hikers badly damaged and

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partially snow so covered tent. Inside they found the hiker's belongings,

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including their clothes and shoes. Food was even laid out

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as if they'd been preparing a dinner. In addition, the

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tent had been ripped from the inside, as if they

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suddenly were very desperate to escape. However, no signs of

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a struggle were discovered. Leading away from the camp site

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were nine sets of footprints. Some of the prints were

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completely barefoot, while others showed that some had fled in

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only their socks or with just one of their shoes

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on these tracks all headed down the slope before disappearing

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into the snow after about a third of a mile.

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On the outskirts of the forest, not too far from

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the tracks, the search party found the first two campers

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dead under a tree near the remnants of a campfire.

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Both were barefoot and in their underwear. Three more members

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of the group were discovered between the forest and tent

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soon after. From the positioning of their bodies, it was

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concluded that they had been trying to return to the

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camp site when they died. These discoveries prompted a criminal investigation,

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but autopsies determined that all of the found party members

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had succumbed to hypothermia. It took two more months to

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find the remaining members of the expedition, Nicholas Thibou Brignol,

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Ludmila Dubanina, Alexander Zolotarov and Alexander Kolovatov, and their fate

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was more gruesome. They were discovered in a ravine in

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a river bed under thirteen feet of snow and eighty

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yards further into the forest than their companions. Thibeau Brignolo

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was found with a crushed skull, and Zolataiov and Dubanina

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had fractured ribs and crushed chests. Two of the four

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were also missing their eyes, and Dubanina had no tongue.

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This shocking find caused the police to suspect that the

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campers had been attacked by the Mansi, a local indigenous

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tribe that herd it reindeer in the area. It seemed

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possible that the party had accidentally strayed into the Mansi's

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territory and were killed. That theory was debunked rather quickly

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because no other footprints were found besides those of the campers,

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and the Mansei did not have any sacred sites in

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the area. Furthermore, the autopsies concluded that while three of

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the four died of their injuries, the force needed to

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create the damage to their bodies was far more than

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a human could produce, and was in fact more similar

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to injuries from a car crash. The soft tissue damage

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to their faces was determined to have occurred after death,

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either caused by animals or exposure to the water they'd

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been laying in. In May of nineteen fifty nine, the

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authorities officially closed the investigation. It was determined that the

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skier's deaths were caused by a quote natural compelling force.

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What the force was was not specified, and the vagueness

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of this conclusion left plenty of room for theories to develop.

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The first theory is that the campers encountered a yetti.

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In one of the photos taken by the campers that

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was found with their belongings, a dark bipedal creature can

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be seen lurking in the shadows. Believers of this theory

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cite this picture and an article about YETI sightings in

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the area published as evidence that the party met its

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grisly fate at the hands of this scryptid. That stated

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the newspaper responsible for publishing the article was known for

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exaggeration and dubious reporting, and while that could explain the

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superhuman force used to create some of the injuries and

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why the party was so anxious to run, it fails

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to take into account that no other tracks, yety human

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or any other animal were found at the campsite. Another

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theory of a more scientific nature suggests that the campers

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may have been driven from their tent by infrasound. In

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his twenty thirteen book Dead Mountain, Donnie Ekkar conjectured that

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when the wind passed over the mountain, it may have

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created sound below the frequency of human hearing. Infrasound, as

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it's called, can cause physical discomfort and panic, so it's

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possible that the campers felt the need to flee their

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tent after being exposed to it. This doesn't explain why

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some of the team died from such severe injuries, though,

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Speaking of wind, in twenty nineteen, independent investigators of the

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site proposed that kattabatic winds may have been responsible. They

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had an incident in an area of Sweden with similar

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topography where eight of nine hikers were killed by such

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winds to support their theory. Katabatic wind occurs when high

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pressure air is pushed downhill by gravity to an area

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of low pressure, causing high winds. The gusts could have

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been so strong that the group had no choice but

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to leave the tent and attempt to take shelter elsewhere.

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They may have even covered the tent in snow to

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keep it from blowing away so they could return once

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the danger was over. Strangely enough, the lead investigator in

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the original nineteen fifty nine case, Lent Ivanov, had a

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theory of his own that differs wildly from the natural

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compelling force conclusion that the government originally offered. In nineteen ninety,

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Ivanov came forward and said that he had been forced

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to censor his findings. He claimed that scorch marks on

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a tree where the first hikers were found was from

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a heat wret that had been aimed at them. Ivanov

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also said that there had been reports of bright flying

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spheres in the vicinity that February. In fact, since then,

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declassified documents show that a group of hikers camping some

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thirty miles away reported seeing orange spheres floating in the

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sky on the very same night as the incident. Ivanov

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believed that one of these glowing orbs exploded, killing some campers.

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In an interview, he stated that quote based on the

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evidence gathered, the role of UFO's in this tragedy was

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quite obvious, whether lev Ivanov was referring to other worldly

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UFOs or simply unknown government aircraft. There is a theory

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that the group may have wandered into a military testing site,

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and mysteriously, some of the clothing left on the bodies

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that were found in the ravine did have traces of

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radioactivity on them, but not all of them. The most

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damning evidence against this is that evidence of an explosion

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was never found. Perhaps skeptical of their own vague conclusion,

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the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reopened the case

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in two thousand fifteen. In two thoy nineteen, they concluded

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that an avalanche was the most probable cause for the

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death of the cross country skiers. However, their reasoning was

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not disclosed, and later on in twenty nineteen, the Prosecutor

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General reopened the case again, only to come to the

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exact same conclusion. Critics state that the slope of the

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mountain was not steep enough to lead to an avalanche,

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and no debris or evidence of one was ever observed

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in the area. In twenty twenty one, Johann Gomme and

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Alexander M. Puzrin wrote an article explaining in detail how

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a small avalanche known as a slab avalanche could have

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led to the deaths of the skiers. They conjectured that

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when the hikers cut into the snow to level the

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surface and protect themselves from the wind, it weakened the

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stability of it. That, combined with the strong, potentially catabatic

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winds from the snow storm, allowed the snow slab above

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the tent to eventually collapse onto it. It may have

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even collapsed onto the entrance, which is why the hikers

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had to cut the tent to escape. The three makers

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who were fatally injured may have been crushed in the

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tent and then succumbed to their wounds later on, But

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the question remains, why did they run. It's possible that

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they believed this localized avalanche was actually occurring mountain wide.

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If that's the case, fleeing immediately would have been their

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best chance of survival. If this was a less experienced group,

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they may have actually been less likely to run and

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could have possibly realized that the snow falling on their

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tent was not the harbinger of something much worse. If

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they hadn't run, they likely would have been able to

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clear the snow, and most of the party could have survived. Unfortunately,

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since the entire group met their end on that cold

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February night, we'll never know for sure what happened to them,

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And while the Russian government seems wholeheartedly convinced it was

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an avalanche, their original vague conclusion and classification evidence, combined

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with their inability to explain their findings in the twenty

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twenty investigation, certainly leaves room for debate. Terrifying and True

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is narrated by Enrique Kuta, its executive produced by Rob Fields,

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Mark Shields and Bobletopia dot com. It's produced by Dan

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Wilder with original music by Ray Mattis. If you have

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a story you'd like us to cover, send us an

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email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com. And if

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one dollar a month, simply go to Weeklyspooky dot com

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folks who pay us a little bit more to hear

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their name at the end of the show, and they

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are Johnny Nix, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford, Brent McCullough, Karen

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we Met, Jack Kerr and Craig Cohen. Thank you all

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so much, and thank you all if for listening. We'll

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see you right here next time on Terrifying and True,

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on Weekly Spooky