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I've been reading through these pages http://www.x-libri.ru/elib/innet394/, pasting them 1by1 into Google translate.

Here are some interesting bits (keep in mind the translations are imperfect):

This seems to imply that it wasn't ONLY the little boy who noticed the orange skin colors:
All those who have seen these dead tourists, noted the conspicuous change in color, with different narrators describe this change in different ways - from yellow-orange to brown-brown. Memories of a known burial dead students, which briefly and clearly convey this feeling kind of strange bodies "lying in coffins like negros."

This could mean the group divided in half while running away from the tent, or that the group divided while in the tent and each used slightly varied paths while running toward the Cedar/campfire area:
At a distance of 80-90 meters from the tent was noticeable difference traces from the main group seemed to have separated two people (two pairs of legs), but they did not go away and continued to move parallel to the main group, keeping with her, apparently, contact voice. Traces clearly seen on the side for over a mile. According to the trace paths of movement is in the direction of the valley of the river Lozvy was almost linear.

Well, this is new, for me anyway:
     In spite of the logical to the expert conclusion, we need to point out that the revival did not propose he himself noted fact of the presence of traces gray foam on the right cheek of the victim. Meanwhile, the reasons for the emergence of such an unusual physiological release quite a bit and they have nothing to do with the freezing. In the future, we still have to go back to the analysis of this observation and try to give him a reasonable explanation, since the fact of separation of foam from the mouth of the deceased is a very valuable information about the last minutes of his life.
 
Some miscellaneous comments ...

The footprints were readily visible and traceable as an entire set only for some 500 m downhill from the tent. This is clearly stated in the search party's report. Beyond that distance (and farther downhill) the footprints were covered in snow (as were the bodies). I've never seen any credible claim that the search party ever had or uncovered widespread (much less comprehensive) footprint evidence farther than that initial 500 m stretch starting downward from the tent site.

One point almost everyone ignores is that the ready visibility of the footprints in that initial 500 m stretch (compared to everything farther down-slope being heavily snow-covered by the time the search party arrived) means the distribution and depth of the snow pack up on the mountainside had shifted / changed from the time of the fatal night to the time of the discovery. The photos of the footprints clearly indicate a significant amount of snow cover had blown away during this interim period.

IMHO the fact the tent was buried (as of its discovery) in 1.5 to 2 m of snow - whereas the footprint trail was essentially exposed starting only a few meters away - is one of the factoids most supportive of the avalanche / snow slip theory.

In that 500 m stretch, the search party noted that some prints seemed to diverge from the overall set / path, but all seemed to eventually return to the main set / course.

The cedar (where they attempted to maintain a fire) was circa 1500 m from the tent site. Any claim of clear comprehensive footprint evidence (beyond that initial 500 m stretch) is bogus - as is any claim pertaining to any observed pattern lasting "more than a mile".

This is consistent with a relatively careful (non-panicked; other than willy-nilly) manner of descent. The search party reported they'd found no footprint evidence (e.g., different depths of depression from toe to heel) indicative of running. This is one of the most overlooked / ignored points. Any / all footprints beyond the 500 m initial stretch were buried by up to a couple of meters of snow.

Yes - as I've mentioned before, the pattern of footprints in that limited visible stretch doesn't mean anything more than they all seem to have followed the same general course down-slope. It doesn't necessarily indicate they all moved downhill in one group / at one time.

The only comment the search party made about sequencing in the group's travel downhill was that the footprints of the last person leaving the mountainside (i.e., the one whose footprints sometimes overlaid others', but whose own were never noted to have been overlaid by anyone else's) indicated a longer stride than anyone else. This has been claimed to indicate the last person descending from the tent site was Nicolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles (based on his being the tallest of the group). This is the only sequencing clue ever mentioned. I don't know whether this theory was ever confirmed when his body was eventually found 3 months later (i.e.,by matching his feet / footwear to the footprints).

As has been mentioned all too often: (a) skin discoloration of a brown / orange hue is not unusual in frozen corpses - especially ones left lying for months; and (b) the mortician(s) must have had to apply a *lot* of makeup to render the bodies viewable at the funeral services.

As to the trace "foam" at the mouth of one of the corpses - it was noted in the autopsy reports as an uncommon but not unknown feature on victims of hypothermia.
 
I've watched it...couldn't wait and then...disappointment. Wasn't too bad a film in itself but apart from their reason to go to the area, nothing really was based on the actual incident.
Like the bloomin' "Chernobyl diaries", that was also disappointing.
 
i love stuff like this ... looks like a b-movie double bill classic ... but from the trailer the implication seems that the fate of the young starlets was also the fate of the original party no ?
 
HenryFort said:
i love stuff like this ... looks like a b-movie double bill classic ... but from the trailer the implication seems that the fate of the young starlets was also the fate of the original party no ?

