[EPISODE 17] The Dyatlov Pass Incident: Unraveling a Chilling Mystery

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the compendium.

[00:01:14] Kyle Risi: Betty

[00:01:19] Kyle Risi: Butter was the,

[00:01:41] Kyle Risi: here we go. Welcome to the compendium, an assembly of potential Yeti attacks. Military tests gone wrong, nature's incredible force. And ironically, how being super experienced is actually a major deadly disadvantage. Dun, dun, dun dun, dun dun. Oh, 

[00:02:04] Adam Cox: what 

[00:02:04] Kyle Risi: a buildup. Yeah. For those of you tuning in for the very first time, I'm your host, Kyle Risi.

[00:02:09] Kyle Risi: I am the one who's relieved to be completely inexperienced in every walk of life, so it's nice to know I'm just gonna be fine. And 

[00:02:20] Adam Cox: I'm your co-host. And I'm your co-host, Adam Cox. And I'm sad that I'm probably not gonna make it because I'm like really good at pretty much everything. 

[00:02:30] Kyle Risi: You are. You're pretty good at everything.

[00:02:32] Kyle Risi: Most things. Most things. Not everything, though. So Adam, what have you been up to this week based on last week's episode on the Mysterious Disappearance of Sherry Papini? Have you thought about what song you would play on? Repeat for me if you were ever kidnapped. 

[00:02:48] Adam Cox: Um, well, I've narrowed it down probably to Alicia Dixon.

[00:02:52] Adam Cox: The boy does nothing. 

[00:02:56] Kyle Risi: I hate you. Yeah. Well, oh, so Alicia Dixon, huh? Yeah. Does and Wash. I don't even know the lyrics. I just know it's a dig at me. Well, what can I say? So how have you been? 

[00:03:12] Adam Cox: Good, thank you. Good. Enjoying the warm weather. Summer is finally arrived, although it's a little warm, you know, once we, we remind that it's not warm enough, and then as soon as it gets 

[00:03:21] Kyle Risi: warm, I mean, it doesn't help recording these podcasts in a closed studio where it's just sweltering hot.

[00:03:28] Kyle Risi: I'm ready to just take off all my clothes. It's boiling hot. Now there's a thought. Oh. All right. For the, for the listeners, keep it PG Adam. We're a family variety podcast. We are indeed, that only does mysteries and disappearances and 

[00:03:43] Adam Cox: occasionally something about the 

[00:03:44] Kyle Risi: nhs, maybe. Oh, we did the Chippendale.

[00:03:47] Kyle Risi: Oh, that was a murder one, wasn't it? Mm-hmm. Oh, we did, we did. Oh, we did the one about milk. But that was a kind of a mystery about like where all that cheese was going. 60 million barrels of cheese, government cheese. Anyway, so what's new? What's 

[00:04:04] Adam Cox: new? Um, well, this week, um, well, I've kind of a, a slightly amusing story.

[00:04:10] Adam Cox: Um, I dunno if you heard about a particular bus company in Poland had to change the route number of their bus. Why? Well, um, this particular bus route is uh, the 6 66 bus route and it goes all the way to a place called 

[00:04:28] Kyle Risi: hell. Oh, okay. Classic. 

[00:04:31] Adam Cox: Um, as to be expected. Exactly. And I, I think it's really funny, it's been happened a number of years, um, and I think, well it's spelled h e l so I think it's a kind of pronounced hell.

[00:04:40] Adam Cox: Right, I see. Um, and so yeah, after about 10 years of these Christian groups complaining, cuz um, after about 10 years of Christian groups complaining, they're finally buckled under the pressure of having to change the name of the bust. And I think it's now gonna be called 6 69. Okay. So I, I think, I think most people seem to have enjoyed the joke, but I think they've had so many complaints that they've just, they've caved.

[00:05:07] Adam Cox: But what was interesting I thought was um, one of the spokespeople of the management board said that, um, you know, they could turn it, they could turn it back if by popular demand. So, you know, ride in and you might be able 

[00:05:21] Kyle Risi: to change. Yeah, change it back all, I mean, to be fair, all they've done is just flip that six around to a nine.

[00:05:27] Kyle Risi: That's all they've done. It's like a two minutes worth of admin work. But 

[00:05:31] Adam Cox: it, well, it made 

[00:05:33] Kyle Risi: news. It did. I mean it's, yeah, highway to hell. Route 66 was Highway to hell in America. Route 66. 

[00:05:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. Route 66 is in America. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[00:05:43] Kyle Risi: Interesting. Good story. Good one. I don't really have any news today, but there is some breaking news that's just broken, um, in the last few hours actually, which has caught, has peaked my interest.

[00:05:55] Kyle Risi: Let's have a quick look. It is, Hmm, if I can find it.

[00:06:06] Kyle Risi: So this story is breaking as we speak. Did you see it? No. So as, oh wait, 

[00:06:14] Adam Cox: I think just, sorry, I do know it, but go 

[00:06:16] Kyle Risi: ahead. So just before I was about to kick off the podcast, some breaking news came in, which is just absolutely wild. So there's this company called Ocean Gate, right? And they do these insane expeditions for tourists to go and visit the wreckage of the Titanic, which is like 4,000 meters under the Atlantic Ocean.

[00:06:34] Kyle Risi: And well, the breaking news is that it's gone missing and this tourist assemble board, which is just mental, so they're all now just scrambling to try and find it. Apparently they've got enough oxygen for four days. Okay. And yes, basically the clock is ticking to find these tourists. And apparently Ocean Gate has said that they're focusing all their efforts on.

[00:06:55] Kyle Risi: The crew and the families that are stuck inside this submersible, basically. And they've got like a bunch of government agencies and deep sea companies pulling together to try and just help them find it. So how scary. Uh, the absolutely scary. What if that thing is just stop working and you just sunk all the way to the bottom of the ocean?

[00:07:14] Kyle Risi: And how would they 

[00:07:15] Adam Cox: Well, I'm assuming there's no kind of signals or radio waves or anything that can reach them at the moment. Hence they don't know where it is, so they're gonna have to use sonar, I'm guessing, just to try and locate it. 

[00:07:26] Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, sonar is normally used for finding, mapping big geological things under the ocean.

[00:07:33] Kyle Risi: Right? Right. This thing is tiny. It holds like, I think like five five passengers. Oh, so that small. So it's small. Yeah. It's uh, yeah, I 

[00:07:40] Adam Cox: did hear that The price, um, is very much an elite kind of trip is around about 200 grand per person. 

[00:07:48] Kyle Risi: That's crazy. Just for a seat, I mean, If I had the money, I would love to go and visit the Titanic.

[00:07:53] Kyle Risi: They, apparently they say it's disintegrating. It's almost not there anymore. Oh really? So the wreckage that did fall down there is just, yeah. Been rusted away. Eroded away. 

[00:08:02] Adam Cox: Well, hopefully. Um, well, by the time this podcast goes out, they, they find those people. 

[00:08:07] Kyle Risi: I really do. Yeah. I guess it's, uh, an emerging story.

[00:08:09] Kyle Risi: But yeah, that's all I have for today. So shall we crack on with today's episode? Yeah, I wanna 

[00:08:17] Adam Cox: hear about the potential Yetis. 

[00:08:19] Kyle Risi: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Forgot. Say this bit. Okay. So, uh, so that's all the latest things. You are listening to the Compendium and Assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

[00:08:30] Kyle Risi: We are a weekly podcast where I, Kyle Risi, tell Adam my enigmatic and ever curious co-host all about a topic that I think will both find both fascinating and intriguing.

[00:08:46] Kyle Risi: Great. 

[00:08:46] Adam Cox: And, um, well, I'm, I'm dying to hear about these potential Yeti attacks or stories or whatever it 

[00:08:52] Kyle Risi: is. Yeah. So there could be Yeti involved. Um, that's what the saying goes for the story. So in today's episode, we will be unraveling the mysterious J So in this week's episode of the Compendium, be Unraveling the Mysterious Tlo Gilo.

[00:09:11] Kyle Risi: So in this week's episode, we'll you made to come 

[00:09:16] Adam Cox: close 

[00:09:16] Kyle Risi: just a tad. Why is it dipped out? Just 

[00:09:19] Adam Cox: a bit echo. It sounds a 

[00:09:20] Kyle Risi: bit, just was getting some mouth noises. Oh.

[00:09:32] Kyle Risi: So in this week's episode of the Compendium, we are unraveling the mysterious Diat Love Pass incident. Which is a tragedy that took place in 1959 when a group of inexperienced hikers hiking in Russia's rural mountains go missing, and they're allowed to. They're, and they're later all found dead under really peculiar su, under really peculiar, under really peculiar circumstances under when a group of ex, when a group of experienced hikers hiking in Russia's Euro mountains go missing and all later found dead under these really bizarre, peculiar circumstances, and even today, the LOV Pass instant remains unsolved with theories that range from various natural disasters to more supernatural explanations.

[00:10:26] Kyle Risi: What I really find so compelling about this story, Well, basically this human tragedy is how it highlights our fascination with the unexplained, and it blurs the lines between what we find rational within the unknown, sorry, unexplained highlights. Our fascination with the unexplained and the blurred lines between rationality and the unknown.

[00:10:52] Kyle Risi: Because when something can't be explained, we always seem to look for explanations that kind of prod our darkest fears, like Yetis or like military attacks that have gone wrong or things like that, you know, or aliens. So that's why I found this really, really compelling. So tell me, have you ever heard of the GI Love Pass incident ever?

[00:11:17] Adam Cox: I feel like you ask me this every week. Uh, do I know anything about the topic? And once again, it's a definite no, but that's why I'm here. And are you intrigued by it? I'm intrigued and fascinated. 

[00:11:29] Kyle Risi: Great. Well, before we begin, I just wanna start with a small little disclaimer as I like to do every, every so often, and that is that I am terrible at accents and languages.

[00:11:42] Kyle Risi: I can speak a little bit of Afrika being some African, but other than that, I sadly fall short since today's episode is an old Russian story. I don't wanna do anyone any disrespect by deliberately mispronouncing some of the names throughout today's story. So just so you know, I will be mispronouncing some names and I do apologize.

[00:12:05] Kyle Risi: My pronunciations do come from a positive place, and I mean the utmost respect, uh, especially towards the people that are involved in the story. So let's get into it. Let's do it. Yeah. So our story starts with a young man called Igor Lov. Now he's born in 1936 near, uh, Berg In. Obviously the old U S S R.

[00:12:31] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Right. So Igor is both, so Igor has both fascination with electronics and the great outdoors. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, he built his own telescope so that he and his friends could watch the satellite travel across the night sky. He was an engineering student at the Euro Polytechnic Institute, which is one of the leading technical universities in kind of the, the all of the, the U S S R and it's abbreviated U P I.

[00:13:03] Kyle Risi: And they produced some of the best engineers in the U S S R at the time who would then end up being recruited to work within kind of the union's, nuclear power and weapons industries, communication kind of facilities and various military kind of spaces and things like that. And Eagle was on this same.

[00:13:21] Kyle Risi: Kind of trajectory. So he's a, a brainy guy. He's a brainy, intelligent guy who has a massive love for the outdoors. Okay, good guy. Now, during his years at U P I, diol would spend a lot of his free time exploring the wilderness, often organizing groups and excursions that ventured out into the wilderness.

