Russia's Dyatlov Pass Incident May Have Been Explained By Modern Science

swellconvivialguy writes "Fifty-five years ago, nine young Russians died under suspicious circumstances during a winter hiking trip in the Ural mountains. Despite an exhaustive investigation and the recovery of the group's journals and photographs, the deaths remained unexplained, blamed on 'an unknown compelling force.' Now American film and television producer Donnie Eichar believes he has solved the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Working in conjunction with scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, CO, Eichar developed a theory that the hikers died because they panicked in the face of infrasound produced by a Kármán vortex street."

Comments

Some Of Us Already Know What Happened!

[rueger]

Highly recommenced a pretty cool movie based on the same story: Devil's Pass. Netflix has it, plus the other usual places.

Re:Some Of Us Already Know What Happened!

[BasilBrush]

David Cameron believes so.

Rumble in Avalanche Country ?

[icebike]

If you hear it, You just run.
Cross hill.

Maybe there is no real avalanche, but at night, are you going to wait around to see?

Re:Rumble in Avalanche Country ?

[icebike]

Often not mentioned is that four of hikers, including the three most beaten up, were all found at the bottom of a rocky ravine. The tent itself wasn't covered with that much snow, but even a small slide accompanied by something sounding like a rumble would have an experienced hiker slashing his way out of the tent and running.
The temperature was such that dressed as they were, they probably had less than 30 minutes to get back to shelter, and if they couldn't find their tent, they were screwed,

Tornado did it?

[paziek]

So he claims that tornado produced infrasounds and it itself would be scary, but probably not that much with all that wind and hikers inside tent. From what I read, it is not confirmed that infrasounds induce fear or anxiety in humans, at least not to everyone. Those were experienced hikers and I guess they are used to bad weather... hard to believe that all of them would run away like that just cause of some noise outside of tent.
He wrote a book, wants to sell it, so we have this story as promo.

Re:From Wikipedia

[Jarik C-Bol]

In the comments of the OTHER article on the same site about this same subject (i guess its an earlier interview with the author) someone clearly and intelligently outlines the details of the injuries to the bodies, and explains the causes in context. Turns out, dying of falling off a cliff, combined with extreme cold exposure, can make you look pretty gnarly. http://failuremag.com/feature/... look for a post by user 'Dee' as I decline to repost the entire comment here.

oh no... not again

[Anonymous Coward]

infrasound produced by a Kármán vortex street

I can't even count the number of friends and relatives I've lost to Kármán vortex street infrasound :(.

We've got to DO something to stop this bloodbath.

Freaky

[alaskana98]

The Dylatov Pass incident is one of the more freaky, but lesser known horror events of the 20th century. I'm a paranormal buff and I only learned about it in 2008. Whether the outcome was just the result of a series of unfortunate but scientifically explainable events or something more of the paranormal variety, here are some key takeaways from its Wikipedia page:

-Six of the group members died of hypothermia and three of fatal injuries.
-There were no indications of other people nearby apart from the nine travelers on Kholat Syakhl, nor anyone in the surrounding areas.
-The tent had been ripped open from within.
-The victims had died 6 to 8 hours after their last meal.
-Traces from the camp showed that all group members left the camp of their own accord, on foot.
-To dispel the theory of an attack by the indigenous Mansi people, Dr. Boris Vozrozhdenny stated that the fatal injuries of the three bodies could not have been caused by another human being, "because the force of the blows had been too strong and no soft tissue had been damaged".[2]
-Forensic radiation tests had shown high doses of radioactive contamination on the clothes of a few victims.[2]
-Released documents contained no information about the condition of the skiers' internal organs.

No matter how you slice it (no pun intended), this is some freaky shit.

Re:Freaky

[rmdingler]

That saves everyone paying attention a trip to Wikipedia.

Wouldn't a link have been less typing for you?

Nuclear test still most likely

[reve_etrange]

The infrasound speculation is interesting, but IMHO the known facts appear to support a low-yield nuclear bomb test.

In that hypothesis, which you can read about in the speculative wiki and talk pages, a test of a low-yield warhead launched from Baikonur triggered a small avalanche which induced the hikers to flee and gave some of them pressure injuries.

I recommend you read the Wikipedia pages and judge for yourself. If nothing else, the incident is truly bizarre and the facts and speculation surrounding it make for fascinating reading. The pressure injuries are just the beginning of the strange nature in which these nine people died.

