Dyatlov Pass

**Discussion begins at 3:40**

In January 1959, nine experienced Soviet hikers from the Ural Polytechnic Institute set off on a ski trek in the northern Ural Mountains, aiming to reach Mount Otorten. The group, led by Igor Dyatlov, consisted of eight men and two women, almost all in their early to mid-20s.  These experienced hikers were supposed to send a telegram at each checkpoint they reached.  The first telegram came, the second did not.  A search party went looking for them and on February 26, 1959, their abandoned campsite was discovered.  Inside the tents were neatly folded clothing, with gear left behind (ie., there may be one shoe in the tent but the other was. Missing).  The tent was slashed open from the inside.  Bodies were found in various locations, in various states of dress. The bodies had swapped clothing (for example, male clothing on the females and vice versa).  Six of the hikers cause of death was hypothermia, and the other 3 were killed d/t chest and head trauma.  What makes this even odder, is that he clothing revealed hgh levels of radiation.  Locals and soldiers reported strange orange lights in the night sky around this time.  And the decomposing bodies had orange tinted skin and grey hair.  The Soviet authorities initially ruled that the hikers died due to an "unknown compelling force".   The investigation was quickly closed, and the files were classified.  But what really happened?  Was it an avalanche, recent investigtions by the Russian government would have you believe?  Was the military somehow involved?  Could it have been a Yeti?  Or was there something more paranormal at play? 

Transcript

Welcome.

To the 2SchemeQueens.

Count them.

Well, I feel like Tanner counts.

He's been here for like 90% of our episodes, and he's a queen.

Where's Kait?

Kait is investigating Big Pharma from within.

You're right.

She's on a little medical leave of absence, and she's going to be doing some work while she's there.

Yeah.

She's moved entirely, and I'm hating summertime heat.

It's only June.

I know.

I think this is going to be a record-breaking summer.

It was like 92 yesterday, and I was going to go sit outside like I usually do every day.

And I was like, is it already too hot?

This is going to be one of those summers where I stay inside every day and just look at the sun from afar.

So is it time for our drink check?

Drink check.

It's a good one.

Yeah.

She's talked about it before.

It's not that different from what we had a few weeks ago, but tell us about it.

This is a drink that I've had many times.

It's one of my favorite restaurants that I frequent called Liberty Taft.

And this drink is called the Masonic.

We've definitely talked about this drink and this restaurant.

Because it's a previous Freemason Lodge.

So we're having the Masonic.

Just some, I looked it up, it has to be Maker's Mark.

So we have some Maker's Mark, some homemade lemonade and some mint from the garden.

It's delicious.

And does it taste as good as?

I think so.

I think it tastes the same, if not a little better.

Oh, okay.

Over, do you see how much ice I put in your glass?

Yeah, I was going to say the perfect ice ratio.

It was like a cup of crushed ice.

You get it in person and it's not as cold, you know?

Okay, so just because we're all sweating and dealing with the summer heat, I guess we're having the summer cocktail.

Heck yeah.

But you know, get ready to get a little, I don't know what I'm trying to be.

Pretending to be cold.

Yeah, ready to feel like you might be freezing as you hear the story.

This is a winter story.

Yes.

Today we're talking about the Dyatlov Pass.

This was a listener request.

Oh.

This, our friend Hannah sent me this TikTok about, I think actually a couple people.

I know Hannah sent it to me, but maybe one other person sent it to me.

And I saved it and I sent it to Megan.

And that's what we're talking about today.

Yep.

And initially I was like, oh, this is just another Colleen mystery, disguised as a conspiracy theory, but.

Posted on TikTok.

There's a lot, no, but I mean, you know, sometimes you're like, this missing woman.

Megan will never forget the all of this episode.

Roll back.

So, you know what, but I think you get a lot of good ideas from TikTok.

Yeah.

So anyway, so we're doing a deep, deep dive into this old story, which is pretty mysterious.

And there's a lot of potential theories.

So.

Theorises.

Let's get into it.

Let me tell you about the Dyatlov Pass, which to be clear was only named that for this experience.

That's the name of the leader of this expedition.

So at the time that this all happened, it did not have a name.

In the Ural, in the Ural Mountains.

So January 1959, nine experienced Soviet hikers from the Ural Polytechnic Institute set off on a hike in the Northern Ural Mountains aiming to reach Mount Otorten.

Otorten.

Otorten.

I'm going to have a lot of pronunciation issues on this one.

I feel like this is forgiven.