Yes, could have been. Problem is that it was such an unbelievable fate ;)

As I said, the film itself wasn't bad at all but unfortunately their 'explanation' was wayyyy too far fetched. I want to watch a fillum where the explanation is one that 'could' have happened.

The Dyatlov Pass mystery is one of my favourites.
 
Someone showed me this over xmas -

Glacier

It shows close-ups of the front edge of a glacier sliding over grass and paths towards houses, at terrifying speed. Ice can move very quickly.

(Made me think of how we believe the ice sheets moved south in Britain at the start of the Ice Age. If they really did slide along like this, must have been terrifying!)
 
escargot1 said:
Someone showed me this over xmas -

Glacier

It shows close-ups of the front edge of a glacier sliding over grass and paths towards houses, at terrifying speed. Ice can move very quickly.

(Made me think of how we believe the ice sheets moved south in Britain at the start of the Ice Age. If they really did slide along like this, must have been terrifying!)

Like a horror/sf film.
 
escargot1 said:
Someone showed me this over xmas -

Glacier

It shows close-ups of the front edge of a glacier sliding over grass and paths towards houses, at terrifying speed. Ice can move very quickly.

(Made me think of how we believe the ice sheets moved south in Britain at the start of the Ice Age. If they really did slide along like this, must have been terrifying!)
Except that's not a glacier, that's lake ice being pushed ashore by an onshore wind.
 
True. Wouldn't hang around in front of it anyway!
 
Following the links from the slashdot article goes here:
http://failuremag.com/feature/article/return-to-dead-mountain/

More at the link, but basically they believe infrasound caused the hikers to panic.

"But last year American filmmaker-producer Donnie Eichar—working in conjunction with Dr. Alfred A. Bedard, Jr., and others at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado—offered a scientific explanation for why the hikers died, noting that the shape of Dead Mountain’s summit, combined with its proximity to the Dyatlov group’s tent, created the ideal conditions for Kármán vortex street, which occurs, as Eichar puts it, “when wind of a certain speed hits a blunt object of a particular shape and size.” The resulting air vortices (small tornadoes), would have in turn produced infrasound—the kind of fear-inducing sounds and vibrations that might have prompted the hikers to leave the relative warmth and safety of their tent, a shelter to which they never returned."
 
I have a hard time believing that this was the reason; Occam's Razor has a few nicks in it. The skiers cut a hole in the tent and scrambled out. If the glowing spheres are taken to be fact, I could see a scenario where one of the spheres was outside of the tent and the glow was visible to those within. Panicked by something so bizarre, and perhaps even hearing an unearthly noise, those inside would have cut a hole in the tent to peer out. The sight may have been so bizarre that they tore through that hole and scattered (as they did at first). If it was just a vortex street, they would have noticed once outside that there was nothing lethal lurking, and gone back for supplies sooner.
'In 1990, the chief investigator, Lev Ivanov, said in an interview that he had been ordered by senior regional officials to close the case and classify the findings as secret. He said the officials had been worried by reports from multiple eyewitnesses, including the weather service and the military, that “bright flying spheres” had been spotted in the area in February and March 1959.
“I suspected at the time and am almost sure now that these bright flying spheres had a direct connection to the group’s death,” Ivanov told Leninsky Put, a small Kazakh newspaper. He retired in Kazakhstan and has since died.

The declassified files contain testimony from the leader of a group of adventurers who camped about 50 kilometers south of the skiers on the same night. He said his group saw strange orange spheres floating in the night sky in the direction of Kholat-Syakhl.'

Perhaps orange spheres like these:
http://tinyurl.com/mr53twm
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 10#1390810
 
The infrasound theory may have been part of it - I have the thought that the guy who went home early because he was sick was more sensitive to this than the others, and he was physically affected earlier in the expedition.
 
This is interesting, and pretty unusual, IMO:

'Mount Kholat Syakhl heads the list of most dangerous unexplained death zones in Russia: 27 people have lost their lives there over the last 100 years. In addition to the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959, another nine fatalities occurred in 1960, in three separate air crashes involving pilots and geologists. In 1961, the bodies of nine tourists from Leningrad were discovered.
More recently, a helicopter crashed on the approach to Mount Kholat Syakhl, with nine people aboard — although, amazingly, no one was killed. The number nine holds a morbid significance for this location.'
 
Wow. Could be anything of course, but if it is genuine that's one heck of a coincidence.
 
interesting and engrossing but the site veers off into a lot of myth and legend ... i cant see any provenance or authentic attribution of the photo and it doesnt at a glance appear in keeping with the others ...
 
HenryFort said:
interesting and engrossing but the site veers off into a lot of myth and legend ... i cant see any provenance or authentic attribution of the photo and it doesnt at a glance appear in keeping with the others ...

True, and I don't have any source to cite to prove it is genuine. If anyone finds one, please post it! OKay, looks like the Wikimedia commons photo leads here:
http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/aleksej-ko ... 9799/?&p=1
Doesn't look reputable, but don't have time right now to stick it into Google Translate..
 
