Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Was that accidental given the condition they're in? In hypothermia
Speaker 2: now absolutely setting in? Did they just accidentally burn themselves
Speaker 2: or was it something else?
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Filmmaker Liam Legueu was fascinated
Speaker 1: with the mystery surrounding the deaths of nine experienced Russian
Speaker 1: hikers in the Ural Mountains in nineteen fifty nine. Paul
Speaker 1: Holes and I talked about this case on Buried Bones,
Speaker 1: but Liam really really dug into the mystery. He has
Speaker 1: his own opinion and he shares it in his documentary
Speaker 1: and unknown compelling force. We rarely do this, but we
Speaker 1: had to make this interview a two parter. So this
Speaker 1: is a story that people had recommended that I look
Speaker 1: at for quite a while, I never did, and when
Speaker 1: I finally did, I just thought, how come nobody's done
Speaker 1: anything really big? It felt like, you know, on this
Speaker 1: story because it is such a mystery, and you know,
Speaker 1: I shows her true crime based and this is so
Speaker 1: fascinating to people when you know, they reached out from
Speaker 1: after we aired our episode of Buried Bones about it.
Speaker 1: When they were reaching out, people were mesmerized by the story.
Speaker 1: What drew you to it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, like you, I mean, it's such a fascinating story,
Speaker 2: and I was. I listened to a podcast about it,
Speaker 2: and it'd been on my radio. I'm always interested in
Speaker 2: mysterious stories, so I'd heard about it before and listened
Speaker 2: to a great podcast talking about it, and it was
Speaker 2: all just, you know, everyone talking about ideas, but no
Speaker 2: one had really studied it and went there and tried
Speaker 2: to like really understand this. So I thought, this's gotta
Speaker 2: be a documentary on this. So I googled around and
Speaker 2: there were a couple of TV show type episodes, but
Speaker 2: not really an in depth study, and I thought, this
Speaker 2: is crazy. Why doesn't someone just go there? There are
Speaker 2: so many wild theories. Why doesn't someone go there and
Speaker 2: just figure this out and like at least debunk some
Speaker 2: of the craziest ones. And so I thought, well, why
Speaker 2: don't I go? And so that was the beginnings of
Speaker 2: really the idea to having this idea to make this
Speaker 2: film and to going there. Was only a couple of months.
Speaker 2: I saw this window of opportunity, got in touch with
Speaker 2: some people, and I was on a plane and it
Speaker 2: just unfolded so quickly.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear in a little bit you'll describe
Speaker 1: what the conditions were like for this group, But tell me,
Speaker 1: how do you even approach getting to this location? Is
Speaker 1: it easier now than it was for them?
Speaker 2: No, it's still very difficult. It's still remote where you know,
Speaker 2: we're one hundred tommi kilometers deep in the ural mountains,
Speaker 2: sub polar conditions. And so one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: I had to go so quickly was I wanted to
Speaker 2: go at the same time of year that they went,
Speaker 2: because I wanted to experience the conditions, because the conditions
Speaker 2: do play a part in this story and so if
Speaker 2: I went there in the summer, it wouldn't have the
Speaker 2: same effect. I wouldn't really get the idea of what
Speaker 2: they were doing. So I managed to find a guide
Speaker 2: breathe or stupid enough to take me to the Datlove
Speaker 2: Path and we did an a nine day snow expedition
Speaker 2: to the Datlove Pass in sub polar conditions. So it's
Speaker 2: quite an advent.
Speaker 1: So was it just you and this guide or did
Speaker 1: you have and you had crew?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so very small crew. So we had essentially the
Speaker 2: filmmaking crew was myself and my my fellow camera friend Corey,
Speaker 2: and there was really just the two of us went
Speaker 2: to Russia, and then the crew that took us there
Speaker 2: was a team of about five or six people. There
Speaker 2: was actually two other guys on snowmobiles with us, and
Speaker 2: we took snowmobiles through part of the journey, and then
Speaker 2: there was actually a dog sled team following behind us,
Speaker 2: kind of a backup in case of emergencies. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there was there was a couple of options. But there's
Speaker 2: a there's a moment in the film where I say,
Speaker 2: you know, what, what do we do if we get
Speaker 2: into trouble? What happens if someone gets hurt, what do
Speaker 2: we do. We're in the middle of nowhere, and he says, well,
Speaker 2: we have a GPS communicator and we can call someone
Speaker 2: to bring your body back.
Speaker 1: Gosh.
Speaker 2: So it was wasn't for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know we had heard in the
Speaker 1: past about the avalanche that happened in California and how
Speaker 1: horrific that was. Describe to me how that must have felt,
Speaker 1: knowing that things can turn on a dime in a
Speaker 1: place like that and you can be hit by an avalanche,
Speaker 1: Am I assuming right, with just no warning whatsoever?
Speaker 2: Yeah, avalanches can certainly happen. I mean the research i'd done,
Speaker 2: which at that point I was only a few months
Speaker 2: into it, was perhaps limited, but from what I understood it,
Speaker 2: it was very unlikely that an avalanche can take part
Speaker 2: take place in this area. And so we'll get into
Speaker 2: that in a moment, because an avalanche is a big theory,
Speaker 2: but it's very unlikely an avalanche took place there, and
Speaker 2: so I wasn't too concerned about avalanches. But when you're
Speaker 2: just that remote in incredibly cold temperatures, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the biggest concern. You could get hurt by falling off
Speaker 2: the snowmobile. And actually on our return journey, we did
Speaker 2: have a moment where the snowmobiles got stuck in too
Speaker 2: much powder. We couldn't get them going, so we were
Speaker 2: all getting very cold, and that was a concern. I
Speaker 2: saw my guide getting worried, and he said, look, why
Speaker 2: don't two of us or three of us start walking
Speaker 2: just to keep our body temperatures up whilst they try
Speaker 2: and dig out the snowmobiles, because hanging around for very
Speaker 2: long at those temperatures will kill you.
