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In January 1959 , a mathematical group of nine young hiker — seven military personnel and two char — slog through Russia ’s snowy Ural Mountains toward a efflorescence topically know as " Dead Mountain . " The tramp pitched their tents at the base of a small incline , as an intensify blizzard chilled the night tune to minus 19 degrees Fahrenheit ( minus 25 degrees Celsius ) . They never made it to their next waypoint .
It exact nearly a month for investigators to encounter all nine body spread amid the snow , trees and ravines of Dead Mountain . Some of the hikers died half - dressed , in just their socks and long underwear . Some had come apart bones and crack skull ; some were missing their eyes ; and one young char had lost her lingua , possibly to hungry wildlife . Their collapsible shelter , half - buried in the snow and evidently slashed opened from the inside , still held some of the hikers ' neatly - folded wearing apparel and half - eaten provisions .
A view of the tent as the rescuers found it on Feb. 26, 1959. The tent had been cut open from inside, and most of the skiers had fled in socks or barefoot.
All nine hikers had died ofhypothermiaafter being cast into the inhuman " under the influence of a compelling natural force , " a Russian probe concluded at the time . But the specifics of the " compelling " military group behind the now - infamous " Dyatlov Pass incident " ( named for one of the hikers , Igor Dyatlov ) have long remained a whodunit , and give rise to one of the most enduringconspiracy theoriesin modern Russian story .
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Everything fromaliensto abominable snowman have been implicated in the mystery story since it rose to ethnic prominence in the 1990s , follow a retire official ’s score of the investigating ( TheAtlantic ’s Alec Luhnhas summarize some of the most peculiar hypothesis . ) But now , a study published Thursday ( Jan. 28 ) in the Nature journalCommunications Earth & Environmentprovides the first scientific evidence behind a much more banal hypothesis : A small avalanche , triggered under unusual conditions , pummeled the hikers as they slept , then pressure them to flee their collapsible shelter into the inhuman , moody night .
Configuration of the Dyatlov group’s tent installed on a flat surface after making a cut in the slope below a small shoulder.
" We do not claim to have work out the Dyatlov Pass mystery , as no one survived to tell the story , " lead written report writer Johan Gaume , question of the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne , narrate Live Science . " But we show the plausibleness of the avalanche conjecture [ for the first sentence ] . "
Mystery in the snow
Theavalanchehypothesis is not new ; two federal Russian investigation ( completed in 2019 and 2020 ) also conclude that the hikers were most belike drive from their tents by a slab avalanche — that is , an avalanche that takes place when a slab of snow near the surface crack away from a deeper bed of snow , and it slides downhill in blockish chunks . However , this surmise has n’t been widely accepted by the public , the new study observe , because neither investigating offered a scientific explanation for some of the incident ’s stranger details .
" The slab avalanche theory was criticized due to four main counterargument , " Gaume said .
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The tomb of the nine hikers who died in the northern Ural Mountains.
First and foremost , there was no mansion of an avalanche when saver arrived at the campsite 26 days after the tramper live on miss . secondly , the slope where the hiker built their camp had an side of less the 30 degree , which is typically considered the minimum angle for an avalanche to pass off , Gaume said . Third , there ’s evidence that the hikers take flight their tents in the middle of the Nox , entail the avalanche was actuate hours after the highest endangerment event , when the hikers ramp up their camp — a process that involved cutting into the face of the gradient to create a flat surface below their collapsible shelter and a gauze-like wall of coke next to it ( a uncouth practice at the fourth dimension , the study authors compose ) . Finally , some of the tramp had sustain head and chest injuries that avalanches usually do n’t induce , Gaume said .
In their paper , Gaume and study co - source Alexander Puzrin , a researcher at the Institute for Geotechnical Engineering in Zurich , Switzerland , go down out to address each of these critiques . They hit the books records from the time of the Dyatlov incident to revivify the environmental status that the hikers most probably front on the night of their death , and then used a digital avalanche model to try whether a slab avalanche could have probably occurred under those condition .
The squad ’s depth psychology showed that the avalanche speculation stand up to every counterargument .
A ‘brutal force of nature’
In their report , the researchers learned that the slant of the slope near the hiker ’s campsite was actually extortionate than old report indicated ; the slope slant measure 28 degrees , compared with the area ’s fair slope angle of 23 degrees . Subsequent snowfalls in the weeks after the incident could have smoothed this slant , making the slope appear smaller while also breed signs of an avalanche , the team wrote . That item submit concern of heel counter - argument number one .
As for the second , while 30 degree is considered the stock slope slant at which slab avalanche can occur , this is not a hard rule , the researchers indite ; in fact , there ’s grounds of avalanche occurring on incline with angles as little as 15 degree . A key gene is the rubbing note value between the upper slab layer ( the one that falls ) and the base layer ( the one that stays in position ) . The base of the snowpack at the Dyatlov campground was composed of depth frost , or " gelt snow " — a type of grainy , crystallized shabu that often increases the peril of avalanches , the team wrote . This gritty base layer could have easily helped facilitate a slab avalanche , even at a 28 - degree ramp .
As for the time lag between the tramp cut into the slope and the avalanche tumbling onto their tent ? This could be explained by strong winds that gradually blew more and more snow onto the top of the gradient near the squad ’s campsite . condition on the tidy sum were extremely visionary , and coke may have roll up above the collapsible shelter for as many as 9.5 to 13.5 hours before the upper slab ultimately gave way , the squad ’s models showed .
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This leads to the final counterargument : the injuries . Some hiker were ground with cracked ribs and skull — injury more in line with a car chance event than an avalanche . However , the reckon slab avalanche at Dyatlov Pass was far from typical . Rather than brook in the direct track of the avalanche , the hikers would have been lying flat on their backs as they slept , with the C. P. Snow rushing down on top of them over the small ledge they cut into the slope .
" Dynamic avalanche simulation suggest that even a comparatively small slab [ of C ] could have led to severe but non - deadly pectus and skull injuries , as reported by the post - mortem examination , " the researchers wrote .
The team ’s models showed that , under specific environmental weather condition , a slab avalanche could have plausibly tumble onto the Dyatlov group as they slept , long after they cut into the incline to build their camp . The crushing snow all but flatten out the tent , cracking bones and forcing the tramp to in haste geld their way out of their snowy sarcophagus , dragging their wounded comrade behind as they attempted to survive the night in the opened tune . Sadly , none did .
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While this newspaper publisher does n’t explain every aspect of the Dyatlov mystery , it does provide the first scientific trial impression that at least one pop hypothesis — the avalanche hypothesis — is plausible , the authors concluded . That explanation may be far less exciting than unknown or abominable snowman , but for Gaume , the cliche of the avalanche hypothesis reinforces something more important : the human aspect of the catastrophe .
" When [ the hikers ] decided to go to the forest , they took care of their injured friends — no one was depart behind , " Gaume enjoin . " I think it is a great narration of bravery and friendship in the aspect of a brutal military group of nature . "
Originally published onLive Science .