[00:13:40] Kyle Risi: Because of e and because of eagle's and because of Eagle's engineering tendencies, he would often use equipment that he would often invent himself or had improved in some way to kind of use on his trips. 

[00:13:55] Adam Cox: Okay. So he would like take something that's already there, tamper with it, maybe a little bit to kind of, I dunno, make it a bit better.

[00:14:02] Adam Cox: Yeah. Make 

[00:14:03] Kyle Risi: some advancements. Engineer it a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That's so brainiac now during his time in the Soviet Union. Now, during this time in the Soviet Union, it was a time of immense optimism. Now, Many political prisoners had just been freed from Stalin's gulags. Economic growth was on the rise, and basically the standard of living for ordinary kind of Russians at the time was on the rise.

[00:14:28] Kyle Risi: So there was a lot going on. There was a lot of optimism. There was a lot of kind of, uh, new pioneering going on in the sciences and the military and things like that. Now, in the late 1958, in late 1958, Igor Dlo started planning a winter expedition, which was usually funded by the university and which was usually funded by the, which was, which was funded by the university.

[00:14:53] Kyle Risi: And so he submits his proposal and the go ahead is approved almost immediately now, his incursions would, now, this incursion would be a 16 day trip across country, and it would be like a ski trip through the Euro Mountains. So there's gonna be a lot of snow now. The Euro Mountains is a massive range of mountains that divides Russia from kind of the north to the south, from kind of starting from like the Arctic Ocean right down to like Kazakhstan.

[00:15:22] Kyle Risi: So it's a huge mountain range. Now d love's expedition would be a ski hike there would take place around 350 miles, roughly north of, uh, several, wherever he's from. Yeah, 

[00:15:38] Adam Cox: you're not even gonna try that one, 

[00:15:39] Kyle Risi: are you? I'm not even gonna try it. Try it. Severs DelBosque, uh, which is basically the traditional kind of territory of the men's eye people who are kind of the indigenous people living in that area.

[00:15:51] Kyle Risi: So it's to the north now. The man's eye first came into contact with the Russians around about the 16th century when Russia was kind of extending its control kind of throughout kind of the superior, uh, Siberia region. Now, although the the man's eye are largely kind of what they call roost, roostify or like kind of.

[00:16:11] Kyle Risi: Made into Russians, and this ran about the 20th century. They continue to kind of live this semi traditional way of life, which involved hunting and fishing and reindeer hunting. So they lived very much on the land, right? They, which were kept to themselves. Okay? Now the plan was for Deat love's excursion.

[00:16:29] Kyle Risi: Now the plan was that Deat love's excursion with ski 200 miles through a route that no one had ever done before, before crossing them out. The plan was that Diat love's excursion would ski 200 miles through a route that no one had ever done before across the mountains. Now, these weren't steep faces with high, like these weren't steep rock faces with high peaks.

[00:16:54] Kyle Risi: Instead, these were kind of like gentle slopes. So the challenge wouldn't be kind of rugged terrain. Instead it would be literally the cold and high winds. Oh, okay. 

[00:17:03] Adam Cox: I was trying to work out why, but it sounds like, yeah, maybe it's more open then, and so 

[00:17:08] Kyle Risi: the Yeah, it is way more open. So it's not these high peaks that you imagine.

[00:17:12] Kyle Risi: Now Igor invites classmates. Uh, a woman called now eor, Igor invites classmates. Xena called Call, I can't even say it. Let's call her Zena. Xena. Xena with a Z Z. She sounds nice with, yeah, like Eliza with a z. Um, and also seven other fellow students and recent graduates. They were all among what they considered the elites of the Soviet youth at the time.

[00:17:38] Kyle Risi: And all of them were really highly experienced, like winter campers and cross country skiers. So they knew exactly what they were doing. Okay. Now one of GI outlaw's close friends, Gregory, I'm not gonna pronounce his surname, um, he had a U P I.

[00:17:58] Kyle Risi: Now one of the outlaw's close friends, Gregory is a U P I graduate, and he is now working as an engineer at a nuclear complex, which at the time was a secret town. All right. Now Gregor is this kind of goofy looking s skinny kind of guy. He's really energetic. He loves to tell jokes. He sings, he plays the mandolin.

[00:18:20] Kyle Risi: Do you know what the mandolin is? Is that like a little ukulele? Yeah, it's a ukulele. Kind of imagine like a Tudor style ukulele, and it's kind of looks like a weird gourd. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You could imagine like kind of Henry vii kind of using one. I don't, people don't seem to play that anymore? No. I think he must have been the equivalent of like the 1959 hipsters, you know?

[00:18:42] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. Yeah. Now two other members of the excursion, Also recent graduates. They are, uh, Russam, uh, Seladon and Nikolai, and we'll just call him Nikolai. Uh, these are very, very big long Russian names, so I do apologize. So, Russam, Seladon and Nikolai, we'll call 'em and Nikolai. Okay. Right. Nikolai's father had been a prisoner in one of Stalin's gulags.

[00:19:13] Kyle Risi: So the other students, yeah. How did that happen? Well, he was probably a, a dissident or like, I don't know, a defector or he betrayed the government in one way or maybe a family member. Oh, okay. Betrayed Stalin in some way or said something, but you managed to get out, so, yeah, exactly. Well, this was kind of towards the end of that, where a bunch of these prisoners were being freed from these gulags.

[00:19:39] Kyle Risi: I dunno, a huge amount about it. That's just what I read. Okay. Remember, this is the compendium. We just scratched the top surface, and that's as far as our research goes. Yeah. So another student included a guy called Yuri Udin. See, I can see say his name now, Yuri. And, oh, sorry. And the other students included a guy called Yuri Udin, uh, Yuri Doro Chenko, and Alexandra, uh, Kohl Van Tov.

[00:20:10] Kyle Risi: Okay. 

[00:20:11] Adam Cox: So the two, Yuri and Alexandra, 

[00:20:13] Kyle Risi: well, it's gonna be a bit easier in a minute because Yuri has to go. Okay. So the youngest of the group was a 20 year old, uh, girl called, uh, Lydia, I think Lydia, Dina, I'm so sorry about this, but the names become less important as we go on. This is just me introducing you to our characters.

[00:20:33] Kyle Risi: So try as best you can to put a face to the name. I'm gonna include some pictures in the show notes as well for us to kind of have a look at as well, and we'll get a sense of who they are and who, who, yeah. Who we're talking about. So Lydia was like this economics major, and she was a super gifted athlete and she was also a major communist as well.

[00:20:54] Kyle Risi: Her signature look was to wear like these really long braids that tied up with like silk ribbons. So she looked just like one of those typical woman from the Soviet Union kind of propaganda posters. Blonde, yeah. Owned pretty braids coming forward in your hair. Th that's exactly the same. They, the kind of hairstyle that she would wear.

[00:21:16] Kyle Risi: On a previous hike, Lydia had actually accidentally been shot by a hunter and had managed to survive despite having to make a 50 mile journey back to civilization to get help. So she's hardcore, right? 50 miles. Do she have to walk that? I think probably not. I think she got into a car or something fine.

[00:21:36] Kyle Risi: But she had been shot and yeah, she managed to survive good on her. Now, a couple days before the group was due to set off, um, the U P I, that's the university administration added a new member to the excursion. And this is a guy he's called Simeon Zalo. Tara OV apologies, and he is much older than the others.

[00:22:04] Kyle Risi: He is at this time, 37 years old, and he's a second World War veteran and is largely unknown to the others. He has kind of like this old fashioned mustache and a stainless steel crown. Kind of on his teeth with like a bunch of tattoos. So he's very different to the others. Right. Okay. So on the 23rd of January, the party set off from server law, Bosque, that's where they're kind of setting out from.

[00:22:28] Kyle Risi: And because they're students, some of them hide under the seats of the train to kind of avoid having to buy a train ticket. So the youth of the kind of Soviet Russia is exactly like it is all over the world, right? 

[00:22:41] Adam Cox: Yeah. Where we will, I never did that, but people would hide in the toilets on a train between stops.

[00:22:50] Kyle Risi: That's exactly it. And I like that detail because it kind of, it highlights just how the humanity, it kind of highlights, I like that detail cuz it highlights the humanity of who these people are. Do you know what I mean? Even though they are from Soviet Russia, but they're just ordinary, they're just young adults.

[00:23:08] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And yeah, now their journey starts. So their journey to start.

[00:23:22] Kyle Risi: So at the start of their journey, they're, they're having, so the journey at the start is great. They're laughing, they're joking, and they're getting on all super well. Now, during the early part of their journey, um, quick or can't pronounce his name, Gregor. Gregor. Yeah. So during the early part of the journey, Gregory, which is Diat Law's best friend, is briefly detained by police for playing the mandolin and pretending to panhandle at the, at the train station.

[00:23:48] Kyle Risi: But it's all good because they eventually let him go with a warning. And the reason why we know some of these details is because as this is an academic trip, they are keeping a communal journal where they're documenting all these events about how they're feeling, where they've arrived at. So we know times, no dates.

[00:24:07] Kyle Risi: We know exactly what's happening. And so they are doing 

[00:24:09] Adam Cox: this in. Um, I feel like I'm hearing the jiggling. Oh, so they're doing this all in one sort diary that they're all keeping and sort of entries in? 

[00:24:21] Kyle Risi: Yeah, so it's like a communal diary that they're using. It's just the one, but they do have five individual cameras that they have with them.

[00:24:26] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. So they're all operating their own cameras. I guess 

[00:24:30] Adam Cox: if you've got a communal diary, you can't really bitch about the other person you're with. No, cuz there's an academic diary. So like you're writing in your own entry and you just happen to glance at the one above and like, Hey, Gregory's taking a piss outta 

[00:24:40] Kyle Risi: me.

[00:24:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah, could be. Well, I mean, would it be unwarranted? 

[00:24:44] Adam Cox: Well, it depends what Gregory did stole all the biscuits. 

[00:24:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. So

[00:24:52] Kyle Risi: this is the reason why we have all these amazing records of, so this is why we have this amazing record of this group setting out on this awesome adventure to start this excursion throughout the Euro Mountains, right? Mm-hmm. Now, when you look through the pictures, they all look super happy here. Have a look.

[00:25:10] Kyle Risi: So here are a bunch of them. Like, I think they're, they're at one of the base camps just before they're due to set off through the dlo pass. And there you go. Yeah. What do you make of those? Yeah, they look like 

[00:25:24] Adam Cox: just, yeah. Yeah. Young adults. Um, just on a trip. Um, can't really 

[00:25:32] Kyle Risi: say much more than that. Really.

[00:25:34] Kyle Risi: They look like they're having fun as well. There you go. There's one of 'em having a poo going, going to the toilet. I keep hearing you Chile. Oh really? Yeah. You okay? Yeah. It's just quite hot. Um,

[00:25:53] Kyle Risi: yeah, there you go. And there's one of 'em having a poo 

[00:25:58] Adam Cox: good that they call that on camera. Yeah. Um, yeah. They just look like they're on an expedition. All look like they're having 

[00:26:03] Kyle Risi: fun. Here you go. Here's one that I will get you to describe for us. Uh, what's this on here? Check this one out. They're on the, so 

[00:26:10] Adam Cox: there's about one, yeah.