Speaker 1: Man. Tell me what the lowest temperature was when you
Speaker 1: were there, and how much snow? What's the maximum amount
Speaker 1: of snow that you experienced.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a moment in the film where we dig
Speaker 2: a tent really close to the Diatlov site and we're
Speaker 2: going to camp for the night and attempt to make
Speaker 2: it to the Datlov pass area the next day. Whilst
Speaker 2: that was happening, a snowstorm came in and I can't
Speaker 2: remember the exact temperatures, but we were and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm British, so I lean into Celsius, but we were
Speaker 2: like minus thirty something in Celsius, which is incredibly low.
Speaker 2: I mean and the storm was coming in. There's a
Speaker 2: moment where I'm walking around thinking, oh, we're were kind
Speaker 2: of in trouble right now. So it was really a
Speaker 2: night where we had to hunker down the tent and
Speaker 2: just hope for better weather the next day. But it
Speaker 2: was that masses of snow, several feet of snow dumped
Speaker 2: on us that night that we were like that put
Speaker 2: the snowmobiles in trouble for our return journey.
Speaker 1: Well, now let's go back to when this happened in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. Knowing this, this group of hikers would
Speaker 1: have known all of that, right that this was the
Speaker 1: kind of danger what motivates them to do this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is the interesting thing. So they were
Speaker 2: actually incredibly experienced outdoors people, and they were going for
Speaker 2: their Category three certificate, which is the highest category in
Speaker 2: training in this Soviet Union at the time, for their
Speaker 2: outdoor education. So they'd done a lot of this before.
Speaker 2: They weren't amateurs. They knew what they were doing. They
Speaker 2: were many of them were members of the polytechnic school
Speaker 2: and they'd come from that area and they were students,
Speaker 2: most of them, and they knew what they were doing.
Speaker 2: They were out there they wanted this highest category. They'd
Speaker 2: already done the previous two categories. They'd done this before.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, as I said, they knew what they
Speaker 2: were doing. And so these weren't amateurs, so they knew
Speaker 2: what to expect and they knew how to handle problems
Speaker 2: when they arose.
Speaker 1: And had there been many people who had explored this
Speaker 1: area before they went there. This cannot be on some
Speaker 1: big route of mountaineering, I imagine.
Speaker 2: So the exact route they were taking was fairly unique
Speaker 2: to them. It wasn't super explored. The maps at the
Speaker 2: time weren't super explored. They were actually heading to the
Speaker 2: mountain that they found on the tragedy happened on I
Speaker 2: say mountain, it feels more like a hill, actually a
Speaker 2: big hill, But they were actually going for a different mountain,
Speaker 2: mount or Tartan. That was their goal. They never reached
Speaker 2: that goal, unfortunately. And yeah, this route so at all
Speaker 2: ten had been explored before, but this route that they
Speaker 2: were taking was fairly unique.
Speaker 1: Tell me about potential. I don't know if predators is
Speaker 1: the right word, but what are the animals that they
Speaker 1: could encounter? Besides worrying about hypothermia and exhaustion, what were
Speaker 1: the animals they might encounter, and were there any people
Speaker 1: that they might encounter that they'd have to be concerned about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean, yes, there are bears out there.
Speaker 2: Bears are definitely an option in the theories that come up.
Speaker 2: So was this an animal attack? Bears are probably the
Speaker 2: only real animal that realistically could have been out there
Speaker 2: to harm them, but it's also unlikely. They're not not
Speaker 2: known for that, and when we get into the details
Speaker 2: a bit little later, there isn't There is not evidence
Speaker 2: of an animal attack. And in terms of people, so
Speaker 2: this is an interesting thing. So there are a number
Speaker 2: of indigenous people that live in the area. There's two
Speaker 2: sort of known indigenous people, the Mansi people and the
Speaker 2: Khanti people, and they are known to be in and
Speaker 2: around the area. Now would they be cautious of them?
Speaker 2: There had historically been troubles with Soviet rushing people moving
Speaker 2: into the areas that were traditionally Mansi and Khanti people's areas,
Speaker 2: and there are some documented cases of violence between the
Speaker 2: two peoples. But that's to say that at the same time,
Speaker 2: certainly in the area they were in, there were a
Speaker 2: number of Manti people who were involved in the search team,
Speaker 2: and they were actively helping and trying to help this
Speaker 2: whole matter. So, yeah, I wouldn't want to group a
Speaker 2: whole group of people and sort of, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of put a bad name to whole group of people.
Speaker 2: But were there individuals out there, unknown individuals? Yeah? Possibly,
Speaker 2: And again I can come to that a bit more
Speaker 2: in the moment.
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's start from the beginning. How do they
Speaker 1: make this decision? And who are the but we're talking about?
