Season 02 Episode 4: When the Snow Melts (RERUN)

Season two, episode four, when the snow melts. It could be said that the history of life is a history of movement, a vast dance of inexorable entropic change, from the propulsion of the stars and the planets to the vibrating of subatomic particles and of space itself. It's useful to remember sometimes that even the most solid seeming of objects are, in one way or another, in a constant kinetic state, be that the glass in your window, the elements of a diamond, or even the earth under our feet.

Let us, then, for a moment, take one singular place and look upon it as an ageless being of omnipotence might observe it. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mclin Smith. At first, we see a minute speck hanging in the depths of space. Drawing closer, we see it is in fact a nameless planet moving around a nameless star.

Drawing closer still, we see on the surface of that planet, two gigantic land masses are set on an imperceptible but devastating collision course, and on the edge of one we find our spot. The movement of the land is generated in part by the heat of the planet's core, a solid ball of iron nickel raging at almost five and a half thousand degrees centigrade that in turn heats a

mantle layer below the planet's surface. This outer shell appears to be a static rock composed mainly of silicon, iron, magnesium, oxygen, and aluminium, but of course it is not still. Instead, it bends and creeps, cajoled by the planet's warm belly, expanding and contracting in convective circles as the heat rises and falls through the silicate layers. It is on this sea of rock and waves of heat that the two land masses are being thrown toward each other, and on

this planet by our measurements. The days last just over twenty two hours, and oxygen levels in the air are fifty per cent higher than anything we have ever experienced, and there is life in plenty across the continents. Owing to the humid climate, the land is smothered in vast swamps and enormous trees. Amphibious creatures dominate, while giant invertebrate arthropods wiggle and crawl in abundance. Some even fly too, their twitching segmented bodies lifted into the air by gossamer wings.

Over half a metre in span, The two continents draw ever closer, until finally they collide to form one giant singular mass. As they merge, our spot is pushed and pulled as vast splinterings of rock rise into the sky

to form mountains and rolling hills. Over time, the land beneath continues to move and break apart into many separate pieces, and over the land above, more and different creatures are taking their place, entire species rising and falling, while the planet spirals on through space as it continues to orbit

the Nameless Star. A mere three hundred million orbits later, and now, the oxygen levels on the planet have depleted, the days have become longer, and from out of a central place, what was once four legs has become two. In herds, these strange bipedal creatures are dispersed throughout the planet.

Eventually they will learn to give themselves names, and names too for the many things around them, including the very planet they walk upon, which will become known as Planeta Zimya Jigu Hensong, or to others, planet Earth, and those creatures will learn to tell story, bringing ever greater potential for change. For now, not only does the material world change, but so too will the world that is mapped onto it in the minds of the creatures who walk upon it.

Entire worlds that two can rise and fall in a matter of moments. As for our spot, it will eventually find itself nestled at the foothills of those same mountains formed three hundred million years ago, still surviving today as one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet. Those mountains will eventually find themselves encased in a country named Rossia and will become known as Uralski Gorri, or as the Ural Mountains. So let us now get closer in time and space to the spot that we have marked.

The Ural Mountains form a natural border between Europe and Asia, running two and a half thousand kilometers through western Russia, from the coast of the Kara Sea to the northwest border of Kazakhstan, and just to the east of the central Urals, we will find our region of interest.

a focal point for the country's growing industrial appetite. And in that time so much has changed, not that we might notice, however, Certainly the surrounding land and even the city, to all intents and purposes, has remained fixed. But even as we look upon it now, invisible changes are taking place. As a primary industrial hub Yecatarlinbourig has found itself a beating heart of a new world that has materialized around it.

Having been a town built by royal decree to excavate natural resources that would then be turned into capital and wealth for a fortunate few, it is now a symbol and ode to those that generated the wealth, not through some strange alchemy, but through the blood and sweat of the many hands that scraped it from the earth. And so it is that at the beginning of the century we find in our spot the same furnaces burning, and the same coal brought from the land by the same hands,

But the status of those hands has been elevated. Two thousand and two hundred miles away. On April sixteenth, nineteen seventeen, a train will pull into Finland Station in Saint Petersburg, carrying a man whose words, on stepping onto the station platform will bring further winds of change. We watch as they provoke an internal scene war, turning the people of the nation against each other in brutal and devastating ways. Back in Ya Katarinbourg, there is a mansion house belonging

to a merchant named Ipatiev. But as we avert our gaze for a moment. A year has passed, and when we look again we see the same bricks and mortar standing in the same place, only now there is no Ipatiev and the mansion has been renamed the House of Special Purpose of the Ural Soviet Committee. A year later, in the spring of nineteen eighteen, seven highly prized prisoners a family will be escorted to Yekaterinbourg and imprisoned in

this House of Special Purpose. We see them now in the early hours of July seventeenth, nineteen eighteen, as they are raised from their beds and taken to a small room. They are told to sit and wait for a truck to come and take them away. But the truck never comes, only a hail of bullets and thrusting bayonets that ends with the walls dripping in blood and the prisoners lying dead on the ground. We watch as the bodies are taken to an abandoned mine shaft and one by one

are dropped to the bottom of it. It is the last time that Russia will ever know a royal family. Five years later, and the war is over, Yekaterinbourg remains, but now finds itself not in Russia. But the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and though the name and rulers have changed, the minerals and ores in the ground are

still very much in demand. To that end, a school has been established, named the Ural Polytechnic Institute, to promote better skills in the working classes to aid with increased production. The following year, we return to find the city as it was, only now it has a new name, spurred Lovsk. In the blink of an eye, just over thirty years have passed. It is nineteen fifty nine, and both spurred Losk and the Eural Polytechnic as much as we left it.

We see the building's familiar majestic architecture colonnaded at the front, underneath a vast pediment bearing the last much embossed symbol of a hammer and a sickle. But in those thirty years, as ever, so much has changed, and a new ruler has replaced the old, ushering an end to an era

of almost unparalleled upheaval. In that time, an old enemy has risen and fallen from the west, and some considered enemies from within have fallen too, And now the deaths of over forty million people haunt the land the mindset of an entire country has been altered, and a new war stalks the people of this vast nation, holodnoye Voyna, or the Cold War, as it will come to be known.

The new leader, Nikita Khrushchev, has promised a thawing of the old ways, and a new generation are ready to embrace it, a generation embodied by the bright and enthusiastic

students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. And so it is it is that, on Friday, January twenty third, nineteen fifty nine, finally we arrive at the beginning of one more story to scatter across the foothills of the Ural Mountains, a story that is perhaps the most extraordinary of all the stories featured on the show so far, a chilling and profound mystery that remains to this day unexplained. We begin at the Ural Polytechnic Institute in room five three one.