[00:26:12] Adam Cox: Seven or eight of them on the back of a truck. Mm-hmm. Um, they're laughing, smiling, looks cold. They're all wrapped up in their hoods. 

[00:26:21] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's like minus 20 degrees here. Mine is 20. Wow. Yeah. So it's crazy. I mean, this is the middle of winter as well here. They all as well are as well. I think they've stopped at a base camp and they're just spending the night here before they go off on their trip.

[00:26:34] Kyle Risi: And there's just a group photo of them and they're all just having fun. Looks like there's other people there. Cause it looks like there's more than nine people, but they must have met some other people on the way. Mm-hmm. But yeah, and when you look through the pictures, they all look like really super happy.

[00:26:47] Kyle Risi: And I think this is what makes this so much sadder as a story because of this unexpected nature of what lies ahead. And it's like from these pictures, it's completely absent. Like there's no indication. Of what's coming, which I think is really haunting in, in a sense, especially when you look at these old black and white photographs, you know?

[00:27:08] Kyle Risi: Well, 

[00:27:08] Adam Cox: yeah, they, I doubt they thought it was, you know, and badly. 

[00:27:12] Kyle Risi: Um, yeah. The thing is though, they're also really experienced as well, so they know how to deal with most situations that are gonna come across.

[00:27:30] Kyle Risi: So that's where we look at some the pictures. So two days, so after two days of layovers and train hopping, the party finally reached a little town called Idel, which is a small remote town with kind of like a Stalin era kind of prison camp, like situated in it. Now from there, the group travel another day by bus, and then they hitch a ride on the back of someone's truck.

[00:27:54] Kyle Risi: And that's the image that you just described for us there. And. They all then find this abandoned kind of logging camp called kind of the, the second northern, which is where they spend the night at and they have some dinner, they relax, they kind of play some music, and they just get ready for their trip.

[00:28:12] Kyle Risi: Now one of the guys that's Yuri Udin, um, suddenly he has a sciatic kind of nerve flare up, which means that he is reluctantly, which, which reluctantly forces him to pull out of the excursion. So the next day on January 28th, Yuri returns back home, which is a move that essentially ends up saving his life.

[00:28:37] Kyle Risi: Wow. That's 

[00:28:37] Adam Cox: a imagine at the time, like, oh, got to be missing out on this. Yeah. And actually someone was, I dunno, looking out for him, maybe 

[00:28:45] Kyle Risi: massive relief at the end. Mm-hmm.

[00:28:52] Kyle Risi: Can you hear a lot of mouth noises? Okay. So while the remaining nine set off towards mountains, the plan was to end up in a tiny village of Zhi around February the 12th. Right? So they'd be gone for like around about 16, 17 days, and this is where they would then send a telegram to the University Sports Club and announcing that they had arrived safely.

[00:29:15] Kyle Risi: But of course, this telegram never arrives. At first, the university just assumes that the group had just been held up since there had been kind of like reports of really heavy snowstorms in the area. But after eight days, there's no telegram. And then the, the families of the group begin to kind of place frantic calls to the university and to the local bureau of the Communist party.

[00:29:40] Kyle Risi: So on the 20th of February, after still not hearing from the group, a search party is then sent out, which is split into several smaller groups. Many of the kind of the search volunteers are from the university, but some are prison guards from the IDO camp, which is the town they stayed at, uh, the night before.

[00:29:59] Kyle Risi: Uh, they set off and others are just like local man's eye hunters who know the era really well. And also the local police and the military also get involved and they're like, really like, ha and they really helpfully deploy planes and helicopters to assist in the search. 

[00:30:16] Adam Cox: So it's quite a big search then.

[00:30:17] Adam Cox: It sounds like you've got like local people joining in and then all these kind of specialists that are there to try and find these young 

[00:30:25] Kyle Risi: people. Do you find that's also quite a weird thing to think about when you consider the fact that a search has even happened. You don't associate this kind of stuff with.

[00:30:37] Kyle Risi: The Soviet Union, right. That they would go out and they would canvas. I just find that bizarre. Do you wanna say what I'm saying? I 

[00:30:42] Adam Cox: guess, I don't know. It's maybe a different time. I mean, chance are perhaps they'd still do that now. We, we know we might only see some of the negative stories, um, but this, these are people's sons, these are people's sons and daughters, so, mm-hmm.

[00:30:58] Adam Cox: Um, yeah, I, there's gonna be a lot of people wanting to find them 

[00:31:03] Kyle Risi: for sure. So on the 25th of February, after five days of searching the party find ski tracks, and the day after that, they discovered the skiers tent in an area that the local man's eye people call Carlo, which translates basically to Dead Mountain.

[00:31:23] Kyle Risi: Okay. What do you think of that? Slightly looming? Mm-hmm. I was listening to a podcast called You're Wrong About with the, the host. Braverman and Sarah Marshall, and they had an interesting take on this story that I found really fascinating. They said that, of course the story has scattered to people for over 50 years, and it's because like folklore, people are very, people very quickly forget that these are real people.

[00:31:52] Kyle Risi: Right. I might have toay that again. So I was listened to. You're wrong about, and they had a really interesting take on the story. They said that, of course the story has captivated people for over 50 years. It's because like folklore, people are very, very quickly forget that these are real people. Mm-hmm.

[00:32:10] Kyle Risi: Because it's become this folklore. Right. But interestingly, they discuss because this mountain range was known as Dead Mountain, that somehow the group should have understood the implications of venturing into this area. After all, why was it called Dead Mountain? If it wasn't a dangerous place and therefore you had a coming.

[00:32:32] Kyle Risi: Oh, right. 

[00:32:33] Adam Cox: So, okay. So it was named after actually being quite a dangerous, it's not like, I don't know it, it wasn't just like a random name that was picked out of the hat. 

[00:32:42] Kyle Risi: Well, the thing is though, colloquially, colloquially to the local people No, but to the general public that had heard about the story as it spread.

[00:32:51] Kyle Risi: Oh, right. They were like all that. They picked up on the, the, the name Dead Mountain. They just started to, why would you go there? Exactly. Over time, of course, this era becomes thought of as sacred land for the man's eye people. But actually the man's eye are like, no, no, it's called Dead Mountain because there's just literally nothing there.

[00:33:10] Kyle Risi: That's why we call it that. Right, okay. But to a different population, different culture. They hear Dead Mountain, they go, Hmm. You shouldn't have been mentioning there in the first place. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I just thought it was quite fascinating.

[00:33:25] Kyle Risi: Anyway, the rescuers find the tent and it's partly collapsed. It's semi buried in the snow. And after digging it out, the search parties see that the tent appears to have been deliberately slashed in several places from the inside. Oh, sorry. The

[00:33:46] Kyle Risi: search parties see that the tent appears to have been deliberately slashed in several places. Yet inside everything was neatly and orderly, kindly yet inside everything was neat and orderly. The skiers boots their axes and other equipment appear to have kind of like just been arranged on either side of the door.

[00:34:05] Kyle Risi: Neat neatly. Um, there was food laid out as if it was just about to be eaten. Uh, there was like kind of stacks of wood ready to set up, like the heating stove, along with all their clothes, their cameras and their journals were just all like neatly laid out. So, 

[00:34:21] Adam Cox: Is, I guess there's no signs of any kind of kerfuffle.

[00:34:25] Adam Cox: If your tent's been ripped, you might think or been attacked, but perhaps that was done afterwards. 

[00:34:30] Kyle Risi: There's no ripping yet. I haven't said anything about ripping. I thought you said not yet. Oh, sorry. Just take that back. But yeah, so everything seems to be in order, right? The only thing that's weird is that their tent is partly collapsed, right?

[00:34:45] Kyle Risi: But about a hundred feet downhill. The search party find several footprints of eight or nine people that appear to be of groups that appear to be of a group of people walking, specifically not running towards the tree line. Weirdly, almost all the prints were either barefooted or wearing socks, which again is strange considering they didn't appear to be running from anything like major like or anything scary.

[00:35:17] Kyle Risi: So why would they? Be in socks. I mean, one set of footprints looks like it was wearing just a single ski boot, and the other footprints extended like around 600 yards ending nearly by the tree. By the tree line. But they weren't, they didn't seem to be in a panic. No one was being dragged or anything. So, and it was really 

[00:35:37] Adam Cox: cold as well.

[00:35:38] Adam Cox: So to be barefoot or in socks seems very strange. It does seem strange, and I'm getting this feeling, I don't know, there's, if someone's one of, you know, someone is wearing one boot and not on the other foot, almost as if they were. They've got up and walked. Mm. Towards this direction with, without any sort of thought or they've just all gone without any Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:04] Adam Cox: Against their will in a way, if that makes 

[00:36:06] Kyle Risi: sense. Yes. Yeah. Oh, do you think like they were in like some kind of trance or hypnotized or something and they just kind of like a zombie 

[00:36:12] Adam Cox: a little bit? Or there was something that was there that they lit, they literally had to stop what they were doing. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:17] Adam Cox: And just go investigate. Interesting. Very calmly. 

[00:36:19] Kyle Risi: Yes. Yeah. And that seems to what, that seems to appear what happened, right? Mm-hmm. That seems to be what happened. So the next morning, the search party find the bodies of Gregory and he's obviously, he's the mandolin player and the best friend of lov I mentioned that.

[00:36:42] Kyle Risi: So the next morning have I said that the, so the next morning the search party find the bodies of Gregory, he's the mandolin player that I mentioned earlier, and he is under a tall cedar tree. At the edge of the forest. Okay. Now together, oh, there's two of them. So the next morning, the search party find two bodies, one of them being Gregory.

[00:37:08] Kyle Risi: He's the mandolin player that I mentioned earlier on. And these two bodies are under a tall cedar tree at the edge of the forest. Now, together their bodies are laying next to a dead fire, wearing only their underwear. Now, 12 feet up in the tree were some recently broken branches, and on the trunk of these branches was various bits of skin and torn clothing that the search party had found high up about 15 feet up.

[00:37:43] Kyle Risi: Their skin, their clothing. Well, yes. What? Yeah. Strange. Right? So they're 

[00:37:49] Adam Cox: on the ground half naked. And, but bits of their clothing is high up in a tree. Mm-hmm. Okay. That doesn't make any sense. 

[00:37:59] Kyle Risi: It doesn't, does it? So later that same day, the party also discover the bodies of Dilo and another chap, that's the column, another chap.

[00:38:11] Kyle Risi: Both are further up the slope facing in the direction of the tent. Their fists are tightly clenched and they appear to have, like, been trying to get back to the tent. Okay. At this point, the other bodies are still missing. So work gets underway to kind of work out what happened to the four bodies that they found so far, and the autopsies are carried out on these bodies.

[00:38:36] Kyle Risi: And the medical examiner notes that Gregory's fingers and the other guy, the, the guys that died by the fire had been blackened with third degree burns and also on their shins and feet as well. And inside Gregory's mouth is, A chunk of flesh that he'd bitten off of his right hand and the other guy's body had been, had like various bits of burnt hair on one side of his head and he had like a charred sock.