Speaker 1: I think, you know the cases that I've done, this
Speaker 1: is the largest group that I've ever you know, that
Speaker 1: I've ever kind of tried to dig into and figure
Speaker 1: out what the personalities were, Like, how do you approach
Speaker 1: this in the film? How do you differentiate between all
Speaker 1: of these people?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I had this opportunity to go to Russia
Speaker 2: and try and speak to the people that knew them. Now,
Speaker 2: there was a gentleman who ran the foundation for trying
Speaker 2: to tell this story, a gentleman called Yuri Kunsfitch. It's
Speaker 2: another year. There's can be quite a few yuries in
Speaker 2: this story. But I met him and I stayed with
Speaker 2: him and his wife, A really wonderful gentleman who taken
Speaker 2: upon himself to really tell the whole story of the
Speaker 2: doubt love past story. And he explained to and showed
Speaker 2: to me that, you know, these were real people. There
Speaker 2: were young students. They were ten hikers in all that
Speaker 2: went on this journey. Nine of them were young, between
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty three years old. One member was older.
Speaker 2: He was thirty seven years old. I believe he was
Speaker 2: an ex military guy who'd been through World War Two,
Speaker 2: so he's kind of an anomaly. And his name kind
Speaker 2: of appear a little bit later. His name was a
Speaker 2: Sasha or Semyon's solitary off nickname Sasha, And just because
Speaker 2: he was older and ex military, he comes up in
Speaker 2: some of the kind of conspiracy theories, but we can
Speaker 2: get to that. But the rest of them were all students,
Speaker 2: They all knew each other, they all wanted this certificate,
Speaker 2: they all excited to do this, and they'd all done
Speaker 2: it before. So how it approached it in the film
Speaker 2: was to really try and speak to some of the
Speaker 2: people that knew them and get them to tell some
Speaker 2: of their stories. And there were young people. There was
Speaker 2: some romantic relationships amongst the young people. It was it
Speaker 2: was two girls and seven guys, one guy and one
Speaker 2: girl had a relationship at some point and then they
Speaker 2: had it had called off, and she felt a little
Speaker 2: bit upset that that happened. Maybe, But they kept diaries,
Speaker 2: and I should say that they kept diaries of this journey,
Speaker 2: and so this is how we know this information. And
Speaker 2: every night in the tent they would update their diaries,
Speaker 2: and so we got a fascinating insight as to who
Speaker 2: they were as just young people enjoying the great outdoors.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think about this, and when I interview people
Speaker 1: authors or filmmakers who use diaries, because I've used diaries too,
Speaker 1: of course, I often think about, you know, the people
Speaker 1: who are who are writing in these pages, it certainly
Speaker 1: would not have been thrilled about having their inmost thoughts
Speaker 1: broadcasted out. And I think about that, the responsibility of
Speaker 1: picking and choosing the right things that are relevant. Did
Speaker 1: you ever have to really think about that with, you know,
Speaker 1: with these people who were out and they die mysteriously,
Speaker 1: and when you look in the diaries, you're looking for
Speaker 1: maybe clues, but really ways to illuminate them as people.
Speaker 1: But that responsibility is great, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we're fortunate in this case that
Speaker 2: the diaries were mostly fairly brief and fairly factual because
Speaker 2: they were on the hype. They were writing in the
Speaker 2: tent at night, and you know they were they were
Speaker 2: they kept it kind of this is what we did today.
Speaker 2: These are the people we met along the way. That
Speaker 2: it was fairly like that. But there are a few
Speaker 2: moments in the diaries that were just before the trip,
Speaker 2: particularly where one of the girls, Zena, she mentioned that
Speaker 2: her relationship with this other chap Rustam had had called
Speaker 2: off and she was a little bit disappointed about it,
Speaker 2: and she hoped that it wouldn't get weird on the trip.
Speaker 2: And so there's not too much information there, but it
Speaker 2: says something I think humanizes them and reminds us he's
Speaker 2: just young kids, just having a great time out there.
Speaker 1: Were they well prepared from what you can tell her
Speaker 1: what experts have told you, knowing whatever was in their
Speaker 1: inventory list. And I know there's lots of photos, which
Speaker 1: is wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the photos are a key part of this
Speaker 2: mystery and the evidence that we have, and we we
Speaker 2: use a lot of those in the film, which is
Speaker 2: really good to kind of see them and see their journey.
Speaker 2: You see them having a lot of fun along the way.
Speaker 2: You know, they're goofing around in the snow and it's
Speaker 2: it's a great moment. But yeah, they were well prepared
Speaker 2: as you can and be in nineteen fifty nine. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the technology that we have now for outdoor wear and
Speaker 2: tents and is so much better to me. Their tent
Speaker 2: looked horribly rude of entry to my eyes as an
Speaker 2: outdoors person myself now, but it worked. It was functional,
Speaker 2: and they had a stove that they would burn fuel on,
Speaker 2: like wood, and that was inside the tent, and it
Speaker 2: had a functional kind of chimney hole that would go out,
Speaker 2: and so they knew how to keep themselves warm. And
Speaker 2: as I said, they've done this many times before. They
Speaker 2: were going for their highest category. This would allow them
Speaker 2: to be tutors and guides of their own right, so
Speaker 2: they could go out and take other students out with
Speaker 2: this category. So they knew what they were doing and
Speaker 2: they were prepared.
Speaker 1: Yes, so they start out with ten, right, but then
Speaker 1: that changes at some point.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yes, So one of the members, uri Udent,
Speaker 2: just about five days into the trip, he had to count.
Speaker 2: He had to kind of get out and head home.
Speaker 2: He suffered from like a psciatica back pain and it
Speaker 2: flared up and he just realized he couldn't go any further.
Speaker 2: And so they reached a logging community where they'd stayed
Speaker 2: for the night, and there was you know, local people
Speaker 2: working out in this area, and they said, hey, we
Speaker 2: can take you back. We've got a horse and cart somewhere.
