WEBVTT
1
00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:09.679
In the wild cold mountains of the Soviet Union, A
2
00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:13.199
group of skiers have their work cut out for them
3
00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:18.079
as they're hiking a major slow but when they never
4
00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:23.760
return home, questions begin to rise, and unfortunately, after they
5
00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:29.239
were found, there were even more questions. What you were
6
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:39.079
about to be spurn Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and
7
00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:54.200
public record, this is terrifying and t for many who
8
00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:58.679
are elder millennials, such as myself. The Soviet Union is
9
00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:04.640
mostly a concert one cobbled together from documentaries and textbooks,
10
00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:09.120
as well as television shows and movies of a bygone era.
11
00:01:09.719 --> 00:01:12.359
But when it comes to the USSR, one thing is
12
00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:16.280
for certain. They were very secretive, but they were also
13
00:01:16.319 --> 00:01:22.879
always watching their citizens through the notorious KGB. Tonight's mystery
14
00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:26.599
is even more enigmatic because it took place behind the
15
00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:30.280
Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union, where a group of
16
00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:34.000
young people met a fate no one could have expected,
17
00:01:34.439 --> 00:01:38.079
and the Russians had no idea how it happened, or
18
00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:41.640
at least that's what they claim. We'll talk all about
19
00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:56.159
the diet lave Past incident after this. In the winter
20
00:01:56.439 --> 00:02:02.079
of nineteen fifty nine nine, experience cross country skiers died
21
00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:07.200
under mysterious circumstances while on a multi day expedition in
22
00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:12.560
the Russian Ural Mountains. Something caused all nine to suddenly
23
00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:15.479
evacuate the safety of their tent in the middle of
24
00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:19.639
the night without proper clothing, leading most of them to
25
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.400
die of hypothermia. Others were found to have succumbed to
26
00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:29.199
severe injuries of unknown origin. The cause of the incident
27
00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:34.439
has been widely debated, spurring many theories, including ones involving
28
00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:40.280
UFOs and cryptids. On January twenty eighth, nineteen fifty nine,
29
00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:44.840
a party of ten skiers, consisting mostly of students from
30
00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:48.719
the Ural Polytechnic Institute set out on a trek to
31
00:02:48.759 --> 00:02:52.360
reach or Torten Mountain in what was the Soviet Union
32
00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:56.960
at the time. The route was considered a Category three
33
00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:00.479
hike and had been approved by this spurred Loss City
34
00:03:00.599 --> 00:03:04.560
Route Commission. The entire group was made up of certified
35
00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:08.199
Grade two hikers, all of which would be awarded their
36
00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:14.560
Grade three certification upon their return. Receiving a Grade three
37
00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:19.199
certification meant hiking at least one hundred and ninety miles
38
00:03:19.639 --> 00:03:23.360
and was the highest hiker certification given in the Soviet
39
00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:27.199
Union at the time. Suffice to say this was a
40
00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:32.719
group of very competent individuals, but it's their experience that
41
00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:37.000
may have led to their demise. On the evening of
42
00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:41.639
February one, nineteen fifty nine, the hikers, save one who
43
00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:44.719
had turned back due to an injury, set up camp
44
00:03:44.759 --> 00:03:48.159
for the night on the slope of colat Siakal, which
45
00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:52.800
ironically means dead mountain in the language used by the
46
00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:58.240
local Ugric indigenous people. According to diaries kept by the campers,
47
00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:01.759
which were later found a ban in the tent, this
48
00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:06.439
was not their original intent. Limited visibility due to a
49
00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:10.439
snowstorm caused them to head in the wrong direction and
50
00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:14.240
end up on the side of Colatsiako instead of across
51
00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.000
the mountain pass where they'd hoped to set up camp.
52
00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:21.480
Realizing their mistake, the group decided to camp on the
53
00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.680
mountain side, making a cut in the snow to protect
54
00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:28.439
their tent from the wind. Given the weather conditions, it
55
00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:31.279
would have made much more sense to camp slightly less
56
00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:34.680
than a mile downhill in a forested area as the
57
00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:39.360
storm raged, but for a reason we can only ever conjecture,
58
00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:44.040
they stayed put on the slope. This decision would turn
59
00:04:44.079 --> 00:04:47.800
out to be a crucial mistake responsible for cutting their
60
00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:52.560
lives short. During that night, an event occurred that caused
61
00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:56.720
the entire party to leave the tent, some only partially
62
00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:01.560
clothed and others naked, in temperatures likely lower than negative
63
00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:07.040
twenty four degrees celsius or negative eleven degrees fahrenheit. It
64
00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:10.959
wasn't until February twentieth that a search party consisting of
65
00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:15.399
students and teachers from the Eural Polytechnical Institute was assembled.