[00:39:05] Kyle Risi: All the bodies are covered with bruises, abrasions, scratches, and various cuts. Wow. He so he's bit his own hand by the looks of it. Yeah. Were they, 

[00:39:15] Adam Cox: you mentioned bruises there, have they been like attacked 

[00:39:18] Kyle Risi: or At this moment in time? We don't know. Right. Okay. It's still a bit of a mystery, but it sounds like they've been attacked or they've been through something.

[00:39:26] Kyle Risi: Right. Some kind of 

[00:39:27] Adam Cox: ordeal 

[00:39:28] Kyle Risi: for them to Yeah, you would. I would imagine that if they were up in the tree or if they were in the tree cuz they're fleshes in the tree, then possibly that could have something to do with why they had all these abrasions and scratches 

[00:39:40] Adam Cox: on them. Cause they could have been climbing the tree maybe to get away from something.

[00:39:44] Adam Cox: Possibly. Yeah. But then to bite your own hand. But maybe, I dunno, you had to, I dunno. 

[00:39:51] Kyle Risi: It's bizarre. So a few days later, the search party then discover a fifth body, and that is of a re, the recent graduate. A few days later, the search party discovered a fifth body, and that's of recent graduates. Sloan. He's also covered in bruises and cuts as well, like Dilo.

[00:40:12] Kyle Risi: And the other guy that was found kind of trying to get back to the tent, Sladen, was on the slope heading back to the tent with one sock on his foot and a single felt booty on the other. And his autopsy showed that he had a major skull fracture. So someone had 

[00:40:31] Adam Cox: hit him as if a blunt 

[00:40:34] Kyle Risi: object had hit him?

[00:40:35] Kyle Risi: Possibly. We don't know. That's what's so bizarre about this, like what happened to him? Did someone hit him or was he attacked? Did they have a fight? Did they turn on each other? Who knows? That's what makes this so bizarre. Okay. 

[00:40:49] Adam Cox: So, okay, so we've got five so far. Mm-hmm. All bruised, all like in unexplained half dressed.

[00:40:58] Adam Cox: Yeah. Situation going on. What? 

[00:41:00] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So by now the investigators are really concerned, right? They're so concerned by the state of the bodies that they launch a homicide investigation, which is led by the lead investigator guy called Len Ivanov. Sorry, I don't mind this. It keeps like picking up on my breathing.

[00:41:27] Kyle Risi: So by now, investigators are really concerned about the state of the bodies, so much so that they launch a homicide investigation, which is led by a lead investigator called Lev Ivanov. Now, investigators do a bunch of toxicology tests. They do various witness testimonies and they draw diagrams and maps of the scene and they collect various evidences from from the scene to kind of carry out forensic analysis.

[00:41:55] Kyle Risi: The tent tenants contents are helicoptered out of the mountains and set up again inside a nearby police station and a seamstress working at the station notices that the slashes on the tent had been made from the inside. So these people cut their way out of the tent from the inside rather than using the exit, which to me suggests that they, yeah, they kind of 

[00:42:21] Adam Cox: ran.

[00:42:21] Adam Cox: Yeah. But then just that, that feels like someone trying to make a quick escape. So they didn't wanna draw attention with the unzipping, so they've cut and so they would've walked out in maybe socks or one bu whatever they had on or half getting dressed and suggest that they. Well, you'd think they'd run.

[00:42:38] Adam Cox: Yeah, 

[00:42:38] Kyle Risi: that's right. You're right. So meaning that something had happened to cause the group to cut their way out, which that to me is a panic. Mm-hmm. But then the footsteps suggests that they walked like slowly down to the, the tree line, 

[00:42:51] Adam Cox: unless they were doing it in a way not to cause too much attention.

[00:42:56] Adam Cox: And so they're walking, you know, tiptoeing, if that makes sense. Sure. But then maybe they would've figured that out based on how the footprints were. But yeah, perhaps that's the only reason why you wouldn't run to not cause attention or 

[00:43:08] Kyle Risi: make a lot of sound. Man, it's so weird, isn't it? Mm-hmm. What's happened?

[00:43:12] Kyle Risi: So according to weather reports that night, it would've been minus 20 degrees. And also a blizzard was raised, was raiding, and also a blizzard was raging as well. So they were in bare feet and socks. Right. The weird thing is that all members of the excursion were super experienced mountaineers, so they would've been acutely aware.

[00:43:37] Kyle Risi: Of the fatal consequences of leaving the tent, even half dressed in these conditions. So why did they do it? So normally you'd 

[00:43:45] Adam Cox: dress when you go to sleep in these kind of conditions. I dunno if they did that back then, but you'd dress clothes so you can get out I think quite 

[00:43:53] Kyle Risi: easily, can't you? Mm-hmm. I dunno.

[00:43:55] Kyle Risi: What do you mean? So 

[00:43:57] Adam Cox: you'd go to bed in clothing. I don't think you would fully undress or anything like that because in case you needed to get out quickly, I thought that's a thing. Yeah, 

[00:44:07] Kyle Risi: sure. And the thing is that they're probably are gonna be cold in the tent anyway. I doubt the tents that majorly up True.

[00:44:13] Kyle Risi: There's no central heating in there. It sounds like they were getting ready to, they were changing. They were getting ready into more comfortable clothing when something had happened by the sounds of it. Yeah. Which is bizarre.

[00:44:33] Kyle Risi: Can you hear my breathing? Mm-hmm. Can you hear mine? 

[00:44:35] Adam Cox: Sometimes?

[00:44:40] Adam Cox: Once if you talk, have you got exactly the same 

[00:44:43] Kyle Risi: settings? Mm-hmm. Oh, yes.

[00:44:50] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I put yours. I put mine higher. I put this, let's say 50.

[00:45:19] Kyle Risi: And so this is what the central and apparently inexplicable mystery of this instant. Is what happened to them to flee the tents? What happened on that mountain slope? It 

[00:45:31] Adam Cox: feels bizarre. I can't work out if they ran or were in a trance or some kind of weird, but something's they had to 

[00:45:39] Kyle Risi: get out quick.

[00:45:40] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Now, by this point, four bodies were still missing. Right? And so in early May, this is months later when the snow starts melt, the mansi, a man's eye hunter and his dog come across the remains of a makeshift snow den in the woods, about 250 feet from that cedar tree where the first two bodies were found.

[00:46:02] Kyle Risi: Okay. Now a floor of branches laid in a deep hole in this snow, right? And the hunter finds pieces of tatter clothing strewn about specifically black cotton and sweatpants with the right leg being cut off, and also specifically black cotton and sweatpants with the right leg cut off. And the left half of a woman's sweater.

[00:46:28] Kyle Risi: When another search team arrives using avalanche probes, essentially, which are these kind of long, collapsible poles used to locate victims buried in avalanches. They bring up a big, massive chunk of human flesh. Mm-hmm. And so after excavating the site, they discover the remains of the, the last four people, like all lined together on a rocky stream bed under at least 10 feet of snow.

[00:46:58] Kyle Risi: What? So, oh yeah. So they had, 

[00:47:01] Adam Cox: they, let me get this straight. So it sounds like they had built some kind of ice den to keep warm potentially. Um, but then again, all these clothes have been torn. Mm-hmm. Did they use the clothes to make a fire? I don't. 

[00:47:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. Strange, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. So the autopage revealed.

[00:47:23] Kyle Risi: Various catastrophic injuries to three of the bodies. Right. One of them's skull had been fractured so severely that a pieces of the bone had been like kind of driven into his brain. Geez. The other two had crush, ch had crush, the other two had crushed chest with multiple broken ribs and the autopsy reports notes, and the autopsy report notes a massive hemorrhage in the right ventricle of one of the girls' hearts.

[00:47:56] Kyle Risi: And the medical examiner said that the damage was similar to that, what you would typically see in a, in a car accident impact. Okay. Um, that was like moving at super high speed. Right. Okay. So what would've caused that? Just 

[00:48:08] Adam Cox: bizarre. That kinda blunt or, yeah. So it sounds like they're not saying that they would've hit with something 

[00:48:13] Kyle Risi: or are they Well, they, curiously, none of the bodies had any external penetrating wounds, which are wounds that.

[00:48:22] Kyle Risi: Which are wounds, which are wounds that kind of like break the skin or penetrate kind of deeper tissue. Right. It's kind of like flat, hard, blunt force. Yeah. Like you have been hit by a car, you're not been penetrated or impaled with something. Right. So no sharp objects involved. And so no sharp objects involved that might kind of require urgent medical attention for kind of proper assessments and treatment, et cetera.

[00:48:52] Kyle Risi: So the autopsy,

[00:48:59] Kyle Risi: let me just say that again. Just gonna start this, I can keep flowing. So curiously, none of the bodies had any external penetrating wounds would. So curiously, none of the bodies had any external penetrating wounds, which are wounds. That don't break the skin or penetrate deep tissues that are like typically can cause by like sharp objects.

[00:49:22] Kyle Risi: These are like blunt force kind of traumas that they've kind of, yeah. Been impact impacted by the autopsy show that one of them was also missing their eyes and another was missing their eyes. Sorry. Autopsy show that one of 'em was missing their eyes and another was missing their eyes and their tongue and also part of their top lip as well that had been kind of ripped off.

[00:49:47] Kyle Risi: So 

[00:49:47] Adam Cox: someone had gouged out their eyes, ripped off their tongue. Oh my. 

[00:49:51] Kyle Risi: What did, what's happened? 

[00:49:53] Adam Cox: This is ridiculous. This is getting weirder and weirder. 

[00:49:56] Kyle Risi: Well, they've got all four bodies now. Okay. So the investigation can properly start. So when they did an investigation, so when they did an investigation into the inventory of the group's clothing, what was rec, when they did an investigation into the inventory, when they did.

[00:50:14] Kyle Risi: When they did an investigation into the imagery of the group's clothing that was recovered from their bodies, they noted that some of the group were wearing clothes that were taken or cut from the other bodies. And the laboratory also found that several items emitted really unnaturally high levels of radiation.

[00:50:34] Kyle Risi: Um, well, okay. This is confusing. 

[00:50:39] Adam Cox: Um, so they've just swapped clothes or they've cut off clothes of the others? Mm-hmm. None of them have gone back to the tents. Yeah. Where you'd think that that's where they've got all the supplies and clothes and everything. That's it. They've all stayed away from that.

[00:50:52] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. 

[00:50:54] Kyle Risi: And, and some of their clothes are super radioactive. It's really bizarre. Okay, so a radiological, so ara, so a radiological expert. So a radiological expert testified that because the bodies had been exposed to running water for months, that's the, the four bodies that were buried in the little den.

[00:51:16] Kyle Risi: Um, the levels of radiation would've likely have been many, many times higher from when they had first died. Mm-hmm. Because of course the water was washing and all away. So on the May, so on May 28th even, or that's the Yvan Ivan Ivanov. So on May the 28th, Ivanov, that's the lead investigator he had led, I said that already.

[00:51:43] Kyle Risi: So on May the 28th, Ivanov, he's the lead investigator. He abruptly closes the investigation and he says that his role was to determine whether a crime had been committed and not to clarify. What had actually happened. And so he concludes that homicide was just not a factor, and he closes the case. What?

[00:52:03] Kyle Risi: There's no crime here. There's no crime apparently, according to Ivanov. So Ivanov ended his report with a no explanation, basically that has just bewildered people ever since the 1950s. Um, he says that, um, it should be concluded that the cause of the hiker's death was an over, was an overwhelming force, which they were not able to overcome.

