Not classified materials, the truth is somewhere nearby
The tragic events at the Dyatlov Pass are over 50 years old. But this mysterious incident has not been forgotten, thousands of links on this topic on the Web are proof of this. The mysterious death of nine young people in the mountains of the northern Urals still haunts many.
At first glance, it may seem that this is a small-town theme, the lot of ufomaniacs and paranormalists, everything would be so, but, "The dead do not lie …". The death of nine tourists is so mysterious and unusual, contains so many unexplained facts that only the legendary Sherlock Holmes with his deductive abilities can investigate this group murder.
The plot of events is worthy of a fantastic thriller, domestic and criminal versions disappear immediately. Even the official investigation ended with a formulation worthy of Shakespeare's tragedies: "… … the cause of the death of tourists was a spontaneous force, which people were not able to overcome."
Here is a paragraph from this decision to close the investigation:
A unique case - a household tragedy in the remote Ural mountains that occurred more than 50 years ago has not been forgotten, moreover, it is actively discussed and haunted by many researchers. There is only one explanation for this phenomenon; anyone who gets acquainted with these events has an unaccountable feeling of anxiety and danger. Such an intuitive and subconscious identification of unknown dangers is a genetic feature of all mankind, otherwise it would not have survived as a biological and social species.
Not classified materials
There is plenty of factual material to analyze the events at the Dyatlov Pass (as this place is now called), they are not secret and everything is in the public domain, there are so many of them that it is extremely easy to get confused in versions based on these documents. Therefore, while there are no versions of events, there are already enough versions, everyone can choose the version of events to their liking.
Let us focus only on a few key facts, the correct assessment of which sharply narrows the circle of really possible versions of this tragedy. These facts are known to everyone who is interested in this topic, but there are circumstances behind the facts, and this article is about the circumstances. Let everyone draw conclusions based on these circumstances, of course, I also made them for myself, and more on this in the second part of the material.
In order for the name of the cause of these tragic events not subconsciously to put pressure on the readers' opinion, let us call it neutral - "Factor". In the first part of the material, we will try to understand the nature of this "Factor", here the main thing is to understand whether it was technogenic, natural or reasonable. In addition, we will try to answer the fundamental question, was the meeting of tourists with him an accident, or was it a planned contact?
Eh … everything is not so, all is not so guys! …
According to the plan of the campaign, the tourists were supposed to spend the night on the border of the forest in the upper reaches of the Auspi River to climb Mount Otorten, arrange a storage shed with things unnecessary for climbing. Actually, from that moment, moving with lightweight backpacks, the ascent to Mount Otorten began for them, which should have taken three days with the return journey:
- On the first day, it was necessary to walk from the storage shed to the slope of Mount Otorten.
- On the second day, climb, - On the third day, go back to the storage shed for your things in the area of the Auspiya river.
Here is their application for the route:
<table width = 54 paths
<td width = 47 width = 255 path sections
<td width = 113 re-moves
<td width = 102 width = 54 width = 47 width = 255 - Vizhay
Vizhay - 2nd Northern
--
Up the river. Auspi
Pass to the upper Lozva
Climbing Mount Otorten
Otorten - upper reaches of Auspiya
Pass to the upper reaches of the river. Unya
To the headwaters of the river. Vishera
To the headwaters of the river. Niols
Climbing Mount Oiko-Chakur
Along North Toshemka to the hut
In North Toshemka -
- Look.
Vizhai-Midnight
Midnight - Sverdlovsk
<td width = 113 width = 102 the entire ascent was planned to spend three days and three nights (points related to the ascent are marked in red).
The official investigation, and after it all subsequent reconstructions of events, consider the night from February 1 to February 2, 1959 to be the date of the tragic incident. This dating is based only on the last entry in the hiking diary about spending the night at the border of the forest dated January 31 and the wall newspaper dated February 1.
The logic of the researchers is simple - if there are no records after February 1, then there were no more people alive.
A place to spend the night from January 31 to February 1 at the border of the forest, from which the ascent began, was discovered. There was also a storage shed in which tourists stored things and products unnecessary for climbing Mount Otorten.
According to the general opinion of all the researchers of these events, on February 1, tourists arranged a storage shed and went to the slope of Mount Holatchakhlyu (height 1079). They arranged an overnight stay, which was the last for them. Here is a photo of what the rescuers found at the place of their last overnight stay (hereinafter, all materials from the criminal case):
According to the plan of the route, it was supposed to spend the night in approximately these places on the way back (the upper reaches of the Auspi River), after the ascent.
However, all researchers, without exception, believe that tourists stopped at this place before the ascent, and to substantiate this, they set out versions with errors in the route, tourists drowsiness, inability to quickly equip a storage shed and other negative circumstances.
Or maybe you shouldn't talk badly about the dead, maybe everything went according to plan, and this is a place to spend the night after the ascent? This option is indicated by many facts.
Here is perhaps the most important one, look at the photo taken by tourists at the site of the tent, the investigation believes that this is the same place where the abandoned tent was found and that the photo was taken in the evening of February 1:
Even a non-expert can see that the slope of the terrain and the level of burial in the snow of the place for the tent do not correspond in this photo, what can be seen in the picture taken by the rescuers at the place where the abandoned tent was found.
These are different places.
If this is so, then according to the route plan the tourists had to spend two nights at the foot of the Otorten mountain and it is logical to assume that this very moment was filmed by the tourists. The photograph of clearing a place for a tent was taken by them on February 1, but in a different place, on the slope of Mount Otorten.
On the night from February 1 to February 2, they safely spent the night at this place, made the planned ascent of Mount Otorten in the afternoon of February 2, once again spent the night at this place and on February 3 went back to the storage shed. But apparently they could not reach the storage facility in one day (they did not reach about one and a half kilometers) and stopped for the night in the place discovered by the rescuers.
So it is quite possible that the events actually took place on the night of February 3 to 4, which was the last for them.
