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Speaker 1: dot com. Welcome to Unexplained extra with me Richard McClean smith.
Speaker 1: For the weeks in between episodes, we look at the
Speaker 1: stories that, for one reason or other, didn't make it
Speaker 1: into the show. For the last episode, when the snow melts,
Speaker 1: we took an in depth look into the unsettling mystery
Speaker 1: often referred to as the Datlov Pass incident. The incident
Speaker 1: details the mysterious deaths of nine hikers as they attempted
Speaker 1: a challenging trek through the Ural Mountains in Russia. The hikers,
Speaker 1: eight students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute in what was
Speaker 1: once known as Serdlovsk in Russia, and their friend Sascha Koliatov,
Speaker 1: had been making their way towards O'tauton Mountain on February
Speaker 1: the first, nineteen fifty nine, when they made camp on
Speaker 1: a mountain called Kolatsiak. That night, the hikers, for some
Speaker 1: inexplicable reason, were seemingly compelled from the sanctuary of their
Speaker 1: tent and driven to their deaths in the snow and
Speaker 1: subzero temperatures outside. There have been numerous attempts over the
Speaker 1: years to unravel the mystery, with theories involving everything from
Speaker 1: secret weapons testing, UFOs, the wrath of ancient gods, to
Speaker 1: the possible involvement of Mansie tribesmen or KGB, as well
Speaker 1: as natural disasters such as high winds and avalanches. But
Speaker 1: what seems key to any theory were the two startling
Speaker 1: revelations discovered by investigators at the time. One was that
Speaker 1: none of the group had been found with shoes and
Speaker 1: in many cases were woefully underdressed, and the other that
Speaker 1: they appeared to have cut their way out of their
Speaker 1: own tent. The revelations would suggest that most likely something
Speaker 1: unseen had induced a heightened level of fear in the group,
Speaker 1: causing them to take immediate and evasive action, and possibly
Speaker 1: under the influence of sheer blind panic. It is of
Speaker 1: course possible that only one or two of the members
Speaker 1: had reacted in such a way, leaving the others no
Speaker 1: choice but to attempt a rescue, and in some ways
Speaker 1: it seems unlikely that every member would panic in the
Speaker 1: same way, and yet not one of them had taken
Speaker 1: the time to even put on their shoes, which suggests
Speaker 1: whatever it was had them all in its grip. It
Speaker 1: goes without saying that in any normal circumstances, the group
Speaker 1: were well aware of the dangers of being outside in
Speaker 1: minus twenty to thirty temperatures without the requisite clothing. The
Speaker 1: effects of extreme cold are immediate, beginning with the constriction
Speaker 1: of the blood to preserve the body with sufficient winchell,
Speaker 1: frostbite is only a matter of minutes away. Basic muscle
Speaker 1: functions become progressively more and more reduced, until fingers can
Speaker 1: no longer be moved, and then arms and legs. Hyperthermia
Speaker 1: sets in when the body temperature reaches thirty five degrees.
Speaker 1: Soon you become devastatingly disorientated, from which there is only
Speaker 1: a downward spiral of confusion. At thirty two degrees you
Speaker 1: begin to lose consciousness, before probable death around twenty eight degrees.
Speaker 1: All this they would have known, But fear has little
Speaker 1: respect for the intricacies of survival and reason. As perhaps
Speaker 1: the most primitive of all our emotional reactions, how we
Speaker 1: respond to fear are less intensely conditioned, otherwise goes beyond
Speaker 1: past experience and personality, bypasses the ego and head straight
Speaker 1: to the id. For even the most high, highly trained
Speaker 1: and prepared soldier, not until you are actually presented with
Speaker 1: a genuine flight or fight experience do you know how
Speaker 1: you will respond, but more importantly, the response is completely
Speaker 1: beyond your control. And if the hikers were inside the
Speaker 1: tent when whatever happened at first occurred, it wasn't something
Speaker 1: they saw that terrified them so, but something they must
Speaker 1: have heard. Are you always taking care of your family?
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Speaker 1: get started, that's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained podcast. In
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, British engineer Vic Tandy worked as
Speaker 1: an engineering designer for a company manufacturing anesthetic and intensive
Speaker 1: care equipment. The company operated out of a makeshift lab
Speaker 1: made from two back to back garages, which some of
Speaker 1: the employees claimed was haunted. It was certainly easy to
Speaker 1: see how being surrounded by all the eerie pieces of
Speaker 1: equipment that twitched and rasped with lives of their own
Speaker 1: might leave you feeling more than a little spoot. But
Speaker 1: as for actual ghosts, Vic was a confirmed man of
Speaker 1: science and had little time for such nonsense. That was
Speaker 1: until the night Vic found himself working alone in the
Speaker 1: lab when he began to feel a strange sense of unease.
Speaker 1: Although he was cold, he started to sweat profusely before
Speaker 1: being hit by a profound and sudden low that swept
Speaker 1: over him, followed by the distinct impression that he was
Speaker 1: being watched, And then he saw it, a figure moving
Speaker 1: from out of the shadows into his peripheral vision. It
Speaker 1: was gray and silent, and moved just as he would
Speaker 1: expect a person to move. Only there was nobody else
Speaker 1: in the room and all the doors were locked. Vic
Speaker 1: was terrified. Finally, having built up enough courage, he turned
Speaker 1: to face the apparition, at which point it vanished. A
Speaker 1: somewhat disturbed Vic put the event down to tiredness and
Speaker 1: went home. The following day, Vic, who was a keen fencer,
Speaker 1: had brought a blade into the lab that needed fixing.