[00:52:28] Adam Cox: What? That's the most load of bollocks I've ever heard. What is that about, 

[00:52:32] Kyle Risi: do you think? Is that a coverup? 

[00:52:33] Adam Cox: Do you think it's a coverup? Well, that's like someone's been killed by blunt force trauma. Mm-hmm. People who have got burns. Mm-hmm. There's bodies everywhere. Mm-hmm. This isn't natural causes. 

[00:52:44] Kyle Risi: It's not, is it something is really fishy.

[00:52:47] Kyle Risi: And of course in classic Soviet style, a number of officials who had hardly had anything to do with this incident whatsoever are, are either punished or the fired, including the director of the university and the chairman of the sports club of the university. Well this sounds sus exactly. And also the local communist party secretary who helped with the, uh, who initially took the original call, the chairman, um, he, they were sacked as well.

[00:53:13] Kyle Risi: And two chairman workers of the unions and various other union in inspectors or sacked. Okay. 

[00:53:18] Adam Cox: Something is up. They, maybe these people, do you think that they had um, some kind of radium or whatever with them that they would, I dunno. They were doing experiments in the woods then it kind of affected them and they tried to get away and they can go back to the tent because that was.

[00:53:35] Adam Cox: A hotspot. I don't know. I'm getting really confused now. 

[00:53:38] Kyle Risi: It sounds crazy, but the thing is though, this story has kind of spurred conspiracy theories, like since it happened, right? Because cuz of the lack of answers that people were willing to give. Right? 

[00:53:49] Adam Cox: Okay. Carry on. 

[00:53:52] Kyle Risi: What else you got? So the files from the investigation, photographs and journals, um, so the files from the investigation, the photographs, their journals, they're all marked classified, and the area around it mountain is immediately placed off limits to skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

[00:54:11] Kyle Risi: For years, the tent is stored, but it's eventually claimed that it became moldy. And so they have to destroy it as a result of this strange and perplexing kind of incident that. Area of the mountains, which the skiers were heading for, but never reaches, is then named Dilo Pass, which is where we get the name of our story and is named after Igor Dilo, who essentially organizes the excursion.

[00:54:41] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Okay. So as you can imagine, the victim's families are left deeply dissatisfied with this outcome and, and to, right? 

[00:54:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. They've been told that. Well, 

[00:54:52] Kyle Risi: they've been told a little rubbish. Exactly. Many of them write to officials including, um, various high up high ups, including various, yeah. Many of them write to, many of them write to officials demanding more thorough investigations into what caused their loved one's deaths.

[00:55:09] Kyle Risi: But nothing ever, ever comes of this, and the mysterious deaths of these nine skiers just simply fades into obscurity for like the next 20 odd years. So what are you thinking? What are your thoughts? What do you think happened? Um, I 

[00:55:30] Adam Cox: feel like, cause obviously this is a group of quite smart individuals, there's a scientific element to this.

[00:55:37] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. It does make me think that they did maybe were they doing some kind of study? Um, and 

[00:55:43] Kyle Risi: it's a top secret study possibly, 

[00:55:45] Adam Cox: but then it went wrong. Maybe it made them behave weirdly and I dunno, there's definitely feels like there, there's a 

[00:55:51] Kyle Risi: coverup here. I mean, these people were considered a kind of the Soviet Union elite.

[00:55:56] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. They were all engineers. They were working for this major university. Maybe you are right. Maybe they were out doing some kind of testing maybe. And as a result, when this all kicked off and went badly wrong, hence why all these different people were, were sacked. Right. It feels like 

[00:56:11] Adam Cox: that. And whether they were allowed to do it or maybe they weren't allowed to do it, but they did it anyway.

[00:56:16] Adam Cox: There's something that feels like a coverup. Mm-hmm. But why they behaved in the way that they did. That is a very weird thing. Did they find any radiation on the tent 

[00:56:25] Kyle Risi: or, exactly. It was just the clothing. Just that they found the clothing it on. Yeah. Um, from, there was also potentially something else that had radii ra uh, kind of radiation on it, but we'll come onto that in a moment.

[00:56:36] Kyle Risi: Okay. We're gonna revisit that. So my questions are why did the hikers cut open the tent from the inside and flee into essentially the frigid night? Barefoot, or just with socks on? Mm-hmm. Um, their injuries. How did some of the hikers suffer severe internal injuries without kind of any corresponding external signs of trauma?

[00:56:58] Kyle Risi: Right. No bear attacks, no Yeti attacks. They were just, I mean, maybe a Yeti flung them against a tree that could have done it. They fallen off a tree. I, yeah. Yeah. Also the dress. Right. How they were dressed. Why were some of the hikers found undressed in the freezing cold. Canned phenomena or paradoxical undressing often.

[00:57:23] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So why were they undressed in the freezing cold? There's also seems to be no sign of avalanche to be blamed as well, because the tent was only partly covered. And many people thought that. Is that because of the additional snow for that happened during the storm and maybe after? Mm-hmm. Because it wasn't completely submerged.

[00:57:44] Kyle Risi: Right. Right. And their footprints were still in the snow and if they were in avalanche, they would've been completely consumed by that. Yeah. Trapped, right? Yeah. The radioactive element as well. That's really interesting to me as well. Why were the high levels of radiation found on some of the hiker's clothing only and not all of them.

[00:58:02] Kyle Risi: Yeah. 

[00:58:03] Adam Cox: And it was just the four that was found together under 

[00:58:05] Kyle Risi: the snow. That's right. Yeah. And also why was some of the hiker's tongues and eyes missing and someone bit 

[00:58:13] Adam Cox: into their hand and there was 

[00:58:14] Kyle Risi: flesh someone bit into their hand as well. Yeah. So

[00:58:21] Kyle Risi: it's weird. It's just weird. It's very weird. Yeah. So

[00:58:28] Kyle Risi: should we continue, have you got some 

[00:58:31] Adam Cox: ideas of, I have some ideas. Ideas. 

[00:58:33] Kyle Risi: I have some 

[00:58:34] Adam Cox: theories. Is one of them a Yeti? It feels like there should be a Yeti. 

[00:58:38] Kyle Risi: Well, we'll get onto that. Okay. Because we have potentially some photographic evidence of Yetis. Of a yetta, which I'll be showing you. Okay. But let's go through it.

[00:58:48] Kyle Risi: So in 1990, the Eov, the Eov Ivanov. So in 1990, uh, the, the lead investigator Ivanov, he was now retired, right? He publishes an article in which he claims that while pulling together his 1959 report, he had been pressured into not including his views as to what happened. The article titled. The enigma of the fireballs goes on to say what initially in an article titled The Enigma of the Fireballs, he goes on to say what he initially wanted to say in the report but was unable to 

[00:59:28] Adam Cox: really, so there was a coverup of some kind, potentially a gagging order.

[00:59:33] Kyle Risi: So he states that the skiers had been killed by heat rays or balls or fire associated with UFOs. Oh, okay. In his original examination of the scene, Ivanov had found like various trees with unexplained burn marks on them, which he says confirms that some of the heat r that confirms that some kind of heat ray or powerful force of nature is.

[01:00:01] Kyle Risi: It confirms that some, confirms that some kind of heat ray or powerful force whose nature is completely unknown to us, or at least acted selectively on specific objects in this case. The hikers. Right. Okay. So the last photograph that Gregory took on his camera shows flares and streaks of light against this kind of this black backdrop.

[01:00:25] Kyle Risi: Okay. So let's have a look at that photograph. See if you can describe it for me.

[01:00:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So that's the photograph that Ivanov is talking about. I've include an image of this in the show notes, but Adam, take a look at this and tell me what you think. What do you see? I see, 

[01:00:50] Adam Cox: um, a photo. It's a dark photo. Um, it's basically blurred and there is, you know, the thing on a certain lenses where you see lights and you see them kind of, um, when it, it goes slightly out of focus.

[01:01:04] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. It's kind of caught the light like that. Yeah. So there's a sort of a light flare. There's also what maybe is perhaps a fire. I would say it's a fireball. I would just say it's a fire. Mm. Which we knew that there was a fire at one point. It doesn't look like aliens to 

[01:01:20] Kyle Risi: me. No, it absolutely does not.

[01:01:23] Adam Cox: And maybe this is why they, he was told, don't put this in the report. This is 

[01:01:26] Kyle Risi: ridiculous. And then he was sacked, or was he saying he wasn't sacked, but maybe it was like, go to sleep. I went off. Yeah. Nice, 

[01:01:34] Adam Cox: nice idea. But we are not writing a 

[01:01:35] Kyle Risi: storybook. So by this time, the official files had been re So by this time the official files had been released, and in the years since the case had become one of the most celebrated mysteries of the Soviet Union as a result of a ton of books and documentaries.

[01:01:51] Kyle Risi: As a result, a ton of books and documentaries had been made on the tragedy, along with a bunch of websites and message boards where people were obsessively going through various theories as to what they think might have happened. So in the year 2010 years later, relatives of, uh, So in the year 2000 relatives and friends of the victims established the Dilo Groove Memorial Foundation, whose purpose is to a, honor the memory of the skiers, and then to, of course, seek the truth as to what happened at the time.

[01:02:25] Kyle Risi: It's president, uh, a guy called Yuri, not the same Yuri that kind of left the, uh, the, the part early. He, um, was a 12 year old boy at the time that this had happened, and he remembers that he attended the funeral of some of the victims because it was such a massive story, right? And he also ended up going off to U P I and studying and then eventually teaching there as well.

[01:02:50] Kyle Risi: Now, He's in his mid seventies and he still leads various tours to the Gilo Pass. And Yuri says that generally Russians believe one of two theories about what happened on that day back in 1959. Either the skiers died because they had stumbled into an area where secret weapons were being tested or that they were killed by mercenaries, probably American spies.

[01:03:16] Kyle Risi: And Yuri insists that the first of in Yuri insists that the first of these theories is the correct one, and that is the one that there was military te various military tests that have gone wrong. And also this is what other families tend to believe as well. So they stumbled 

[01:03:34] Adam Cox: on these weapons. That they ended up accidentally using on 

[01:03:37] Kyle Risi: each other?

[01:03:38] Kyle Risi: No, I think what he's saying is that, so the theory is that a missile launch of some kind went wrong. Right. Inflicting severe injuries on the group, forcing them to flee their tent. Right. So it wasn't them who were playing around with it. It was military tests that were happening in the area, at which point they either froze to death or they were killed by military personnel in within, either froze to death or they were killed by military personnel in the group in attempt to keep the incident covered up.

[01:04:08] Kyle Risi: Right. So Yuri, that's the, the guy who kind of left. So Yuri Udin. Yuri Udin. He's the guy who had left early because he had the sciatic flare up. Sure. And managed to say Lucky Escape. Lemme say that again. So Yuri Udin, he's the guy who had the sciatic flare up, who was forced to abandon the trip, also maintains that the deaths were not natural.

[01:04:32] Kyle Risi: A while before he died in 2013, he says that his teammates had been taken from the tent at gunpoint and then murdered. And he says that one of the girls, um, who was known for being the out, most outspoken member of the group, who he says had a tongue cut out for, because he says that one of the girls that was known for being really outspoken, she was the girl that had her tongue cut out.

