Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was sat at home and thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: who's going to go out there and find these facts?
Speaker 2: And at that point in time, I had the opportunity,
Speaker 2: I had the cameras, and I just jumped on it.
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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Hey, y'all, before we get
Speaker 1: to our guests, I wanted to let you know that
Speaker 1: Paul Hols and I have started a Patreon It's called
Speaker 1: Hey It's Kate and Paul, and you can go to
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Kate and Paul for all sorts
Speaker 1: of extra stuff. So I'm starting a book club. Woooo.
Speaker 1: It's called the Plot Thickens. We have movie reviews, movies
Speaker 1: like Silence of the Lambs or Zodiac or Seven with
Speaker 1: Paul's takes on more current cases. And we've got a
Speaker 1: lot of fun stuff and we like to interact with
Speaker 1: all of our members. So go to patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash Kate and Paul and we can't wait to see you.
Speaker 1: We're back talking to filmmaker Liam Legueue about his documentary
Speaker 1: An Unknown Compelling Force the Diet Love Past incident. We
Speaker 1: learn more about the victims, and we hear about many
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. What about the remaining four that we're missing?
Speaker 2: Right, So, the remaining four weren't found the search parties
Speaker 2: and there were many, many people. They were camped up there,
Speaker 2: they were living there. They searched and searched and could
Speaker 2: not find the remaining four until a couple of months later.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until the beginning of May that they found
Speaker 2: So again just a reminder that we found the rest
Speaker 2: of them on the twenty seventh of February. It's now
Speaker 2: the beginning of May that we find the rest of
Speaker 2: these bodies. Now effectively these bodies are found in a ravine,
Speaker 2: and they were kind of together in the ravine. It
Speaker 2: looked like two of them had their arms around each other,
Speaker 2: as if they were kind of huddling for warmth, and
Speaker 2: so it's unusual that they found in very deep Snow,
Speaker 2: what happens here is when they autopsy report is done
Speaker 2: on these bodies, we find that two of them, Ludmilia,
Speaker 2: one of the girls, and Sasha, the older gentlemen that
Speaker 2: joined the group, they both have massive rib fractures to
Speaker 2: their upper ribs, so their ribs were crushed so much
Speaker 2: so that at least in one case, the ribs had
Speaker 2: punctured the heart. Now, from my understanding from the autopsy
Speaker 2: reports and from what the review that we made of
Speaker 2: it was these injuries were caused at time of death,
Speaker 2: So these weren't as a result of snow being poured
Speaker 2: on the month later. So this happened to them here
Speaker 2: in this location or roughly here. I mean, they could
Speaker 2: have been somewhere in this area and then dragged to
Speaker 2: the ravine potentially, but they were caused around this area. Now, also,
Speaker 2: this is a horror. It's kind of a horrific fact
Speaker 2: that gets mentioned a lot that Ludmilia's eyes were missing,
Speaker 2: and people talk about this in all sorts of horrible ways,
Speaker 2: like ritual killing. The likelihood is the ravine had started
Speaker 2: to fall underneath and there was some flowing water. The
Speaker 2: likelihood is a lot of this soft tissue was washed
Speaker 2: away by the water, so it's unlikely that necessary that
Speaker 2: the eyes were damaged in some sort of an attack.
Speaker 2: But her tongue was also missing. Now that isn't a
Speaker 2: soft tissue that would naturally weather away in that way.
Speaker 2: There isn't enough information to say whether or not an
Speaker 2: animal had got it. But I remember they were buried
Speaker 2: underneath snows, so I don't know what animal was getting there.
Speaker 2: Her tongue was missing. It's not clear to us how
Speaker 2: and why that was missing. It wasn't documented well enough
Speaker 2: to tell what happened there. Although the forensic expert from
Speaker 2: Russia who I spoke to, it's her feeling from how
Speaker 2: she interpreted the documents that it was cut out, and
Speaker 2: so we're leaning into her take on this. That is
Speaker 2: highly disputed, but it is her take that it was
Speaker 2: cut out.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, and some of them were you said, holding
Speaker 1: each other. We're assuming that's for warmth I assume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it appears to be that they were there
Speaker 2: huddled together for warmth or you know, could they have
Speaker 2: been staged in that way some way. I mean, it's possible,
Speaker 2: but we're not sure.
Speaker 1: Now, was there something odd about their clothing? Who was
Speaker 1: wearing witch clothing?
Speaker 2: Yes, so the clothing had been switched around and moved
Speaker 2: around a little bit. But I think that's the two
Speaker 2: guys who were first found at the Cedar Tree. It
Speaker 2: looks like some of their clothing had been taken from
Speaker 2: them by the others who were perhaps surviving, So that
Speaker 2: makes sense. You know, if someone had passed away, then
Speaker 2: you know you're going to do what you have to
Speaker 2: do and take someone else's clothes. So there was a
Speaker 2: little bit of that, and there were some pieces of
Speaker 2: clothes that were torn. I think one of the girls
Speaker 2: that was missing her boots, and she'd taken a kind
Speaker 2: of an over shirt from one of the guys and
Speaker 2: wrapped it around her feet in place of a kind
Speaker 2: of shoe. The clothing is interesting and maybe we'll dive
Speaker 2: into one of the conspiracies quickly here, because there's one
Speaker 2: element of the clothing, which is the search parties and
Speaker 2: the lead investigator at the time, was hearing stories about
Speaker 2: rockets in the area and lights in the sky, and
Speaker 2: so he ordered a radiation test to be done on
Speaker 2: the hiker's clothes. And it turns out two of the
Speaker 2: people in the found in this ravine had tested positive
Speaker 2: for radiation on their clothes. So this now makes this
Speaker 2: story while they're and weirder than ever. This for me
Speaker 2: was a real difficult one to get away from it.
Speaker 2: It really does imply, okay, is there some sort of
Speaker 2: military Soviet Russian involvement here. But once I really dug
Speaker 2: into this, I found that actually one of the hikers,
Speaker 2: Yuri Krivenshenka, he actually worked at a nuclear power facility
Speaker 2: and it's called in a place called Kushtam And actually
Speaker 2: there was a meltdown and this power plant actually melted
Speaker 2: down and it was at the time the world's largest
Speaker 2: nuclear power plant meltdown, known as the kushed and disaster.
