The Strange Deaths Of The 9 Hikers Of Dyatlov Pass

**The Strange Deaths of the 9 Hikers of Dyatlov Pass** is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Brent Bennett, uploaded onto YouTube on April 15, 2016. It was the fifth episode of the first season of BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime, and was the fifth episode overall. You can find it here.

## Description

An expedition gone horribly wrong or proof we aren't alone?

## Notable Events

This episode was one of the only episodes where Brent Bennett co-hosted.

## Background

The evening of February 2, 1959, a group of skiers died near their camp on Otorten Mountain, Russia. The group had been led by Igor Dyatlov and were discovered February 26 by a rescue team.

The group had originally been ten people; however, the tenth man, Yuri Yudin, had left early and was the lone survivor of the trip. Yudin was also brought into the crime scene to identify items of the skiers.

Two of the nine bodies had been found by the treeline, a mile away from the campsite. Despite temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius, the bodies had been wearing only underwear. Three other bodies had been found between the treeline and the camp, one with a fractured skull, although this was not their cause of death. The remaining four were not found until two months later, some sporting a fractured skull, crushed ribs, and one woman with crushed ribs and a missing tongue. These four bodies were wearing the clothes of the two by the treeline.

There were no signs of outward trauma to the bodies, and injuries caused were determined to be too strong for a human to cause. Though there had been no signs of an intruder, the tent had been ripped from the inside. Radiation was also found around the campsite and on clothes the last four bodies had been wearing.

Six of the nine deaths were determined to be from hypothermia. The lack of clothes on the first two bodies was the result of paradoxical undressing—a state in which disoriented hypothermia victims remove their clothes due to the feeling of being too hot.

Authorites ultimately determined the cause of death was hypothermia and/or "an unknown compelling force." Soviet officials ordered the lead investigator to close the case, and the group was given a tomb in Mikhajlov Cemetery in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

## Theories

* An avalanche buried the tent.
	+ This theory would explain the tent being cut from the inside, deaths by hypothermia, and undressed bodies.
	+ However, this theory does not explain the radioactivity nor missing tongue.
* A Soviet test missile caused the deaths, and there was a military cover-up. This theory was believed by Yuri Yudin.
	+ A doctor on the autopsy team had explained that an explosion could have caused some of the injuries. However, items found by Yuri Yudin suggest that the military had perhaps influenced the crime scene. Yudin theorized that the Russian military had possibly found the skiers before the rescue team had, because he could not identify some of the objects, including a cloth "of military origin."
	+ No evidence of an explosion was found, and there were no records of a missile launch.
* The group was killed by a Russian Yeti, or a menk. This theory was popularized by a Discovery Channel special titled "Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives."
	+ There was no evidence of a Yeti.
* Aliens caused the deaths of the group.
	+ There were apparently many reports of "giant flying spheres" in the area of February and March of the same year. Lev Ivanov, lead investigator, was quoted as saying that "[he] suspected at the time, and [was] almost sure now, that these bright flying spheres had a direct connection to the group's death."
	+ This theory may also explain the radioactivity of the campsite and "inhuman" trauma to the bodies.
	+ There was no evidence of an alien landing at the site.

## Quotes

* Ryan: "How does an avalanche cause radioactive forces, and how does an avalanche rip someone's tongue out?"
	+ Brent: "You didn't say her tongue was completely gone, you said her tongue was cut off."
	+ Ryan: "It says 'missing tongue.'"
	+ Brent: "There's some translation things going on here from Russian to English, I'm just saying."
* Brent: "We don't know if, like, the person asking the question was leading him in any way to be, like, 'does this cloth remind you of military cloth?'"
	+ Ryan: (wheeze)
	+ Brent: "'You know, it does, actually!'"
* Brent: "Either way, everyone knows that, uh, the Yeti is a, a peaceful creature."
	+ Ryan: "Not according to 'Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives!'"
* Ryan (on aliens as a plausible theory): "Because there's no evidence of a fucking missile blast!"
	+ Brent: "There's no evidence of a fucking alien ship landing on a mountain!"
	+ Ryan: "That's because we wouldn't know what evidence of that looks like, and if there was—"
	+ Brent (laughing): "WHA—"

## Trivia

* This is one of the few episodes where Brent is the co-host rather than Shane.
* This is one of the few episodes that was part of the BuzzFeed IRL series instead of having its own show separate from BuzzFeed Multiplayer.