[01:05:00] Kyle Risi: Oh, right. Says that she had her tongue cut out because she was the most outspoken and she was back talking to 

[01:05:05] Adam Cox: whoever. 

[01:05:06] Kyle Risi: Possibly. Yeah. Interesting. Now, proponents of the theory claim that people in the region that night had seen various flashes of light and moving balls of fire in the direction of the mountains.

[01:05:18] Kyle Risi: Also, to back up this theory, in 2008, a three foot long piece of metal was found in the area, which according to the Di Outlaw Foundation, is part of a Soviet ballistic missile. Right. Okay. The theory would also explain the radio activity of on the, the, the, the recovery clothing as well. Now, ivanov's supervisor, this is a guy called y Jenny, again, I butchered that name.

[01:05:49] Kyle Risi: Um, he's from the, kind of the prosecutor's general office, gave an interview in a newspaper in 2013 in which he recalled finding it suspicious when he and his colleagues were instructed to test recovered items for radiation. Mm-hmm. He says that he was sent a letter. Um, he says that he was sent a letter to his, he

[01:06:14] Kyle Risi: says that he was sent a letter from his superior asking,

[01:06:22] Kyle Risi: he says that he was sent a letter to his superiors, asking why. He says he sent a letter. He says, he sent a letter to his superiors asking why radiation was relevant, and in response, the Deputy prosecutor General met with him and the team, and during this meeting he said that the official that met them seemed to just dodge all questions about weapon testing and or them not tell anyone that the deaths were

[01:06:51] Kyle Risi: sorry,

[01:06:56] Kyle Risi: met with them and dodged all their questions about weapon testings in order them to tell people that the deaths were accidental. Full stop, right? Suss, right? Mm-hmm. It sounds like a coverup. He says that in the immediate aftermath of the case being closed, the victim's parents came to his office. Some were like screaming at him.

[01:07:16] Kyle Risi: They were calling him fascists for hiding the truth from them. So generally, Many people believe that the government and some kind of military test was involved in some way. However, this theory is not consistent with what they found at the site. There is no evidence that other people had been there at all.

[01:07:38] Kyle Risi: So no other first steps and they told no other footprints. Exactly. And it would've been, it would've been close to impossible to raise signs for other people and equipment like involved in their killings. Right. How do you scrub all these footsteps? How do you retrace steps from a scene? I, I 

[01:07:59] Adam Cox: mean, I don't fully know, but I'm thinking one, it was a few days later, so maybe some snow had melted.

[01:08:05] Adam Cox: They could cover it up with some kind of, I don't know, maybe there's a, although perhaps you would see that snow's been disturbed. Mm-hmm. To look like it's covered something up. 

[01:08:13] Kyle Risi: Possibly. I just think, well, If the snow had fallen and winded and, and covered up some of their footprints, why not do the victim's footprints?

[01:08:22] Kyle Risi: Mm. Unless, and clearly there was only nine people on site unless 

[01:08:27] Adam Cox: there was an insider, possibly. I dunno, 

[01:08:30] Kyle Risi: the older guy there is, that's a theory because he had a military background. Right. I think we're gonna come onto that in a second anyway. Okay. I'm really good at this. You are really good at this. Well done.

[01:08:40] Kyle Risi: This 

[01:08:40] Adam Cox: is well is our 17th episode. 

[01:08:42] Kyle Risi: You're getting the hang of it now. We're get, we're starting to coast. So he also argued why would those responsible take the staging to such an elaborate length. Right. Why scatter the bodies around the whole area? Mm. Such a wide kind of, kind of radius. Why cut off the clothing of some and dress the others in their clothing?

[01:09:06] Kyle Risi: True. Why build a snow den and then bury four of the bodies in 10 feet of snow? Yeah. Why light a fire? And climb a tree to break branches, leaving skin on the bark. Right? Yeah. Now that you 

[01:09:19] Adam Cox: say it like 

[01:09:20] Kyle Risi: that. Yeah, exactly. So this theory would also suggest that there was secret weapons based in the area, or that an errant missile had exploded over the area of some kind.

[01:09:31] Kyle Risi: Yet despite, yet despite mass declassification of documents from the Soviet Union era around about this time, like there's just no evidence of that happening at all, and there's just no evidence of any military bases or military exercises kind of being based or happening in this area. I mean, they could 

[01:09:51] Adam Cox: cover that up, but maybe, or let's say that something terrible happened to these people, but then would the military be perhaps experimenting with radiation?

[01:10:02] Adam Cox: And these kind of missiles, which perhaps they shouldn't do. And so that's the bit they're covering up. 

[01:10:06] Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, this is during the Soviet Union, right? The Soviet Union collapses in 1990. It's a whole new regime. So all, everything that the Soviet Union was up to during their huge history is now declassified.

[01:10:20] Kyle Risi: All the files belong to the Americans and the rest of the world. Right? 

[01:10:24] Adam Cox: True. But then I th well, I was thinking this is leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, right? Um, 

[01:10:31] Kyle Risi: at the time, potentially, yes. Yeah. So, but, but that's what I'm saying. There's later on when everything becomes declassified, there's no evidence of any of that happening.

[01:10:39] Kyle Risi: Has everything become declassified?

[01:10:44] Kyle Risi: Maybe not. I dunno. I dunno. Maybe some files are hidden, but I would imagine like it's a whole new government regime that like they would have everything, but it's possible.

[01:10:57] Kyle Risi: The other theory is that the group was killed by foreign mercies. Specifically the US foreign mercenaries.

[01:11:08] Kyle Risi: This theory suggests

[01:11:15] Kyle Risi: the other theory that the group was killed by. The other theory is that the group was killed by foreign mercenaries, specifically the us. And the theory goes that the guide that was added to the group at the last minute by the university was, was actually a KGB agent on an assignment to meet with a group of CIA operatives in order to provide them with deliberately misleading information during their ski.

[01:11:46] Kyle Risi: Okay. Essentially now, samples of their clothing contaminated by radioactive isotopes were to be offered as bait to the CI agents, supposedly, right? Um, I can't even read this again too fast. So, samples of the clothing contaminated by radioactive isotopes were to be offered by this guy to the CIA agents as

[01:12:15] Kyle Risi: so samples of clothing contaminated by the radioactive isotopes that were so samples. So the radio act samples of radioactive. You wanna take a break? Lemme try again. Samples of clothing. So samples of clothing contaminated by radioactive isotopes were apparently supposed to be offered as bait to the c I A operatives in order to kind of like get them or something.

[01:12:45] Kyle Risi: Um, and apparently they foiled the plan and then just killed everyone and then just staged the scene. So it's a little more outlandish. It 

[01:12:53] Adam Cox: does, but then you'd still need to cover their footsteps. 

[01:12:55] Kyle Risi: Right? Well, that's what they're saying here is that they would've still, they, they then staged the scene. 

[01:13:01] Adam Cox: Okay.

[01:13:01] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. Fine. Hmm. 

[01:13:05] Kyle Risi: It's a bit out there. That one a little bit. Yeah. So the theory suggests that this guy that was added late, um, his service record in the second World War had various holes and inconsistencies in it, which might indicate that he was a KGB agent, linked some way to this incident, and his inclusion only adds to that suspicion.

[01:13:29] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. Against him. Do you know what I mean? He, so it could be 

[01:13:32] Adam Cox: a coincidence, or was he a double 

[01:13:34] Kyle Risi: agent? Still a KGB connection, even if proved would, wouldn't really mean much because people were low level, many people were low level informants at the time, and the idea that. The CIA would've chosen a place like Dead Mountain to kind of exchange information.

[01:13:56] Kyle Risi: Just seems like a lot of effort to go through, especially in a blizzard. Do you know what I mean? True. To go all that way. Or 

[01:14:03] Adam Cox: maybe they were thinking, well the Russians would never think that we'd go to Dead Mountain cause nothing's there. 

[01:14:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It could be, I don't know if you want to think along those lines, but there's just so many other places you could have met.

[01:14:15] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Down down the shops. Of course another class of theories considers a variety of natural disasters. For example, an avalanche hit the tent causing kind of the crushing injuries of the three victims and forcing the whole group to cut their way out of the tent and then kind of seek shelter. Mm-hmm.

[01:14:33] Kyle Risi: In, in the forest. But of course, no evidence of an avalanche is ever found. Right.

[01:14:42] Kyle Risi: And if it did, how would you explain that? The ski pole holding up. The front of the tend was still standing cause it was only partly collapsed. Like I said earlier on, it would be completely collapsed and devoured if it was a, some kind of avalanche. Right. Also, the original investigators determined that the slope was far too shallow to generate an avalanche in the floor.

[01:15:05] Kyle Risi: First place. Avalanches are only kind of possible on gradients, um, that are like kind of greater than 23 degrees. And the gradient where the tent was set up was a 15 degree angle. Okay. So not enough to generate a, an avalanche. Also, the injuries of the three victims found on the stream bed in their den were totally incap incapacitating.

[01:15:30] Kyle Risi: Right. They could have never have made it unassisted down to the riverbed or down to that, that den. Mm-hmm. Sorry. Down to that den without there being some evidence of them either being dragged or them limping or, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I see what you mean. There were eight or nine separate sets of clearly defined footsteps.

[01:15:52] Kyle Risi: Yes, they were like kind of wearing like different degrees of, uh, shoes and socks and et cetera, but everyone had left the tent and everyone had pretty much walked away from that tent as well. So these injuries must have happened afterwards. Yeah. Another fascinating theory comes from a 2013 bestseller.

[01:16:15] Kyle Risi: Uh, another fascinating theory comes from a 2013 bestseller, uh, by the filmmaker writer Donny Eckard e. Another fascinating theory comes from a 2013 bestseller, which suggests that it's possible that high winds that were passing over the mountain created this strange infrasound vibration below kind of the range of human hearing.

[01:16:45] Kyle Risi: And that in itself induced this weird terror within the skiers that caused them to flee their tent. Right. Okay. What do you think of 

[01:16:55] Adam Cox: that? I mean, has this happened before or is this, is this just a theory or this could happen because, I dunno, it feels like this to happen. The only time in history.

[01:17:05] Kyle Risi: Possibly. I mean, the theory to me is quite compelling. But if it's true, it would mean that all nine people would've been so terrified of this sound that they didn't grab their coats or boots and felt compelled to slash their way out of their tent. But they did calmly walk, but then they calmly wore. Yes.

[01:17:23] Kyle Risi: There's 

[01:17:24] Adam Cox: so many contradictions with this story. 

[01:17:26] Kyle Risi: It's weird. Yeah. And like, yeah, why would they cut their way out their tent when they could just use the tent door? Yeah. And then just easily just walk wherever they were going to walk to some other hypothesis. Some other theories put forward was carbon monoxide poisoning from the heater that they had in their tent.

[01:17:48] Kyle Risi: Okay. Sudden madness may have caused kind of like this weird halluc. Mm-hmm. Some other theories put forward was carbon monoxide poisoning from the heater. Maybe Sudden madness caused by consuming bad alcohol, potentially is another theory. Sorry. Some other theories before was carbon dioxide poisoning from maybe the heater inside the tent, um, sudden madness, potentially by consuming bad alcohol or hallucinogenic mushrooms that the men's eye people sometimes hung on trees to dry Right.