It is incorrect to assume, as the investigation did, and after it all subsequent researchers, that on the very first day of the ascent, experienced tourists got off the schedule of the route is incorrect, there are no direct facts confirming this. Let's all the same proceed from the fact that the experienced team kept the schedule and the places of overnight stay corresponded to the declared route.
But this is not a fact, this is an assumption, now about the facts in support of such a dating of events:
- Firstly, this is the content of the last discovered document - "Battle Leaflet" dated February 1. It talks about the surroundings of Mount Otorten. Hardly 15 kilometers from the target (at the place where the abandoned tent was found), you can talk about the surroundings of Mount Otorten, for this you need to come closer to it.
- Secondly, the "Battle Leaflet" sarcastically speaks of a record for installing a stove. It is doubtful that this event refers to previous overnight stays, most likely on the evening of February 1, the stove was actually installed. But the stove was not installed in the tent at the site of the tragedy.
- Thirdly, only one log was found in the tent, it is unbelievable that if they were going to spend 2-3 days in the mountains, in a treeless area, they would take only one log with them. It is easier to assume that it was the only one at the time of the return.
- Fourthly, the same situation with food, this is what remained in the storage shed:
1. Condensed milk 2, 5 kg.
2. Canned meat in cans of 4 kg.
3. Sugar - 8 kg.
4. Butter - 4 kg.
5. Boiled sausage - 4 kg.
6. Salt - 1, 5 c.
7. Kissel-compote - 3 kg.
8. Oat and buckwheat porridge 7.5 kg.
9 cocoa 200 g
10. Coffee - 200 g.
11. Tea - 200 gr.
12. Loin - 3 kg.
13. Powdered milk - 1 kg.
14. Granulated sugar - 3 kg.
15. Crackers - 7 kg and Noodles - 5 kg.
And here is what was found in the tent:
1. Suhari in two bags.
2. Condensed milk.
3. Sugar, concentrates.
A strange and meager set of food in the tent regarding the abundance left in the storage shed. It is absurd to assume that the tourists did not take any canned food or sausages for the ascent, but only 100 grams of loin from a piece of 3 kg left in the storage shed …
One hundred grams of loin is a documented fact in the testimony of V. I. Tempalov, he spoke about 100 grams of sliced and never eaten loin found in the tent, there can be only one logical explanation, the tourists ate the last food they took with them.
- Fifthly, to move away from the place of installation of the storage facility at a distance of one and a half kilometers (the same number of people ran barefoot on a tragic night) and stop for the night is, by and large, illogical. Here is a photograph of tourists showing the conditions in which the ascent took place:
The conditions are of course extreme, but the depth of the snow, the wind load, and the gentle rise made it possible in such conditions to walk 2-3 kilometers per hour.
From the storage shed to the place of the abandoned tent no more than one and a half kilometers, this distance, in the conditions that are visible in the picture, tourists had to walk in 30-40 minutes, well, they could not spend more than an hour on this distance.
It is absurd to suppose that a group of 9 experienced tourists could think of such a thing - to spend an hour on the crossing and start settling down for the night.
It was wiser not to go out on the route, and they were experienced and reasonable people.
There is not a single direct fact that would contradict the assumption about the dating of the tragedy from February 3 to 4, during the return to the storage shed, only indirect circumstances, here they are:
- It is not clear why there is nothing in the travel diaries since February 1 … But it may be simple fatigue - there was no time for that, and the extreme conditions on the way did not allow me to engage in the epistolary genre. Actually, on February 1, only the "wall newspaper" was written. Although, following the logic of the investigation, they had plenty of time that day, because, according to the investigation, the tourists walked around the storage shed all day.
- There are no pictures of the victorious achievement of the goal of the campaign … But it definitely had to be. In the materials of the Internet there are all the frames that were found on 6 films, the last (or maybe the penultimate …) is definitely the previously mentioned picture of clearing a place in the snow for a tent.
Dead end? No, the tourists had several rolls of film for each camera, these rolls were found in a tin can, one of the rolls was even found near the tent, there are still frames from some other film (they are referred to as “loose frames”). So it is impossible to assert that everything they filmed during the campaign is in the public domain, there are (were) other films that we do not know on them.
We definitely do not know the two films that were in the cameras at the time of the tragedy, the search engines handed over to the investigation three cameras with the number of frames indicated in the act: 34, 27.27. There is a film with 34 frames, on it the last notorious frame of the "fireball", but there are no films with 27 frames, there are films with a different number of frames.
Moreover, in addition to the four cameras found in the tent, there was also a fifth one, although this camera does not appear in the investigation materials, it is clearly visible in the photograph of Zolotarev's body. It is clear that no footage from it has survived, it was in running water, but probably footage of the conquest of Mount Otorten, and not only they, could have been in it.
Does this interpretation of the date change the general picture of those tragic events? Practically not, but maybe a group of tourists had problems not on the night of the tragedy, but earlier? We do not know what happened during the period that fell, but this is two or even three days.
There are no accidents in this world, every step leaves a trace …
Surprisingly, the events at the Dyatlov pass are well documented, there are witnesses, there are materials of the criminal case. But the fact is, it is not only a connecting point in the sequence of events, it is also the sum of circumstances. It is from this point of view that we will approach the assessment of key facts.
Here is one of the unexplained facts:
The group left the tent down the slope at night. By the time the tragedy site was discovered, chains of traces of all nine tourists remained for at least half a kilometer (according to some eyewitnesses, almost a kilometer).
Tourists walked barefoot (most of them had no shoes, but in warm socks).
This is how a participant in a search operation recalls this, who was the first to find the place of the tragedy and, accordingly, could see the traces in their natural, not trampled form (Recording of a conversation with Boris Efimovich Slobtsov 2006-01-06):
WB: How did they go in relation to the gutter? Here's what happens. If this is a tent, but the horizontal lines - did they go a little to the side?
Did they walk, traversing the slope. Or in the direction of the valley itself?
BS: I think it's in the direction of the decay itself.
WB: That is, how would you center along the decay?