Seven students are crammed inside the spartan dormitory, frantically shoving various bits and pieces into backpacks, cans of meat, followed by packets of oatmeal, survival knights, and even a cooking stove. Nothing is forgotten, but rather than chaos, it is the steady haste of a well oiled team. They are preparing for a difficult mountain hike deep into the urals towards

O Tauton Mountain. The journey will involve at least sixteen days of trekking through the Siberian tundra on a path that many consider one of the toughest at this time of year, and it will need to be since all are hoping to achieve their Category three hiking certificate upon completion. It is the highest awarded category in the country and one that will require the team to cover over three hundred kilometres of ground, spending at least eight days in

completely uninhabited regions. One boy, Yurikrivonshenko, looks perturbed for a moment as he hunts around the room, his face brightening into a huge grin when he finally finds his leather boots. Yuri, also known as Georgi, is the joker of the group and at twenty three, also one of the oldest. A recent graduate of construction and hydraulic Back in September of nineteen fifty seven, Georgi had been assigned to work at a secret nuclear facility called Cheliabinksk forty when the plutonium

plant experienced a catastrophic radioactive leak. Georgi was part of the team who was sent in to clean up the mess. He packs his leather boots away, then makes some space for his much loved mandolin. Do you think I can play it on the train? He asks? Of course, shout the others in warm reply. In the corner of the Dorn, keeping a watchful eye over the preparations is the diligent and methodical Alexander Kolovatov. At twenty four, Alexander is the oldest member of the group. A kind soul with a

ponchon for smoking antique pipes. Alexander was a distinguished student in the field of nuclear physics who had also studied in Moscow at a secret institute known as the Ministry of Medium Machine Building before returning to spurred Lovsk to complete his physics major. Who has the salt shouted Zinaida Kolmogorova,

or Zena as she is known to her friends. Although only twenty, Zena is in her fourth year of radio engineering and is a tough and experienced hiker, known affectionately as the engine of the university, Zena's magnetic charm rarely went unnoticed, not least by a number of the boys in the team. Where at Doroshenko and eager, she asks, suddenly, let me have fifteen cents to call them. The question is directed at Ludmila Dubanina, the only other woman in

the group. Luda is only twenty and the youngest in the team. A focused and committed communist, the athletic Luda is practically a poster girl for the party, and like Xena, is possessed of an inner steel equal, if not superior, to any of her male compatriots. On one expedition to the Sayan Mountains, she was accidentally shot by a tourist, but didn't complain once during her long and painful journey

back home, except to apologize for troubling the group. Luda hand seen her the fifteen cents from the pile of cash she is diligently counting up. Meanwhile, Rustick is teasing Collier over who has more will power to survive the trip without their beloved cigarettes. Rustick is Roostom Slobiden, another recent graduate of the institute. Unlike the others, Rustick comes from a wealthy family of academics, but he carries none of the sense of entitlement that such wealth can sometimes entail.

As perhaps the most popular member of the team, it would seem that Rustick had lived up to the Tartar name that his father had bestowed on him as a symbol of international friendship to all men and women. In marked contrast, Nicolai Thibau Brignol's background could not have been more different. Born in a concentration camp, Collier had been brought up by his mother on her own after his French communist father had been executed as part of Stalin's

ruthless purges. Collier had graduated from the Institute in fifty eight after majoring in civil engineering, and with a reputation for unselfish behavior. Was a man always looking to help others. Today holds mixed emotions for Collier. He had promised to his mother that this trip would be his last, and he would miss moments like these the most. The giddy,

nervous energy of the team. Just before the journey begins, someone throws a couple of bags to Yuri Yudin, who deposits them outside, ready to load onto the truck that will take them to the station. The twenty one year old Yuri, a geology student at the institute, had endured a tough and impoverished upbringing, and also suffered greatly from rheumatism in his leg joints, but Yuri had always determined

never to let his affliction dictate his life. There is a great cheer when Yuri Dorishenko finally arrives to join the group. The much loved twenty one year old radio engineer had a fearsome reputation, having once successfully fended off a black bear with nothing but a geologist's hammer. His entrance is followed shortly after by Eager Diyatlov, a student of radio engineering. Twenty three year old Eager was a

formidable athlete and easily the most experienced hiker in the team. Strong, thoughtful, and confident, he was a natural fit as their leader. He was also prodigiously talented, having designed and assembled a radio at the age of twenty that would later be used on Class hikes. With the final checks complete, the group gather their things and move out. Twenty minutes later, after a short tram ride to the city station, the team are settled into a Class three cabin as the

train pulls away from Sperdlovsky. Such moments are usually caused for reflection, to be leaving behind your hometown on a treacherous journey into the wilderness. But in this moment they are distracted by a stranger in their mist Eager introduces his handsome, dark haired friend to the group as Sasha. At thirty seven, he is considerably older than the others, and although not by any means old, he appears as if from another age, so the young students might be

forgiven their palpable sense of trepidation. When Sasha reveals a mouth full of gold teeth from under nat beneath his wolfish smile. Their sense of unease is not helped by the sight of a number of tattoos dotted about his body, but their unease is not out of rudeness, more from the tacit awareness that they are in the presence of

a ghost. At thirty seven years old, Sasha is part of a generation of which only three percent remain, having been decimated by the brutality of the Great Patriotic War. Though it is unlikely he would have forgotten much from the five years he served from nineteen forty one to nineteen forty six. Sasha bears a constant reminder of those he had lost, three initials inked onto his skin, followed

by an equal sign and the symbol for friendship. Semyon Zolatatov to give him his full name, has been working as a tour guide in South Siberia, and like the others, is desperate to achieve his Grade three certificate. Before the team recognize a kindred spirit and any initial sense of unease is quickly banished by the sound of Georgi's mandolin

as he strikes up to play together. As the train speeds on through the ural countryside, they sing all the songs that they know while behind them verd Lovsk recedes further and further until it has entirely disappeared from view. Ten hours later, and the train finally pulls into Serov, a small town three hundred and fifty kilometers due north of Sverdlovsk. With their next train not due to leave

until six thirty pm. The exhausted team are hoping to escape the cold and maybe get some sleep in the station waiting room, but are disappointed to find it locked for the day. Georgi attempts to cheer up his friends with a comical busking routine, but his singing has attracted the attention of two guards, a sign perhaps they have already entered a different world to the one encased within their dormitory walls. The guards grab Georgi from the platform

and push him into their office. A short time later, and a somewhat stunned Georgi is returned to the platform after being let off with a stern warning for contravening Article two point three of the Internal Order at Railway stations. Not wanting to hang around, the team head off in search of shelter. When they come across an empty school hall. After knocking on the door, they are met by the

kind face of the school's janitor. Much to their relief, she takes pity on the young hikers and invites them inside to rest and warm themselves, but there is one condition in return. They must give a talk to the school children before they leave. A few hours later, and Zena and Sasha have the children hanging on their every word as they listen wide eyed and at atentively to

their tales of adventure. When it is finally time to go, the children have to be peeled sobbing and crying from Zena before finally accepting her promise to one day return. The children wave and shout goodbye to their ten new favorite heroes as they watch them head back to the train station. Finally, the team are on the move again, and by midnight they have arrived in the small town

of Evedel. Since leaving spurred Lovsk, the gang had been shadowed by another team of hikers from the institute, led by their good friend Yuri Blinoff. That night of January twenty fourth, they all sleep huddle together in the Evedale station waiting room until the following morning, when they catch

the first tram to Evedel town center. The town is built on the confluence of the Evedel River and the Losva River, and like most towns in the region, Evedel had been established as a mining colony, in this case for gold, but in nineteen thirty seven the town had taken on a second purpose, becoming the location of Evedeleg Gulag. The term is an acronym that translates to Maine Administration

of Corrective labor camps. The camps had been set up during Stalin's time, partly as corrective facilities for criminals, but were often also used to dispense with political prisoners, a fact that would no doubt have crossed Collier's mind at least as the hikers made their way into the town's center, with some consideration perhaps for the desperate souls hidden away somewhere beyond the snow topped roofs of the town's outskirts.