Speaker 2: And this has been kept out of the public until
Speaker 2: the fall of the Soviet Union. No one knew about it.
Speaker 2: The Americans knew about it through spy network and surveillance,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't spoken about. Now kriven Schenker he actually
Speaker 2: worked at this power plant involved in the cleanup operation.
Speaker 2: He actually wrote a letter requesting to be transferred because
Speaker 2: he didn't have confidence in the group that was involved
Speaker 2: in doing the cleanup. He effectively said, you guys don't
Speaker 2: know what you're doing and it's dangerous. So he requested
Speaker 2: to make a transfer before he'd gone on this this
Speaker 2: hiking journey, because he was working there. So all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, now we have a full explanation of why
Speaker 2: radiation may have been on It was found on the
Speaker 2: girl's clothes, but she had taken it. Turns out it
Speaker 2: was his sweater, so he had probably brought this sweater
Speaker 2: along with him, it had radiation on him, and it
Speaker 2: just by chance the clothes got swapped around. So I
Speaker 2: think the radiation is a big red herring. I don't
Speaker 2: think that we can I think there's a valid answer
Speaker 2: as to why radiation that occurred.
Speaker 1: What about the burns on the trees? Right, I know
Speaker 1: that there was an explanation for the burning where they
Speaker 1: were making the campfire, But did you mention that that
Speaker 1: there were burns on the trees of above, as if
Speaker 1: like a rocket or something had blown past.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's in the case files that there is signs
Speaker 2: that some of the tops of the trees had been singed.
Speaker 2: It wasn't documented, there isn't photo evidence of it. It
Speaker 2: was kind of more of a passing comment. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how much to believe that the tops of the
Speaker 2: trees were burned. There were burns on and around the
Speaker 2: tree where they were trying to start the fire. It
Speaker 2: looked like they tried to start fire, and maybe two
Speaker 2: areas at one point there was definitely broken branches on
Speaker 2: the trees where they were trying to snap branches down
Speaker 2: to make this fire. I'm not sure how much to
Speaker 2: believe that the tops of the trees had burnmark. So
Speaker 2: there isn't evidence for it, And I have to say
Speaker 2: I did speak to another gentleman who was a member
Speaker 2: of the search party team, and he both knew the
Speaker 2: Diatlovt team very well. He was friends with them. He
Speaker 2: talked of a story of when he actually danced with
Speaker 2: Xena at a school dance and now he was you know,
Speaker 2: she was by many accounts as she was very admired
Speaker 2: by a lot of the guys, and he was like,
Speaker 2: I got to have a dancer there at a really
Speaker 2: big moment so he knew the hike as well. He
Speaker 2: told me he was actually on a hike at the
Speaker 2: same time in a different part of the euro Mountains,
Speaker 2: so not close enough to be involved or near them,
Speaker 2: but pretty much on the night or around the nights
Speaker 2: of the events that took place with the Diatlovt team,
Speaker 2: he and his team saw basically massive lights firing through
Speaker 2: the sky, and he now them to be ballistic missile tests.
Speaker 2: There was a ballistic missile site some hundreds of klometers
Speaker 2: away from there. He now knows that's what he was
Speaker 2: seeing and he believes that has something to do with it.
Speaker 2: But he was involved in the search team and he
Speaker 2: was telling his friends that, oh, we saw these rockets,
Speaker 2: we saw something in the sky. I think it must
Speaker 2: be that. I think it must be that. I think
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of sort of whispers going on
Speaker 2: about these burned tops of the trees. I certainly haven't
Speaker 2: seen physical documented of evidence of that.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, and when it could be lightning, right
Speaker 1: when there'd be lightning strikes around.
Speaker 2: There, absolutely feasible. Again, yeah, lightning is possible as well.
Speaker 1: So as a person who doesn't know hasn't gone is
Speaker 1: in depth into this obviously as you have. I was
Speaker 1: just thinking through. Okay, so is it that they all
Speaker 1: are trying to get around this fire with the cedar
Speaker 1: trees to the guys die, they take his clothes and
Speaker 1: head down to the ravine, and then Xena and ury
Speaker 1: or I can't remember who else it was that you said.
Speaker 1: Then they decide, okay, we're going to head back up
Speaker 1: to the tent. Is that how that sequence happens or
Speaker 1: what do people think why people landed where they did? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think this is where we're at now.
Speaker 2: We don't know, we don't know what happens, right, So
Speaker 2: the number one theory, I think we can dive into that.
Speaker 2: The number one theory as I see it, certainly if
Speaker 2: you jump on Google and people will say that the
Speaker 2: Outlove Pass has been solved, like we now know what happened.
Speaker 2: Is the big issue was the search party said that
Speaker 2: there's no way an avalanche could have happened to the tent,
Speaker 2: because an avalanche could have explained crushing chest injuries. Why
Speaker 2: they would have panicked, cut the tent, got out, ran away.
Speaker 2: An avalanche could explain this. Now, everyone said initially that
Speaker 2: there was no sign of an avalanche, so it couldn't
Speaker 2: have happened now recently. And it's kind of a bugbear
Speaker 2: of mine is that just after my film came out,
Speaker 2: another team went out there to do a test, and
Speaker 2: it was a Swedish team. They want to test this
Speaker 2: theory that maybe a small avalanche known as a slab
Speaker 2: avalanche could have slid down and just landed onto the tent.
Speaker 2: Now it's in part the way they may have cut
Speaker 2: out the base to lay the tent may have actually
Speaker 2: been cause for a slab avalanche to then fall on
Speaker 2: the tent. To put in some sort of visual context,
Speaker 2: a slab avalanche is closer to you know, when you
Speaker 2: see a house got loads of snow on it and
Speaker 2: someone knocks the roof and a big the whole roof
Speaker 2: of snowfalls down. That's closer to what a slab avalanche is.