BS: Yes. The tracks were also not single file one after another. They were…. in a line, each running along its own trajectory. As far as I understand. I suppose the wind was driving them hard on their backs. And they had no shoes at all - some had one felt boots, some had socks, some I don’t know…. … In my opinion, no one had any serious shoes.
These tracks looked like columns of compacted snow, which means that the tourists were walking on loose snow, which was then blown away by the wind and remained only under the tracks due to compaction. Here's what the tracks looked like:
By the way, such characteristic traces, not depressed, but in the form of seals, can appear only on loose and "sticky" snow, this indicates the temperature during the escape from the mountain - no more than minus 10 degrees. So the tourists were not so badly dressed for such weather, freezing in a group, having access to a made fire, in the forest, where there is a shelter from the wind, for experienced people such an outcome is almost impossible.
And so, the route of movement is straightforward, the tracks went in parallel chains. This is a fact, now about the non-obvious circumstances of this retreat to the edge of the forest:
Nine people walked in a deployed formation, although it is much easier to follow in deep snow trail after trail. This means that the extreme factor acted all the time of the movement and people instinctively tried to get away from danger with maximum speed, no one wanted to be the last.
In such a situation, the location of the source of the threat that drove people out of the tent is understandable - somewhere behind their backs. It is clear that they were going to the nearest shelter, and the purpose of the movement (shelter) was clearly discernible and realized by all members of the group.
Judging by the direction of the tracks, the tourists went straight from the tent to the ravine (shallow ravine). Strange, they were less than a kilometer to the forest, and they were going not in the direction of the forest, but in the direction of a treeless ravine, and the path to it was twice as long. For some reason, it seemed to all of them that a safe hiding place was located in this very place. And they, apparently, were not mistaken in their initial assumptions. This is evidenced by the fact of the arrangement of flooring from the trunks of small trees covered with spruce branches in the deepest part of this ravine.
As for the purpose of the movement, everything is clear - this is the darkest and lowest place in the immediate vicinity. I will paraphrase a well-known expression: "Tell me where you are running, and I will tell you who you are running from."
This is how they do not flee from a natural force, this is how they flee from an extreme factor, the threat from which is associated with direct visual contact. At the moment of leaving the tent, the goal of the tourists was to hide, and not just to get out of the zone of action of the extreme factor. Here is a photo to appreciate the shelter that tourists have built for themselves in order to wait out the action of this extreme factor:
On a moonless night, even in ideal conditions of a clear starry sky, it is difficult to see anything. It is almost impossible to run in a straight line one and a half kilometers on rough terrain, in deep snow, in the dark.
This requires powerful illumination from the side of the nearest peaks, and the illumination from the back, then the ravine where they ran will become a shaded place in which to hide.
The presence of two factors - the threat and the backlight was hardly separate, it was a single factor, the fact that the tourists fled towards the nearest shadow confirms this
And there is no miracle and coincidences are extremely rare …
In the final part of the tragedy, there is a similar fact of the rectilinear movement of several tourists. Three people died on the way to a certain goal. Their bodies, and the point from where they started their last movement (fire) are located on a perfect straight line.
You can move back, up the slope either to the tent, or to the source of danger that drove the tourists out of the tent, there is no third option. If the goal of the upward movement was a tent, then most likely they would go to it, returning in their own footsteps, there is no other guaranteed way to quickly get to it. But they did not return in their tracks.
The straightness of their movement indicates that they clearly saw where they needed to go, only a clear reference point can allow them to maintain a straight line. It is impossible to see a tent half-buried in the snow in the dark from a distance of more than a kilometer.
So they did not go to the tent, but to the source of danger that drove them from the mountain, they went to the "factor"
Unfortunately, the investigation did not accurately record the circumstances of the case on the map, there are only two hand-drawn diagrams, one of them is given below. On it.хД,.хС,.хК are the points of detection of the bodies of tourists, a Christmas tree with a cross, this is the location of the fire under the fir.
These four points fit into one ideal straight line leading past the tent, in the direction of one of the nearest peaks, and apparently they were going there, most likely it was there that the source of danger was located.
The diagram shows the point of finding the flashlight lost by tourists at the end of the third stone ridge, and also the dotted line indicates the border of the forest, and this border at the point where the stream flows is the place where the flooring made by tourists was found.
The tent, the lost flashlight, and the floor area also form a perfect straight line. This fact is in good agreement with the words of Slobtsov, who argued that the tracks went into the ravine and were straight throughout the entire visible area.
Here is this diagram, from the materials of the investigation:
And so we have two facts, spaced apart in time and place, indicating the straightforwardness of the movement of tourists over rough terrain on a moonless night.
You can, of course, write off everything as a coincidence, but, as a rule, accidents are unknown patterns. In this case, these rectilinear movements of tourists can be explained only with the help of the assumption of good visibility throughout the tragedy and the assumption that this good visibility was provided precisely by the source of the threat that drove the tourists out of the tent.
Summing up, it can be argued that the factor that caused the escape from the tent had visual properties (a fairly bright glow). In addition, this factor acted for a long time, and illuminated the area even during the attempt of three tourists to return to the mountainside.
Scary - interesting.
(a little emotion)
And so, the tourists in full force moved away from the tent down the mountainside for one and a half kilometers and stopped. This means that this place seemed to them already quite safe, otherwise they would not have built a flooring of branches and made a fire. But between the fire and the flooring there are almost a hundred meters, and the flooring is clearly not designed for the entire group of 9 people.
Thus, we can state the presence of two strategies at this critical moment in the group, the first to hide (which is called "not sticking out") and the second to find oneself (making a fire) and make contact with the phenomenon that frightened them.
The distribution of people into these groups is indicative, in the first of which they decided to "not stick out" these are the most adult tourists, the second group, which was interested, consisted of young students.
The separation of the group in an extreme situation is a very characteristic fact, which speaks of a non-standard phenomenon that caused them to leave the tent, it was a natural elemental force unknown to them, such as an avalanche, an unknown biological object, such as a bear, a man, a Bigfoot, finally.
They were separated by a non-standard situation that did not fit into the usual patterns of behavior, and each group, due to its life experience, reacted to this situation in its own way.