They don't have to wait long before their bus arrives, and soon after the team are moving through the white blanketed countryside. As the bus forges ahead towards Vizy, the next stop on their journey. But there is something wrong. Alexander is missing. They must have left him behind at the last toilet break. The team yelled to the bus driver to pull over. A quick head count confirms their fears. Alexander is indeed missing, but there is nothing that can

be done. With the bus on a tight schedule, the driver has no choice but to continue the journey. But wait, says Yuri. As far off, a small shape, steadily growing larger, reveals itself to be a fully laiden Alexander sprinting with all his strength toward them. I thought you'd left, He sputters between gasps for breath, never say the others as they haul his exhausted body back onto the bus. Just after two p m. They arrive at Vizay and the

hikers disembark. The town is a wood cutting settlement that served as a central hub from which further outposts could be reached. From here, the two teams will go their separate ways. For Blinoff and his team, a bus heading their way to Sector one oh five is due to leave later in the afternoon. For Eagers group, however, they

will have to stop here for the night. That afternoon, the team's many cameras, vital for recording evidence for their Category three certificates, are whipped out as they say their final goodbyes to Blinov and his team. Despite the minus seventeen degree temperature, the classmates smile and fool around as they pose for one final picture. Moments later, Yuri and his team scramble into the back of a flatbed truck and wave a fond goodbye to their friends as they

put away and out of the camp. For Eager's team, it will be one last night of domesticity before heading off into the wilderness. The team are especially excited to hear of a nearby screening room and will pile in later that evening to watch a film called Symphony in Gold. Brustik finds time to write a postcard to his mother, and Doroshenko and Alexander make a number of final checks and adjustments to the equipment. That night, With two crammed to a bed and Georgi and Sasha taking positions on

the floor, the team sleep soundly. The next morning, they are up and dressed early, eager to get on the road again. But something is bugging Yuri. A pain in his legs that had been steadily growing was threatening to become unbearable. Despite his misgivings, he was determined not to let the others down and decided to ignore it for now.

But there is also something else. The previous afternoon, an experienced forester had expressed concern about the group's trip, thinking it too dangerous for them at this time of year. Eager had laughed it off in typically bullish style. After all, wasn't that precisely the reason that they were taking the trip in the first place. Yuri had laughed too, but as he prepared to board the truck for their ride out of Vizzy, it was with the old man's words

still ringing in his ears. The journey didn't help much either. Sitting at the back of the rickety open air truck, the team struggled for warmth and comfort, But as any traveler knows, it is from such experiences that true bonds are made, and before long the gang were once again singing songs and speaking of love and friendship as they

traveled ever higher into the frostbitten ural Mountains. Sector forty one was a worker's outpost occupied by roughly fifty woodsmen stationed on long term contracts, many of whom had gone months cut off from the world. So it was with no little excitement that the new faces of the young

students were welcomed into the workers homes that evening. As for Dyatlov and his team, they were treated to a glimpse of another world revealed through the songs and poems shared by the workers that night, many of them illegal and punishable under Article fifty eight of counter revolutionary crimes, but even for the committed communist Luda, it was a night to remember. The next morning, on January twenty seventh, the team awake to find a beautiful, clear blue sky

waiting for them. After eight hundred and fifty kilometers, finally the time has come to put on their skis and begin the trek to otaut and Mountain. A local man named Slava offers to lend them his sled and horse to help carry their heavy equipment to their next stop, a settlement known as North two. The settlement is an old geological research site just twenty four kilometers to the north, now abandoned and home to little more than two thousand

dilapidated cabins. It is late in the afternoon when Slava returns with his sled, but after securing the luggage and fastening their skis, the team are finally en route towards North Two. The journey takes them over the frozen waters of the Ushma River, deeper and deeper into the forest, but the thin ice is proving tricky for the horse to negotiate. After two hours, the team have only made it a third of the way, but as the winter sun drops down behind a distant ridge, the team continue

on unperturbed. Another four hours later, and Eager spots something ahead. Under the soft light of the moon, they can just make out the shape of a hut against the tree line as their eyes are just suddenly a sprawling pastoral ghost town has appeared before them. They have reached the north to settlement. The woodsmen had recommended one hut in particular that was still habitable, and somehow, after a short time stumbling around in the dark, they managed to find

it that night. Approaching the log cabin on the edge of the forest under the moonlight, it is as if they have crossed some kind of threshold and stepped right into a fairy tale. Old Slavic folk stories tell of a grotesque witch with fearsome iron teeth by the name of Baba Yaga, who lives in an hut deep in the heart of the forest. She is a complex creature that is sometimes good, but at other times utterly monstrous,

given to eating her victims without a moment's hesitation. It is said that she travels in a large pestle and mortar that flies through the trees with a sickening, grinding screech, and that her hut stands atop of a pair of chickens feet, But there are no such feet under the cabin that night, and the air remains silent, with the eerie quietude that only an abandoned village can conjure up.

Before long, there is life once again in Sector North too, as the darkness of the cabin is illuminated by the sound of young voices, filled with the relief of finding shelter for the night, and then shortly after by the flickering glow of lamp light. A few of the boys volunteer to find firewood from outside by pulling up wood from some of the more dilapidated cabins. At one point, Rustick grabs at one, only to pull away in pain. He looks closely at his hand and sees a small

pinprick from an old nail hidden in the dark. He watches for a moment as the prick becomes a drop of blood on the surface of his skin. A short time later, and the fire is roaring and filling the room with the comforting, sweet smelling smoke of the hearth. The following morning and yuri Udin's legs have finally given in after struggling even to stand. It is clear that he is at the point of no return with Slava due to head back to Sector forty one that day.

He has little option but to join him with sincere disappointment, he breaks the news to the rest of the group, who are all equally devastated to be saying goodbye so early to their friend. As a keen geologist, Yuri is determined not to return empty handed and manages to corral a small team to join him on the hunt for

some interesting samples to take back home. But despite the area's abundance of precious stones and minerals, Yuri is saddened only to find quartz and fools gold hidden under the snow. With Slava eager to get going, Yuri loads his pack onto the back of the sled and gingerly steps into his skis. The team say their final goodbyes and take

one last picture of their friend before he leaves. And so it is that, on the morning of Wednesday, January twenty eighth, that the ten strong team led by eager Dyatlov comes nine before he is out of sight, Yuri turns one last time to wave a final goodbye to the team. He couldn't possibly have known then that it will be the last time his friends will ever be

seen alive again. Knee deep in snow by the banks of the Losva River, boris slopsof pulled the hood up over his head and tied the flaps of his hat down tightly below his chin. It was all he could do to stop the incessant pelting of his face by the flex of snow being whipped up relentlessly by the wind. In the distance, he can hear the repetitive, dull chop of helicopter blades. The sound gets closer and closer, until eventually the olive green Mi I four finally comes into view.

Squinting now into the sun, he watches as it makes a slow, lumbering turn across the sky before settling over the Losva and forging a path straight towards him. And then, just as it's about to fly above his head, it makes a sharp bank to the right. Boris is close enough to see the co pilot wave before throwing something out of the cockpit. Boris watches as the object drops from the sky, its red ribbon flapping manically as it falls, before nestling in the snow meets away from Boris's feet.