The group led by Igor Dyatlov consisted of eight men and two women almost all in their early to mid twenties.

These experienced hikers were supposed to send a telegram at each checkpoint they reached.

The first telegram came, the second did not.

A search party went looking for them and on February 26, 1959, their abandoned campsite was discovered.

Inside the tents were neatly folded clothing with gear left behind.

For example, there may have been one shoe in the tent, but the other was missing.

But most of their warm weather gear and equipment left behind.

The tent was slashed open from the inside.

Bodies were found in various locations in various states of dress.

The bodies had swapped clothing.

For example, there was male clothing on females and vice versa.

Six of the hikers' cause of death was hypothermia, and the other three were killed due to chest and head trauma.

What makes this even odder is that the clothing revealed high levels of radiation.

Locals and soldiers reported strange orange lights in the night sky around this time.

The decomposing bodies had discolored skin and gray hair.

The Soviet authorities initially ruled that the hikers had died to a quote, unknown, compelling force, quote.

What the frick does that mean?

The investigation was quickly closed and the files were classified.

But what really happened?

Was it an avalanche as recent investigations by the Russian government, would have you believe?

Was the military somehow involved?

Could it have been a Yeti?

I was going to say Yeti.

I was going to say Yeti.

Or was there something more paranormal at play?

My money was on Yeti.

But the slash from within, I'm like, did somebody go Yeti?

Yeah.

I guess you've seen the TikTok.

And so Yeti is your initial theory?

Yeah.

The radiation is throwing me off though.

I'm like, how would they have been exposed to something with radiation?

Like, were they in an area of like military experiments?

Well, that's one of the theories.

I love when I guess it right.

You do.

So hold that thought.

So part of what makes the story so interesting is that there were four diaries on this trip.

Like journaling?

Yes.

Okay.

We have five cameras.

They actually were keeping like a group journal that they were like writing as like a newspaper, like a fake newspaper.

How long was this trip supposed to be for?

It was about, it was going to be about three weeks.

Okay.

But not the whole three weeks was in the woods.

Okay.

So anyway, we have a lot of like documentation up until whatever happened happened.

So that kind of also leads, I think, to interest in this mystery.

So in 1959, Igor Dyatlov was leading a group of these 10 experienced hikers, like I said, from Ural Polytechnical Institute on an expedition across the northern Ural Mountains to Mount Otorten.

This was a challenging 300 kilometer trek, but the hikers were all experienced grade two hikers, who would be certified as grade three hikers after this expedition.

And that is the highest certification you can get in the USSR.

So these are not a bunch of novices.

Professionals.

Correct.

They're in this expedition club at the college, and they do this thing all the time.

So January 23rd, the group of 10 starts their trek.

So again, initially, I said they didn't spend the whole time in the woods.

They've got to get to their starting point, right?

So they're taking trains, trucks, horses even to get to the start of the hike, which is again, in the middle of the, in the Ural Mountains, in the middle of the USSR.

Okay.

So January 28th, they're just starting kind of their hiking portion.

And 21 year old Yuri Uden actually left the expedition.

It says in some places that he had chronic, I read like rheumatoid arthritis maybe, I heard he had some cardiac issues and then somewhere else it said that he had like sciatic pain from all of this, all these modes of transportation they had had to take to even like get to this hike.

And it sounds like he was just kind of like slowing everyone down.

So they cut him?

Well, I think he cut himself.

Oh, okay.

So like, whoa.

So in the end, we're talking about a total of seven men and two women here.

So he leaves, he lives, he's the only survivor of our story.

He was supposed to be the medic on this though.

So that's unfortunate that they lost their medic.

So now the group of nine is continuing on, just to recap for you.

Yes, ma'am.

The hikers.

So we had Igor Dyatlov, who's a 23-year-old organizer and leader of the Expedition.

23?

Yeah, they're all in their young 20s, except for one.

He's the most experienced member of the club.

He was a radio engineering student at UPI, and he was found with Xena's photos in his notebook.

He was supposedly courting her at the time of the event.

Wait, that's kind of cute.

Yeah.

They both died?

They both died.

That's sad.

We had Yuri.

Yuri.

There's multiple Yuris.

Okay.

One of the Yuris is the one who bailed, the medic.

Right.

Okay, this other Yuri, Yuri Doroshenko, he's a 21-year-old radio engineering student.

They said he didn't have a lot of money, but he was very brave.

He had scared a bear away on an expedition without any weapons.

On a previous expedition.