Some Of Us Already Know ... And It Wasn't That

[Jane Q. Public]

Occam's Razor says very strongly that we already have a far more likely answer.

Re:Some Of Us Already Know ... And It Wasn't That

[Jane Q. Public]

Not all of the authors at Cracked are idiots, and many of their articles (but of course by no means all) are well-researched. Did you bother to check the references in the story? It's an old article so some of the links are broken.

But the Cracked author did not think this up. He was simply echoing what many others have been saying about the incident. Every "weirdness" that was actually documented at the time has a rather mundane explanation. There has been a lot of build-up of the story over the years that doesn't appear anywhere in the official record.

And, as I stated earlier: Occam's Razor suggests that the more mundane the explanation, the greater the likelihood of its truth.

Re:Some Of Us Already Know ... And It Wasn't That

[Anubis IV]

As you'd expect from Cracked, they jumped to conclusions based on only a partial understanding of the facts. Go read Wikipedia's page on the topic and you'll note that they misstated the basic facts on which they based most of their assumptions. For a quick example, Cracked mentions a tongue missing from one of the victims and provides an explanation for it, but neglected to note that it was actually the entire face missing, and that the cause for why it was missing was well-established: they found the woman face-down in a ravine on the edge of a stream that would have caused her face to essentially decompose and liquefy off her skull. The wounds and loss of other soft tissue were consistent with that idea, rather than predation or scavenging, as Cracked suggests.

And the orange glowing spheres that Cracked claims were just people adding a spooky factor for the sake of doing so? Those spheres were actually reported by a wide-ranging group of people spread out over the region, and the reports came in repeatedly over the course of a couple of months. They were later confirmed to have been ICBM tests being conducted by the Soviets. Whether or not they are relevant remains to be seen, but dismissing them as ghost stories just shows that they didn't bother doing their homework in the least.

The theory in the summary doesn't seem to address why they would need to cut their way out of their tent, so Cracked's theory at least has the advantage there. And claiming that they were witless as a result of infrasound doesn't seem to jive with the fact that they had enough wits about them to try and send out a smaller group loaded up with the warmest clothing in order to try and bring back help for the others.

Re:Some Of Us Already Know ... And It Wasn't That

[TrekkieGod]

Occam's Razor suggests that the more mundane the explanation, the greater the likelihood of its truth.

Although I agree the Cracked explanation is perfectly plausible and very likely, Occam's Razor says no such thing. It's a pet peeve of mine when people state it that it that way. Occam's Razor makes no claims at all on likelihood of correctness.

What Occam's Razor does say is that when choosing between hypotheses which all give the exact same predictions, you should pick the one that involves less variables. Not because it's more likely to be true than the others (it's not, there's no requirement on nature to make things simple), but because there's no point in doing extra work to achieve the same result. The moment there's any difference at all between the predictions, Occam's Razor can no longer be invoked. At that point, you've got to eliminate theories by attempting to falsify their predictions. For example, if one theory says the incident was the result of an avalanche and another says it wasn't, you should now look for characteristic signs of an avalanche at the site. The evidence should rule out or support an avalanche theory, but "an avalanche is the simpler explanation" isn't evidence for anything.

When you do invoke Occam's Razor is when the hypotheses make no testable difference. For example, you and I examine a black box that allows us to input a number via a keyboard, and watch a screen for an output. We type in 1 and get 3. We type in 24 and get 26. We type in 127 and get 129. Now you develop a hypothesis: "The black box outputs the input plus two." I develop a differnet hypothesis: "the black box first adds 5 to the input, then it subtracts 3." The predictive power of both hypotheses are exactly equal, and you can't devise a test to figure out what the exact computation happening inside the black box is. So, Occam's Razor says we should pick your hypothesis in order to make predictions, because adding the extra work is unecessary. However, it could very well be that my hypothesis is the one that is right...it just doesn't matter.

Ahhhh memories...

[CODiNE]

Fondly recalling the time I hooked up a speaker to a frequency generator in electronics class and experimented on the rest of the classroom. *evil laugh!*

It really doesn't take very long for people to start weirding out and having strange sensations. The instructor found out and made me stop.

I was unable to prove the existence of the brown note. :_(

Oh the other hand! Maybe I can volunteer to DJ for the next class reunion!! *much grinning and skipping about!*

Infrasound for fun and profit!