[01:18:24] Kyle Risi: Or even murdered by the man's eye themselves. Okay. Now this theory would imply that the group had strayed into sacred man's eye land. Right. But the autopsies ruled out that the first two of these. But the autopsies ruled out that the first two of these also, but the man, but the autopsies ruled this out.

[01:18:48] Kyle Risi: Right. It doesn't seem to be any suggestion that they were murdered by anyone in that way. Right. There's no blunt force. Mm-hmm. Kind of penetrating kind of things, unless these man's eye people are like Yetis. I don't know. And also remember the man's eye helped during the initial search as well. They were really cooperative and forthcoming with the search party.

[01:19:10] Kyle Risi: So despite the name Dead Mountain, which is obviously a mistranslation because the name was actually referring to the Windy Baron landscape, there's just no real evidence to suggest that the man's eye people had anything to do with it really? Unless they were 

[01:19:25] Adam Cox: covering up. Do you reckon? 

[01:19:26] Kyle Risi: I mean, I don't know.

[01:19:27] Kyle Risi: Maybe they know the landscape really well. May they know how to backtrack on tracks and cover them up? By far though, the most interesting theory is that the group was intact. By far the most interesting theories that the group was attacked by Yeti. Ah, 

[01:19:42] Adam Cox: so this is actually a common theory and not 

[01:19:45] Kyle Risi: like, well, as we said earlier on, there is a photograph.

[01:19:50] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. That might suggest a Yeti that might back this theory up. Okay. So the final photograph found in one of the cameras has become by far the most famous photograph that was recovered from these hikers. So what do you think of this? I'm excited to see this.

[01:20:18] Adam Cox: Um, so, wow. What do you see? This, this looks like. You know, those old 1950s movies with like Godzilla or whatever it is. Yeah. This feels like that some man is dressed in a costume and they're really far away, but it's kind of far away enough to kind of go, oh, maybe it is a Yeti. Yeah. Um, but it does look like it's, well, it's definitely man kind of shaped mm-hmm.

[01:20:46] Adam Cox: In the sense, and it could be a Yeti, but I don't know. This is ridiculous. 

[01:20:51] Kyle Risi: What do you think of this photograph? Here, let me show you. Gimme one second.

[01:21:13] Kyle Risi: What do you think of this photograph here? So that's the actual famous photograph of Bigfoot. Oh, is it? That's 

[01:21:20] Adam Cox: actually, that's what they think a big foot looks like. Yeah. 

[01:21:24] Kyle Risi: Have you noticed how similar the stances are? A little bit. It is kind of 

[01:21:28] Adam Cox: apelike, I guess you could say. Yeah. Um, it reminds me of Harry and the 

[01:21:33] Kyle Risi: Hendersons.

[01:21:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Well, I mean, he, he was Bigfoot was, yeah. So what's, what I find interesting about this is that

[01:21:45] Kyle Risi: the photo obviously recovered in the photo. We see like this dark figure advancing through the snowy forest, right? He's hunched over, he's a little bit menacing with mm-hmm. No facial features that you can really see Now. The Discovery Channel built an entire show around the Russian Yeti, um, called Killer.

[01:22:06] Kyle Risi: The Killer Lives is called now around, and so the Discovery Channel built an entire show. Called Russian Yeti, the killer lives around this particular image. And interestingly, the group had actually been joking about Yetis in the hours before they had died, which makes me question whether or not that's exactly what this picture is.

[01:22:28] Kyle Risi: Are they just joking around and thought, Hey, let's stage a Yeti photograph. 

[01:22:33] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. So do you think, so they found that through their, um, common journal, is that where they're joking about a 

[01:22:39] Kyle Risi: Yeti? Well, investigators also found spoof propaganda leaflets in their tent as well, that they were reading. So one of the leaflets that they had for just casual reading was science.

[01:22:49] Kyle Risi: In recent, uh, was science. In recent years, there's been heated debate about the existence of the Yeti. Latest evidence indicates that the Yeti lives in the Northern U Mountains, near Mount Otra or whatever. Still. Uh, yeah. And the photograph. Even though blurry pretty clearly shows probably a member of the group.

[01:23:11] Kyle Risi: Right. Maybe joking along the lines of these propaganda leaflets that they had found or that they had with them and maybe they were compelled by this kind of mythical idea of a Yeti existing. Right. I just 

[01:23:25] Adam Cox: think it's a joke that, I think it, because the way it's quite nicely composed with the trees in the foreground totally staged.

[01:23:32] Adam Cox: So it does feel like if you're doing an art project, you go, I'm gonna do this. It'll be a nice depth of field. 

[01:23:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know which, when the original Yeti photograph came out, it looks a little bit later. Mm-hmm. Cuz this is black and white and the original one is color. But I'd be interested to know which one came first.

[01:23:49] Kyle Risi: Because had they ever seen the original Bigfoot photograph and were captivated by it and therefore, cuz it's a very similar stance. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting. Strange.

[01:24:03] Kyle Risi: So equally the other image with the streaks of light in it that we thought were kind of a, was a U f O attack. Um, I didn't, just to be clear. So equally Gregor's image of the streaks of light, which were, had been used as a

[01:24:26] Kyle Risi: equally, the other photograph with the streaks of light and the blobs that kind of were purported to be a U f O attack. Many people just say that that's just typical of like the last kind of, kind of bit of like, what do you call it, film in, in one of those windup cameras. Yeah, that's quite typical of that.

[01:24:45] Kyle Risi: It could have been kind of like a light flare that a caught or like a bit of dust that the kind of got caught by the flash. I would 

[01:24:53] Adam Cox: agree. It doesn't, it doesn't scream u f O to me. No. 

[01:24:57] Kyle Risi: So all the Dilo theories share a basic assumption that the full story has not yet been told. And in a place where information, especially in the Soviet Union had been tightly controlled as the former Soviet Union, mistrust of official narratives was just natural.

[01:25:16] Kyle Risi: And nothing in the record can really explain why these people left their tent undressed in kind of essentially a near suicidal fashion. Mm-hmm. So for decades, the families and the DLO Group and the dlo and the dlo Group Memorial Foundation pressed for new investigations. Until recently, relatives of several of the victims finally succeeded in getting the case reopened.

[01:25:44] Kyle Risi: Now, a young prosecutor named

[01:25:49] Kyle Risi: say that it's 10 o'clock. We're almost done. This is the last bit. I'm sweating. Andre Andre. So a young prosecutor named Andre from Yaar Berg, where that's where Igor was from, um, was put in charge of the newly open case. So in 2019, so that's not that long ago, he organizes a winter expedition to the site.

[01:26:18] Kyle Risi: His team takes loads of measurements. They survey and photograph the scene, and finally they conduct a variety of various experiments. Going through all the historic data, his team determined that the weather conditions on the mountain that night were way more extreme than they had previously thought.

[01:26:37] Kyle Risi: And so this meant that the skiers were engulfed in a storm with winds up to 65 miles an hour, and temperatures around minus 30 degrees on that night. Mm-hmm. As the evening fell, the group were probably unsure about their precise location on the slope. So from the start?

[01:27:02] Kyle Risi: So from the start, the investigation, so from the start, the investigation, from the start of the investigation, the team had adopted an intentionally narrow scope dismissing over 72 of the 75 explanations that had previously been put forward in the previous reports. That's quite a lot. So only three remained?

[01:27:23] Kyle Risi: Only he, yeah, he just disregarded all of them. Okay. Cuz he didn't think they were plausible.

[01:27:30] Kyle Risi: He says a large class of the 75 versions. Are all conspiracy theories alleging that the authorities were somehow involved in the incident. And so he goes on to say, we've already proved this is absolutely false because there's no record from the documents released at the collapse of the Soviet Unions to suggest that this would've been possible or plausible.

[01:27:59] Kyle Risi: And that means that the investigators were left with just three natural occurrences to consider, and here they are, an avalanche. We revisiting the avalanche theory, a hur, sorry, an avalanche, a hurricane, and a slab of snow sliding down on the tent. Those are the three theories that he puts forward as to what happened.

[01:28:21] Kyle Risi: So he holds a television press conference where he tells everyone, These were the three definitive explanations, two photographs taken by the Gilo party around 5:00 PM while they were pitching. Their tent shows that they cut deeply into the snow pack at a right angle on the slope to form like a hollow.

[01:28:44] Kyle Risi: Okay. And the reason why they did that is so they could have a flat surface to pitch their tent on. Right? Okay. So this creates a sort of a shelter from the strongest winds as well, because they've cut into a slope. So they have this wall of snow just behind their tent as well, which is quite smart.

[01:29:00] Kyle Risi: There's an image of what I'm trying to explain to you, so if you can just describe that. There you go. So can you see what I mean? They, what they've done is the inside the slope, they've cut away all that snow and they've pitched their tent on there. And then up on the right hand side there is like a wall of snow that's not too much higher.

[01:29:20] Kyle Risi: I think in real life it's not. Uh, but can you see excuse the very top leg? Can you see how it's layered? So it, the snow actually came to about halfway up the tent, so it wasn't huge. Talk about that. That would've been the level of the snow with you. Yep, I see it. Yeah. So it's not too high, right? No. So they didn't have to dig a huge amount.

[01:29:47] Kyle Risi: So, so later in that, so later that evening, what happened is as the snow was coming down, it had started to build up on top of that slope. And what happened is a snow slab then ended up detaching itself from the slope above the tent and buried most of the tent, pinning down the people inside, possibly causing some injuries.

[01:30:13] Kyle Risi: Now, fearing that a full scale avalanche was now imminent, the group had cut their way out of the tent and made their way down slope from the tent to flee. Down slope, made the way out and made the way out of the down slope side of the tent and flee to the kind of the rock ridge about 150 feet away.

[01:30:39] Kyle Risi: Okay. So the investigator says that this would've been kind of the natural avid land kind of limiter. This is where kind of a wouldn't have reached because it would've been kind of natural, kind of safe haven from that. So that's naturally where they would've gone. Okay. But the big avalanche didn't come and in the pitch darkness, the group were unable then to find their way back to the tent and decided to try and take shelter in the woods about a mile away.

[01:31:07] Kyle Risi: Right. They were that far away. Mm-hmm. So, well, they, they were gonna go that far away. Okay. Because it was, because they thought it would be warmer if they were in the woods, right? Yep. Yep. So, The investigators tested this theory by blindfolding a man and a woman leading them 90 feet down from the tent and asked them to find their way back, and very quickly they go astray.

[01:31:32] Kyle Risi: Now remember, this experiment was in favorable conditions, right? So trying to do the same in the blizzard and also in the pitch black, when your tent is pretty much half buried in snow, right? You're gonna have a hard time, right? Yeah. So two Swiss engineers created like this weird mathematical model of the snow structure that they'd cut into the slope.

[01:31:53] Kyle Risi: When the group decided to pitch where the group decided to pitch their tent, and this showed why the slab of snow didn't release immediately when the group cut into it in the very first few hours, they explained that during clear conditions, the thick layer of fluffy snow that accumulated on the slope before they cut into it, um, was.