Speaker 1: After securing the foil blade in a vice, Vic went
Speaker 1: to look for some oil, returning a short time later
Speaker 1: to find something very strange occurring. The blade was wildly
Speaker 1: oscillating up and down completely of its own accord. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: especially after the events of the previous night, it gave
Speaker 1: Vic a nasty fright. However, unwilling to believe that something
Speaker 1: ghostly had occurred, Vic resolved to find out just what
Speaker 1: exactly was going on. For the blade to be vibrating
Speaker 1: like that, it had to be receiving energy varying in
Speaker 1: intensity at a rate equal to the resonant frequency of
Speaker 1: the blade. Any energy of this type might otherwise be
Speaker 1: referred to as sound. Vic eventually discovered that the lab
Speaker 1: seemed to be harboring a low frequency sound wave that
Speaker 1: was being reflected back and forth by the opposite ends
Speaker 1: of the garage, with the wave bouncing back into itself.
Speaker 1: It created a concentration of energy in the middle of
Speaker 1: the room with a frequency of roughly nineteen hertz. What
Speaker 1: Vic had been experiencing was the very real and very
Speaker 1: physical effects of infrasound. Vic looked around the room for
Speaker 1: a possible source and noticed a newly installed extraction fan
Speaker 1: wearing away at the back. When he turned the fan off,
Speaker 1: the blade stopped vibrating. The phenomenon had first been discovered
Speaker 1: by French scientist Vladimir Gavre in very similar circumstances. Working
Speaker 1: in his lab in the nineteen sixties. Gavrou and his
Speaker 1: assistants had started to experience pain in their ears and
Speaker 1: noticed lab equipment shaking without any obvious reason. He too
Speaker 1: discovered that a large extractor fan had been creating an
Speaker 1: infrasound wave. Infrasound is essentially any sound that registers at
Speaker 1: a frequency less than twenty herds, which, although inaudible to
Speaker 1: most human ears, can none the less induce feelings of
Speaker 1: intense panic, dread, nausea, and, in extreme cases, hallucinations. However,
Speaker 1: many animals with more sensitively evolved hearing have no such
Speaker 1: problems with the frequency, with many including elephants and whales,
Speaker 1: relying heavily on such frequencies for communication. Remarkably, during the
Speaker 1: two thousand and four Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, many
Speaker 1: animals were witnessed fleeing the affected areas some time before
Speaker 1: the devastating waves began to hit. It is highly likely
Speaker 1: that they had sensed the impending danger through infrasound generated
Speaker 1: by the earthquake. Could this same sound have caused such
Speaker 1: fear and panic in the Diatlov team? And imagine the
Speaker 1: effects of such a noise if it was combined with
Speaker 1: something audible, something that would have come suddenly and threateningly
Speaker 1: roaring from out of the dark, as if a jet
Speaker 1: engine had been ignited next to the tent. In Donnika's
Speaker 1: fantastic book Dead Mountain, perhaps the most comprehensive account of
Speaker 1: the Diatlov Pass incident, it is just such a scenario
Speaker 1: that he concludes may have led the students to their deaths.
Speaker 1: After extensively reviewing the evidence, Ike postulates that an obscure
Speaker 1: natural phenomenon known as a von Carmen vortex street may
Speaker 1: have occurred on the night of February the first such
Speaker 1: phenomena can be created when the flow of wind is
Speaker 1: sufficiently disrupted by blunt bodies, resulting in the creation of
Speaker 1: extremely loud and violent tornadoes. It is ICA's belief that
Speaker 1: such an event could have been created by high speed
Speaker 1: winds pummeling into the smooth rounded mountain of Colatsiacle, sending
Speaker 1: vortices roaring down the mountain side right next to the
Speaker 1: Diatlov team's tent. Perhaps this is the same terrifying sound
Speaker 1: that would later give rise to stories of the compoland
Speaker 1: and their nausea inducing screams, or the chilling sound of
Speaker 1: Baba Yaga's pestle and mortar as she hurtles through the
Speaker 1: forest in search of her next victim to devour. And Yet,
Speaker 1: could the broken bones and other devastating injuries found on
Speaker 1: a number of the hikers merely be the result of
Speaker 1: falls sustained in the panic. Lev Ivanoff had not been
Speaker 1: able to say anything at the time, but as the
Speaker 1: years went by, he would finally begin to open up
Speaker 1: his thoughts, collected in an extraordinary interview given in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety I suspected at the time and I am almost
Speaker 1: sure now. He said that these bright flying spheres had
Speaker 1: a direct connection to the group's death. Only those who
Speaker 1: were inside the orbs no more than me. But whether
Speaker 1: there were people inside that time or any other time
Speaker 1: is as yet unclear. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained
Speaker 1: and would like to show your appreciation, you can now
Speaker 1: help support us by going to Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small,
Speaker 1: are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are produced by me,
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes,
Speaker 1: but feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
Speaker 1: to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast
Speaker 1: dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Now, it's
Speaker 1: time to take care of yourself. To make time for you,
Speaker 1: Tell a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist
Speaker 1: to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak
Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between
Speaker 1: seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week.
Speaker 1: TELEDOC Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download
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Speaker 1: podcast Today to get started. That's t e ladoc dot
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