The Mystery Behind Criminal Minds : Mystery in the Mountains

Happy True Crime Thursday!

You guys know by now I love a good mystery, so today I’m bringing you not only a decades old mystery, but one that comes with a bunch of conspiracy theories as well. It's not technically true crime per say, but its a good one none the less.

Buckle up because this one is quite the ride.

It all begins in January of 1959, 9 students from the Urals Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk plus one other began their 3 week journey hiking into the Ural Mountains. All ten individuals were experienced hikers. They were set to return from their trip on February 12th.

February 12th came and went without the group returning, no one was to concerned by this due to the treacherous terrain that they had to go through, they were probably just taking their time. But by February 20th the families started to grow concerned, so a search party was sent out the next day. A few days after that rescuers came across the groups tent...but what they discovered wasn't what they had expected.

The tent was found with the entrance facing South and the North part of the tent was covered with snow that appeared to come from blowing wind and not from an avalanche. The tent had been cut from the inside out while the door to the tent was still closed, belongings were all still inside. They followed some footprints that lead downhill, now these footprints weren't shoe prints these were the prints of either bare feet or socks. Down this hill they found the remnants of a small fire under a tree that had the branches broken off of it. This was where the first body was found.

The body was identified as Yuri Doroshenko, he was found with dried blood on his face, minor cuts and bruises, burns to his head and foot, and a gray foam on his cheeks which indicated a pulmonary edema. They marked his cause of death as hypothermia. Just near his body they found another, the body of Yuri Krivonischenko, he was missing the tip of his nose, had similar cuts and bruises, a chunk of his knuckle was missing (they later found it in his mouth) as well as burns to his hands. His death was also marked as hypothermia.

The leader of the group (That the pass would later be named after) Igor Dyatlov was found up the slope back towards the tent. He had blood on his lips, a missing tooth and minor cuts and bruises. He was wearing a watch that had stopped at 5:31am. His cause of death was put down as hypothermia. Next was Zinaida Kolmogorova, she was found nearest to the tent. She was face down, had a bruise from an unknown object that caused blunt force trauma, along with minor cuts and bruises. As you probably guessed it her cause of death was also hypothermia.

On March 5th, the body of Rustem Slobodin was found on the hill, he was found wearing one boot and had similar minor cuts and bruises as the others. He had a fractured skull, but this was not marked as the cause of death. Hypothermia was. It wasn't until the snow began to melt in the area about 2 months later that the last 4 hikers were found. They were found in a 6ft ravine. Aleksander Kolevator and Semyon Zolotaryov were found embracing, most likely to preserve body heat. Kolevator had a broken nose and was missing his eyes along with the soft tissue around them. Died of hypothermia. Zolotaryov was found with a pen and paper in his hand, but no message was written down, he died from a crushed chest. Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle died due to a blunt impact to his skull. One investigator compared the force required to make this kind of damage to that of an impact of a severe car crash. Lyudmila Dubinina had her tongue and eyes missing, she had blood in her stomach and had died due to a crushing injury to her chest. No one could explain what had caused this trauma, there was nothing in the area that was found.

It was later discovered that both Aleksander Kolevator and Lyudmila Dubinina had signs of radiation on their clothing.We will get more into this later on.

If you were keeping count that leaves one person missing, Yuri Yudin. He had actually left the trip early on January 28th. He had a sciatica flare up, while bummed to have not completed the journey this choice to leave looks like it ended up saving his life. Due to journals and recordings it is believed that the hikers died on the night of February 1st/ early morning of February 2nd.

So right now you might be sitting here thinking...ok while upsetting this seems like nothing but a terrible tragedy caused by the elements. But think about these things...Why was their tent cut from the inside? Why did they leave behind their warm belongings and the comfort of the tent to flee to certain death in the wind and snow? What was up with the blunt force traumas no one can explain? What about the radioactivity found on 2 of the hikers clothing?

In May of 1959 the investigation was closed, a couple weeks after the last 4 bodies were found. They didn't go back after the snow had melted to find more clues and no radiation testing at the sight was done. They closed the case stating the students were killed by "an elemental force that tourists were not able to overcome." The case was archived as "classified." In the 1990's when the files became accessible, parts of them were missing.

So with all of these unanswered questions of course there is going to be speculation of what happened. Let's get to the conspiracies shall we?

Some state that near the campsite was a Soviet nuclear testing sight where they conducted R-7 intercontinental missile launches. Because of the radiation that was found on the clothing there is some speculation that maybe the hikers drank melted contaminated snow. A 12 year old who attended 5 of the hikers funerals claimed that the bodies had a "deep brown tan."

On the night of February 1st orange spheres were sighted in the sky. There were reports that nearby about 3 kilometers away a 30 mile wide crater was found, it had turned the rock to a red type glass which is caused by high heat. The landing would have created a bright light and a shockwave. This would have been disorienting and scary to the hikers. Was this a meteor or possibly one of those missiles?

Others believe that the orange spheres might have been a little thing known as Aliens.

In 1959 the world was in the midst of the Cold War, between the Soviet Union and the United States. A group of authors believe the KGB, the CIA and Soviet counterintelligence were involved in the fatalites. According to their theory the hikers were KGB officers whose mission was disguised as a hiking trip, this mission was designed to derail an operation. The authors also hypothesize that one of the hikers could have actually been a traitor who planned to use the expedition to leak secret information to foreign intelligence. Seems a bit out there right? Well lets go back to those pieces of clothing that were radioactive. 2 of the hikers (Georgy Krivonischenko and Rustem Slobodin) were employed where weapon-grade plutonium was produced during that time. This would explain the contamination, and possibly lay the groundwork for a potential intelligence related operation that resulted in the death of these 9 people and a cover up orchestrated by the KGB.

One somewhat out there scientific possibility is that a weather phenomenon known as a Karman Vortex Street occured. This is when wind flows around an object, in this case it was the mountain and due to the large scale the winds actually generate a low frequency sound wave that has been blamed for causing physiological and psychological symptoms in humans. Some state that because of the high winds that night and the infrasound waves the hikers probably experienced severe panic caused them to flee the safety of their tent

There is one theory that the hikers ate some lovely mushrooms they found on the journey, possibly because they were hungry or maybe they were looking for spiritual enlightenment. Regardless they started tripping and this would explain the franticness and bizarre aspects of the scene.

And my favorite is that their deaths were caused by the Russian Yeti. An American explorer by the name of Mike Libecki followed the trail of evidence and found proof that the hikers were not alone. A photograph. It was a photograph taken by one of the hikers a day before they died that suggests that they encountered a Yeti. For those unfamiliar it has been said that Yeti- like beasts inhabit the wilds of Siberia and the Ural Mountains to the West. Mike stated "When I found out one of the students was missing a tongue immediately I knew this was not caused by an avalanche," "Something ripped out the tongue of this women."

In 2019, the case was reopened, 60 years later. The conclusion of the new investigation was that the causes of death were due to an avalanche that began as the group slept, they left their tents in order to seek shelter and unfortunately were overcome by the elements. Yet there wasn't proof that an avalanche occurred that night. The bodies were found within 10 days of their deaths and covered only with a very shallow layer of snow.

Still no explanation for the severe trauma, radiation and bizarre scene in which they were found.

So case closed or still an unsolved mystery?

Below are some photos that were taken during the search and rescue mission.