Speaker 2: It falls a few meters, slides onto the bit where
Speaker 2: they would cut out, and lands on that section. So
Speaker 2: it's nothing like these big mountainous avalanches that roll down
Speaker 2: the hill. This is like a slab a few meters
Speaker 2: slide dumps onto the area. So it's feasible. These team
Speaker 2: went out and they proved that a slab avalanche could
Speaker 2: have happened on this very shallow gradient where the tent
Speaker 2: was parked, and they proved that. Okay, it turns out
Speaker 2: slab avalanches can happen very easily on small gradients, so
Speaker 2: that they then ran away with that, Well, we've now
Speaker 2: figured it out. It obviously must have been an avalanche,
Speaker 2: the slab avalanche. That's why the hikers the rescue teams
Speaker 2: didn't recognize it as an avalanche, because it was just
Speaker 2: a small section that landed on the tent. The problem
Speaker 2: with that for me is that it's lots of problems,
Speaker 2: But the biggest problem is if that happened, the hikers
Speaker 2: would have known what it was and they wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 2: have then ran away from because it's not that huge,
Speaker 2: mountainous avalanche. It's just one slab sliding down, and so
Speaker 2: they would have recognized what that was quite quickly and realized, okay,
Speaker 2: we can make the best of this. But at leastly
Speaker 2: scrab our boots and jackets. So it doesn't explain why
Speaker 2: they ran and left their stuff. It also doesn't explain why,
Speaker 2: really there was hardly any snow found on the tent.
Speaker 2: It was a dusting of windblown snow, not a huge slab.
Speaker 2: It wasn't buried, and even the front tent pole was
Speaker 2: still standing, so if the slab came down, it would
Speaker 2: have only covered half of the tenth at best. So
Speaker 2: again it doesn't explain why these experienced hikers would have
Speaker 2: then ran away. And more importantly, and I come back
Speaker 2: to Rustam who was found halfway on the hill with
Speaker 2: an injury that he couldn't have walked from. And also
Speaker 2: the two hikers with the chest injuries. If a slab
Speaker 2: had fallen on them at this tent and crushed their chests,
Speaker 2: they didn't walk for an hour down the hill. So
Speaker 2: the slab avalanche to me is you know, you go
Speaker 2: to Google, it'll say the alapaster sold. No, I'm sorry
Speaker 2: it isn't. They proved that this can happen in theory,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't explain the injuries.
Speaker 1: Isn't that what the Russian government had said initially wasn't
Speaker 1: there at their conclusion in nineteen sixty or whenever they
Speaker 1: finished the investigation.
Speaker 2: So they tried to, but there was too many experienced
Speaker 2: members of the search team had actually said no, there's
Speaker 2: no sign of an avalanche here, and then they were
Speaker 2: aware of what a slab avalanche was back then, and
Speaker 2: that was suggested, but it wasn't really any evidence for
Speaker 2: it even then. No, the closing of the case is
Speaker 2: actually a really unusual event. A lot of the search
Speaker 2: party teams, who were now discussing seeing lights in the
Speaker 2: sky and rocket launches and stuff like this, were now
Speaker 2: starting to point the blame back at the Soviet military.
Speaker 2: And that's still very much The Russians I spoke to
Speaker 2: still believe very much it was the Soviet military test
Speaker 2: gone wrong, and I can talk about that a bit
Speaker 2: more in a moment. But the pressure then was on
Speaker 2: the lead investigator at the time. He spoke about this
Speaker 2: some years afterwards, he said, I was told closed this
Speaker 2: case down. We found all the hikers, now, doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what's happened to them, just closed the case down. Now
Speaker 2: Now people say that's evidence that the Russian military must
Speaker 2: have been involved. Opposite. I think the conversation was now
Speaker 2: talking about and remember we're in the middle of the
Speaker 2: Cold War. The conversation is now talking about the location
Speaker 2: and position of where missiles are being fired in tests.
Speaker 2: They just didn't want that talked about. It may have
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with the Diatloff case. They just
Speaker 2: didn't want these conversations to grow and grow and grow,
Speaker 2: So they told the investigator close the case down now.
Speaker 2: And so the investigator closed the case with this now
Speaker 2: famous line, which is the title of my film. He
Speaker 2: said that the events that unfolded were from an unknown
Speaker 2: compelling force. And the official verdict as to what killed
Speaker 2: the hikers for all nine of them, officially it was hypothermia.
Speaker 1: So tell me, you know what is for you? After
Speaker 1: doing all of this research, talking to all of these
Speaker 1: different experts, where do you land on all of this?
Speaker 2: Right? So I wanted to look into kind of some
Speaker 2: of these series. Now there's there's another one. I'll quickly
Speaker 2: mentioned we spend too much time on it. But there's
Speaker 2: another story about a yeti, a Russian YETI attack.
Speaker 1: And no, it's spent a lot of time on that,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: And this one, this is actually, if anything, was one
Speaker 2: of the ones that made me want to go out
Speaker 2: there because I, I like, I'm open minded, but I
Speaker 2: don't believe that this happened, and there's a solid reason
Speaker 2: for this. They the hikers would keep another diary journal,
Speaker 2: and in this journal they make like a fun newspaper,
Speaker 2: like a fake newspaper report, and they would do it
Speaker 2: to make say things like today it's found out that
Speaker 2: and one of their com one of their headline stories
Speaker 2: was today it has found out that the Russian Yeti
Speaker 2: lives and he's been seen. And I think they're joking around,
Speaker 2: because earlier on around this time, there was some photos
Speaker 2: taken of one of their one of the members of
Speaker 2: the team. I think it was probably Ross dem Is,
Speaker 2: goofing around in snow and there's an outer focused picture
Speaker 2: that looks like this humanoid figure. It's clearly a guy
Speaker 2: just goofing around in the snow, and it's a bit blurry,
Speaker 2: and I think they must have been joking. Oh, he
Speaker 2: looks like a Yeti. So at the end of the night,
Speaker 2: they're having some banter in the tent, they're all having
Speaker 2: a laugh and they write up in this no, oh,
Speaker 2: and today we found out the Russian the yetti exists.
Speaker 2: The people I spoke to who speak Russian read it.
Speaker 2: They could read the tone in this. This was a joke.
Speaker 2: They're having fun, they're goofing around. But unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 2: this gets interpreted the wrong way. That one picture people
Speaker 2: still want to believe isn't a human It clearly is.