Speaker 2: We can give you a ride home and he can
Speaker 2: head back. So he had and there's that moment was
Speaker 2: actually captured in their photographs. They really took a lot
Speaker 2: of photographs with him hugging and saying goodbye to his friends,
Speaker 2: you know, fully upset to mister trip, but realizing, you know,
Speaker 2: he'll see them in a couple of weeks time and
Speaker 2: they'll catch up and everything will be great now. He
Speaker 2: unfortunately he'd passed away before I went to Russia. But
Speaker 2: he really spent his whole life kind of feeling lost
Speaker 2: by this tragedy and not knowing what happened to them.
Speaker 2: And at his request, he asked to be buried in
Speaker 2: the same cemetery right next to and along with his
Speaker 2: friends in your kettering Berg in Russia. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: was a part of his life that really affected him.
Speaker 1: So now once he is gone, the trip continues on.
Speaker 1: Are they on track where they end up is where
Speaker 1: they anticipated going, or does something go awry that turns
Speaker 1: them in a different direction.
Speaker 2: They are pretty much on track. They're heading in the
Speaker 2: right direction, the heading where they're supposed to be going
Speaker 2: for sure. There's a little bit of debate as to
Speaker 2: why they decided to head up this mountain at this time,
Speaker 2: because what happens is on the night that this event happened,
Speaker 2: the weather did turn bad, and by the sounds of it,
Speaker 2: they didn't get very far from where they camped the
Speaker 2: night before, and to where the tent was eventually found
Speaker 2: was not very far at all. So it looks like
Speaker 2: they'd hoped to go further over the ridge that day
Speaker 2: and maybe even push all the way to the mountain
Speaker 2: they were aiming for. They didn't make it, and so
Speaker 2: they decided to camp on this hill. And so they
Speaker 2: decided to camp on this hill, which this wasn't part
Speaker 2: of the plan as far as anyone could tell, and
Speaker 2: it's not the ideal place to camp. I think they
Speaker 2: were pushed into camping there because the weather had turned
Speaker 2: against them, and it probably was a white out blizzard.
Speaker 2: And there are a few photos of them pitching the
Speaker 2: tent for the last time, and you could tell the
Speaker 2: conditions are very very bad. It does look like they
Speaker 2: had very poor visibility. So yeah, this was they forgured
Speaker 2: they'd make the best of it and camp here for
Speaker 2: the night.
Speaker 1: Did somebody know what their planned root would be? Was
Speaker 1: there some sort of like manifest or itinerary that someone
Speaker 1: else had back at home?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, So their whole routemate had to be approved,
Speaker 2: planned out and approved by the governing body that was
Speaker 2: tracking and giving them certificate, and so this was discussed
Speaker 2: and approved in advance. So this was an approved route.
Speaker 2: There a little bit of deviation to it, which side
Speaker 2: of the ridge you may or may not go up
Speaker 2: on because it was fairly unexplored, and so you know,
Speaker 2: you have to make the best of it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: ultimately they were they were pretty much on track.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if you spoke to family
Speaker 1: members or friends. I think you probably did. Of the
Speaker 1: people in this group, did anybody in their personal lives
Speaker 1: express trepidation about them making this trip knowing that it
Speaker 1: was a largely unexplored area. Were there people worrying about.
Speaker 2: Them Honestly, I'd never got that vibe from anyone. I
Speaker 2: think they all understood this. They'd all done this. They
Speaker 2: were they did a lot of these hikes before, and
Speaker 2: their friends also did hikes before. One of the friends
Speaker 2: I spoke to had planned to be on this trip
Speaker 2: and just missed out. He couldn't go last minute, so
Speaker 2: he just got away with it as well, and he said,
Speaker 2: we'd done these hikes before. I mean, it was unique.
Speaker 2: It was a little bit venturing into the unknown, but
Speaker 2: not so much that they didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, none of them really seemed too concerned about it.
Speaker 1: So what was their check in procedure? Like are they
Speaker 1: writing letters to people at different posts or what's happening?
Speaker 2: No, that's an interesting point. I mean, we don't have
Speaker 2: any of the communications we have today, right, so it's
Speaker 2: very hard. There are no Once they left a couple
Speaker 2: of the logging communities, they were expecting not to meet
Speaker 2: anyone else for at least a few days. So in fact,
Speaker 2: the polytechnic school that they were supposed to report back to,
Speaker 2: we're not expecting to hear back to them until February twelfth,
Speaker 2: I believe. And the events that this took happen were
Speaker 2: on February the first, so it was the alarm wasn't
Speaker 2: raised really until the fourteenth or fifteenth, I think, and
Speaker 2: so two weeks later. No one was expecting anything was
Speaker 2: out of the ordinary for at least two weeks.
Speaker 1: So they do not get to where they want to
Speaker 1: be on that particular day, they hit bad weather and
Speaker 1: they are pitching the tent. And I know you have
Speaker 1: photos of that. Will you describe what it looked like.
Speaker 1: I remember from the photo it's just vastness everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was like it was like an ocean of snow
Speaker 1: to me. But I'm sure have a better description than
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it isn't as I mean, you're definitely out there.
Speaker 2: There's there's no there's no houses, no buildings, no structures,
Speaker 2: there's no help. Right. But but where it was and
Speaker 2: where we managed to make it to that tent site,
Speaker 2: it's it's on the side of a hill. It's you
Speaker 2: can tell that they weren't one hundred percent sure where
Speaker 2: they were. They were climbing up to a ridge and
Speaker 2: they were going to follow this ridge around the hill
Speaker 2: onto the next mountain. So they were more on the
Speaker 2: side of the hill than on top of the ridge.
