Post by Harold of Whoa on Feb 15, 2020 22:52:36 GMT
If you haven't heard of it, a group of 9 Russian hikers on a mini-expedition hiking trip in the Ural Mountain in 1959 all ended up dead under mysterious circumstances. When the bodies were found, some exhibited massive trauma, two showed signs of radiation contamination, at least one had thermal burns on his foot. They appeared to have left their tent in near-panic in the middle of the night for reasons unknown, then all died before any made their way back. Nutburger theories range from yeti attack or UFOs to Soviet military experiments to ball lightning and infrasonic wind noise from the mountain pass geography. There are plenty of YouTube videos to choose from if you do a search; I haven't found one that is especially good, IMO.
I recently listened to a two-part podcast about this. Part One is excellent as setup and really goes into detail about the individuals and the events leading up to their departure, as well as journal entries on the trip and the immediate findings of the search party. Part Two, all about possible explanations, is complete and utter garbage, truly nonsensical junk science theories presented as serious possibilities with no effort to work through more prosaic explanations - very disappointing.
I think the most likely explanation is that they were driven out of the tent a hurry, either by smoke or by hearing a sound that they mistakenly thought was an avalanche, and then ran helter skelter and poorly clothed into the -20 degree F darkness, getting separated and in some cases severely injured by falls, then nature did the rest, pre- and postmortem. The dude with the burned foot probably got a fire started then stuck his foot in the flames in frostbitten desperation and incapacity. I can only speculate, but the two bodies reported to have radioactive contamination were both found in a creek, so it seems as likely as anything else that the creek was the source, but no one was willing to test it or report that fact in 1950s USSR (but seems equally likely to have been forensic incompetence.)
I recently listened to a two-part podcast about this. Part One is excellent as setup and really goes into detail about the individuals and the events leading up to their departure, as well as journal entries on the trip and the immediate findings of the search party. Part Two, all about possible explanations, is complete and utter garbage, truly nonsensical junk science theories presented as serious possibilities with no effort to work through more prosaic explanations - very disappointing.
I think the most likely explanation is that they were driven out of the tent a hurry, either by smoke or by hearing a sound that they mistakenly thought was an avalanche, and then ran helter skelter and poorly clothed into the -20 degree F darkness, getting separated and in some cases severely injured by falls, then nature did the rest, pre- and postmortem. The dude with the burned foot probably got a fire started then stuck his foot in the flames in frostbitten desperation and incapacity. I can only speculate, but the two bodies reported to have radioactive contamination were both found in a creek, so it seems as likely as anything else that the creek was the source, but no one was willing to test it or report that fact in 1950s USSR (but seems equally likely to have been forensic incompetence.)