Speaker 2: And so now some people say the Russian YETI did it,
Speaker 2: And clearly that comes from a document that they were
Speaker 2: writing for fun. So that was just a joke. So
Speaker 2: I think we can move on from the YETI. Also,
Speaker 2: there's no injuries shaped like any sort of animal claw
Speaker 2: prints around them, so again which applies to bears, there's
Speaker 2: no sign of a bear attack. There's no claw marks
Speaker 2: any of the bodies. The clothes weren't torn in a
Speaker 2: way consistent with of an animal attack, so we can
Speaker 2: get rid of those ones. So now we come down
Speaker 2: to so did this rocket explode and did did this
Speaker 2: rocket the lights in the sky that people have been seeing,
Speaker 2: did this fall on them? Did this, you know, injure
Speaker 2: them in some way. There was no evidence of any debris,
Speaker 2: any explosion, anything in the vicinity of the hikers, So
Speaker 2: there was no casings of a missile or anything. So
Speaker 2: nothing struck them. There was no you know, some people
Speaker 2: wanted to say the crushed chests could have been from
Speaker 2: this the impact force, but they would have found some evidence.
Speaker 2: And I remember a huge part of the search team
Speaker 2: are both military, but a huge part of them are
Speaker 2: actually fellow student members. So these students weren't sticking to
Speaker 2: the script, and they were coming home and telling people
Speaker 2: what they saw and what they were thinking. So if
Speaker 2: someone had found a piece of ro then it would
Speaker 2: have gone out. There were no secrets. There was a
Speaker 2: huge group of people all talking about everything they saw.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's no sign of rocket hit them. There's
Speaker 2: talk of an aerial weapon that caused a sonic or
Speaker 2: a kind of an explosion that caused the shock wave
Speaker 2: but left no debris. I mean, we're in the realms
Speaker 2: of sci fi at this point. This doesn't exist and
Speaker 2: also doesn't explain they walked from their tent. They walked
Speaker 2: to another area. So okay, so we've kind of got
Speaker 2: through some of the big ones at that point. So
Speaker 2: I think the only evidence we have is to strongly
Speaker 2: look at the autopsy report and the types of injuries
Speaker 2: that were found on the hikers, because this explained something.
Speaker 2: So I really looked into this, and that's why I
Speaker 2: wanted to speak to, you know, the retired coroner from
Speaker 2: California spoke to a retired FBI agent, a gentleman called
Speaker 2: Mick Fennerty who's famous for being involved with a number
Speaker 2: of interesting cases, including a big part of the Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Smart kidnapping case. He was very involved and instrumental in
Speaker 2: that case. I got to speak to him, and you know,
Speaker 2: they got to look at the case reports, and certainly
Speaker 2: the coroner, chap Ken Holmes, really reviewed the autopsy report
Speaker 2: and he states and clearly states in my film, he
Speaker 2: says he cannot see a version of any of this
Speaker 2: predominantly based on the types of injuries and the spacing
Speaker 2: of where they were all found that other people were
Speaker 2: not involved in this. So basically feels that other people
Speaker 2: were involved in this. So if we look at the
Speaker 2: first four that were found had injuries consistent with punching,
Speaker 2: defensive wounds on the forearms from parrying blows, strikes to
Speaker 2: the face, the lips and the eyes that had been struck.
Speaker 2: That was very consistent with physical violence of fight. The
Speaker 2: two gentlemen that were found by the cedar tree the
Speaker 2: burns around their body. I don't go into this in
Speaker 2: the in the film because I don't have solid evidence
Speaker 2: for this, but there is a Russian the most senior
Speaker 2: Russian coroner, a forensic scientist who's been on Russian TV
Speaker 2: and talked about this a lot. He openly has said
Speaker 2: he believes those injuries to have been torture burns. He
Speaker 2: believes they were they were inflicted by other people. I
Speaker 2: was unable to get that interview, so I'm only taking
Speaker 2: that off of what I've seen on my research. So
Speaker 2: I didn't put that in the film. But so all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we've got this idea of Okay, we're
Speaker 2: other people doing this to them. Did other people jump on?
Speaker 2: And I asked Ken the coroner here, was it possible
Speaker 2: that those rib for actions could have been done if
Speaker 2: someone had jumped on, like jumping and hamping on their chests.
Speaker 2: He said, it's not impossible. He said, it's not impossible.
Speaker 2: That he goes, it would have to be a hefty person,
Speaker 2: they'd really want to do that. But it's kind of
Speaker 2: it's a difficult one. I'm not one hundred percent saying that
Speaker 2: is exactly what's happened, but it's not impossible. And then
Speaker 2: if we listened to the Russian forensic expert, she strongly
Speaker 2: believes that the girl Ludiumlia's tongue was cut out. Again,
Speaker 2: that stuff for debate, but you know, that's another piece
Speaker 2: of information so were other people involved in attacking them?
Speaker 2: And if so, where's the evidence for other people being there?
Speaker 2: And I think this is one of the strongest argument.
Speaker 2: But you know, I said earlier, we saw the footprints
Speaker 2: of the eight or nine hikers walking down the hill.
Speaker 2: Where was the footprints of the other hikers or the attackers,
Speaker 2: if there were any, Well, if they were on snow skis,
Speaker 2: which would they would have been, they wouldn't have left
Speaker 2: any traces. The own search parties skis were gone the
Speaker 2: very next day. They had trouble finding their own tracks
Speaker 2: at times because overnight all your ski lines would blow over. Now,
Speaker 2: there is no evidence of any of the hikers' footprints
Speaker 2: outside of the tent or by the cedar tree. So
Speaker 2: if there was any violence that happened at or near
Speaker 2: the ten or more likely near the cedar tree, there's
Speaker 2: no evidence of who was there. There could have been
Speaker 2: the nine people we know of, there could have been
Speaker 2: another ten we don't know, or another one or another two.
Speaker 2: So there's no evidence of that. We have no idea
Speaker 2: who could have been there, But it is very possible
Speaker 2: that one or two attackers could have forced the hikers
Speaker 2: from the tent at gunpoint and ordered them to march
Speaker 2: down the hill without leaving any trace that they were there.
