Nine Hikers Vanished Into the Mountains. Searchers Found Their Frozen Bodies—Then the Autopsies Got Weird.

• Nine hikers were killed mysteriously, but new evidence suggests the cause of death was military intervention.

• Did he make a failed R-12 ballistics? rocket Will the launch result in a nitric acid mist that kills walkers?

The potential truth of what actually killed nine hikers in the remote mountains of Russia in 1959 may be even stranger than reported. conspiracy theories—a yeti, anyone?—swam so far. Could the evidence now show that Russian ballistic rocket launches failed and that floating nitric acid fog was the real culprit?

In the tragedy known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident, a group of nine students from the Ural Polytechnic Institute, led by Igor Dyatlov, planned a 16-day, 245-kilometer march, starting on February 2, 1959. However, when the marchers did not register, a search operation began on February 20. Searchers eventually found all nine bodies in their underwear near torn tents.

Strange facial injuries, including a fractured skull and missing eyes, combined with valuables left nearby, led investigators at the time to believe that all of the hikers had exited the tent together and died suddenly. It was quickly closed in May 1959 while a criminal case was opened. Official cause of death: exposure to the elements.

But this was not a clear enough explanation for the disaster, and for decades many people have developed theories about what actually caused the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Add in reports that the morgue was immediately closed, the KGB intervened (and even sent the marchers’ organs for laboratory study), and regular procedures were curtailed, and the truth was not easily revealed.

The 2019 effort by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Urals Federal District hoped to dispel the wildest theories. Doesn’t seem to have helped much. The office concluded that the avalanche forced the hikers to suddenly abandon their tents and run about 50 meters away. However, they could not return due to weather conditions and froze to death.

HE The theory could not stand either. one in 2023 Russian bulletin he reported at a press conference laying out a new theory, and relatives of the dead hikers appeared to agree. A failed Russian rocket launch sparked a man-made disaster that struck unaware hikers, researchers said.

Vladislav Karelin, who was a researcher in 1959 and is now a researcher on the Dyatlov Pass Incident, says the avalanche idea doesn’t ring true. He recalls that “rocks were sticking out” in the area and there wasn’t enough snow to warrant an avalanche. What he did remember, however, was that the entire search party saw a fireball moving from east to west in the area. Other witnesses from the same period also said they saw a cannon firing from south to north. More from Karelin, according to the Russian report:

“An unidentified object flew from south to north, then changed direction and flew from east to west. Only some kind of winged, unidentified object could change the trajectory of movement.”

Researcher Vadim Skibinsky believes that fireballs are exhaust gases from a launched rocket. Not only did Russia conduct missile launch tests throughout February 1959, but reports also say that the snow around the camp had melted but not in other nearby locations, suggesting a man-made rather than a weather event.

The research team believes that the launch and subsequent failure of the R-12 liquid single-stage medium-range ballistic missile resulted in nitric acid mist reaching the tent. Because the tests were conducted in mountain range and nitric acid is a colorless, highly corrosive mineral acid used as an oxidizer in liquid-fueled rockets that can cause confusion and pain, the search for the truth about the Dyatlov Pass Incident may have gone far beyond exposure and avalanche into a straight fog.

But was it nitric acid fog?

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