He hurries over and pulls the canister free, unscrewing the cap to find a message for his team lodged inside. It tells them to head towards the Auspier River, roughly three kilometers to the south. It is Wednesday, February the twenty fifth, exactly four weeks since Yuri Yudin was forced to abandon an eager Dyatlov and the eight other friends he had been accompanying as part of an expedition towards

Otauton Mountain in the Russian URLs. It had been a painful decision for Yuri, but one perhaps not quite as painful as the crippling effects of rheumatism that had plagued him throughout the journey and in the end left him with little choice but to turn back. Yuri had last been with the group in the north to settlement an old, abandoned geological site from which they were due to strike out towards Otauton Mountain a short time after they had

said their goodbys. The team had been expected to arrive back in their hometown of spurred Lovsk on February the thirteenth, almost two weeks ago, but the team had never returned. Twenty two year old Boris Slotsov is, a friend of eagers and a member of the same hiking club V two, had planned to one day make the hike to Otautan Mountain, but never could he have imagined it would be under

circumstances such as these. Boris had been one of the first to volunteer to help find the team, after concerns had been voiced about their whereabouts. The alarm had been raised by anxious parents on the thirteenth, but it would be almost another week before hiking club officials deem it a serious concern worthy of a formal search and rescue operation.

It was, after all, not uncommon for such lengthy hikes to suffer the odd one or two day's delay, but when a whole week later there is still no word from the team, it is clear that something has gone drastically wrong. The Ural Polytechnic's first response is to dispatch hiking club director Lev Gordo and young Yuriblinov, who had traveled part way with the Dyatlov team prior to their disappearance,

to undertake a quick air surveillance of the team's probable route. Meanwhile, in Ifdale, the town closest to where the team was last seen, a criminal investigation is opened up, led by local prosecutor Vasili Templov. A three pronged attack is established when experienced hiker Yevgeny Maslenikov is also enlisted to help run things on the ground. Yevgeny, who was well aware of Eager and his compatriots, having initially helped them to plan their route, wastes little time in joining the search.

On the twenty fourth, Tempulov agrees to open up the search to include all possible routes taken by Dyatlov's team, and by now, with news of the team's disappearance spreading throughout the region, many volunteers have come forward to offer their help, including members of the family, fellow students, and workers from the local camps. The search is given an early boost when Gordo and Blinov pick up a trail that leads them to a Mansi village called bartier Rova.

The Mansi are an indigenous people of western Siberia, an area running roughly fifteen hundred kilometers from the Ural Mountains to the Great Yenise River in the east. This vast stretch of land is sometimes referred to as Ugra Land, but is now commonly known as the Kanti Mansiysk Autonomous District. It is believed that Mancy have populated the region since the Mesolithic Age, sharing ancestors with both the people of

Hungary and Finland. They are historically known for their proficiency in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding, but they are also a sous postitious people, steeped in a rich culture and folklore unique to themselves but also to this region, although some have claimed an ancient lineage that goes back to the Sumerians, whom many consider to be the first great civilization. To look upon the Ural Mountains through the eyes of the Mansi is to see another world hidden from the

view of most. It is a sacred place, home to spirits and gods, and many an unsolved ancient mystery. Although for Gordo and Blinoff the trail goes cold in Barti Rova, their efforts have caught the attention of several Mansi tribesmen, who, like everybody else, are deeply moved by the plight of the missing students. The offer to lend their unparalleled local knowledge and tracking skills to the search is gratefully accepted.

The Manse team is led by Stepan Kurikov, a warm hearted and hulking presence, as well as being one of the most respected of the tribal elders. A few days later, the helicopter search team picks up ski tracks heading north from the Auspier River at the bottom of a mountain known as kolat Seekeel, but searches on the ground are unable to establish any clear route before bad weather brings the day's search to an end. It is the following day when Boris Slobsov and his team received their message

to search the corresponding area. Later that afternoon, a breakthrough discovery is made when Boris locates one of the Dyatlov team's camp sites on the banks of the river, just

to the edge of a forest. It is clear that Diatlov's team would most likely have struck out from here and headed straight towards Otaortum Mountain over the exposed of kolat Siakle, But with night fast approaching and the weather becoming increasingly volatile, Slobsov's team are unable to follow suit and are forced to retreat into the tree line and

make camp for the night. That evening, as the dark closed in around them, with yet another day gone, Slobsov can't help but think upon the fate of his friends and to just what exactly might be lying in wait, buried under the snow. It hasn't escaped his attention either. That the name cooleet Siakle translates as dead Mountain. The next day, February the twenty sixth, Slobsov suggests that the

team break into pairs to widen the search area. Boris joins up with fellow hiking team member Mikhail Sharavin, and together they head off in the direction of O'tauton across the eastern slope of colat Siakle that afternoon, as the two hikers battle raging winds and minus twenty degree temperatures, the hikers are three hundred meters from the top of the mountain when Mikhail spots something up ahead sticking out of the snow. It looks like a tent. Getting nearer,

the thing starts to reveal itself. They can now clearly see the poles sticking out from underneath and the south facing entrance that remains intact while the entire back half has collapsed under the weight of snowfall. Boris calls out hopefully for his friends, but hears nothing in reply save for the fierce whistling of the wind. He steps toward the entrance, takes a deep breath and pulls back the flap.

It is with an odd mix of relief and disappointment that Boris finds the tent completely deserted, the relief being tempered by the fact that almost everything that the hikers had been traveling with appeared to have been left behind inside, as if the team had just vanished into thin air. But for Boris, their absence provides a glimmer of hope that his friends might actually still be alive. Pushing back on the heavy canvas, Boris and Mikhail managed to write

the tent enough to take a proper look inside. On the floor, they find the nine backpacks belonging to each team member, as well as each of their skis. Perhaps most curiously, they find a jacket left on the ground

outside the tent. Boris pulls it from the snow and scours the surrounding area, hoping to spot footprints or any other sign of his friends, but sees only the vast white emptiness, and with dark clouds beginning to roll in, Boris and Mikhaiel only have a few minutes to gather what they can before reluctantly being forced back to their camp. On their return, Boris is able to send word back to Evedale suggesting all search efforts be concentrated on the

surrounding area. A reply comes back to dig out a helicopter landing site in preparation for over fifty people who will be arriving the next day. It is another anxious night for Boris and his team, and their attention is constantly drawn to the items brought back from the abandoned tent. The presence of the items in Boris's tent seems only to bring the absence of their owners closer, as if they had merely stepped outside for a moment before returning

to collect their things. Boris picks up the jacket and examines the pockets, hoping for any clue as to the team's whereabouts. Inside, he discovers a notebook suggesting the jacket was eager Dyatlovs. Flicking through the pages, Boris discovers a photograph. It is a portrait of Xena. The following day, Friday, the twenty seventh, the search teams converge on the newly

discovered campsite, including police equipped with search dogs. The ensuing chaos threatens to undermine any hope of finding tracks under the snow, But remarkably, one of the team finds some twenty meters or so from the tent, under a patch of freshly fallen snow. They see them clearly now, veering off down the side of the hill towards the Losva River valley. But there is something very odd. Some of the prints seem bizarrely small, almost as if whoever had

made them had not been wearing any shoes. And there is another vital discovery, a team diary kept by all the members of the group to document their expedition. The entries had been meticulously kept since the first day, but had ended abruptly on January the thirty first, suggesting whatever happened likely occurred around February first, meaning the group has now been missing for four weeks. Slobsov's team, who are that morning searching the banks of the Losva River, are

informed of the tracks found leading towards their location. Boris plays out the scenario in his head until he is transported back to the night the team left the tent. He sees them now, their movements echoing through time as they descend down the mountain and head for the shelter of the same trees that he is walking among. A short time later, and Mikhail finds something strange at the base of a cedar tree. Poking through the snow, he finds the charred remains of a makeshift fire that had

clearly been hastily put together. He notices also that a number of the tree's branches have been recently snapped off. And then just north of the tree, there is something else sticking out of the snow. Something wants soft but now as rigid and hard as the cedar. It is a human leg. For Boris and his team, it is a devastating discovery, and one that will extinguish any remaining hope of finding his friends alive. But for us it merely marks another beginning to this strange and bizarre tale,