Previous expedition, which had actually caused him to impress Zina.

Oh, so multiple men were after Zina.

Well, I think the story is that Zina might have dated him.

They had broken up.

She'd written a letter to her friend saying, who do I want to go on this trip with him?

But like, apparently it was all, everyone's like, it was all good by then.

This is drama.

It was all cordial.

She was an engineering major as well and very experienced hiker.

And then we had Layudmila Dubnina.

I didn't, Dubnina.

I didn't even want to say everyone's names because I didn't want to botch them so badly, but she's a 20 year old.

She was the youngest of the group.

She was a student of construction industry economics.

She was a track athlete, an ardent communist.

Red flag.

I read that she was a little bit like stick up the bum, but that she had loosened up as of late.

And it was like fitting in with this crowd.

Alexander Kolevitov, he was a nuclear physics student.

He was very private, very serious, very shy, but very smart.

So there's not a lot of photos of him because he was always kind of hiding from the camera.

Right.

And he, they said, he got along with everyone, but he used to drive them crazy because they all took this vow, they weren't going to smoke.

Oh, and he fucking smoked all the time.

He brought his pipe and he smoked his pipe the whole time.

Good for him, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, I wonder if it was like a...

He truly couldn't quit.

If they were like really pissed at him or if it was just like, he was just like...

He was like pulling a Kate and was like, let me just keep poking.

We had Rustem Slobodin.

He's 23 years old.

He was a recent graduate as well, but he had been recruited because he's buddies with Igor.

And he was like the most athletic of the bunch.

His dad was like, I can't believe he couldn't make it out of there because he was like such a badass.

That's intense.

And then Nicolas Thabeau Brignol, Brignol, I don't know, French.

He was like the grandson of a French immigrant.

25-year-old graduate of the Industrial Civic Construction Program.

Again, really serious, really mature.

And so he bonded with that 37-year-old that I said everyone was like weirded out that he was coming.

So that's Semyon.

He was a 37-year-old.

Again, he's like a World War II vet.

I'm going to tell you a little bit more about him.

Oh, I forgot this is the 50s.

Yeah.

And he kind of joined in the last minute, but sounds like he fit in with the group.

He was actually publishing, he was in charge of their little newspaper they were writing together.

That's kind of cute that they were doing that.

I bet this was a really fun trip up until they all died.

It does sound that way, doesn't it?

Now, the group of nine is continuing on, and they leave a cache of supplies at the start of the hike for when they're on their way back, kind of like in the wood, and then they start their hike.

They only make it about a mile and a half, sort of up the side of this mountain, and then they hunker down and they kind of dig out a little platform for their tent, and put up their tent.

And that's the last photograph we have of this green.

Oh my god, that is so trippy.

Of the bodies, did we locate everybody?

We did.

Interesting.

And everybody's dead?

Yep.

Oh my god.

And there's sort of like three different crime scenes.

And so again, the picture of them digging out this hole for the tent, it does look kind of brutal.

There's like a lot of snow coming down.

And then the last diary entry we have for many of them is from that same day, and it says, it is difficult to imagine such a comfort on the ridge with shrill howling wind hundreds of kilometers away from human settlements.

So they were supposed to complete this trek on February 12th.

When they arrived at their endpoint, and kind of like when they returned to civilization, they're supposed to send this telegram saying we've arrived to the city.

But when that medic left, the leader, Dyatlov, did say, hey, I expect that it's going to take us longer than February 12th to finish this trek.

So initially, no one was concerned that they didn't like immediately reach out.

I'm wondering, did he say that on purpose?

But by February 20th, nobody had heard from them.

And so they're actually, I think one of their sisters is the first one who kind of starts panicking and they all start calling each other and they reach out and they're like, hey, we got to declare our family members missing.

Oh my God.

So volunteers and military searched for them.

And their tent was allegedly discovered on February 26th.

One of the documentaries actually said that it may have been discovered two days prior, but it wasn't reported until the 26th because that's when bodies were found.

But around February 26th, they find the tent and then pretty nearby, they find the first bodies.

So the campsite was interesting.

The student who discovered the tent said, the tent was half torn down and covered with snow.

It was empty and all the group's belongings and shoes had been left behind.

So most of their belongings remained inside the tent.

We come to find out is that actually there were holes in the tent as though someone had cut from the inside out, right?

So someone trying to cut out of the tent.

And there were eight to nine sets of footprints, some barefoot, some in socks, some in one shoe, and the footprints led down to the edge of a nearby wood.