Speaker 2: They were neither halfway up halfway down. So it felt
Speaker 2: like they were like, Okay, we we're a bit lost
Speaker 2: right now, let's put the tent here, wait until the
Speaker 2: weather gets better, and we'll figure it out in the morning.
Speaker 2: That's that's the impression I got. But when you go there,
Speaker 2: for them, they didn't know exactly where they were. But
Speaker 2: when you go there, you can look down down the
Speaker 2: hill and uh, there's a tree line at the base,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, in clearer weather it makes a lot
Speaker 2: more sense. But they didn't have that clear clear weather.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they've pitched this tent, and I guess at
Speaker 1: this point is it mostly based on the evidence and
Speaker 1: the photographs that they took of what the inside of
Speaker 1: the tent looked like. And I know that the tear
Speaker 1: that we'll discuss too, that was in the tent. The
Speaker 1: rest of this is this conjecture or is it hobbling together?
Speaker 1: You know what they think happens after this just based
Speaker 1: on where the shoes were where, you know, all of
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's there's not too much evidence beyond this point.
Speaker 2: So they pitched the tent. There are a number of photos.
Speaker 2: There's one highly debated unusual photograph that looks like some
Speaker 2: unusual lights in the sky. This gets talked a lot
Speaker 2: about in conspiracy theory. Is this one of the last
Speaker 2: photos ever found on any of the cameras. They didn't
Speaker 2: keep any diary notes that evening, so there's no solid
Speaker 2: evidence of what happened next other than the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, they go missing and then eventually the bodies
Speaker 2: are found, and they're found in a very spread out area,
Speaker 2: which is in itself evidence. And yeah, so from here
Speaker 2: on in we have to kind of piece this puzzle together.
Speaker 2: And there are so many completely weird beyond out their
Speaker 2: mysterious things that make it hard to make this story
Speaker 2: make sense.
Speaker 1: So they have the tent and let's, I guess just
Speaker 1: freeze real quick and talk about when people think something
Speaker 1: has gone wrong, and then you know, when you have
Speaker 1: people show up and they start putting together the clues,
Speaker 1: then we can talk about the various conspiracies that are happening.
Speaker 1: So when does this become alarming? Is it when the
Speaker 1: governing body realizes after the fourteenth they haven't checked in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so from around that date they haven't checked in,
Speaker 2: And I think they send out the Actually the alarm
Speaker 2: was on the sixteenth of February, they would you back
Speaker 2: on the twelfth, so four days after the alarm was raised,
Speaker 2: and so they somewhere in the next couple of days
Speaker 2: they start sending out search parties, so that involves planes
Speaker 2: going out, people being sent out to try and get
Speaker 2: there and just try and retrace the roots. And it
Speaker 2: takes a few more days. It takes a couple of weeks. Actually,
Speaker 2: I think it's not until Februy twenty sixth the tent
Speaker 2: is found, so there would you back on the twelfth.
Speaker 2: It's not until the twenty sixth that they find the tent,
Speaker 2: and the tent is empty, no sign of the hikers,
Speaker 2: So this is one of the unusual moments. There is
Speaker 2: some snow around the tent and on the tent, but
Speaker 2: it's not completely covered. In fact, one of the photos
Speaker 2: clearly shows that one of the front tent poles is
Speaker 2: still standing. And then they find the hiker's winter jacket,
Speaker 2: the outer layer jacket, and most of their boots in sorry,
Speaker 2: all of their boots the tent, which is highly unusual.
Speaker 2: And you know, anyone who's been in these conditions and
Speaker 2: I can say this, you realize very very quickly. You
Speaker 2: keep your full body covered up. You feel the pain
Speaker 2: within minutes of the chill getting to you, so you
Speaker 2: don't leave those things lightly. That's highly unusual. And then
Speaker 2: also there's a debate that there's a cut in the tent.
Speaker 2: It looks like and it's suggested by the case reports
Speaker 2: at the time that they cut their way out of
Speaker 2: the tent. Now that's important that fact is now debated,
Speaker 2: and I speak to someone in the film to go
Speaker 2: into this moment for a bit. I speak to a
Speaker 2: Russian forensic expert who studied the case files, and she
Speaker 2: makes a point that they only measure, They only photographed
Speaker 2: and tested the area of the fabric in the center
Speaker 2: of the cut, not where the cut pierced the tent.
Speaker 2: So that makes a difference because when the blade goes in,
Speaker 2: it pushes the fabrics one way, but then if you
Speaker 2: drag the blade out, it pulls the fabric the other way,
Speaker 2: and so you can't tell which way the blade went
Speaker 2: in unless you see the start of the cut of
Speaker 2: the tent, and that wasn't documented or photographed. So the
Speaker 2: idea that they cut their way out of the tent
Speaker 2: is not fact. It could have been cut from the.
Speaker 1: Outside, and I was wondering, you know, when you were talking,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking of this year, number of sails
Speaker 1: and like ship sails and flags that I've seen ripped
Speaker 1: just from wind. I wondered if that was going to
Speaker 1: be an option too, that because of just the horrible
Speaker 1: conditions that there had maybe been like a little hole
Speaker 1: and it just got ripped apart, and it wasn't even
Speaker 1: somebody doing it, it was just the conditions.