66
00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:19.399
Ivan Yetlov, the leader of the cross country hike, was
67
00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:23.040
supposed to telegraph the institute when the team returned from
68
00:05:23.079 --> 00:05:26.439
their expedition. He had expected that to be no later
69
00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:31.000
than February twelfth, but when no communication was received that day,
70
00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:35.800
it didn't raise alarm bells. Family and friends assumed they'd
71
00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:40.399
just underestimated the time needed to complete their journey. By
72
00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:43.600
the twentieth, it was clear that something was wrong, and
73
00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:46.759
a search party of students and teachers from the institute
74
00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:50.560
was assembled. An air search was also initiated by the
75
00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:55.759
military and police soon after. On the twenty sixth, members
76
00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:59.160
of the search party discovered the hikers badly damaged and
77
00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:04.399
partially snow so covered tent. Inside they found the hiker's belongings,
78
00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:08.639
including their clothes and shoes. Food was even laid out
79
00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:12.480
as if they'd been preparing a dinner. In addition, the
80
00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:15.519
tent had been ripped from the inside, as if they
81
00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:20.959
suddenly were very desperate to escape. However, no signs of
82
00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:25.800
a struggle were discovered. Leading away from the camp site
83
00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:29.319
were nine sets of footprints. Some of the prints were
84
00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:33.360
completely barefoot, while others showed that some had fled in
85
00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:36.920
only their socks or with just one of their shoes
86
00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:41.920
on these tracks all headed down the slope before disappearing
87
00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:44.759
into the snow after about a third of a mile.
88
00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:48.560
On the outskirts of the forest, not too far from
89
00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:51.920
the tracks, the search party found the first two campers
90
00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:57.480
dead under a tree near the remnants of a campfire.
91
00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:02.759
Both were barefoot and in their underwear. Three more members
92
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.639
of the group were discovered between the forest and tent
93
00:07:05.959 --> 00:07:09.399
soon after. From the positioning of their bodies, it was
94
00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:12.199
concluded that they had been trying to return to the
95
00:07:12.279 --> 00:07:18.439
camp site when they died. These discoveries prompted a criminal investigation,
96
00:07:19.079 --> 00:07:22.600
but autopsies determined that all of the found party members
97
00:07:22.920 --> 00:07:28.199
had succumbed to hypothermia. It took two more months to
98
00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:32.959
find the remaining members of the expedition, Nicholas Thibou Brignol,
99
00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:40.879
Ludmila Dubanina, Alexander Zolotarov and Alexander Kolovatov, and their fate
100
00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:46.120
was more gruesome. They were discovered in a ravine in
101
00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:50.120
a river bed under thirteen feet of snow and eighty
102
00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:55.800
yards further into the forest than their companions. Thibeau Brignolo
103
00:07:56.399 --> 00:08:00.800
was found with a crushed skull, and Zolataiov and Dubanina
104
00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:04.800
had fractured ribs and crushed chests. Two of the four
105
00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:11.800
were also missing their eyes, and Dubanina had no tongue.
106
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.279
This shocking find caused the police to suspect that the
107
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.600
campers had been attacked by the Mansi, a local indigenous
108
00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:23.720
tribe that herd it reindeer in the area. It seemed
109
00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:27.079
possible that the party had accidentally strayed into the Mansi's
110
00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:32.200
territory and were killed. That theory was debunked rather quickly
111
00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:36.519
because no other footprints were found besides those of the campers,
112
00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:39.840
and the Mansei did not have any sacred sites in
113
00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:45.480
the area. Furthermore, the autopsies concluded that while three of
114
00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:48.919
the four died of their injuries, the force needed to
115
00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.320
create the damage to their bodies was far more than
116
00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:55.600
a human could produce, and was in fact more similar
117
00:08:55.600 --> 00:09:00.480
to injuries from a car crash. The soft tissue damage
118
00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:04.399
to their faces was determined to have occurred after death,
119
00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.200
either caused by animals or exposure to the water they'd
120
00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:13.159
been laying in. In May of nineteen fifty nine, the
121
00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:17.840
authorities officially closed the investigation. It was determined that the
122
00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:23.279
skier's deaths were caused by a quote natural compelling force.