for it is about to get very weird. Indeed, after Mikhail's gruesome discovery, Boris alerts Maslenikov's team, and together they carefully begin to excavate the body from the snow. But as they dig further, they discover not one body, but two lying side by side together, with one face down and the other face up. As the last of the snow is pushed from one of the faces, Boris recoils in horror. The mouth, nose, and eyes appear to have

been completely removed. Despite the apparent mutilation, Boris recognizes the face instantly as Giorgi Krivonishenko. The other body is soon revealed to be that of Yuri Doroshenko, but it's not until the full horror of the discovery has sunk in that they notice something peculiar about the clothes on the bodies, or rather the lack of them. Georgi appears not to be wearing a jacket or trousers, just one checkered shirt

and some swimming trunks under long underwear. Even More bizarrely, the left flo leg of the underwear has been ripped off and his feet are completely bare. Doroshenko appears somewhat better dressed, with an undershirt, check top, long underwear and socks, but no shoes. His clothes also appear to have been

bizarrely shredded. After the discovery of the bodies, the focus of the search switches quickly to the valley Nancy elder Stepan Kurikov leads the search along with his German shepherd snifferdog, another experienced hiker Vladislav Corelln has also joined the search. Vladislav was a medical engineer who had crossed paths with Dyatlov's team as they made their way towards Otaorten. Having located the first two bodies, it isn't long before the

German shepherd picks up another ominous scent. Pulling hard on the leash, he drags his owner across to a spot where Stepan recognizes something unnatural about the way the birch tree shoots are sticking out from the snow. The dog sniffs heavily at the spot, and soon they have made another gruesome discovery, as just below the surface they find an arm that appears still to be pulling in desperation

at the shoots. This body is better dressed than the other two, complete with a sweater, fur vest and ski trousers, but again extraordinarily, there are no gloves and no shoes. Vladislav Correllin recognizes the face of Eager Dyatlov. Moments later, Evedale policeman Lieutenant Nikolay Mousyev and his dog Alma are heading back from the trees towards the team's tent. When

Alma gets suddenly anxious and begins to dig manically. It is yet another body, lying fair down with their knees bent, as if making a final desperate bid to crawl back to the safety of the tent. Moisiev turns the body over and is surprised to find dried blood smeared across the faith. The body will later be identified as that

of Xena Kolmogorova. Yevgeny Maslenikov, who by now has been made head of the entire ground search operation, orders the bodies to be wrapped in tarpaulin and taken to Boot Rock on the bank of kolat Seakle while they await evacuation and formal autopsy. Watching as the bodies are laid out at the base of the rock, Maslenikov can't help but begin to formulate his own theories about just what might have taken place. For Maslenikov, it appears simple case

of being caught out by the weather. Perhaps one of the team stepped out of the tent only to be swept away by the wind, prompting his friends to make a fatal rescue attempt. Or perhaps it was an avalanche that scared them from the safety of their tent and

left them catastrophically disorientated. Only if the wind or avalanche had been so strong as to push the hikers down the valley, why was the tent still clinging so firmly to the side of the mountain, its poles still standing as they would have been the day they were pitched. The day after the four bodies are discovered, Prosecutor Vasili Temploff finally arrives on the scene to make his own

assessment of the evidence. He makes a note of the various items found at the campsite, but also he is the first person to notice something odd about the tent itself. It may have still been standing, but what no one had seemed to notice before was that one side of it had been completely and unnaturally slashed to pieces. But before Tempulov can get his teeth into the investigation, he

is told to step down from the operation. On the morning of Sunday, March first, yet another helicopter arrives at the search headquarters at the foot of kolat Seakle. The door is opened and outsteps the determined figure of lev Ivanov, Junior Council of Justice and now lead investigator on the case. He adjusts his glasses and pulls his jacket tighter, before being led away from the chopper and straight into the fray. Moments later, he is casting his eyes over the makeshift

fire at the base of the cedar tree. Suddenly, with Ivanov on the scene, the investigation seems to have taken on another guise, like something from a classic detective novel. There is more than the touch of the brooding, enigmatic hero about Ivanov, his thick, black rimmed glasses lending a cerebral air to this intense veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Immediately, he makes note of a number of branches snapped from

up high in the tree. Perhaps one of the team climbed the tree in an attempt to call the others, or maybe he had been trying to escape from something. He also notices another pair of footprints in the snow, suggesting that Georgi and Yuri weren't alone when they died. He begins to ponder as to just why they let the fire burn out if there was plenty of firewood around to be used. Meanwhile, Maslenikov is overseeing a team of thirty men lined up shoulder to shoulder as they

probe the ground with steel avalanche poles. That day, they cover a region of roughly thirty thousand square yards, but the search yields nothing more. Later, Ivanof and Maslenikov will together analyze the abandoned tent, leaving Ivanov convinced more than ever that whatever killed Dyatlov's team members, it wasn't the wind and it wasn't heavy snowfall. On March, the second one of the search teams comes across a storage shelter perched high up in the trees, laden with various supplies.

It is a common practice for hiking teams to unburden themselves before venturing out on the most grueling part of a journey. This appears to have been the case with Dyatlov's team. The search party are moved to find Georgi's mandolin amongst the items of food. It is a stark and sudden reminder of a time before. Later that day, after the news of the store camp is passed up the chain, something a little more peculiar comes to light

when Maslenikov is approached by one of the searches. It is Vladislav Karelin, the mountaineer who found Eager's body the previous week, and he has had something on his mind ever since. On the night of February seventeenth, Karelin was hiking with his own team close to the trail that Dayatlov and his team had been taking when they witnessed

something strange in the sky. A member of his group, Georgi at Monaki, had woken early to make breakfast when he noticed a large, bright white spot in the distance above them. He points it out to his friend Vladimir Shavkunov, believing it to be an especially bright moon, but Shavkunov was concerned there was no moon that morning, and in any case, if there had been, it would have been

on the other side of the sky. Then suddenly, a spark lit in the center of the spot that seemed to burn brighter, getting bigger in sides, before flying off quickly to the west. The light would eventually get so big that they believed it was going to collide with the earth and kill them all. And they weren't the only ones to see it, as many local villages would

later come forward attesting to the bizarre sighting. Maslenikov agrees it is certainly something to think about, but as he reminds Karelin, Dyatlov's team most likely died around the turn of the month, a good two weeks prior to the appearance of the strange light. But when the news reaches Ivanov,

he finds it a little harder to shake. Later that afternoon, as he watches the bodies of eager Yuri, Gyorgi, and Zina being loaded into the helicopter, talk of the strange lights and fire in the sky weighs heavily on his mind. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that something unknown had occurred in this nation, something perhaps carried out in secret and kept hidden from view. As he climbs in after the bodies, Maslenikov is there to see him off as the chopper lifts up into the air and flies

away on its journey back to Evedel. The following day, with the search now starting to deliver results, Yuriblinoff, one of the last people to see his friends alive and who had worked so tirelessly over the past seven days to help find them, decides it is time to return home. The bodies are taken to the hospital of Labor Camp H two forty in evedel and left to thor out

before the formal autopsy can begin. On March fourth, the Regional Bureau forensic pathologist Boris Alexeyevitch vozrosj Denay and the city medical examiner Ivan Ivanovitch Laptev begin the procedure. Both Yury and Gyorgy display signs of burns to the side of their heads, consistent perhaps with the fact that they had fallen so close to the makeshift fire. As for Gyorgy's missing features, they are deemed likely to have been