Speaker 2: We would have seen the hikers prince small area. That
Speaker 2: would explain why the hikers both left all of their
Speaker 2: boots and clothing but also managed to walk down the
Speaker 2: hill in a kind of an orderly fashion. Those two
Speaker 2: things are kind of panic and not panic. That would
Speaker 2: explain that if they were ordered to march down the
Speaker 2: hill together and then did an attack, I mean, then
Speaker 2: it's kind of conjecture. You know, why would they doing
Speaker 2: this and for what reason? We don't know. I have
Speaker 2: no evidence for that. Could it be they wanted to
Speaker 2: just scare these kids for a reason. So so again,
Speaker 2: now at this point, I've got to step back, why
Speaker 2: would someone want to do this? Now? Again, fully I
Speaker 2: don't go into this too much in the film, so
Speaker 2: I don't want to, you know, make make this stuff up.
Speaker 2: We don't know, We don't have evidence for this, but
Speaker 2: there was talk that the mountain that they're on, mountain
Speaker 2: called Colin Shackle translate as the Dead Mountain in their
Speaker 2: in the local Mancy dialect local language, and they there
Speaker 2: is some evidence that partially this hill, but particularly the
Speaker 2: mountain they were aiming for Mount or Tartan is a
Speaker 2: very respected and revered place for the locals, and in
Speaker 2: many of these cases they don't want outsiders. They don't
Speaker 2: want Russians going there, but particularly they have some strong
Speaker 2: rules not to let women in these in these very
Speaker 2: respected and revered locations, it's a very big element. Now
Speaker 2: I will tell you a story that, again it isn't
Speaker 2: in the film, but did happen. This is a very
Speaker 2: documented case and it's written in a number of factual
Speaker 2: areas that some Russian some Russians were moving into an
Speaker 2: area of Khanti people, so I've mentioned Manti and Khanti people.
Speaker 2: They were moving into an area of Kanti people, in
Speaker 2: particularly a lake that's very revered by the local people.
Speaker 2: This happened about twenty years prior to the Diatlot incident.
Speaker 2: They said, whatever you do, you can't let the women
Speaker 2: out on the lake. It's forbidden. It's important to our culture.
Speaker 2: The Russians ignored this, and they let women go out
Speaker 2: on the lake to fish with the guys, and they
Speaker 2: were just fishing on the lake and doing whatever they
Speaker 2: wanted to do. The county was so upset by this
Speaker 2: they attacked the Russians and actually strangled a number of
Speaker 2: these Russians by dragging them with a rope around their
Speaker 2: neck by reindeer. So this conflict of Russians stepping on
Speaker 2: these traditional, very religious sacred places for the local indigenous people,
Speaker 2: there is somewhat of a precedent for that. So that's
Speaker 2: a documented case. I don't mention the film, but because
Speaker 2: I'm cautious here, I don't want to say that, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a story of mancy or Canty people against the Russians.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say that, right. But is it
Speaker 2: possible in any culture that one or two or three
Speaker 2: individuals can harbor ill meaning? And is it possible that
Speaker 2: some people can carry this not the whole group of people,
Speaker 2: but just a small number of them could feel angered
Speaker 2: by what this group were doing. That is possible, and
Speaker 2: it's something to be looked at. And so as I
Speaker 2: go through the case files, this is something that you
Speaker 2: kind of have to take a little bit of time with.
Speaker 2: But when you go through the case files, the conflicting
Speaker 2: evidence of the local Manti people who were involved in searching,
Speaker 2: they change their story and conflict and their stories change
Speaker 2: every time they're interviewed, So it's very confusing. That's not
Speaker 2: to say they did it. Let's be honest. They're fearful
Speaker 2: of the Russians, so would they lie to make things
Speaker 2: sound better for them as a group of people. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: So I don't think that's evidence that they did something wrong.
Speaker 2: But it is also unusual that there's definitely conflicting evidence
Speaker 2: they're lying about who's in the area. The hikers themselves,
Speaker 2: in their own diaries said they were following a Mansi
Speaker 2: trail at that time, and they've very recently seen Manti
Speaker 2: ski trails at that time in a tree lined area
Speaker 2: where the ski line would have remained. But the local
Speaker 2: Anti people when they were then interview said, oh, no,
Speaker 2: we never go near there. We never do any of this.
Speaker 2: We're never in this area. And then to conflict to that,
Speaker 2: a Manci hut that they used for storing supplies was
Speaker 2: found only one kilometer away from the incident site. So
Speaker 2: Indigenous people were in the area and they tried to
Speaker 2: say they weren't in the area. Now, is that just
Speaker 2: purely being defensive? Very well, could be, but it does
Speaker 2: mean some Manti people were in the area. Now. There
Speaker 2: is one other really interesting in case file that are
Speaker 2: a police officer father report saying he spoke to a
Speaker 2: local person, a Mansi person, who said, there are five
Speaker 2: county people somewhere living remotely in this area, very near
Speaker 2: to this site. They're not known to the Mansi and
Speaker 2: they're not really part of the bigger Kunti community. They're
Speaker 2: kind of outsiders and they're in the area. We've seen them,
Speaker 2: but they're nomadic and we don't know exactly where they are.
Speaker 2: When the investigators went back to that guy to ask him,
Speaker 2: can you give us more information about what you told us,
Speaker 2: he said, I never said that. No, I never said that.
Speaker 2: So so many conflicting reports as to who is in
Speaker 2: the area. But I come back to the evidence that
Speaker 2: we have, which is the injuries to the bodies, the
Speaker 2: signs of violence. One piece of information I forgot to
Speaker 2: mention was again the Russian frantic expert, when she reviewed
Speaker 2: the autopsy reports, he said that there were marks around
Speaker 2: Eagle d'atlov's wrists and ankles that were consistent with tying
Speaker 2: ligature marks. That and she said there were scrapes around there,
Speaker 2: so at one point it looks like he may have
Speaker 2: been tied. So yeah, there's a lot of evidence for
Speaker 2: violence and not a lot of evidence for anything else.
Speaker 1: You know. I remember from the episode talking to Paul, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, does not think this was an AVALANCHI there.
Speaker 1: He thinks that. He thinks it's the Russians. He did
Speaker 1: not bring up the Mancy because the information we had
Speaker 1: was that there was not a religious site in the area.
Speaker 1: There's no motivation for anybody indigenous people to come because
Speaker 1: they're not violating any rules. You're saying something different though,
Speaker 1: based on your research and reviewing the files.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so, very quickly. And I spoke to Manci
Speaker 2: experts and they were very against this idea obviously, and
Speaker 2: they said that you know this, they would do that.