Here are specially selected photos from their last trip that best capture the character of the leaders in these two groups:
This is a photograph of the leader of the campaign, Dyatlov, and he seems to have become the leader of a group of youth.
But there was also an experienced tourism instructor, a professional, and just an adult, - Zolotarev, here is a picture from the foreground:
He seems to have become the leader of a group of more mature and rational tourists.
By the way, in Rakitin's very detailed, but rather controversial material, "Death Following the Trail," there is a well-founded version that Zolotarev was a KGB officer and worked undercover. If this is true, then what did the KGB need in a group of students? Certainly not monitoring their anti-Soviet sentiments, an ordinary informant is enough for this, not a regular officer. Here again I have to agree with Rakitin, Zolotarev was on some kind of assignment, but it is unlikely on the one about which he writes, this is what is called fantasy …
In any case, even if he was a simple full-time instructor of the Tour Base, then in this case he had quite complete information about the area in which the route passed, it seems that something from this information kept him in suspense, and that is why he was fully dressed by the time the beginning of tragic events.
Another adult participant in the campaign was Thibault-Brulion, here in the photo they are together with Zolotarev:
It is immediately clear that between these people, who met only in this, their last campaign, there is a certain friendly predisposition. Apparently they, as older ones, tended to communicate with each other and it is quite possible that Zolotarev shared his fears with Thibault-Brulion. And this may explain why it was he who became the second person fully dressed at the beginning of the tragic events.
In an extreme situation, all the fullness of power undoubtedly should have passed to Zolotarev, both in status, and in experience, and in his front-line past … But the youth did not listen to him and simply left to the side to implement their plan.
This is the picture emerging….
But I will end on this lyrical and psychological digression and move on again only to the bare facts.
You are already far away ………, and four hundred steps to death…
The route of the three tourists returning back to the top of the mountain contains another set of coincidences, which, for probabilistic reasons, can hardly be classified as an accident. The distance between the bodies of the dead tourists on the route back to the top of the mountain is equal intervals of 150-180 meters, there is no more accurate data (no one measured it with a tape measure), but this fact is confirmed by all eyewitnesses and the materials of the criminal case.
The fire and three bodies lie on one straight line, the poses indicate the directions of movement, there are equal distances between them, just like Stevenson's in the book "Treasure Island", only there is the author's fantasy, but here is a real tragedy. Four points that fit into a straight line, it means the goal of movement on the continuation of this line, but this is not enough, there are equal distances between the bodies, how to understand this?
The mathematical probability that the sum of external spontaneous factors (frost, wind) and the exhaustion of the internal individual physiological resource of tourists has led to such a coincidence of the intervals between bodies vanishingly small. Considering that the least physically strong girl went farthest to the goal of the movement, this violates the very logic of the statement that they died from exhaustion of physiological forces.
It is more logical to assume that they were forcibly stopped by some external factor that has a certain causal logic in its actions.
There is also a third interval, which also falls within the fatal 150-180 meters, it is associated with the location of the first body of the tourist (on the diagram, the place of his body is indicated by a cross with the letter "D"), moving back to the top of the mountain. There are no exact data, no one measured it, but his body also seemed to be at a distance of 150-180 meters from the place from which the ascent to the mountain began. This can be asserted only on the basis of indirect data and pictures of the ravine. The fact is that the fire from which the movement to the top of the mountain began was on another slope of the ravine. The width of the ravine can be indirectly estimated from the images from the investigation materials, it is somewhere around 200-250 meters.
Here is a snapshot of this ravine, numbers 1 and 2 respectively mark the places where the floor was found (previous photo) and the bodies of four tourists who were last killed on this fateful night were found near the floor:
Considering that the investigation materials indicate that the body of the first tourist was found at a distance of 400 meters from the fire, we get the same fatal interval.
It turns out such a reconstruction of events: the first tourist goes to the slope of the mountain, in other words, falls into the line of sight from the top of the mountain, passes the notorious 150-180 meters and falls what is called "dead" (more on this in the second part).
The second tourist follows the same route, departs from the body of the first tourist for another 150-180 meters and dies. The third tourist (woman) follows the same route from the second body, another fatal segment up the mountainside and also dies.
It is impossible to reliably establish how these three tourists moved, together or separately, there is only one indirect circumstance indicating that the first tourist (Dyatlov himself) walked alone and walked the very first. The fact is that the body of this tourist clearly turned over after death in an already numb state, this is evidenced by the discrepancy between the posture in which the tourist froze and the position of the body at the time of detection by the search engines.
Here is a photo of the body at the time of discovery:
The man froze in a characteristic pose, the posture of a man, as it was said earlier, “dead”. From the characteristic curves of the body and tightly drawn knees, it can be seen that at first he knelt down, pushing the snow under him, and then fell forward, on his chest, into the snow, and so he froze without making a single, even agonal movement.
But the body lies on its back, leaned sideways to the branches of a stunted tree … which means that it was turned over after rigor mortis, and this takes at least 1-2 hours, taking into account the weather conditions. Moreover, his jacket is unbuttoned on his chest, apparently one of the tourists, having found his body, tried to find out whether he was alive, for which he turned his face upwards, and unbuttoned his outer clothing.
An epic situation is emerging, people are walking from a shelter, from a fire, near which they could endure this fateful night, towards their death, knowing exactly what awaits them ahead (at least two tourists) and after all, none of them turned back, to a safe that moment is the place.
Two by the fire
Two more tourists died by the fire, it is believed that they froze …. But strangely frozen, as well as three on the side of the mountain, falling into the snow "dead". But so far not about this, something else is important, the tourists lit a fire and supported it for at least 3, or even 4 hours, all search engines who saw this fire and in their conclusions are guided by the volume of burnt branches agree.
The fire is not large, although they had the opportunity to make a really serious fire to save them from the cold, which means that the function of the fire is not to heat, but to indicate their presence.
A bonfire was built near a tall tree, blood remained on the trunk of the tree, tourists, according to the general opinion of the search engines and investigators, used the tree for observation, climbing it to a height of about 5 meters.