eaten by ravenous animals. Post mortem. The litany of abrasions and spots of dried blood found on all of the bodies suggest final moments of wild panic, but are not thought to be particularly suspicious given the location of where the bodies were found and the time of year. It is perhaps unsurprising when a verdict of death by hypothermia is returned on all four of the victims, and yet looking closer at the autopsy report reveals a number of

peculiar findings. Skin from one of Georgy's right knuckles is found in his mouth, suggesting he must have bitten it off himself, perhaps to force his hands to move or,

as some have suggested, maybe to stifle a cry. Eager's body shows signs of vomiting blood, with Yuri's autopsy noting signs of fluid in the lungs as well as bruises sustained by some kind of blunt trauma, and something found on Zena's back also catches the eye, a long, bright red bruise, the sort you might sustain, perhaps after being clubbed by a heavy object. Meanwhile, in a room not far away, Yuri Yudin has been summoned by lead investigator

lev Ivanov. Incredibly, Udin had been one of the last to learn of the rescue operation to find Diatlos's, having decided to recuperate in his hometown of Emilyshevka before returning to spurred Lovsk, and now he was being given the somber task of sorting through all the team's personal belongings in order to assign them to their correct owner. He too finds the picture of Xena in Eager's notebook, and manages a rise smile when he finds a packet of

cigarettes secretly stashed away in Alexander Kolovatov's bag. But back on Kolatsiakl. The search continues, and on March fifth, another body is discovered. Corellin had been searching a region in between where Eager and Zena were found when he hit something solid just below the surface. Once the snow had been cleared, Corellin recognizes the body as that of the much loved Rustic Slovodin. Unlike the others, Rustick seems almost

properly dressed, but something else immediately catches Kurellin's attention. There is a severe discoloring on the front of his head, while a patch of ice close to his mouth suggests that he had been alive for some time after he fell. Rustick's injuries were confirmed by the pathologist in an autopsy three days later as being potentially consistent with damage sustained

from a blunt object. The frontal bone of his skull is found to be fractured, with severe hemorrhaging in the temple region, as if he had repeatedly been forced down on to his face. Rustis is the fifth body to be recovered, while four of Diatlov's team remain missing and the investigation has only just begun. Alexei could not believe what he was hearing. As he sat unfounded in the cold and sterile office in front of three stone faced

party officials, he begged them to reconsider. It had been a week since the body of his twenty three year old son, Georgi had been discovered, and although Alexi had long since given up hope that his son might be found alive, he had not been prepared for the grief of finally knowing. Now having made the trip to Evedel. He was at the very least hoping to take his son's body back home with him to sverurt Lothsk. But

the party officials had other ideas. A decision had been made that all of the bodies would be buried together in Evedell in a mass grave. The families were invited to attend, but there would be no public announcement and only a small obelisk to mark the spot. But Sperdlovsk is his home, implored Alexei. That is where he lived, where he made friends. And did we bury him an Evedell? How are we to visit him? But the decision was final, and besides, they said, all the other families had agreed

to it. Two by two, the parents of Eager Zena, Yuri and Rustic were called in to face the hastily assembled committee and given the exact same distressing news, each being informed that the others had consented to it. The parents struggled to process what they were being told. Not only did it seem the authorities were trying to cover the whole instant up, but they were asking the parents

to become complicit in it too. The Party was in effect asking for nothing less than their cooperation in erasing the history of their children's lives. Like most people in the Soviet Union, the parents were well aware of the lengths the state would go to preserve their methods, but not to them, not this time, and it was of course a lie. Not one of the sets of parents had agreed to their plan. On realizing the deception, the parents fought back and eventually the party relented, but only

on one condition. The students could be buried in spurred Lovsk, but the funerals were to be held together to minimize the attention. With the exception of Georgy's, who was a Russian Orthodox would be granted a separate funeral at an appropriate location. The funeral procession would also be strictly controlled with the coffins being taken directly from the morgue to the cemetery. The parents had requested that the bodies be

taken past the Oral Polytechnic Institute campus, but permission was refused. However, attempts to minimize the publicity of the event would ultimately prove futile in a rare moment of public defiance over state control. On Monday, the ninth of March nineteen fifty nine, over a thousand mourners, touched by the death of the

young hikers, took to the streets to join the procession. Together, they marched with the families as they made their way to Mikhailovskoy's Cemetery, behind two trucks laden with the bodies of Yuri, Brustic Xena and eager. Twelve year old Yuri Konsavich lived with his parents in the east of the city centre, just opposite the cemetery. He watched in silence from his apartment window as the mourners slowly drifted into view.

Yuri didn't know then just how exactly the tragedy of what happened to the Diatlovtia would shape his life, But on this morning, what preoccupied Yuri was not the bodies of the students laid out in their open caskets, or the sheer number of people attending their funeral, but rather a handful of suspicious looking men dotted about the crowd. Unlike the rest of the crowd, these men, dressed in civilian clothes, seemed to pay little attention to the bodies

or the eventual service that took place. Instead, they seemed to be watching the people. Yuri could have sworn they were KGB, members of the secret Soviet police sent to keep a close eye on the proceedings. After the bodies were finally laid to rest, with Georgi's being buried the following day. Ordinarily, the families might now finally be able

to grieve, but there was something glaringly absent. Despite the bodies having been discovered ten days previously, there was still no hint of an explanation from the authorities as to just how exactly the students had died. What could possibly have driven nine experienced and strong hikers from the shelter and warmth of their tent to meet their deaths amidst the driving snow and sub sero temperatures outside and lest it be forgotten, there were still four people unaccounted for.

The day after Georgi's funeral, friends and family gathered together at the Krivonishenko home for Giorgi's wake. It was, of course a somber affair, but one also unsurprisingly dominated with the mystery of his death. Despite the secrecy of the police investigation, due to the large number of volunteers involved, rumours had inevitably begun to circulate. Time and again, attention seemed to turn to the mysterious lights and orbs witnessed

in the surrounding area. But Georgi's father, Alexei had grown weary of such talk, deeming it irrelevant since the lights had been seen two weeks after the students were thought to have died, and so it was with little patience that he received two more students that night, eager to share their story of strange lights spotted in the night sky. I don't want to hear it, said Alexei. But no,

they said, you don't understand. We saw the lights on February the first, the same night that Tdyatlov's team left their tent. The two students had been part of another team led by Upi teacher Anatoly Shumkov. The team had been climbing Kisstop Mountain, roughly twenty five miles to the south of where Dyatlov's team had camped on kolat Siakle

when they saw it. With the mercury dropping to as low as minus thirty degrees centigrade, the team were just about to begin their descent when there was a sudden flash of silver in the sky, followed by a white spark that was seen flying upwards from the Otautan Valley. Moments later, an eerie sound of thunder rumbled across the mountain. As Schumkov later recounted, this thing flew silently and slowly from the south to the north over the ridge of

the Urals. It was glowing quite brightly the way it illuminated the hovering clouds at the height of two point five to three kilometers, it was very strange. For Alexei and many others, it was hard to resist the increasingly popular theory that the students had unwittingly strayed into the path of some kind of secret weapons test. In nineteen forty five, unbeknownst to most of the planet, a new

world was about to emerge. It began at five twenty nine a m. On July sixteenth, with the detonation of a bomb in the middle of the Hornada del Muerto Desert in New Mexico. The bomb was named Trinity, and its subsequent explosion marked the first successful deployment of the atomic bomb. Later that year, the atomic age would formally announce itself in a mushroom cloud of death and destruction when Little Boy and Fat Man were detonated over the