So what's interesting also about these footprints is that they were consistent with like a normal walking leisurely pace, not running, not frantic, nothing like that.

So the searchers follow these tracks about 1600 feet.

Then they kind of lost them.

They were covered in snow, but they continue.

So almost a mile from the tent to the forest edge, under a Siberian pine, they found remnants of a small fire and two bodies, shoeless, dressed only in shirts, underwear, and light socks.

And again, this would have been like negative 22 degree weather, negative 30 for anyone who's-

They're rocking with no shoes...

.

Celsius.

Yep.

There was evidence of an old fire, like I mentioned.

And there was also evidence that someone had climbed a tree.

Like they said, there were some chunks of skin on the tree, and branches were broken almost 10 feet up.

So the thought was like, were they trying to find their tent?

Were they running or climbing away from something?

Or yeah, or were they like, oh, we flood a Yeti.

Let's see if we can find the Yeti.

Like, looking for something.

You decide what they could have been doing later.

Again, I told you there's some notes of like discolored skin, maybe some foam at the mouth.

Would you think maybe jaundice?

Or it's like different descriptors than that?

Somewhere I saw orange, somewhere I saw purple.

I mean, I think it could be just like decomposition, or it could just be like levitity, the way the blood settled.

Yeah, interesting.

They had also discovered three people at various locations who seemed to be returning to the camp.

So we have the tent almost a mile kind of down this mountain.

We have the edge of these woods.

That's where they find these two bodies.

And then if you kind of return back towards the tent in the direction of the tent at 100 feet, at 1600 feet and at 2100 feet, they found three separate bodies.

So these bodies were better dressed.

They still did not have boots, hats or gloves on, but you know, they had pants on and better layers.

Okay.

And they were under just a few centimeters of snow.

One of these victims had multiple skull fractures, but the cause of death for all five of these bodies was hypothermia.

So at first that's all they find.

The MEs looking at these bodies, and they concluded that all had died of hypothermia.

And they'd all died within six to eight hours of their last meal.

There actually was a theory that dinner had been interrupted, perhaps because they had their food on a plate.

And anyone who's camping knows you're not going to leave your food out.

You either eat it or you hide it or whatever.

Right.

So the Mansi are the local indigenous people.

And they were initially accused of involvement, but they were pretty quickly cleared.

And the reason they were cleared is because, again, the tent was cut from the inside.

So the thought was that something had caused them to...

Everybody go crazy.

Well, something had caused them to be so fearful that they would cut out the tent from the inside and flee without basic clothing and needs.

And the Mansi actually ended up volunteering to help in the search for the remaining hikers.

So then May 5th, a couple months go by, the snow has started to melt, and the last four bodies are discovered in a ravine, about 250 feet from the tree in the opposite direction of the tent.

So we had those three people who were fleeing back to the tent.

These four look like they made it past the tree line and are continuing the opposite direction, potentially toward their cache of food that they had stored 12.5 miles away.

Yeah.

So these bodies were, it sounds like they kind of made a little den to sit in, but it was near this running water, so they ended up submerged.

I think the snow came down, and they had this sort of avalanche situation, and then they were submerged, and they like, ravine.

Those cause of death drowning, or like they had died before that.

I'm so happy you asked, because we have a different cause of death.

But these bodies had been kind of like submerged, partially submerged in water for two months, so you have to expect some like level of horrific decomposition, right?

Yes, of course.

So they all had damage to their face.

So whether that's missing eyes, two of them had missing eyes.

So one of them had a missing tongue, they're like missing lips, missing eyebrows.

But I feel like we've talked about how our pets, that's where our pets would start, right?

Your face.

That could just be scavenging for animals post-mortem.

Or they're saying it could be like because they were submerged in water, and water bloats you and can impact your decomposition.

So the ME reported that the cause of death for three of these hikers was trauma.

There was internal bleeding and chest trauma to one of them, a fatal skull injury to another, and severe chest trauma to a third, and then the fourth was hypothermia.

These are like huge traumas.

Yep.

Like you don't just like get a skull fracture.

Like something severe has to happen for that.

Yeah.

Also a lot of them have skull fractures.

Yeah.

That's weird.

Well, if we're thinking like the one was the one who was trying to flee back toward the-

Maybe he fell.

Did he keep falling?

But because they're like his cause of death was not a skull fracture, but he definitely had a bunch of hairline fractures as though he kept hitting his head.

Oh my gosh.

The kind of medical examiners here said that the injuries could not be caused by a man.