And here the most important thing, what could the tourists see from a height of 5 meters and could not see from the ground in the place where the fire was made? Oddly enough, this can be established quite accurately even now, here is a modern snapshot of the mountainside, presumably taken from this cedar:
For 50 years, the forest has grown significantly, but the mountain is clearly visible. It was behind the top of the mountain, hidden from them from the ground level by the steep opposite slope of the ravine and the forest, that tourists watched.
It is quite possible that the need for observation was due to anxiety about the comrades who had gone to the top, but this is hardly the only reason. The observers were no less interested in the mysterious phenomenon that drove them out of the tent. And it was visually accessible only from a height of 5 meters from ground level. Thus, the search engines and the investigation had the opportunity to accurately determine the location of the factor that caused these events, both in azimuth and in vertical direction. But, unfortunately, the search engines and the investigation did not take advantage of this opportunity to precisely determine the place of occurrence of the extreme factor …
Let's go further, one of the tourists near the fire, according to the investigation and the search engines, fell “dead” from a tree. Another tourist fell into the fire, his left leg was burned, which means that at the time of his death, no one could help him near the fire, there is only one explanation for this, there was no one to help.
At that moment, there was no one capable of acting near the fire, but after a while the body was moved, the clothes were cut off, and the tourists who remained on the deck made of tree trunks did this, since fragments of clothes cut from the bodies were found on the deck itself, and on the way from the fire to the deck.
The body was not badly burned, without charring, which means that help arrived quickly, you can walk 70-100 meters from the flooring to the fire in 2-3 minutes, no more, judging by the description of the burns, this is how much the body lay in the fire…. Everything is logical, and at the same time immediately makes the version of freezing untenable …
At the time of the death of a tourist who got into the fire, people on the flooring heard or saw something that made them urgently go to the fire. Most likely, the sound (flash?) Was due to the true cause of death of tourists near the fire. Confirmation of this statement is the breaking of branches on a tree from the side of the mountainside.
This fact is confirmed by all eyewitnesses, it is naive to assume after them that tourists broke branches (up to 10 cm in diameter at a height of 3-5 meters) with their bare hands for a fire, moreover, these branches never got into the fire.
We will not guess what it was, another thing is important, the death of two tourists near the fire is not a quiet freezing, stretched out in time, but some clearly distinguishable lethal event, which at the same time served as a signal for the surviving tourists to approach the fire from the deck.
Apparently, three tourists on the side of the mountain died in the same way, this explains their dynamic postures, which in no way resemble the posture of a freezing person - not a single body was found in such a pose.
Don't think about high minutes…
A watch was found on the bodies of the dead tourists. Naturally, by the time they were discovered, they had already stopped. The clock stops for three reasons: the factory has run out, it has broken down, and the most exotic version, the mechanism froze in the frost. We immediately reject the option of freezing the mechanisms, the clock readings were recorded both at the scene and when examining the bodies in the morgue, their readings are the same, which means that the clock did not work after thawing.
But three hours stopped with a difference in readings on the dial of less than 30 minutes. If a random factor was at work (the plant ended) then the probability of such a coincidence is calculated mathematically, it is at the level of one tenth of a percent …
If we also take into account the coincidence of the clock readings with the estimated time of death of tourists, calculated from the autopsy data and the time of the last meal, then the probability of such a coincidence becomes at the level of one case in ten thousand options, this is practically unrealistic….
In addition to the theory of probability, another fact speaks about the malfunction of the clock, in the materials of the investigation there are rough notes of the investigator, there he marked the belonging of the watch to specific people, and so the indication on the dial was a sign of the clock. This means that four months after the events, the same testimony remained on them as at the time of their stopping. It is impossible to believe that none of them tried to start - they probably tried, only because of this they did not work, which means they were broken.
Consequently, three clocks broke down in an interval of less than 30 minutes, the cause of the breakdown could only be a single factor, which caused such an insignificant variation in the clock readings at the time of their stop. For some reason they broke down? The housings are not damaged, which means that the damage is dynamic in nature (powerful shock).
There is no exact data in the materials of the investigation, there are no expert examinations of watch mechanisms. But here the third is not given, or a natural reason and we agree that a unique incident occurred, which occurs once in a thousand, or we assume that these hours were dynamically influenced with a time spread of no more than thirty minutes.
Four tourists died from injuries incompatible with life, and the injuries are strange, the bones are broken, and the skin is not broken, there is not even edema, only internal hemorrhages.
Such damage can appear only under dynamic loads distributed over a sufficiently large area.
And the rest died too quickly, falling face down in the snow (stopping to move), they did not even have time to melt the snow with their breath, but the blood from the nose, throat and ears had time to flow out onto the snow…. Only one of the tourists has a clear sign of being alive for a long time in the snow in one place.
It is quite possible that they also died from injuries, only these injuries occurred in places where there are no bones (for example), or died from severe concussion. But this does not change the essence.
Signs of cessation of vital functions are similar for everyone - a blow to a large area of the body (in four tourists) and quick death without injury (in three at least).
What it was, while we will not guess, there are many options from a fall from a height to a severe shell shock. In the materials of the investigation there is a protocol of interrogation of the pathologist who performed the autopsies of the bodies of tourists, in this document the physician directly points out the possibility of causing such severe injuries as a result of an explosive (shock) wave.
Here is an excerpt from the testimony of the pathologist who performed the autopsy from the materials of the investigation:
Question: How can you explain the origin of the injuries in Dubinina and Zolotarev - can they be united by one cause?
Answer: I believe that the nature of the injuries in Dubinina and Zolotarev is a multiple fracture of the ribs: in Dubinina, bilateral and symmetrical, in Zolotarev, one-sided, as well as hemorrhage into the heart muscle both in Dubinina and Zolotarev with hemorrhage in the pleural cavities indicate their lifetime and are the result of a great deal of force, approximately the same as that applied to Thibault. The injuries indicated … are very similar to the injury caused by an air blast.