Japanese towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs would go some way to ushering an end to the largest scale global conflict the human race had ever known, but it would also mark the beginning of a seemingly endless arms rate that to this day continues to haunt every militant aspect of major foreign diplomacy. For Stalin's government in the USSR, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it clear just how far they lagged behind the military might and ingenuity

of the United States. What followed was an intense and accelerated program of nuclear development, but also an intense culture of military secrecy in competition with the US, fueled by the mutual distrust of each other's ideologies. It was a program that, in its eagerness to establish itself, would result in a number of catastrophic nuclear disasters, such as the Kishtim disaster that Georgi, only two years previously, had helped

to clean up. Could it be that the students had found themselves pitching their tent under a secret weapons testing zone. It was a theory making increasing sense to those who had little information to go on. However, for lead investigator lev Ivanov, who was in full possession of all available evidence, what puzzled him the most was that although the multiple sightings of strange lights may have been consistent with ballistic weapons,

the injuries to the bodies weren't. It's possible, of course, that the sound of such weapons detonating nearby might have caused the team to flee the tent in a panic. But might the strange lights have been something else entirely, something perhaps a little more other worldly. Nikolay Animov was a local Mancy tribesman who had been part of the team that first examined the hiker's tent. Like everyone else, he had been deeply troubled by the student's disappearance, but

the real fear he harbored would remain unspoken. That was until the first mention of the orbs in the sky. For the Mansi. All around the region where the bodies were discovered, they talk of gateways to another world. Perhaps the students had upset the spirits and this was their revenge, he thought. It is said that somewhere deep in the URLs lies a sacred daethic idol known as Zolataire Barber

or the Golden Woman. Made entirely from gold. It is thought to have been hidden somewhere deep in the forest, perhaps in a cave, surrounded by other worldly treasures. In ancient times, soldiers dressed in scarlet robes would fiercely guard the path to the idol, and no one else had the right to see her or go anywhere near the cave. The origins of the idol are shrouded in mystery. Some believe it to have been to the region by ob

Ugrian warriors as far back as the fifth century. The ob Ugrians were ancestors of the Mansi, who, alongside Alaric, the king of the Visigoths, conquered Rome in four hundred and ten. Some say that after their victory the ob Ugrians forged the sacred idol, then carried it back to their lands to be worshiped as a goddess, though some others believe it may have originated from as far away

as India or even Sumaria. There is further dispute as to just which god exactly was thought to be embodied by the idol, with some linking it to the Mansi goddess chores nigh Anki, known as the mother of celestial fire and everything living, with others believing it instead to be the goddess caltesh Anki, or Mother Earth. Caltesh Anki is the wife of Numiturum, the the ultimate supreme being, and is known to be responsible for the length of

human lives. Once kaltesh Anki asked Numuturum to strengthen the earth with an iron belt, and he answered the request by creating the Ural mountains. In nineteen o four, the explorer Konstantin Nossilov wrote of meeting an old man on his travels named Sava. The man claimed to have been blinded after mistakenly coming across the golden idol, whom he maintained appeared to him as an ordinary naked woman sitting

down holding a golden plate in her hands. Some say the Golden Woman isn't golden at all, but is in fact luminous, as if made purely from light. Had the hikers stumbled into this sacred land and been mercilessly punished as a result, it might account for the strange lights perhaps, but not such an experienced team would be drawn out from the safety of their camp into the freezing wild of the exposed mountain. But for this Nikolai had another theory.

It is said that caltesh Anki, worried about how she might defend herself from enemies, asked Numiturum to find a way to protect her. In return, he created the Menvi, a race of monstrous creatures sometimes described as werewolves, but other times just as giants. It is said that these Menvi or menk also known as Compolan, continue to guard the Golden Woman to this day. Nancy author Olga Koshmanova has spent over thirty years collecting evidence of the Compolan.

She believes that many of the Manci culture's rules were formed due to their contact with these terrifying creatures, such as its being forbidden to break wood when it wasn't needed, or the need to be silent when in the forest, and it being especially forbidden to sing loud songs or spoil the forest, and when in the woods at night,

one must always keep the fire burning. Writing in a book titled A Look from Behind, a reference to the strange sensation a person feels when they unknowingly step into the territory of the compollin, Olga writes at that fateful night of February nineteen fifty nine, however, she is not writing about the diattle of team, but a night when she claims to have come into contact with a compollent.

Koshmanova also writes that once travelers have entered the forbidden territory, they begin to hear things strange, terrifying noises, like whistling or the thumping of feet. The sound reverberates so as to cause a visceral reaction that induces terror and nausea. Had the team been scared from the tent perhaps by such a sound, could it have been a compolan that smashed rustic skull and battered Zena to the ground. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a compolan had been

held responsible for murder. Koshmanovna cites at least two incidences where the forest giant had been held accountable, once in nineteen forty six in the village of Shamya, a child had been ripped to shreds with his head put on a stake, and another time where a woman had been found with her jaw ripped completely off.

become exhausted and demoralized. Maslenikov, who had been leading the search team on the ground, requested that the search be suspended, but the commission refused to call it off, deciding instead that a new team was needed. Maslenikov would at first be replaced by Abram Kikoyn and then later by Colonel Georgi Ortyakov. The search for the missing bodies would continue to little avail, but something remarkable was about to come to light, something that had been hidden in plain sight.

It was Templov, the original investigator, who noticed it first, something about the rips at the back of the team's tent that hadn't seemed consistent with wear and tear or weather damage, But it wasn't until weeks later that his concerns would be taken into consideration thanks to the eagle eye of a seamstress. After Boris Slobsov had discovered the tent, it had been gathered up and taken, along with the items at the camp, to the Evedell Department of Internal

Affairs for further examination. Vladimir Koyatiev, a young investigator on the case, was having his uniform mended when the seamstress took one look at the tent and concluded also that the ribs were not rips at all, but rather cut made deliberately by something very sharp. It was clear to her that someone or something had cut open the tent on the night that the students died. The tent was immediately taken to Sperdlovsk Forensic Lab for closer inspection by

senior forensic expert Henrietta Churkeina. If the cuts had indeed been made, it would add fuel to the burgeoning theory that the team had most likely been attacked by someone or something in the middle of the night and chased from the tent, left to die in the snow. It didn't take Churkeina very long to reach her conclusion. The cuts had indeed been made by a sharp object, but they hadn't been made from outside the tent. They had

come from the inside. The revelation did little to help uncover the mystery of what led the team to their deaths, but what was clear was that whatever had caused such a panic that an experienced team would rip open their own tent just to be able to escape into minus twenty degree temperatures must have been utterly terrifying. It was further evidence that the students were forced from their tent, whether by a perceived fear or by something with agency.