[Jonah Hex]

Well now I know why it's not used for effects in movies, I always thought it was just because speakers to produce infrasound would be too large and expensive for anything except theme parks. I suppose even a horror theme park wouldn't want to cause actual illness. I wonder how close to causing unease and discomfort lower frequencies that modern theaters can play over their sound systems comes to causing these types of effects. *runs off to layer a 20-30hz waveform over a youtube video of kittens* - HEX

Yes, I read it before

[SuperKendall]

He was simply echoing what many others have been saying about the incident. Every "weirdness" that was actually documented at the time has a rather mundane explanation.

I read the whole thing before after reading through the facts of the incident.

None of the explanations given make the slightest bit of sense when the actual facts are considered, when you look at the real facts of the thing every single one of the mundane explanations is absurd.

Paradoxial undressing doesn't explain why someone would be wearing SOMEONE ELSE's clothes for example.

But the pointing to an avalanche to explain anything is just really the most idiotic thing of all. It utterly ignores the terrain of the area. It ignores the experience of the hikers (who would not camp in an area that could be affected by an avalanche). Even if there WERE an avalanche it doesn't explain why they would walk, not run, from the camp. In a real avalanche they would simply be gone, not have time to partially dress and then just stroll away. It's also utterly stupid since nothing at all was buried.

The tanning explanation is horrifically stupid, and ignores an entire civilizations history of what happens to corpses after they die. Oh I see it was just a long tan that happened even after they were dead! Try putting a dead body out in the sun under any conditions and see if you can reproduce a tan.

Basically the very existence of that article offends me with such egregious and unnecessary levels of complete idiocy. I am ever sadder that anyone else bought into the pack of poorly made up conjectures.

Re:Yes, I read it before

[Runaway1956]

"Paradoxial undressing doesn't explain why someone would be wearing SOMEONE ELSE's clothes for example."

Sure it does. Let's say that I'm freezing, and as a result, I'm losing any semblance of rational thought. I throw away one or more articles of clothing. You may or may not be close enough to see me throw it away, but you do find that article of clothing. You're also colder than hell, but you have retained the ability to think rationally. Do you pick up the abandoned clothing, or walk past it? I suspect that you will pick it up, and put it on. Reverse our positions, and I know damned well that I'll pick up YOUR shirt, or whatever you have abandoned.

The avalanche is perfectly reasonable. Remember, the party got kinda lost in the bad weather, and when they realized where they were, they set up what might be called an emergency camp site. They were resting up after a strenuous day, and making plans for the next day. An avalanche need not be extremely massive. A few mere tons of snow breaking loose at a higher elevation, and sliding down to an area with little snow on the ground is hardly noteworthy. There is no reason to assume that an avalanche must contain thousands of tons of snow, or rock for that matter. Enough snow to knock over a half dozen people, and to stun them, won't necessarily bury the tent - they were likely lying down, resting.

Tanning - I don't have any explanation for. That's kind of left field for me.

Even more confusing, is why the entire group abandoned the camp site. I can understand that one or more of the party took a bump to the head. But, it's not reasonable to believe that ALL of them were knocked almost senseless. If I were awakened in the middle of the night to find myself half buried in snow, I think that I would take the time to grab my boots, and a coat. Certainly my boots. I know that much from experience with being awakened from a sound sleep to deal with an emergency. Of course, to be fair - the tent has been flattened, and the boots may be difficult to locate - fear may move me out of the tent before I locate my boots.

Dead Mountain--the name

[minstrelmike]

I find the idea of infrasonics plausible. Certain tribes worship mountaintops for their sounds.
I wonder how long the place has been called Dead Mountain. If it's an indigenous name, then I'd suspect some kind of natural forces (such as a vortex) at work.

Re:Yes you are going to wait

[Runaway1956]

The party had been half lost in bad weather, and stopped when they realized that they weren't where they expected to be. It was an unplanned, emergency camp site. The tent was knocked down and partially buried. That seems to indicate that they believed that they were in imminent danger of being swept away when they exited. They were pretty obviously NOT in a "safe place". If they really wanted to be in a "safe place" they never would have gone hiking into the mountains in the winter time. As a group, the party believed itself to be capable of meeting life threatening challenges.

Sometimes, shit happens.