If two are essentially identical facts (the cessation of the functioning of watches and human organisms) have the most probable cause of a dynamic impact, then the coincidence of dissimilar factors that caused these events is almost incredible.
There can be only one conclusion - the death of a person and the stop of the clock is a consequence of the action of a single factor, and these events took place (death of a person and a breakdown of a watch on his hand) at the same time.
Fact is an obvious sum of non-obvious circumstances …
There is a fact indicating that the tourists themselves tried to push us to such a version. Two watches were found on the hand of one of the tourists. Some of his own, and others taken from the body of a comrade who had already died by that time. The difference in their readings is 25 minutes, and later his own watch stopped.
What motives can a person have when removing a watch from the hand of his dead comrade, putting this watch on his own hand next to his own clock that is still working? Moreover, this tourist, in order to take off his watch and put it on his hand, before that he took off his gloves (found in his pocket), and did not have time to put it on again. His own watch stopped 25 minutes after stopping the clock from the already deceased tourist.
The only explanation for this behavior, the remaining tourists already knew how they were killed, and in order to suggest the reason for what happened to them, they focused on the characteristic property of the murder weapon.
There was another illogical treatment of a camera from one of the tourists. The already mentioned Zolotarev with a camera around his neck, he died with him.
Here is a photo of this tourist's body:
Why did he carry the camera on him all this time, and in general, how did he end up on it, taking into account the fact that he obviously could not have this camera around his neck in the tent (why would he be in the dark and cramped). And this camera did not belong to him (his own camera was found in the tent).
It turns out that in an extreme situation, instead of collecting warm things, a person takes an absolutely unnecessary item.
If we assume an accident, then we must assume that the two most experienced tourists succumbed to panic and performed illogical actions in a state of passion. An extremely unlikely hypothesis, if only due to the fact that these people were the best prepared to leave the tent, they were almost completely dressed (in shoes and warm clothes).
One of them was a front-line soldier (Zolotarev), he went through the whole war and had four military awards and clearly had the skills of effective behavior in extreme situations, the other (Thibault-Brulion) also had a difficult fate. It is more logical to assume that these were deliberate actions in an extreme situation and these people wanted to tell us something, even after death.
There was one more inexplicable fact, and it is again connected with the camera. This is the notorious last shot from one of the cameras found in the abandoned tent. It depicts something incomprehensible, but apparently explains why Zolotarev never parted with his camera to death. This frame:
There are two luminous objects in the frame, one round and less bright, this is most likely a flare from the aperture. The second object has rectangular outlines, and during the exposure of the frame 0.1-0.5 seconds, it moved along a complex trajectory.
You can, of course, guess what it is, but this is not the main thing, Zolotarev had a motivated reason to carry a camera with him in the cold, apparently there were pictures on it that clarified the situation in which the tourists got. But unfortunately, this device, as already mentioned, lay in the water and no pictures from it have survived.
Exceptions confirming the rule
In all the above considerations, the emphasis is on homogeneous facts in a homogeneous situation, but there are also anomalies that, oddly enough, only confirm the general laws. Now about the anomalies in the facts that confirm the patterns.
Three people made an attempt to return to the top of the mountain, it seems that they all fit into a single motivational logic, they died almost the same, but the tourist who died in the middle falls out of the picture, and falls out on several grounds.
One can say about him as about others, he fell dead. But he did not die, and continued to lie in this fixed position for a long enough time, long enough for the snow to melt under him (the so-called "freezing bed"). This is a documented fact in the materials of the investigation, the time for the formation of such ice is about an hour.
This tourist, the only one who made an attempt to return to the mountainside, had a head injury without breaking the skin, the same in nature as the rest of the injured, but in a completely different place, near the flooring.
And his watch stopped the very last (six minutes after the Thibault clock stopped) …
It turns out that it belongs to two sequences of cause-and-effect relationships, first the causal relationship of the return to the mountainside, and then the causal relationship of the "cleansing" of all potential witnesses.
In other words, they "hit" him like the others near the fire and on the side of the mountain, and already finally finished off like four at the flooring of trees. And they finished it off last, when everyone else was already dead.
There is one more circumstance at first glance that falls out of the general picture, it concerns the victims near the flooring. The fact is that of the four who died in motion from the flooring, only three were injured, the fourth (Kolevatov) had no visible injuries. Again an exception, but … judging by the location of the bodies, this tourist at the moment of leaving the platform could no longer move independently, was wounded, Zolotarev was dragging him on his back.
It is not clear where he was hit, but only this can explain Zolotarev's pose and their practically "stuck together" bodies. Apparently, either by the time Zolotarev was injured, he was already dead, or he was finished off by what Zolotarev got.
And these two exceptions give new characteristics of the fatal factor that brought the final end to this tragic story.
The lethal factor had a clear causal motive - “if you are alive, then die”, he did not touch the dead, he chose only the living.
The truth is somewhere near…
But while we talked only about people, now let's see what this extreme factor itself was. It is clear that we have nothing about him except for a hypothetical picture, but he influenced the behavior of people, he influenced their death, and this is all already documented by factual materials. Therefore, it is possible to deduce obvious consequences from the facts.
Firstly, during the retreat to the forest from the tent, no one was killed or even injured, this is evidenced by the presence of traces of all tourists and signs of activity at the point of retreat.
Secondly, one and a half kilometers from the tent, people felt safe and decided to wait out the events in this place, but did not return. This means that all this time this extreme factor continued to operate.
Thirdly, people began to die only when some of them (three) went back, and judging by the route not to the tent itself, but precisely towards this extreme factor.
Fourthly, after the death of the people involved in the movement and its support (two by the fire), the place that was previously considered safe by them turned into a dangerous one. The rest tried to escape from the previously safe flooring, but were able to move only 6 meters away and died in motion, three of them being killed in an apparently violent manner.