Actually appears to be real. Many sites seem to discuss it. If you find evidence it is a hoax, please post it here. Apparently on a makeshift tripod? Kind of weird, eh?
 
There's no specific reason to believe the '33rd frame' was shot outside on the fatal evening. If the camera was left attached to the tripod, it could have been accidentally triggered when the tent collapsed, while they were scrambling to escape the tent, or even by the search party when they began rummaging around in the fallen tent.
 
I agree, any of those things are possible; it's interesting but that is about all.
 
What I found - well, exciting, I suppose - is that, while there are all sorts of possible explanations for blobs appearing on a negative, that the last exposure in such circumstances should be of this nature.

Of course it might be a hoax, as I've said previously it is possible the whole thing is a hoax or some sort of publicity scam - I had certainly never heard of it until about 10 years ago and I've spent many years enjoying mysterious 'real life' stories.

Lens flare of course needs a bright light source, usually the sun.

If the negative is not a hoax, it is a remarkable coincidence that it shows balls of light - or flares caused by a bright light - when unexpected lights had already been suggested as involved.

Of course, in some minds that will just make an ongoing hoax more likely.
 
I agree! The context is important, if it's not a hoax. Have to say that the "Book of Miracles" spheres and my own experience, make it very suspicious. Of course the illustration in the BOM could be earthlights, but they look a lot like what I saw, except for the formation, and the fact that when they weren't glowing they were metallic. An extraordinary coincidence involving extraordinary phenomenon, makes things less extraordinary.
 
Also, that picture would be a lousy hoax item, being sooo ambiguous. Almost a lousy as the disc explanation as a Roswell cover story to divert attention. :twisted:
 
... maybe Dyatlov and the other 2 had separated from the others earlier in the day to handle the food and items storage, and were making their first journey to the tent when they died. This explains why they were so well dressed, because they never undressed to sleep in the first place, and had never even BEEN to the tent while pitched in this location.
I like all these new alternative theories!...but the contingent of the 3 moving up the tent was bootless (except 1 with 1 boot - the only 1 of the nine with at least 1 boot)
 
philomath said:
... maybe Dyatlov and the other 2 had separated from the others earlier in the day to handle the food and items storage, and were making their first journey to the tent when they died. This explains why they were so well dressed, because they never undressed to sleep in the first place, and had never even BEEN to the tent while pitched in this location.

No, this hypothesis doesn't match the known facts, because ...

(1) The last set of photos shows the entire party arriving atop the pass.

(2) There was no storage to be done on the fatal day. The food / equipment storage was done earlier - before they ascended to the pass, and at their last campsite in the valley to the south. NOTE: I've always wondered if they'd gotten disoriented and fled in the wrong direction (trying to backtrack to the previous day's site / cache), but they'd have had to be really out of it to mistake the slope below the tent for the path they'd taken over the pass behind them.

(3) The three who died heading back up-slope to the tent were wearing articles of other people's clothing, not just the clothing they presumably donned at the start of the last day.

(4) As far as I could tell, Dyatlov is one of the four people shown in the final photos digging a place to set up the tent. Furthermore, the number of skis and poles visible in the background indicate all the skiers were present at the time.

(5) The diary entries indicate they'd planned to cross the pass and camp in the valley beyond (where they eventually died), but got a late start and had to set up camp atop the pass because they only got that far by sunset. Nothing in the diary entries indicates the party split up during that last day.
 
A few questions/ reflections:
1) Were the sky tracks (and/or footprints) of the ‘tourists’ up to the camp still visible when the search party found the tent?
Or only the footprints down?
Strange in this case that sky tracks disappeared while footprints created (probably few hours later) were still visible after weeks…
2) Tents cuts seem to be made when tent was still erected. Is this correct? If so the hypothesis that tourists had to escape from avalanche does not hold….
3) Is there any estimate about how long a person – not properly dressed – and without boots - as they apparently were - can resist in those temperatures combined with the chill effect of strong winds? It seems to me amazing that they could survive for so long (meaning: walking down from campsite + lighting a fire, walking down + setting a den in the ravine, walking down + trying to go back to the campsite…I don’t want to assume everything happened at the same time) – also if some were injured already at the campsite
4) Why didn’t they put on the boots? Apparently only Rustem Slobodin wasn’t bootless (1 boot) – is this right? And how many boots were found in the tent? 8 ½ pairs? Is it possible that boots were too wet to be worn after long ascent in difficult weather conditions/deep snow that day?
5) What about the moon phase that night? Was is pitch dark?
6) Footprints seem to indicate the party moved slowly as strides were short and orderly – this seems to exclude they were terrified.
7) A part cutting the tent and abandoning it without proper clothing, it seems that all other behaviours were oriented to survival, rational and cooperative (?)
 
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