Originally published at: Dyatlov Pass incident likely an avalanche after all | Boing Boing
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A lot of what passes as “mystery” for this event-- the naked bodies, the missing tongue-- was actually explainable with pretty standard science (tongues are soft tissue and the easiest for scavenging animals to eat first, hypothermia has the weird effect of making you feel suddenly very hot in its late stages.)
The only mystery was why they left the tent in such a hurry, and avalanche was ruled out early so that didn’t leave much.
Still no explanation for the “orbs in the sky” thing though.
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One’s bodily fluids in the process of solidifying probably does nasty things to one’s perceptions.
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I’ve heard explanations that there was a Soviet military exercise in the area around that time that involved parachute bombs and parachute flares.
If that’s true it’d be really good motivation to try and get the F out of there in a hurry.
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Yes, sure, the Soviet authorities said it was an avalanche.
Hence everyone else ruled it out. “They’re hiding something.”
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We would have better luck shutting down the forum.
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You’re right, that some people make such a big deal of standard animals-ate-it injuries is a good sign that their general approach is bananas.
The recent articles about it mention that two of them worked in a factory with radioactive stuff. That would account for unusual radioactivity, and presumably would have been a secret until at least fairly recently.
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“Animals Ate It” - I recently saw this at work in real life. A deer died in one of my out-of-the-way fishing spots and froze in the cold. Tongue and anus were chewed out because those were the softest tissues easily accessible. Exactly like articles say tends to happen in the wild. I presume it was coyotes and racoons and possum, since those are common.
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The way the incident has been presented over the years tends to hype certain details. And when the rescuers got to the site they messed up the scene in their haste to find the hikers, obscuring clues. Logically we assume they would have just known immediately there was an avalanche. It’s not clear from the photos though.
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but but Occams razor is so booooring!
(acceptable alternate spellings: Ockham, Ocham, Willy bo banl banna fanna…)
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Tent in a lee on a hill covered in snow, they surely would have assumed that an avalanche was at hand. Then they find the bodies in other places, realize they’ve trampled the hell out of something that requires further explanation…
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Seems it was pretty small avalanche, as large ones leave a very noticable trail, this one had been supposedly covered by the snow after the accident. Also, the hill didn’t sem to be steep enough for an avalanche (only the modelling the guy did now showed that it was, just not visibly).
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I cop to the fact that I didn’t read the post, but that’s because the Dyatlov Pass incident has been a fascination of mine for years. Nobody really accepted the avalanche idea, the mountain isn’t even very high, and the other evidence seemed to point somewhere else.
I still don’t fully understand their actions after the event-- for experienced winter hikers they didn’t seem to act wisely. Even with an avalanche someone should have gone back to the site to get gear that would have saved their lives. But maybe they froze to death before daylight making it moot.
[I should add that I did read the article briefly this morning on my phone via another site.]
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Here’s some new video explaining the science. They found a slope at the same 28° gradient as the one at Dyatlov pass and it looks pretty steep to me!
Hard to wrap my head around the fact this wee block of snow is enough to result in life-threatening chest injuries (given nowhere for my body to go). “Nature is metal” but H20 gets the job done.
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Yes, this is key, it’s not like what we normally think of as an avalanche. I think his reasoning is sound.
Traditionally when one says “avalanche” they’re thinking of something huge like you get in the alps or the rockies-- the Urals are more like the Appalachians, the mountain they were on is only 3600 feet, slightly taller than Mt. Greylock in MA, and Mt. Monadnock in NH (which are barely even mountains by California and Colorado standards.)
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Yeah, we need a term that works for a little itty bitty avalanche…
minilanche maybe?
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Solid, liquid, or powder, indeed it does. Just going out and shoveling snow after 3" of slop fell the night before makes me appreciate just how much material a cubic yard really is.
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Oh, that’s beautiful.
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