We will not make global conclusions, we will restrict ourselves to the obvious, in the process of tragic events this extreme factor changed its behavior. At first, it manifested itself as a threat, and in the end it began to act in a deadly manner. In addition, a change in the behavior of an extreme factor is correlated with a change in the behavior of tourists. He showed no intention of eliminating tourists during their retreat from the tent and arranging a temporary shelter, but after the tourists tried to approach him, he ruthlessly dealt with them. The well-known elemental and man-made forces do not work that way.
As the attentive reader should have noticed, the conclusions following from the above analysis of the facts sharply narrow the range of possible versions.
On the other hand, everything that can be used to confirm the conclusions of this article with absolute certainty remained outside the scope of the investigation. There is no map of the area with the route of movement of tourists, the location of the found objects and bodies.
There are no reports of technical examination of the watch.
There are no protocols for examining cameras and linking frames to specific cameras.
There is not even a description of the list and quantity of products found in the tent.
Much more that is missing …
That this is incompetence, accident, malicious intent?
Secrecy of the investigation
The mystery of the investigation begins with the title page of the case on the death of tourists, this is not at all the case that the prosecutor of Ivdel Tempalov opened on February 28, 1959.
Before us is the case of the Sverdlovsk Regional Prosecutor's Office dated February 6, 1959, in this case there is no document justifying its initiation. This can only happen in one case, the case of the regional prosecutor's office arose from some other case, and the date of its opening migrated to the case of the regional prosecutor's office.
On any territory of the USSR, there were three prosecutor's offices, regional (city), regional and military, and the KGB also had its own investigative unit. It is natural to assume that the case of the regional prosecutor's office arose from military materials. The regional prosecutor's office did not have the opportunity to refer to these secret documents and the only thing that was transferred to its case was only the date of the beginning of the investigation.
On the basis of some unknown documents, the military prosecutor's office opened its own case on February 6, when the tourists were still supposed to be on the hike.
The military or KGB officers knew about the incident, immediately reported to the command and, based on their reports, an investigation was launched in the military prosecutor's office dated February 6, the events themselves most likely took place on February 4-5.
In the materials of the investigation there is another document dated February 6, the protocol of the interrogation of witness Popov, questions related to the passage of tourist groups through the village. See in the second half of January.
So a mistake in the dates is excluded, the authorities began to deal with the situation at the Dyatlov pass much earlier than the moment when the search engines found an abandoned tent
Two consequences
The materials of the investigation do not meet the requirements of the procedural code, this is only part of the documents, too much material is missing. There are no documents that shed light on the true circumstances of the events. Here are the most obvious exemptions:
- There is no act of inspection of the last three bodies at the place of discovery. There is only an act of examination of the body of Dubinina.
- There is no mention of a camera on Zolotarev's body, although he is clearly distinguishable in the photographs.
- There is no protocol of interrogation of the most important witness Sharavin, his testimony contradicts the version of the investigation.
- There is no inventory of films from cameras and from a can of filmed films, the frame to which the investigation refers is not present at all on the films attached to the case.
- The photographs from the materials of the investigation have retouching, moreover, precisely those places on the bodies where there should be mechanical damage.
- There are no protocols for examinations of cameras and stopped clocks.
The absence of these mandatory documents indicates the existence of another, unknown to us, investigation. A general civil investigation was conducted in the regional prosecutor's office, while another, secret investigation was conducted by the military prosecutor's office and the materials were separated between these investigations.
The military prosecutor's office, realizing that the death of the tourists could not be hidden, notified the regional prosecutor's office and went into the shadows, using civilian investigators to obtain the information it needed. This explains the strange circumstances of the investigation, about which investigator Ivanov spoke, for example, a barrel of alcohol, into which all those who participated in the autopsy were forced to plunge.
There is clear evidence of this, a double investigation, some of the most important things at the time of the official investigation were absent, specifically the investigator Ivanov did not have what is called “complicated household appliances” of tourists, watches and cameras. This is not an unfounded statement, there are acts of identification of the belongings of the deceased tourists by their relatives, Ivanov during the investigation showed them all the available things, and immediately after the identification, against receipt, he gave these identified things to his relatives. But among the things presented there was not a single camera and not a single watch.
The watch and cameras were given to the relatives only a month after the completion of the investigation. This is documented in the materials of the investigation with the corresponding receipts.
In order not to be unfounded, here are scans of the header of the protocol of identification of Dyatlov's things and a receipt for their receipt (drawn up as one document):
And here is a receipt for Dyatlov's camera and watch a month after the end of the official investigation:
Regarding the rest of the cameras and watches, the same picture, unambiguously investigator Ivanov did not have these items in the course of the official investigation, they came to him only a month after the completion of the official investigation.
The only reason for this lack of significant evidence may be that it is at the disposal of completely different investigators and forensic experts
Ivanov undoubtedly contacted the investigation of the military prosecutor's office, some of these contacts led him to a very extravagant at that time conclusion about the cause of the tragedy.
Strange investigator
Investigator Lev Ivanov until the end of his days was convinced that the tourists were killed by a UFO, even when formulating a decision to terminate this case, he in a veiled form referred to an unnamed "spontaneous force" that tourists could not overcome. In the materials of the case, he entered information directly related to the observations during this period of "fireballs" as it was then called, but he was not allowed to lead the investigation in this direction, although he had testimony of witnesses.
Specifically, a group of tourists from the Pedagogical Institute under the leadership of Shumkov was on February 4-5-6, 33 kilometers from the scene, on Mount Chistop, and the participants of this trip said that they observed strange light effects in the direction of the Dyatlov Pass, which they mistook for signal flares. In particular, Vasiliev, a participant in this campaign, claims that he saw such a flash in the area of the Dyatlov Pass on the night of February 4.
Here is what investigator Ivanov said in one of his interviews:
“And once again about the fireballs. They were and are. It is only necessary not to hush up their appearance, but to deeply understand their nature. The overwhelming majority of informants who met with them talk about the peaceful nature of their behavior, but, as you can see, there are also tragic cases. Someone had to intimidate, or punish people, or show their strength, and they did it, killing three people.