Speaker 2: But again, I think we're talking at two ends here. One,
Speaker 2: we're talking about Manci as a group of people. Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: I met a number of anti people who spoke to
Speaker 2: someone on this trip, wonderful people out to help us.
Speaker 2: But can one or two or three individuals be bad apples?
Speaker 2: Of course, we know that in any culture. We know
Speaker 2: that we have that in our culture. So I'm not
Speaker 2: talking about a group of people. I'm talking about individuals
Speaker 2: that may happen to have lived in this area, right,
Speaker 2: And so in terms of the hill that they were on, Shackle,
Speaker 2: it wasn't specifically a religious site, that's true, So that's
Speaker 2: where that area came from. It wasn't a particularly religious
Speaker 2: or sacred hill or mountain, but they were aiming from
Speaker 2: mount or top ten, which is a very religious and
Speaker 2: sacred place to the Mansi people and the county people.
Speaker 2: So they were aiming. So the site they were on
Speaker 2: wasn't but they were going to one.
Speaker 1: I have a question, but I have to refer to
Speaker 1: some notes real quick, because we could be wrong. Who
Speaker 1: knows that it was about a theory that Paul did
Speaker 1: not believe, but I was pretty latched onto. So just
Speaker 1: make mental notes of this please that we can go
Speaker 1: through Liam the memoirs that Uri published. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: if there's anything significant in that. The theory that I
Speaker 1: had thought about that I don't know if Paul bought
Speaker 1: into or not, is Will you remind me of the
Speaker 1: people who were in the ravine. Was Sasha in the ravine?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay? Did he have I felt like in the
Speaker 1: ravine I remember someone having significantly less injuries than everybody else,
Speaker 1: fewer injuries. Do you remember that was there someone who
Speaker 1: was not, was it Sasha.
Speaker 2: No, Sasha was one of the ones who had the
Speaker 2: most injuries. He had the crushing chest winds. Okay, so
Speaker 2: his injuries were horrendous along with Lemilias were horrendous. And
Speaker 2: then the two other guys in their their injuries weren't
Speaker 2: as bad. But yeah, again, they all of them across
Speaker 2: the board had well I say that, actually we couldn't
Speaker 2: tell about defensive and kind of like knuckle and facial
Speaker 2: injuries on those ones because they'd been in the ravine
Speaker 2: and so we don't know a lot of their facial
Speaker 2: tissue had gone basically, so we couldn't figure that out.
Speaker 1: So I guess what I was thinking about is and
Speaker 1: trying to work through this, is is there any way
Speaker 1: one of them would have turned on the others? And
Speaker 1: if so, who would that have been? Just if you're
Speaker 1: full of conjecture.
Speaker 2: Here, right, So there was a theory that Okay, So
Speaker 2: Sasha Kalovatov is the thirty seven year old ex military
Speaker 2: He served in World War Two. What happened to like
Speaker 2: was he he was the outsider. He came into the
Speaker 2: group last minute because he wanted this certificate as well,
Speaker 2: and he didn't really know the group. The rest of
Speaker 2: them were all friends. He was an outsider. So straight
Speaker 2: away everyone says, Okay, well we've this has got to
Speaker 2: be it, right, is this guy has got to be
Speaker 2: part of the problem. No, there's no evidence that he
Speaker 2: was a part of the problem. And if anything, he
Speaker 2: was found in the ravine with the worst injuries out
Speaker 2: of most of them. So yeah, there's no sign that
Speaker 2: he caused the problem between the group. There's theories and
Speaker 2: talk that maybe he and Igor Ego dall Love was
Speaker 2: the leader of the group at twenty three years old.
Speaker 2: There was some theories that maybe there was friction between
Speaker 2: who was making the right choices and deciding on the
Speaker 2: right change of roots, stuff like that. There's a little
Speaker 2: bit in the diaries that hinted that might have been
Speaker 2: getting on each other's nerves a little bit maybe, But
Speaker 2: that doesn't explain how nine people all suffer wild injuries.
Speaker 2: They didn't divide up into two teams and beat each
Speaker 2: other to death. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: I also remember reading that Igor was being blamed. I
Speaker 1: guess through maybe it was the Soviet government who was
Speaker 1: blaming him for taking bad roots or making some mistakes.
Speaker 1: Was that the case.
Speaker 2: To some degree, Yeah, I think that Again it comes
Speaker 2: back to the idea of the Russian government wanted to
Speaker 2: close this story up, and in doing so that might
Speaker 2: have been somewhat innocent. That might have been to do
Speaker 2: hiding talk of ballistic mistiles tests and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But in doing so, in trying to close the case
Speaker 2: down very quickly, they got more scrutiny and they got
Speaker 2: more eyes looking at them. That's why a lot of
Speaker 2: people say the Russian military must have done this in
Speaker 2: some way. And so, yeah, there was a theory that
Speaker 2: maybe Ego the outlaw had taken a different route, or
Speaker 2: maybe it seems they set off late in the day
Speaker 2: that they were going up the hill. They don't know
Speaker 2: exactly why they left later than they should have in
Speaker 2: the day. And you know, there's some people to try
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, Ego makes made a mistake. He should
Speaker 2: have waited another day in this bad weather conditions, rather
Speaker 2: than starting halfway through the day and only getting halfway
Speaker 2: up the hill. So, you know, we can look back
Speaker 2: at any decision like that and decide whether or not
Speaker 2: it was a good choice or a poor choice. But
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the result of and even if
Speaker 2: even if it was a mistake, even if it caused
Speaker 2: the conflict between he and Sasha, still doesn't explain the
Speaker 2: wild amount of injuries that then followed.
Speaker 1: I remember also some of the injuries being the appearance
Speaker 1: that some of them had bitten off their own fingers.
Speaker 2: No, there was no evidence that as far as I'm where,
Speaker 2: all their fingers were still intact. But frostpin.
Speaker 1: Okay. So then you have the survivor that you had
Speaker 1: mentioned before, the one who didn't end up going on
Speaker 1: the trip, and then he publishes his memoirs in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Uri Juden published some memoirs, and you know, my
Speaker 2: mind's going back a bit from when I read that.