And then a further discovery comes to light. When investigators examined the team's belongings, they came across the three expedition cameras of Eager, Rustic, and Georgy. When the photos were developed, there seemed nothing untoward at first. The photos eighty eight in all, taken over the nine day period reveal a touching account of the team's journey, culminating in some final shots that are believed to show the team setting up camp on their final fateful day. And then there was

the final exposure on Georgy's camera. As the photographic paper swished around in the developing tray, a strange image was beginning to emerge. The whole frame seemed to be in darkness, as if taken at night, but in the top left hand corner a trail of light seems to be descending from the sky. The discovery of the photograph has Ivanov turning once again to the reports of mysterious lights. But

then suddenly everything changed. One morning in mid March, Ivanov announced to his team that he would be leaving for Moscow, without giving any further information, Ivanov packed up his things and left. When he returned a few days later, it was as if he had been replaced by a completely different person. Gone was any talk of the orbs or

strange lights in the sky. In April, Valdoslav Karelen was called back in for questioning, at which point he was advised by Ivanov to hold his tongue on any theories relating to the mysterious lights. It has been over two months since the last body was discovered. When on May the third, Nancy tribesmen Stepan Kurikov is searching an area not far from where Yuri and Georgi's bodies were found

when he once again spots something irregular. Some branches of a tree seem to have been removed with a knife. Newly appointed search leader, Colonel Georgi Utiakov, orders a team of men to search the area immediately. As they probe with their avalanche poles, one of the team hits something. When he removes the pole, there is a piece of clothing attached to it. It must have come from at least six feet below the surface. Urgently, the men begin

to dig, one after the other. The shovels come down onto the snow above what is later revealed to be a creek bed. Eventually they will carve out a block of over eight feet in depth, covering an area of one hundred square feet, But by the end of the first day, the team find only more clothing, including bizarrely,

one solitary trouser leg. The following day, May the fourth, the search team have made it down to the slushy ice and water of the creek, when they discover more shredded clothing, including another trouser leg and half a brown woolen sweater. And then they find something a little harder. It is another body lying face down in the water. A short time later and three other bodies have been discovered. Two of them are found huddled together in an embrace,

no doubt a last desperate attempt of survival. The decomposition of the bodies is so much that only Leuda can be identified at this stage. With the bodies wrapped in tarpaulin to preserve any further decay, leave even is on the scene the following morning. It is clear from the state of the corpses that time is fast running out for any hope of a meaningful autopsy, but Ivanov is stunned when the chopper arrives to take them away, only for the pilot to refuse the use of his helicopter.

It would seem that, despite the Investigative Commission's best efforts to quash some of the more fanciful rumors surrounding the case, an idea, once born, is not so easy to destroy, and what pilot Captain Gatesenko is most concerned about is radioactive contamination. The pilot eventually agrees to take the bodies, but only when Ivanov has them placed in four zink

lined coffins that take days to arrive. It isn't until May the eighth that the bodies are finally lifted from the mountain and flown to Eve del Morge for the autopsy. When the bodies had finally thawed out, pathologist Boris voz Rosdeni was once again summoned to perform the somber task of first identifying each victim and then the cause of

their death. Despite the many rumors surrounding the case, even taking into account the suspicious fracture of Rustic's skull, foz Rosdeni was very much of the opinion that the students, for whatever reason, had succumbed through simple hypothermia. But what he uncovers next will change everything. Voz Rosdeny hovers over the first body, one of the two found in an embrace. He will later be identified as twenty four year old

Alexander Kolovatov. He notes the now familiar lack of adequate footwear, but otherwise the amount of clothing appears normal. There is a bandage on the ankle, presumably from an injury received prior to the trip. There is a small open wound behind the ear, which voz Rosdeni deems insignificant, being most likely merely a result of exposure to the elements. He returns by now the usual verdict death by hypothermia. Expecting more of the same, he turns its attention to the

second body. It is clear from the tattoos alone that this is the body of thirty seven year old Sasha solitariof At first, voz Rosdini finds much of the same. Again, there are no shoes, and the general decay and superficial injuries are consistent with a struggle for survival. But when vos Rosdieni moves his attention to the chest region, he finds something completely unexpected. Five of Sasha's ribs on his right side have been fractured, causing severe in eternal bleeding.

It would take some four to fracture five ribs, and clearly, from the nature of the bleeding it had occurred when Sasha was still alive. The pathologist concludes that it was clearly caused by some kind of large force Turning his attention now to twenty three year old Collier Thibeau Brignols, Vosrojsdini is shocked to find injuries similar to those sustained by Sasha, only this time it is to his head.

Vos Rojsdini concludes that Collier had died after sustaining a catastrophic fracture to the right side of his skull, followed by bleeding, again the result of a large force, and the worst was yet to come. Liuda's body had been found on her knees, leant against a small drop in the ravine, with her face pressed to the rocks and her clothes soaked through with water from the stream. Wrapped around her left foot was the other half of the brown sweater, a last ditch effort to stave off frostbite.

Now lying in the morgue, voz Rosdeny can clearly see the telltale signs of a severe trauma to her chest that had resulted in nine fractured ribs and massive hemorrhaging in the right ventricle of her heart, And when he examined inside the mouth, voz Rosdeny drew back in alarm. Her tongue was completely missing. And then there are a number of curious findings from the site of where the

bodies are discovered. They seemed to have been located in a makeshift den, complete with a blanket of branches laid out on the floor to provide some protection from the cold. Had they, in fact, drawing on Sasha's military survival skills, managed to stabilize the situation before succumbing to injuries sustained some time later. And what were they to make of the camera found around Sasha's neck? For a start, according to Yuri Yudin, the students only had three cameras between them,

all of which had already been recovered. But perhaps more pertinently, what could possibly have provoked Sasha, in the panic of leaving the tent to remember to take his camera, Or had he, in fact, as some believe, already been standing outside the tent trying to capture something before the chaos. Whatever it was, we will never know, since the film

was too damaged to be processed. Two weeks later, the families of Liuda, Sasha, Alexander, and Collia gathered together on May twenty second at the Sperdlovsk Military Hospital to watch their children being finally laid to rest. There would be no repeat of the public procession given to the other students, and only the family were granted permission to attend. For lead investigator lev Ivanov, the recent autopsies had only succeeded in generating yet more questions when he and all the

families of the deceased needed answers. Despite pressure from above to bring the case to a swift and uncontroversial resolution, the revelation of Liuda, Collier and Sasha's injuries could not be ignored. To that end. With his superiors breathing down his neck, he would try one last thing. Just prior to the funerals. Ivanov had organs and items of clothing sent off to be examined for any sign of radiation, but it would be too late before he could receive

the results. Ivanov was ordered to shut the case down immediately, and so it was on Thursday May twenty eighth, nineteen fifty nine, that the case of the mysterious death in the Ural Mountains of nine hikers, led by student Igor Dyatlov, was brought to an abrupt and inconclusive end. For iven Off, it was a bitter and frustrating conclusion to a case that would haunt him and everyone else involved in it

for the rest of their lives. For the families of the victims, it was a cruel and brutal end, which was, of course no kind of end at all. To this day, families of the victims continued to seek the truth about

what exactly had taken place. Yuri Kansavich, who as a twelve year old boy had watched the funeral procession from his parents apartment window, would later go on to establish the Dyatlov Foundation, dedicating his life to helping the families unravel the mystery and to hopefully, one day uncover the truth. The day after the case is closed and exhausted, Ivanoff arrives at his office to find the results of the

toxicology test waiting for him on his desk. The report concludes that not only as some form of radioactive substance contaminated the clothes, but the level of contamination far exceeds anything they could ever have thought possible. The report will remain classified for the next thirty years, along with a raft of other materials collected by Ivanov, including one report he had been expressly urged to suppress. It was compiled

after Ivanov's final trip to colat Seacle Mountain. The investigator had just finished inspecting the site where the last four bodies were discovered when he found himself staring at a line of pine trees on the edge of the forest. Something about them seemed off, and then he saw it, a series of burnmarks with no concentric form and no epicenter,

such as one might expect from a ballistic explosion. For a moment, he wondered if they could have been made as a result of the fire hastily built by Georgi and Yurie. But then he realizes whatever had made the burnmarks had not come from the ground, It had come from the sky. Thank you, as ever for listening.

the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or a story of your own you'd like to share.