I know all the details of this incident and I can say that only those who were in these balls know more about these circumstances. And whether there were "people" and whether they are always there - this is still no one knows …"
This is said by a professional who represented the picture of the incident better than we did and knew much more than us, I personally trust him.
Dates
Two dates are important for us; February 2 and 6. First, this is the date of the tragedy according to the general civil investigation. On the basis of the second, indicating the beginning of the investigation, it can be assumed that this tragic story took place on February 4-5.
In the first case, the tourists were not in the area of Mount Otorten, and in the second they were there. It has already been said that the version with the date of February 2 is doubtful, much more evidence suggests that the tourists returned from this ascent and not everything was in order by this time.
I will not be unfounded, this is how the tent should have stood:
This is exactly the unfortunate tent set up according to all the rules, just a snapshot from another campaign. Note the two skis used to support the skate in the center of the tent. The search engines claim that one pair of skis on the pass was also not laid in the base of the tent and lay separately next to it.
But somehow the center of the tent needs to be supported, and for this the tourists cut the ski pole lengthwise at the pass to use it as a support, the fact of the presence of such a cut ski pole inside the tent was recorded by the investigation.
At the last moment, only an emergency can refuse to use already prepared skis and spoil the ski pole, they did not have spare ski poles. It is simply impossible to climb without a ski pole, which means that they were returning and hoped to replace it in the storage shed, which was less than two kilometers away, they had a spare set of skis there.
After the ascent, the tourists were supposed to be in these places in the evening of February 4, so the tragedy on the night of February 4-5 is confirmed by the date of the beginning of the investigation in the regional prosecutor's office and the testimony of another group of tourists about light flashes in the area of altitude 1079.
An inconvenient witness and unnecessary people
One of the searchers, Sharavin, who was the first to find the tent and the bodies near the cedar, claims that these bodies were covered with a blanket, no one else has seen this blanket.
It looks like Sharavin is telling the truth, look at the picture:
The bodies seem to be really covered in the chest area, but this is snow, it has caked and acquired the form of folds of matter, it is also visible on the lower leg of the first body.
Strange snow, this is possible only in one case, when the bodies covered with soft snow were covered with heavy matter (blanket) and under the weight of the matter the snow took the form of natural folds of the blanket. Then someone removed the blanket, and the imprint of the folds remained on the packed snow.
This means that the bodies were not covered immediately after death, but later, when at least 5-10 centimeters of snow poured on them. Why this was done is understandable, the bodies are damaged by birds, someone, in violation of the instructions, took pity on them and covered them. And after the search engines found the bodies, someone else removed this blanket.
There is no transcript of Sharavin's interrogation in the investigation materials, but the investigators took testimony from him. These testimonies of Sharavin, in principle, could not get into the materials of the open investigation, they are stored in a completely different place. For us, this means that at least immediately after the events and before the arrival of the search engines, this area was under secret control.
Things that did not belong to a group of tourists were found at the scene, the investigator was reluctant to enter them into the investigation materials, in particular, the witness and participant in the events Yudin says about this. One can understand the investigator, he didn’t want to clutter up the investigation by finding out to whom which rag belonged.
But there are other facts that speak of the presence of strangers after the tragedy and, moreover, after the arrival of the search engines there.
Firstly, there is no tent stand on the north side, this was announced during interrogations by several search engines at once. It turns out that the rack was removed somewhere by unknown people.
The second fact concerns a pair of skis prepared for the device of the central stretching of the tent. In the photographs of the investigation, these skis are stuck in the snow, but not in those places where they should be in order to act as stretch marks.
According to the same Sharavin, who first discovered the tent, this pair of skis lay on the snow in front of the tent entrance. This is how he personally depicted it on the diagram:
In addition, there is testimony from witnesses about the presence of a trace in the shoe, there is also a snapshot of this trace, a doubtful fact, but in the aggregate it confirms the suspicion of the presence of strangers.
Just Sasha and an extraordinary orderly
The key figure in these events is Semyon Zolotarev, who asked to call him “just Sasha” when meeting the group. A person for the participants of the campaign is absolutely unfamiliar, a front-line soldier, a graduate of the Institute of Physical Education. These institutes, in addition to civilian specialists, trained professionals of a completely different profile. The ups and downs of his front and life path, the strangeness of the funeral, speak of Zolotarev's belonging to the KGB.
Another fighter of the invisible front, Colonel Ortyukov, the head of the search operation, took part in the events. During the war he was Marshal Zhukov's orderly, at least the search engines speak about it from his own words.
Here is what is officially known about Ortyukov:
In 1939 he volunteered for the Finnish War. As the commander of a ski sabotage battalion, he blew up an important strategic object behind enemy lines. In 1948-50. transferred to the headquarters of the Commander of the Ural Military District Kuznetsov. From 1950 to 1956 he was the Secretary of the Military Council of Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, when he was in command of the Ural Military District. In 1956 he was demobilized.
So the personality is not at all ordinary, by the way, the set of awards for Zolotarev and Ortyukov is almost the same, and this is only an apparent coincidence.
Obvious conclusions
First, about the obvious underlying circumstance:
The meeting of tourists with the "Factor" was not an accident, this is a planned event
The KGB organized this exit to the area for its employee under the cover of a group of unsuspecting tourists. Zolotarev was not alone, the group of tourists was secretly accompanied by other people, otherwise it is impossible to explain the fact that on February 6, three weeks before the official discovery of the abandoned tent, the prosecutor's office and the police began to stir.
The presence of witnesses to the events at the Dyatlov pass is confirmed by the strange circumstance of the discovery of the flooring in the ravine. Look again at the snapshot of the excavation of the flooring in the ravine (the snapshot above in the text). Excavation "point", as if they knew where to dig. Actually, it was, according to the recollections of the search engines, they were ordered by order to indicate the point where they need to dig. They dug up and found the flooring….
And now about the "Factor" itself:
- The "factor" was of a reasonable nature and reacted to the behavior of tourists.
- The liquidation of tourists was a reaction to their specific actions, and maybe not only them, but also to the actions of a group of secret tourist escorts.
Everything else in the second part of the article series …