123
00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:27.879
What the force was was not specified, and the vagueness
124
00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:31.879
of this conclusion left plenty of room for theories to develop.
125
00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:37.360
The first theory is that the campers encountered a yetti.
126
00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:41.000
In one of the photos taken by the campers that
127
00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:45.080
was found with their belongings, a dark bipedal creature can
128
00:09:45.159 --> 00:09:49.919
be seen lurking in the shadows. Believers of this theory
129
00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.360
cite this picture and an article about YETI sightings in
130
00:09:53.399 --> 00:09:57.399
the area published as evidence that the party met its
131
00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:02.679
grisly fate at the hands of this scryptid. That stated
132
00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:06.600
the newspaper responsible for publishing the article was known for
133
00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:11.679
exaggeration and dubious reporting, and while that could explain the
134
00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:15.480
superhuman force used to create some of the injuries and
135
00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:19.519
why the party was so anxious to run, it fails
136
00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:23.039
to take into account that no other tracks, yety human
137
00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:27.960
or any other animal were found at the campsite. Another
138
00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:32.360
theory of a more scientific nature suggests that the campers
139
00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:36.559
may have been driven from their tent by infrasound. In
140
00:10:36.639 --> 00:10:41.960
his twenty thirteen book Dead Mountain, Donnie Ekkar conjectured that
141
00:10:42.200 --> 00:10:44.960
when the wind passed over the mountain, it may have
142
00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:49.720
created sound below the frequency of human hearing. Infrasound, as
143
00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:54.720
it's called, can cause physical discomfort and panic, so it's
144
00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:57.320
possible that the campers felt the need to flee their
145
00:10:57.399 --> 00:11:02.320
tent after being exposed to it. This doesn't explain why
146
00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:05.960
some of the team died from such severe injuries, though,
147
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:12.399
Speaking of wind, in twenty nineteen, independent investigators of the
148
00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:17.919
site proposed that kattabatic winds may have been responsible. They
149
00:11:17.960 --> 00:11:20.720
had an incident in an area of Sweden with similar
150
00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:24.960
topography where eight of nine hikers were killed by such
151
00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:29.519
winds to support their theory. Katabatic wind occurs when high
152
00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:33.159
pressure air is pushed downhill by gravity to an area
153
00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:38.120
of low pressure, causing high winds. The gusts could have
154
00:11:38.159 --> 00:11:41.000
been so strong that the group had no choice but
155
00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:44.240
to leave the tent and attempt to take shelter elsewhere.
156
00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.960
They may have even covered the tent in snow to
157
00:11:48.039 --> 00:11:51.279
keep it from blowing away so they could return once
158
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:57.159
the danger was over. Strangely enough, the lead investigator in
159
00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:01.399
the original nineteen fifty nine case, Lent Ivanov, had a
160
00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:05.120
theory of his own that differs wildly from the natural
161
00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:10.720
compelling force conclusion that the government originally offered. In nineteen ninety,
162
00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:14.080
Ivanov came forward and said that he had been forced
163
00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:18.240
to censor his findings. He claimed that scorch marks on
164
00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:21.559
a tree where the first hikers were found was from
165
00:12:21.559 --> 00:12:25.559
a heat wret that had been aimed at them. Ivanov
166
00:12:25.639 --> 00:12:28.840
also said that there had been reports of bright flying
167
00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:34.240
spheres in the vicinity that February. In fact, since then,
168
00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:38.639
declassified documents show that a group of hikers camping some
169
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:43.159
thirty miles away reported seeing orange spheres floating in the
170
00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:47.759
sky on the very same night as the incident. Ivanov
171
00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:53.360
believed that one of these glowing orbs exploded, killing some campers.