Speaker 2: I think they were all confident that the cut was
Speaker 2: too much of a straight line, and it was it
Speaker 2: was cut by a blade, So I think the confident
Speaker 2: was cut by a blade. But whether or not it
Speaker 2: was cut from the inside or the outside, we no
Speaker 2: longer have that evidence. We can't tell because they didn't
Speaker 2: keep the tent. The tent's been disposed of, and the
Speaker 2: insert point for the blade wasn't documented.
Speaker 1: What difference does that make, do you think as far
Speaker 1: as these theories go, whether it was cut from the
Speaker 1: inside or the outside, well.
Speaker 2: Come to a little bit later on whether or not
Speaker 2: people were involved, whether or not weapons were involved, and
Speaker 2: that makes a difference.
Speaker 1: I think. Okay, tell me what they find inside the
Speaker 1: tent when they go in, because it feels a little
Speaker 1: Pompeii to me, it's like moment frozen in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they would store their jackets and their boots
Speaker 2: near the front of the tent, the exit point, and
Speaker 2: that's where they found them, lined up dishes from things
Speaker 2: that had been eating, and stuff were still laid out.
Speaker 2: I mean, the tent looked like it would look like
Speaker 2: if you were just you know, making the best of
Speaker 2: a cold evening and just trying to get through the night.
Speaker 2: So they left in a hurry, no doubt. To me,
Speaker 2: one of the most unexplainable things is why you wouldn't
Speaker 2: grab your jacket and your boots. Again, I can't stress
Speaker 2: enough that when the temperature drops and the wind hits
Speaker 2: like that, you feel that temperature biting against your skin,
Speaker 2: and so you would grab those things because they would
Speaker 2: have no doubt that they're not going to survive for
Speaker 2: very long without those items. So something made them not
Speaker 2: to grab them.
Speaker 1: Well, and I was wondering, and probably I just skip
Speaker 1: ahead too much, But as you talk, I start thinking
Speaker 1: about is this what happens that phenomenon with hypothermia where
Speaker 1: you feel like if you take your clothes off, you'll
Speaker 1: get warmer for whatever reason. Is that part of one
Speaker 1: of those theories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the theories. So the theories is
Speaker 2: if you start to completely suffer from hypothermia, you feel
Speaker 2: your body feels warm, feel hot, you start to take
Speaker 2: off all your clothes and you throw them off and
Speaker 2: you run out. Hypothermia doesn't work like that to nine
Speaker 2: different people instantaneously. If one person would have started to
Speaker 2: feel it, they might have started to have these crazy actions.
Speaker 2: The others would have stopped them and told them to
Speaker 2: put their clothes on, and then they would have all
Speaker 2: started to put on their pets and clothes. It doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: It's not an instant switch and they all get it.
Speaker 2: They all rip off their clothes and run out of
Speaker 2: the tent. That's not how that works. So, you know,
Speaker 2: if it was one person, it's very feasible, but nine
Speaker 2: people then that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Is there the theory that they were cooking something inside
Speaker 1: the tent and something you know, smoke went out of
Speaker 1: control and they cut from the inside to let the
Speaker 1: smoke out again.
Speaker 2: That's been definitely been a theory. It's been discussed There
Speaker 2: wasn't any evidence of any burning to the tent, so
Speaker 2: it didn't catch fire anywhere to the tent. There's no
Speaker 2: evidence of that. Could some gases or smoke, you know,
Speaker 2: cause them to get out, I mean that's possible that
Speaker 2: that can happen, But why rip the tent when you
Speaker 2: can just go out the front door? I mean it's
Speaker 2: they use light not and maybe one of them could
Speaker 2: have ripped the tent and gone out from one side,
Speaker 2: but the others would have went out the front door,
Speaker 2: you know, it's and then they would have grabbed their clothes.
Speaker 2: I keep coming back to this. Unless they were completely
Speaker 2: insane from some chemical thing, then, unless they were out
Speaker 2: of their credible minds, they would have grabbed their boots
Speaker 2: in their jackets. So something was stopping them from grabbing
Speaker 2: those things. And I don't think, you know, there isn't
Speaker 2: proof that. Again, a carbon monoxide or something like that
Speaker 2: could force nine people to instantaneously go completely insane and
Speaker 2: make decisions that will kill them all. That's not how
Speaker 2: that works. Again, it could happen to one person, but
Speaker 2: nine people all at the same time. It doesn't work
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Well, let's take care of the carbon monoxide theory part
Speaker 1: of it, because they when they do end up discovering
Speaker 1: the bodies, they do all the chemical testing right, and
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide doesn't show up in anyone because it sticks
Speaker 1: around a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there wasn't The autopsy reports, at times somewhat details,
Speaker 2: other times not that detailed. There were certainly somethings missing.
Speaker 2: I did have a retired county foreign enough for the
Speaker 2: Marin County in California, looked at these autopsy reports and
Speaker 2: read through them and gave me his kind of take
Speaker 2: on this. And I told him nothing about my research
Speaker 2: to this point. This is just his honors take on them.
Speaker 2: And he said there were definitely errors and there wasn't
Speaker 2: really any information talking about any toxicology. There was no
Speaker 2: chemicals mentioned. But he also wasn't clear if it was
Speaker 2: one hundred percent tested.
Speaker 1: For Oh wow, okay, Now, did you think that the
Speaker 1: way they exited the evidence that they could see in
Speaker 1: the snow, did that seem unusual? The way they were
Speaker 1: Were they running like they were scared of something or
Speaker 1: what was that?