Speaker 2: But the feeling was amongst Uri Juden, The feeling was
Speaker 2: amongst Yury Kensevich, he's the guy who ran the Diatlov Foundation.
Speaker 2: Was it was the Russian military did this, But kind
Speaker 2: of across the board, everyone feels it was the Russian
Speaker 2: military did this in Russia. For me, I have to
Speaker 2: read between the lines on that they grew up in
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. They grew up and lived through this
Speaker 2: government power that will force anything on you and do
Speaker 2: anything they want to you. And so there was a
Speaker 2: real sense of paranoia about what the Soviet Union was
Speaker 2: capable of and was willing to do. And so it
Speaker 2: made no sense to them to not be the Russian
Speaker 2: military that they were blamed for many horrendous things that
Speaker 2: they felt it must be. But to my mind, it's
Speaker 2: a really complicated, weird story for the Russian military or
Speaker 2: government to want to do this, because if they did it,
Speaker 2: And I go back to one of the interviewees, a
Speaker 2: lady called Svetlana Os who wrote a wonderful book on
Speaker 2: this called Don't Go There, and she is Russian and
Speaker 2: she now lives in the US, and she says, look, hey,
Speaker 2: we have a saying in Russia, and it is if
Speaker 2: there's no body, there's no evidence. And her feeling was,
Speaker 2: if the Russian government had wanted to do this, we
Speaker 2: never would have seen any of those hikers ever again.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So.
Speaker 2: She fully does not believe that it was the Russian military. Now,
Speaker 2: if it was the Russian military, why would they then
Speaker 2: spend one of the most expensive search missions to try
Speaker 2: and find these people, And more importantly, why would they
Speaker 2: include so many of the hiker's friends and colleagues from
Speaker 2: the university, students, non Russian governmental people. Why would they
Speaker 2: include them in the search to potentially who would give
Speaker 2: away anything they got wrong? You know, it muddies the
Speaker 2: whole thing. If if the Russian government really did this
Speaker 2: and then wanted it to go away, they wouldn't bring
Speaker 2: in civilians to help find them and find any potentially
Speaker 2: evidence that pointed towards them. And also it was sloppy,
Speaker 2: you know, it's sloppy. People were found all over the place.
Speaker 2: It's it doesn't make a lot of sense that and
Speaker 2: for what reason? What could they have possibly have seen
Speaker 2: that in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. This
Speaker 2: other hiking group also saw these lights in the sky
Speaker 2: and realized their oblistic missiles. They weren't attacked, they weren't
Speaker 2: told not to talk about it. Actually, I think they
Speaker 2: probably weren told not to talk too much about it,
Speaker 2: but they did. And so yeah, there's no there's no
Speaker 2: real reason for Russian military to be there or for
Speaker 2: them to have been involved in it. And that's my problem.
Speaker 2: So I do believe people were involved in this. I
Speaker 2: do believe that it was a physical attack on them
Speaker 2: that leaves us with people that may have lived in
Speaker 2: the area, or the Russian military, And for my money,
Speaker 2: I can't see any evidence whatsoever that the Russian military
Speaker 2: would do it in this way.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised though, that the Russian military or the government
Speaker 1: would not have said they did it that group, that
Speaker 1: indigenous group, was the one who did it. You would
Speaker 1: think that would kind of pull everybody off of any
Speaker 1: other theories. But why do you think they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: done that.
Speaker 2: Well, for a very good reason. Actually, there had been
Speaker 2: a lot of fights. There had been almost warlike fights
Speaker 2: twenty thirty years prior to this between Kanti Amanti people
Speaker 2: with Russians encroaching onto what they believed to be their
Speaker 2: lands was their lands, and so these fights were real.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were military small battles with indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: as the Russians moved further and further north, and so
Speaker 2: they didn't want to inflame that anymore by saying they
Speaker 2: did it, You know, that would things were beginning to
Speaker 2: calm down. The indigenous peoples knew there's not too much
Speaker 2: they can do with it. There's kind of treaties to
Speaker 2: some degree of you kind of leave us alone, will
Speaker 2: leave you alone. So I don't think the Russians would
Speaker 2: have wanted to inflame that anymore.
Speaker 1: So what remains the official cause of their disappearance and
Speaker 1: then subsequent deaths. What is the bottom line, as at
Speaker 1: least the Russian government or the history book say it is.
Speaker 1: Is it the avalanche? The slab avalanche.
Speaker 2: So because of all this attention, I mean, it's been
Speaker 2: a huge YouTube and social media story, and in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: the Russian government reopened the case, which everyone thought this
Speaker 2: was going to be really important. They reopened the case,
Speaker 2: they reinvestigated it, they found that it was an avalanche
Speaker 2: and hypothermia, kind of reaffirming what they tried to say
Speaker 2: from the beginning. And then within months there was a
Speaker 2: something of a scandal as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: that people involved in making that report were linked to
Speaker 2: I don't want to say too much, but essentially that
Speaker 2: report was then thrown out. So they spent a couple
Speaker 2: of years making this report and within a year they
Speaker 2: threw it out. Well, so the official report still is
Speaker 2: as it was in nineteen fifty nine. The hikers died
Speaker 2: as they died from hypothermia. All of the hikers died
Speaker 2: from hypothermia from an unknown compelling force.
Speaker 1: So why is this story so important that you are
Speaker 1: we willing to go risk your own life to go
Speaker 1: out to this location. I mean, I know you said
Speaker 1: that that you had some scary moments there. Why do
Speaker 1: you think this story resonates with you and also just
Speaker 1: with people in general that it's not quite a true
Speaker 1: crime story, but maybe it is.
Speaker 2: I think it's two things. I think one like, I'm
Speaker 2: a huge mystery fan, and I was looking for a
Speaker 2: mystery story that you know. I'm an outdoors person as well,
Speaker 2: you know, and I live in California and I get
Speaker 2: to be in the mountains a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: and I really wanted to go on this adventure. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, the thing that drove me to
Speaker 2: it was really that it drives me crazy. This social
Speaker 2: media and this sort of armchair investigators where people say
Speaker 2: I know what happened because I saw a YouTube video
Speaker 2: about it, and I'm like, this is crazy. These aren't facts.