Quote, because the force of the blows had been too strong and no soft tissue had been damaged, the force required to cause such damage would have been extremely high, comparable to that of a car crash.

But there were no external wounds associated with the bone fractures.

It was as if they had been subjected to a high level of pressure.

Oh my God.

They said these people could not have lived more than 20 minutes after sustaining these injuries.

I'm wondering, so going back to my comment about like a military practice area, like can you not be like whipped around by like something causing a really loud like...

Colleen, you are on the right track.

You just hold all these thoughts, okay?

Okay.

So the case is closed.

Official cause of death on May 28th, just like weeks after finding these remaining bodies, was an irresistible force that the hikers could not overcome.

That's crazy.

But oddly, they had also ordered testing on those last four hikers.

So two of the hikers, they had three items of clothing and they tested them, and they came back positive for radiation.

Why would they think to test for radiation?

I don't know if I would have thought to do that.

Great question, but it's like they did the test and then...

Somebody chose not to do anything about it.

Yeah, like what?

Yeah.

Somebody knew to test and then got shut down.

So 2015 to 2019, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reviewed evidence, you know, the evidence that had previously existed, and they declared it to be an avalanche.

Okay, but like, how much snow was there?

Yeah.

Bingo.

So, and then in 2021, Swiss researchers used GM studies from the 70s, like car accident studies, and then they borrowed code from Disney's Frozen that was used to recreate the conditions and concluded that this was a slab avalanche.

So all the official things, all the official statements are avalanche, okay?

Slap avalanche.

Well, slab avalanche is sort of a...

Like when it slides out from under you?

It slides out on top, yeah, or on top of you, but it's not like a big avalanche as we would see in the movies.

It's just like maybe a large chunk of snow kind of slides.

Okay, sure.

But like, what about the radiation?

And like, why are they all naked?

Well, their theory is that the sudden emergency could explain the hikers cutting their way out of their tent.

So they said there had been, this is the pros, okay?

These are the people, these are the official statements.

They say there had been recent snowfall and wind, which would have triggered a slab avalanche, and that would explain the internal injuries that occurred.

So they're saying that these three people who died of internal injuries, maybe it was all from the pressure of the slab avalanche coming down on top of their tent.

No way.

And that when they dug, so when they first pitched their tent, and we have the picture of them kind of digging a little hole out, they destabilized the snow.

They said, you know, we talk a lot, they talk a lot about like the slope of this mountain, because that-

These are professional hikers.

Yes, I feel like they would be too, and even if one of them made this mistake, there's none of them, so why wouldn't they be like, we can't do this?

So apparently, you need the slope.

They're saying that the slope that they were camped on was 20 degrees, but there may have been dips up to like 28 degrees, and so they're saying like, this could cause a slab avalanche, but those who, which is most people who disagree with this, say we have no evidence of snow displacement or evidence of an avalanche.

When they went back to the scene, they could see footprints.

They could still see evidence.

We would be able to see that if it was a huge avalanche.

Yeah, and they're like, we could see evidence of urination, like where they'd been cutting out of their tent to pee.

Oh my God, that's gross.

And all of their skis were plopped up vertical as they should be, like having not moved.

So like, no freaking avalanche then?

Yeah, so there's really just like no evidence that there had been an avalanche in the area.

The tent was still partially visible and upright, and they said the tent was on an incline of 15 to 23 degrees, and they argue that it needs to be a steeper than 30 degree incline in order to be a threshold for slab avalanches.

Like it should have been 30 degrees?

No, they're saying that it wasn't steep enough for there to have potentially been an avalanche.

So proof that it wasn't?

Okay.

That's what these other experts are saying.

I mean, we have experts who are saying we have proof it was.

On both ends, but yeah.

So then it's like, well, like, did these three people get crushed by the avalanche until their tent mates dragged them, you know, to safety, but there's no evidence of drag tracks.

We just see these like calm steps away, you know, footprint.

And we're listening more of them together.

And yeah.

And I think, like you said, that we would have, these are experienced hikers.

So if you're, if there's an avalanche, what you're supposed to do is move in horizontally.

Cause if you just run down the mountain, the avalanche is going to be coming at you as fast as 300 miles per hour.

There's no way you can outrun that.

So what you're supposed to do is run horizontally, like just try to get out from the edge of it instead of below it.

Like a rip side or whatever.

Right.

And so these experienced hikers would have known that and they wouldn't have been running down the hill.

That's the official story.

And then I'm going to tell you about the other theories.

