The mysterious Dyatlov Pass has been the subject of books, documentaries, movies, and computer games for decades. The hikers were believed to have fled from an ‘unknown compelling force’, according to a Soviet investigation at the time.
The nine hikers disappeared while hiking in Mount Ororten ( also known as Dead Mountain), Russia in 1959. Investigators discovered their bodies – many missing body parts and naked, reported by Daily Mail.
They were students from Ural Polytechnic, led by 23-year-old Ifor Dyatlov went for a hike sometime end of January. They had lost contact with their family members, and the manhunt started on early of February.
The investigators first found their tent. Their tent had been mysteriously slashed from the inside, their camp was deserted and they had left their clothes, shoes and belongings behind. Few days later, they discovered 2 bodies around 1.5km away from the tent near to a river. 3 more bodies also were found nearby. The last 2 bodies were found few months later when the snow melted.
Investigators later discovered their frozen bodies naked, some with broken ribs, fractured skulls and chest injuries and 2 of them even with tongue and eyes missing. Decades-long rumours of natural disasters, aliens, and the supernatural have all been speculated as causing the deaths.
But now, after 61 years a new probe by the Russian prosecutor-general’s office has concluded the group was killed by hypothermia – and that they had ‘no chance’ of survival.
Senior state prosecutor Andrei Kuryakov has revealed the group’s tent had been in danger from an avalanche and all of them rushed from their camp to shield behind a ridge. This explained why they slashed their camp from inside and ventured out barefoot without coats.
But he claimed that when the group turned around, they had lost sight of their tent.
‘Visibility was 16 metres. They lit a fire and then searched for their tent – but it had vanished in the whiteout after the avalanche.