Speaker 2: Right? So, this is the thing that all of these
Speaker 2: theories before that we talked about would explain that they
Speaker 2: were panicked they were in terror. They were running. They
Speaker 2: ran out this tent. Something really scared them. They had
Speaker 2: to go right away. They do find a small section
Speaker 2: of their footprints walking down the hill side by side,
Speaker 2: at a pace that suggests they were kind of kind
Speaker 2: of arm in arm, keeping themselves together, walking quite calmly
Speaker 2: down the hill. They weren't running, they weren't scattering in
Speaker 2: different directions, is what would happen in a real panic event.
Speaker 2: They kept themselves together, and they walked somewhat as far
Speaker 2: as the footprints can tell us down the hill calmly,
Speaker 2: which is incredible. So I've now just said something forced
Speaker 2: them to make a horrendous decision to leave their boots
Speaker 2: in their clothes and they go out to jackets, and
Speaker 2: then they somewhat calmly walked arm in arm down the hill.
Speaker 2: Now we only have this information of their footsteps for
Speaker 2: a small section, and it's this weird geological anomaly where
Speaker 2: all of the area around the tent you cannot see
Speaker 2: any footprints. It was all blown over by snows. There
Speaker 2: was no evidence where those footprints were. Somewhat further down
Speaker 2: the hill one hundred feet or so, they found this
Speaker 2: trace of a few meters of their footprints, and it's
Speaker 2: just because in this section the snow was wind blown over.
Speaker 2: So what happened is their feet because they didn't have
Speaker 2: boots on, pressed deep into the snow, compacting the snow
Speaker 2: down to form these kind of ice footprints that got
Speaker 2: compacted and pressed down. Now, when the wind blew the
Speaker 2: top layer of snow over, it actually left these footprints,
Speaker 2: not as indentations, but as columns that were actually sticking
Speaker 2: up out of the snow. So that's how they found them.
Speaker 2: And it only happened is one unique area where the
Speaker 2: wind must have funneled through and caused this thing to happen.
Speaker 2: So we have a small section of their footprints as
Speaker 2: evidence there was It only showed the hiker's footprints. There
Speaker 2: weren't footprints of anyone else that was there along with them,
Speaker 2: So that's somewhat in onant. But yeah, we know which
Speaker 2: actually we're heading, and we know they walk down together
Speaker 2: in a controlled fashion and say that.
Speaker 1: So I'm picturing Is it all nine of them in
Speaker 1: a line next to each other, linking.
Speaker 2: Arms, Yeah, shoulder to shoulder. There's some debate as to
Speaker 2: whether or not it was the full nine set or
Speaker 2: only eight set of prints, but towards the edges it
Speaker 2: blurred a little bit and it's harder to tell whether
Speaker 2: or not there was more or not, just because of
Speaker 2: the way the wind went. So we can somewhat assume
Speaker 2: all nine of them were found laid down the hill.
Speaker 2: We can somewhat assume that nine of them went down together,
Speaker 2: but there is an anomaly that potentially one might not
Speaker 2: have been there. I don't look too much into that myself,
Speaker 2: but because of other information. But yeah, at least eight
Speaker 2: of them walk down the hill together.
Speaker 1: Okay, what do we know happens after that? They are
Speaker 1: linked arms, and they're going down the hill and they're
Speaker 1: not wearing their jackets or their boots, inexplicably dressed, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially to walk out and die at some point they
Speaker 1: have to know, unless they're assuming they can scramble back
Speaker 1: up and get back to the tent. There's no evidence
Speaker 1: of an avalanche or anything hitting the tent. Is that right?
Speaker 1: It's not totally buried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So according to the autopsy reports and all of
Speaker 2: the case file reports, there's no evidence of an avalanche
Speaker 2: wrot together. There's a little bit of snow over the tent,
Speaker 2: but one part of the tent pole is still standing.
Speaker 2: And yeah, there's not a sign of an avalanche, and
Speaker 2: it's not a steep enough hill to have a fall.
Speaker 2: When you see there's big signs of massive mountainous avalanches
Speaker 2: that wouldn't exist there. There isn't that. We will come
Speaker 2: back to the idea of a slab avalanche in a moment,
Speaker 2: but I'll come back to that in a moment. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: the hikers they go down the hill and it's not
Speaker 2: until the as I said, the twenty sixth of February,
Speaker 2: they found the tent. Officially found the tent. There's actually
Speaker 2: a clue that it might have been found earlier, and
Speaker 2: come back to that. But the the following day they
Speaker 2: found the bodies of the first four hikers, including Ego
Speaker 2: the outlaw. Two were initially found by a cedar tree,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of considered like the point where they
Speaker 2: must have all reached. Now, this is important. The cedar
Speaker 2: tree where the first two bodies were found was pretty
Speaker 2: much a mile down the hill from the tent. This
Speaker 2: is very important because a mile in those conditions, well
Speaker 2: a mile in good snowy conditions would take about an
Speaker 2: hour to walk They even say in their own in
Speaker 2: their own diaries that they're working walking about one mile
Speaker 2: an hour in heavy snow, So the fact that they'd
Speaker 2: be walking slower and it's difficult. I think it could
Speaker 2: have even taken a little bit longer than an hour
Speaker 2: to get down the hill, but at least an hour.
Speaker 2: So two bodies are found by the cedar tree, and
Speaker 2: then a little bit later that day the bodies of
Speaker 2: Xena Comogorova. She was found heading away from the cedar tree,
Speaker 2: heading back towards the direction of the tent, and then
Speaker 2: a little further beyond that was Eagle Diatlot, also heading
Speaker 2: away from the tree and back towards the tent. So
Speaker 2: it looks like they moved down to the cedar tree,
Speaker 2: some of them stayed there, and then some began to
Speaker 2: try and walk back to the tent. So now we've
Speaker 2: got this question of why did they leave the tent
Speaker 2: and why do they now feel it was safe to
Speaker 2: go back to the tent. Around the cedar tree area,
Speaker 2: there was some indication that they had built a fire,
Speaker 2: so they were trying to keep themselves warm with a fire.