[01:32:15] Kyle Risi: Wasn't was stable. Right? But then when the snowstorm started due to high winds and a new layer of snow falling on top of that slope, what happened is that ended up compacting the snow down, right? And creating a hardened layer with the wind, constantly battering it. Okay? Now this is called a wind slab that sits on top of this less dense, fluffy snow, right?

[01:32:42] Kyle Risi: Which is what we see in the image there. Now the denser wind slab layer can weigh as much as 670 pounds per cubic yard. So that's heavy as that is. Yeah. And it's dense. And the only thing that's cropping it up or propping it up is this really less dense, fluffy snow. Mm-hmm. So it's really unstable and eventually, at some point during the storm, the wind slab just slides down resulting in like this mini avalanche.

[01:33:10] Kyle Risi: On top of the tent. And that's 

[01:33:11] Adam Cox: what could have caused the blunt force trauma to some 

[01:33:14] Kyle Risi: of them not quite. Okay. It may have caused some injury. Mm-hmm. But not that the type of injuries that we saw with blunt force. Right. Right. So that's what they think has happened and what's caused them to have to leave their tent models show that if a three foot thick slab moved over the tent, each skier body, each skier's body would've been covered in more than a thousand pounds of potential mass.

[01:33:43] Kyle Risi: Right. That was sitting on them. So this massive weight would've prevented them from kind of retrieving their boots or getting their warm clothes on and force them basically to cut the way out of the tent and then head downstream and also, uh, down slope. Um, and also they were probably in a hurry as well, because they probably did think that maybe another avalanche could have been imminent as well.

[01:34:05] Kyle Risi: So the two Swiss researchers believe that the snow slab probably caused the injuries to three of the skiers found at the snow den. But according to other investigators, this is unlikely given the distance that those bodies were from the tent cuz they would've been an indication that they would've injured through, been injured through kind of dragging their feet or been dragged, et cetera.

[01:34:29] Kyle Risi: So the investigator's explanation is that after the wind slab slid down over the tent and the nine skiers headed downhill taking shelter under the cedar tree, they decided to build a fire because the younger trees nearby were icy and wet. Someone had to climb up the cedar tree to break branches higher up, which is would've been much drier and way more ready to be burnt.

[01:34:54] Kyle Risi: Right? So this explains why skin and scraps of clothing were found on the bark higher up cuz they climbed this tree. Because they were so poorly dressed, the fire that they built, especially in the, these extreme conditions, would not have been enough to save them. And that explains why most of the poorly dressed of the group died first.

[01:35:18] Kyle Risi: Right. Okay. The burn skin on the bodies came from them des from their desperate attempts to try and warm up by the fire. That's awful. And this would also suggests, and this would also suggest that the piece of flesh in Gregory's mouth, that he bit from his finger and from his, from his hand, was probably a result of like delirium that overtakes someone who's dying from hypothermia or perhaps from him trying to kind of test to see if he, he was suffering from frostbite.

[01:35:48] Kyle Risi: Right. Okay. I was gonna 

[01:35:49] Adam Cox: say, yeah, that was frostbite. Maybe try and like keep warm, but I don't know. Mm-hmm. 

[01:35:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So the surviving skiers then cut their clothes off the dead and dress themselves in their clothes in an attempt to keep. They're warm, themselves warm. At some point, the group then decides to split up through the skiers, including lov, tried to return back to the tent, and soon he freezes to death as he kind of tries to struggle uphill.

[01:36:14] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. The other four who were better dressed, decides to the other four who were better dressed, decided to build a snow den to shelter. The other four, who were better dressed, decided to build a snow den to shelter in overnight, and they needed deep snow, right. Which they found near a ravine a couple hundred feet away.

[01:36:36] Kyle Risi: Unfortunately, the spot they picked laid above a stream, right. And the stream. Never freezes underneath. So it had ended up hollowing out a really deep icy tunnel. Right. Which they didn't know was there. And so the group's digging caused the roof to collapse, throwing them down onto the rocky Stream bed, bearing them in up to 10 to 15 feet of snow.

[01:36:59] Kyle Risi: Geez. And the pressure of the snow forced them against the rocks. And that's what caused the traumatic injuries found within the groups, uh, within which caused the traumatic injuries found within the group on the 

[01:37:12] Adam Cox: chest and on the head. Mm-hmm. Makes 

[01:37:13] Kyle Risi: sense. See it. Yeah. So gruesome facial damage from the missing tongue of the eyes and the lips probably resulted from scavenging of small animals that eventually found them as the snow was melting.

[01:37:25] Kyle Risi: Okay. Yep. That makes sense. And also, this was months later, right? This was in May that they were found. So decomposition could have been set in as well. Remember, they were partly in water, so that's also going to help with the decom decomposition as well. But what about the radiation? Oh yeah. That I forgot about.

[01:37:44] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Well, it turns out that there is an explanation. So for one, the mantles that used, so for one, so for one thing, the mantles used in Camp Antons at the time contain small amounts of thorium, which is radioactive. Also, the expedition which claimed the lives of these people took place less than two years after the world's worst, after the th after the world's third worst nuclear incident, right after Chernobyl and Fukushima, which occurred in an area called Mayak, near kind of a nuclear complex, which is kind of like south of, uh, where they guy, where, where these guys are.

[01:38:28] Kyle Risi: And that happened in 1957. Now what happened is that a tank of radioactive waste exploded. And the radioactive plume got kind of like pushed 200 miles. Away to the north and the people who were working in that particular area, um, yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry. We're almost done. This is the last bit. So when a tank of radioactive waste exploded, a radioactive plume was sent 200 miles long northwards.

[01:39:01] Kyle Risi: And we had Gregory and another member of the team, they were working in a facility nearby and they were trying to help clean it up. And that's where these skiers came from. That's where their village was. And their village was directly with the contamination zone explaining why only two of the expeditioners had radioactive clothing on them.

[01:39:24] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. I think I get you. Yeah. So it's either from this nuclear fallout or from the lamp that they were using. But I think the second one is more plausible. Cause otherwise, if it was the lamp, everyone would be, that's 

[01:39:35] Adam Cox: what I thought. That's feels, um, a bit more of a stretch. The other one makes sense. 

[01:39:41] Kyle Risi: So basically the investigators then closed the press conference by declaring formally that the case is now essentially closed.

[01:39:51] Kyle Risi: And everything I've just told you now explains exactly what happened. Well, 

[01:39:56] Adam Cox: everything you've just said there sounds logical and makes sense. Mm-hmm. But I still don't understand why they were so quick just to shut it down before it just, it sound, I can understand why it created all these conspiracy theories.

[01:40:07] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. If people, maybe they just didn't know that it couldn't be bothered or, yeah. I dunno what it was, but that I feel like stoked the 

[01:40:15] Kyle Risi: fire. Sure. I also think that because of the mystery around it, some facts can also kind of come out of that story as well. What I mean by that is because it was so mysterious, people like to add their own little details onto it.

[01:40:30] Kyle Risi: It was like, oh, it was quickly hushed up, or it was closed very quickly, or they refused to answer here. But actually, um, for example, that issue where the guy was like, when he questioned about why they need to test for radio activity on their clothing, and he sent a letter to, um, his supervisor who then came down and then dodged all those questions, right?

[01:40:50] Kyle Risi: Him saying, oh, he dodged all the questions, makes us sound suspicious, but maybe there was nothing to answer, right? Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean? But why were those people 

[01:40:57] Adam Cox: like let go of their jobs 

[01:40:59] Kyle Risi: or got rid of Exactly. I don't know. I, or interesting. It's, 

[01:41:02] Adam Cox: it's odd. Well, maybe this person that's come out with this very plausible.

[01:41:06] Adam Cox: Explanation mm-hmm. Is also hiding something awesome. I dunno what to believe. I feel like you've set this up to go like, I mean, I thought it was gonna come away thinking that this was all down to a Yeti hey. And aliens. But once again, Kyle, no aliens. 

[01:41:20] Kyle Risi: Well, the thing is though, like the, the case is still unsolved to this day.

[01:41:24] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Right. And we might never get the answer that we need. I mean, for many people, the conclusions that I've just explained are just not satisfying, especially to some of the families. Right. The Dilo, the Dilo group, Memorial Foundation, sent a letter to the prosecutor general declaring that, uh, in their view, the skier's deaths were caused by the atmospheric release of powerful, toxic, toxic substances because of a secret weapon test gone wrong.

[01:41:52] Kyle Risi: Right. Right. So they're sort adamant that's what's happened. And I mean, a month after the press conference, the investigator was reprimanded for holding the press conference without authorization. So in October he was sacked. And again, another sacking and the foundation is now calling for yet another investigation.

[01:42:14] Kyle Risi: Okay. And the thing is though, they might just keep going and going and going until they get the answer that they want. Right? Maybe. Well, yeah. People will never be 

[01:42:20] Adam Cox: satisfied with the answer. Well, they get the 

[01:42:22] Kyle Risi: answer that they want. That's the thing. It's, it's so long ago. Right? Wow. So I think that that plausible that, so I think that scenario is plausible.

[01:42:30] Kyle Risi: The snow slab could have been what caused their downfall really in their deaths. So the investigators also noted that although the skiers had made an error in the placements of their tent, everything that they did subsequently was textbook right. They conducted an emergency evacuation to ground where they'd be safe from an avalanche if one took place.

[01:42:57] Kyle Risi: They took shelter in the woods, which is exactly what they should have done. They started a fire, which is exactly what they should have done, and they dug a snow cave, right? Everything they'd done was fine. But what is ironic is that due to their expertise, they ended up resulting in in the well, but what's ironic is that due to their expertise and ended up, but what's ironic is that because of their expertise they ended up causing, but what's ironic is that their expertise ended up resulting in their death.

[01:43:32] Kyle Risi: Had they been less experienced and decided to stay near the tent. There may be, they would've, they would've 

[01:43:39] Adam Cox: survived. They would've found their way back to the tent. I mean, maybe they still wouldn't have gone in, but they could have got retrieved clothes maybe, or, 

[01:43:46] Kyle Risi: yeah, I guess that's it. But avalanches two hikers are still the biggest risk to mountaineers.

[01:43:55] Kyle Risi: Especially in the winter. And the more experience you have, the more you fear them. Yeah. So to these skiers, their expertise, 100% doomed them. Wow. And so that's the story of the D Love Pass incident and the butchering of many, many, many Russian names. 

[01:44:17] Adam Cox: Well, I think, I think I got used to it to be honest. Um, but that's a really good story.

[01:44:21] Adam Cox: Never, never sort of knew about that. That's quite, yeah. Kind of eerie and haunting. Mm. Um, but poor, poor people. But yeah, whether it'll be a Yeti, I'm still waiting for a plausible theory about the 

[01:44:36] Kyle Risi: Yeti. It's very Yeti or aliens. One day. It will be one of those things. One day. Um, let's just quickly do an outro.

[01:44:44] Kyle Risi: One second. So boiling hot, um, Jennifer Pan, thrill of the chase. Ugh.

[01:45:09] Kyle Risi: Okay, so thanks for, so yeah, thanks for joining us on another episode of the Compendium and Assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. Remember, you can find us on Instagram at the Compendium podcast. You can also send us an email at the compendium pod gmail.com, and we always love hearing your comments and your suggestions.

[01:45:31] Kyle Risi: So until we meet again in the next episode, stay safe and stay curious. See ya. See ya.