Speaker 2: People re telling the same stories over and over. These
Speaker 2: aren't facts. And you know the fact that people were
Speaker 2: trying to say the YETI did it was actually one
Speaker 2: of the drivers that drove me so crazy. That I
Speaker 2: wanted to go and find some real evidence of this.
Speaker 2: And you know, I haven't solved the case. I don't
Speaker 2: know who did it, but I feel that I have
Speaker 2: disproved a lot of the things that I can speak
Speaker 2: well to why I don't believe Avalanche explains this, and
Speaker 2: I believe that other people were involved, and I still
Speaker 2: hold that belief today, and people are still out there
Speaker 2: trying to come up with their crazy theories. But I say,
Speaker 2: you know, unless you do an investigation, these aren't facts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I know it doesn't think. You know,
Speaker 1: people think when they speculate like that that it doesn't
Speaker 1: hurt people. You know, these people died and their families
Speaker 1: are in Russia and all of that. But to me,
Speaker 1: that's not even quite the point. It's the whole morality
Speaker 1: behind it. It's spreading this stuff as if these are
Speaker 1: not real people who didn't have families, And to me,
Speaker 1: it just shows if you're willing to speculate about this case,
Speaker 1: you're willing to speculate about a case where the mother
Speaker 1: has lost her daughter and she has to hear this stuff.
Speaker 1: So for me, I really think about that kind of
Speaker 1: case and think it's important to get information, not even
Speaker 1: necessarily to solve it, but to just gain more information,
Speaker 1: but in the most ethical way, not by speculating. And
Speaker 1: I like that you stopped short of too much speculation
Speaker 1: because it's not based on evidence that you found. And
Speaker 1: that's what good journalism is, I think, in good filmmaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I think that's important. And it's getting sloppier,
Speaker 2: I think unfortunately, and I didn't mention it before, but
Speaker 2: there was actually a film that somewhat inspired me to
Speaker 2: go there amongst all of the social media, and there's
Speaker 2: a film out there called I think it's called The
Speaker 2: Russian Yetti Attack or something, and a serious American channel
Speaker 2: made of film, and it felt like a very real
Speaker 2: investigation to begin with, and then they fully went down
Speaker 2: the mockumentary route of the Russian yetti attack these hikers,
Speaker 2: and I thought that was so disrespectful, Yeah, to the hikers' families,
Speaker 2: the people that knew them, the friends, and it really
Speaker 2: made me angry, and it made me think we need
Speaker 2: to just we need to know some facts. And I
Speaker 2: don't know, I was sat at home and thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: who's going to go out there and find these facts?
Speaker 2: And at that point in time, I had the opportunity,
Speaker 2: I had the cameras, and I just jumped on it.
Speaker 1: And that, you know, I often think that when I'm
Speaker 1: writing something or making a podcast, and I think, if
Speaker 1: the family members, even if this is something that happened
Speaker 1: two years ago, if I'm uncomfortable with the family members
Speaker 1: looking at this first, then this is not something I
Speaker 1: should include because it's not fair. And so I do
Speaker 1: think that all that speculation you really, I mean, what
Speaker 1: if you were sitting across from one of the Sasha's
Speaker 1: family member and they look at this, Are you comfortable
Speaker 1: with whatever you're putting out? I would guess you are.
Speaker 1: I would guess most other people wouldn't be right.
Speaker 2: I think that's an important thing. And to that point,
Speaker 2: I had a very difficult time including a lot of
Speaker 2: the photographs that I did in the film. Now, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of photographs that are the autopsy report photographs,
Speaker 2: and I put them in the film. I tried to
Speaker 2: blur some of the worst parts of it, but there
Speaker 2: are a few that are really horrendous images I chose
Speaker 2: to put them in. I really really struggled with this because,
Speaker 2: for exactly what you're saying, their family members seeing this
Speaker 2: must be terrible. The reason why I chose to put
Speaker 2: them in is they are everywhere all over the internet.
Speaker 2: They're on every YouTube video, they're on They're widely available.
Speaker 2: You can find them everywhere, and they're important to my
Speaker 2: telling of the story, which is the only evidence we
Speaker 2: have is the injuries to the bodies. It's the only
Speaker 2: thing we really know, and so I use them to
Speaker 2: tell that story. But I was very uncomfortable when the
Speaker 2: film came out. I was really expecting some horrible backlash
Speaker 2: from using those pitches in that way. Unfortunately it didn't happen,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure it can't be pleasant for anyone who
Speaker 2: work close to the hikers, And you know, I felt
Speaker 2: like it needed to be told that way, but it
Speaker 2: was still a difficult decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. And what's to me so unique about this
Speaker 1: story is when you have these nine people and their
Speaker 1: injuries are so similar and it's so consistent, you know,
Speaker 1: it tells the story. And you have you know, a pathologists,
Speaker 1: you have you know, experts and forensics that can look
Speaker 1: at the injuries of all these people and say, if
Speaker 1: it was just one person, I don't know, maybe you know,
Speaker 1: we could explain away or raw hitting them or something.
Speaker 1: But when you have it happened to all nine people
Speaker 1: and there in different locations, there has to be this
Speaker 1: one explanation. So it's sort of a unique, a unique
Speaker 1: you know, experiment trying to figure out what happened. So
Speaker 1: you've done remarkable work, and I'm very proud of you
Speaker 1: for having all of this, because you know, this case
Speaker 1: has just confounded people for you know, seventy years or so.
Speaker 1: So I apology you for everything you've done on this.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Yeah, that's I wanted to just
Speaker 2: bring a little bit more clarity as much as I
Speaker 2: could to the case. And you know, I really appreciate people,
Speaker 2: you know, still watching the film, and you know, and
Speaker 2: hopefully I do think when people watch the film they
Speaker 2: get to feel who the hikers were. I think I've
Speaker 2: used the diaries in a way that allows you to
Speaker 2: see them as people and not just some you know,
Speaker 2: unrelatable mystery.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All About the
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlok and
Speaker 1: Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true
Speaker 1: crime podcast tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
Speaker 1: is Alexis Amrosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This
Speaker 1: episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Speaker 1: Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and
Speaker 1: Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold More.
Speaker 1: And if you know of a historical crime that could
Speaker 1: use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked,
Speaker 1: email us at info at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also
Speaker 1: take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words