172
00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:57.240
In an interview, he stated that quote based on the
173
00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:01.600
evidence gathered, the role of UFO's in this tragedy was
174
00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:07.240
quite obvious, whether lev Ivanov was referring to other worldly
175
00:13:07.399 --> 00:13:12.679
UFOs or simply unknown government aircraft. There is a theory
176
00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:16.120
that the group may have wandered into a military testing site,
177
00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:20.720
and mysteriously, some of the clothing left on the bodies
178
00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:24.440
that were found in the ravine did have traces of
179
00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:29.720
radioactivity on them, but not all of them. The most
180
00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:33.559
damning evidence against this is that evidence of an explosion
181
00:13:34.039 --> 00:13:38.960
was never found. Perhaps skeptical of their own vague conclusion,
182
00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:43.279
the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reopened the case
183
00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:48.559
in two thousand fifteen. In two thoy nineteen, they concluded
184
00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:51.960
that an avalanche was the most probable cause for the
185
00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:56.399
death of the cross country skiers. However, their reasoning was
186
00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:01.080
not disclosed, and later on in twenty nineteen, the Prosecutor
187
00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:04.720
General reopened the case again, only to come to the
188
00:14:04.759 --> 00:14:09.799
exact same conclusion. Critics state that the slope of the
189
00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:12.840
mountain was not steep enough to lead to an avalanche,
190
00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:16.279
and no debris or evidence of one was ever observed
191
00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:21.399
in the area. In twenty twenty one, Johann Gomme and
192
00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:26.679
Alexander M. Puzrin wrote an article explaining in detail how
193
00:14:26.679 --> 00:14:30.360
a small avalanche known as a slab avalanche could have
194
00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:34.159
led to the deaths of the skiers. They conjectured that
195
00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:36.919
when the hikers cut into the snow to level the
196
00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:40.440
surface and protect themselves from the wind, it weakened the
197
00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:45.480
stability of it. That, combined with the strong, potentially catabatic
198
00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:49.279
winds from the snow storm, allowed the snow slab above
199
00:14:49.320 --> 00:14:52.840
the tent to eventually collapse onto it. It may have
200
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:56.159
even collapsed onto the entrance, which is why the hikers
201
00:14:56.200 --> 00:15:00.320
had to cut the tent to escape. The three makers
202
00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.159
who were fatally injured may have been crushed in the
203
00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.519
tent and then succumbed to their wounds later on, But
204
00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:12.679
the question remains, why did they run. It's possible that
205
00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:17.279
they believed this localized avalanche was actually occurring mountain wide.
206
00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:21.360
If that's the case, fleeing immediately would have been their
207
00:15:21.399 --> 00:15:26.360
best chance of survival. If this was a less experienced group,
208
00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.679
they may have actually been less likely to run and
209
00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:32.559
could have possibly realized that the snow falling on their
210
00:15:32.679 --> 00:15:37.639
tent was not the harbinger of something much worse. If
211
00:15:37.679 --> 00:15:40.360
they hadn't run, they likely would have been able to
212
00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:46.279
clear the snow, and most of the party could have survived. Unfortunately,
213
00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:49.480
since the entire group met their end on that cold
214
00:15:49.559 --> 00:15:54.120
February night, we'll never know for sure what happened to them,
215
00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:58.120
And while the Russian government seems wholeheartedly convinced it was
216
00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:04.559
an avalanche, their original vague conclusion and classification evidence, combined
217
00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:07.639
with their inability to explain their findings in the twenty
218
00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:15.679
twenty investigation, certainly leaves room for debate. Terrifying and True
219
00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:19.960
is narrated by Enrique Kuta, its executive produced by Rob Fields,
220
00:16:20.039 --> 00:16:24.399
Mark Shields and Bobletopia dot com. It's produced by Dan
221
00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:27.960
Wilder with original music by Ray Mattis. If you have
222
00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:30.000
a story you'd like us to cover, send us an
223
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:33.039
email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com. And if
224
00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:34.840
you want to support us directly for as little as
225
00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:38.240
one dollar a month, simply go to Weeklyspooky dot com
226
00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:41.480
and click on Patreon. Your support helps us keep the
227
00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:45.000
podcast going and growing, and speaking of I want to
228
00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:48.039
say an extra special thank you to our Patreon podcast boosters,
229
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:50.080
folks who pay us a little bit more to hear
230
00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:51.799
their name at the end of the show, and they
231
00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:55.679
are Johnny Nix, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford, Brent McCullough, Karen
232
00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:58.600
we Met, Jack Kerr and Craig Cohen. Thank you all
233
00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:00.799
so much, and thank you all if for listening. We'll
234
00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:04.440
see you right here next time on Terrifying and True,
235
00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:14.839
on Weekly Spooky