Speaker 2: And actually the two of the members that were found
Speaker 2: around this area did have some burnmarks on their body
Speaker 2: and on their clothes. So yeah, we're not sure what
Speaker 2: to make of that. Was that accidental given the condition
Speaker 2: they were in and hypothermia now absolutely setting in. Did
Speaker 2: they just accidentally burn themselves or was it something else?
Speaker 1: And they were all wearing clothing at this point, nobody
Speaker 1: had taken off more clothing.
Speaker 2: No, so they hadn't taken off more clothing. What had
Speaker 2: happened was they were still wearing their sort of inner
Speaker 2: layer clothing, the clothing that they'd be wearing inside the
Speaker 2: tent at night on a normal evening at night. So
Speaker 2: what also says that they were relatively comfortable in this
Speaker 2: tent even in those conditions, because they weren't wearing their
Speaker 2: jackets inside the tent. The tent, the jackets were folded up,
Speaker 2: some of them were in their bags, some of them
Speaker 2: folded up where they would normally be. So so they
Speaker 2: were comfortable enough in the tent before whatever happened to them,
Speaker 2: and they were still just in their regular sort of
Speaker 2: inner clothes. Some of them had light jackets, and I
Speaker 2: believe Eago Diatlov and Xena Cormogroover were both slightly better
Speaker 2: dressed than the others. So maybe a light jacket, not
Speaker 2: their outer layer jacket, but a lighter inner jacket maybe,
Speaker 2: which is why perhaps they decided they might be able
Speaker 2: to make it back to the tent. And these were
Speaker 2: just the clothes that they would have kept on inside
Speaker 2: the tent.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about four of the nine, is right,
Speaker 1: two by the cedar tree and two trying to come back.
Speaker 1: What were the injuries on them when they were discovered?
Speaker 1: And it must be a nightmare to figure out what
Speaker 1: was caused by the cold or whatever post warnem versus
Speaker 1: you know, before they died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is an interesting thing. So the next
Speaker 2: group of hikers have the most extraordinary injuries. They were
Speaker 2: found quite a bit later on, actually, But this group
Speaker 2: of hikers had injuries on them, but most of them
Speaker 2: not catastrophic injuries, not injuries that in themselves would have
Speaker 2: caused death. But they had injuries that included things like
Speaker 2: in fact, almost all of them to a point, had
Speaker 2: injuries to their knuckles and to the outside of their hands.
Speaker 2: They had injuries to the face and around the lips
Speaker 2: and the eyes, all consistent. And again when I spoke
Speaker 2: to the experts that I spoke to in my film. Also,
Speaker 2: these in trees are quite consistent with people that were
Speaker 2: in a punch up. They were in a fight, a
Speaker 2: physical violence, and this consistently came back that it's possible
Speaker 2: that they could have gotten these injuries from falling over
Speaker 2: and hitting themselves, but on the back of the hands
Speaker 2: and on the knuckles is highly unlikely. When you fall over,
Speaker 2: you put your palms down, And it was consistent. These
Speaker 2: injuries were found across all of them. Now on one chap,
Speaker 2: Yuri Durushenka was found in the middle and sorry I
Speaker 2: said four those four that I mentioned were found, there
Speaker 2: was actually a fifth that was found as part of
Speaker 2: this group. Now this is Juri Dorushenka. He was found
Speaker 2: again heading towards back to the tent. I think he
Speaker 2: was found later that day or he was found slightly
Speaker 2: separate from the others in the chronology. That's why I
Speaker 2: separated him. But he was found heading back towards the tent.
Speaker 2: He's an important character in the evidence because he had
Speaker 2: a large or a massive impact to the side of
Speaker 2: his head, to the temple of his head that the
Speaker 2: coroner that I spoke to, the California coroner said this
Speaker 2: impact would have probably rendered him unconscious in that position,
Speaker 2: like he suffered that injury at that location and would
Speaker 2: have been rendered unconscious there. At most he may have
Speaker 2: staggered a few feet and then fell over. So what
Speaker 2: I'm saying is this is in the middle of the hill.
Speaker 2: It's not at the bottom of the seat of the tree,
Speaker 2: and it's not at the top where the tent was.
Speaker 2: It's somewhere closer to the middle. So half an hour's
Speaker 2: walk in any direction to these two locations, and yet inexplicably,
Speaker 2: with no one else around, he suffers a massive impact
Speaker 2: to hit the temple of his head that essentially kills him.
Speaker 2: Now he is the most important piece of evidence in
Speaker 2: my mind as to what happened to everyone else, because
Speaker 2: other elements can be explained potentially, but nothing would explain
Speaker 2: how this chap got this injury to the side of
Speaker 2: his head on the middle of a hill where there
Speaker 2: is no avalanche, there are no pits to fall in thereon,
Speaker 2: there's no reason to have this injury.
Speaker 1: Come back next week to listen to the second half
Speaker 1: of this interview. If you love historical true crime stories,
Speaker 1: check out the audio versions of my books The Sinners
Speaker 1: All Bow the Ghost Club, All that is Wicked and
Speaker 1: American Sherlock, and don't forget. There are twelve seasons of
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