Before we get into them, I predicted there might be a menti bee theory for me.

Really?

In all of them?

I tried to debunk before I could even bring it up.

Throw that out there.

Cause I thought you were going to be like, they're in the early 20s, someone had a menti bee.

Okay, not all of them, though.

Oh, yes, you're right, I got you.

They didn't all have a breakdown.

That would make sense if one person didn't have injuries and attacked them.

This theory is there's a couple of random people on Reddit who were like, if one guy, the lead guy went crazy and pulled a gun, did he herd them down and that kind of thing.

It still doesn't explain the radiation, though.

I'm so confused.

So I read that that main guy could get kind of impatient, he could stab people, but there was no evidence that anyone had any mental health issues in this group.

By all indications, the group was largely harmonious.

Apparently, when that 37-year-old joined, they weren't really thrilled that he was joining, but they actually all kind of bonded eventually and they all became buddies.

And there was like a little love triangle, there were some crushes.

Oh, I was going to read to you, it snops the people.

So there were some crushes, little love triangle, but everyone said that like, this was very innocent, there was no like drama amongst the group.

There were no drugs present.

The only alcohol was a small flask of medicinal alcohol found intact at the scene.

In fact, about 11 of the search party actually drank the vodka as a toast to them.

So this flask was still full when they found the bodies.

And there are thoughts like, did they all have a bad trip or they're in LSD?

I don't know why.

I can't imagine these.

On a hike this intense.

Yeah, exactly.

I can see hippies going out into the woods and do an LSD.

But like to be like, this is like a legit hike.

Yes.

And their talk stream was negative.

In fact, the group had even sworn off cigarettes for the expedition.

So but anyway, I watched this documentary.

I saw I've seen in a couple of places actually that there were there are 75 theories for what could have happened.

Oh my God.

So obviously, we're not going to get all of those.

No.

The Yeti theory.

Yeah.

So this thought is that like, what could cause someone to try to cut their way out of a tent?

Like instead of just using the door, there'd have to be something like a monster obstructing the door, something that they're afraid of at the door.

I didn't think of that.

So something that's blocking their exit that would prompt them to cut their way out.

They're like, and you know, we had these missing eyes and the missing lips and like, did the Yeti eat these people's soft tissue?

Oh my God.

Do Yeti's eat humans like that?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

I thought like...

I mean, they're like Bigfoot.

Yeah.

I thought they all were just like minding their own business.

Yeah.

They're like a teddy bear is how I interpret them.

I think part of this also comes from like, you know, the Mansi where the indigenous tribe were initially kind of blamed and then they were like just kidding, they had nothing to do with it.

And so they tried to make it very clear in order to like, get people to stop accusing the Mansi that this was like a kind of harder than life.

Yeah.

Non-human.

So they keep talking about things like non-human strength that was required to make these injuries.

And so is that what kind of steered people to this theory?

There's also blood.

I told you about one of the girls who was found dead of trauma, at that third spot.

And her tongue was missing.

Oh, my God.

So there's a lot of back and forth about like...

Did she chew it and swallow it?

Or again, did the scavenges get to it?

Just take her tongue?

Did it freeze off her tongue?

Off, you know, from, I don't know.

But because it doesn't say...

Her tongue was missing.

It didn't.

That's exactly how it said it in the like medical report, was missing.

It didn't say like...

Chewed through.

Nothing.

And she had some blood found in her lungs and her stomach.

So people were like, well, then it must have been pre-mortem.

But also she probably, I mean, she had like internal injury.

So there's reasons to have blood.

These people are so injured.

Like these are serious.

And I mean, they're all dead, obviously, but like...

Yeah.

Yeah.

These are not little...

It's not like, oops, I tripped.

Yeah.

And there were all these human tracks.

They were able to track the hikers, but no big Yeti tracks.

Right.

Oh, boring.

So do you still...

Well, maybe the Yeti was jumping from tree to tree.

Okay.

No, I actually am leaning towards the military one.

I'm interested in what you guys...

Okay, you're off the Yeti.

Yeah, I think the Yeti would be iconic, though.

Okay, then we have...

What a way to go.

Then we have this UFO theme.

Oh.

So locals, there were like other...

There were two hiking groups kind of doing a similar hike at a different pace or whatever.

And so one of these other groups said that they saw these orange orbs in the sky.

And that was confirmed by some of the indigenous people in the area and some soldiers in the area.

Oh my God.

And the last photo taken by a hiker appears to be a bright light in the dark sky.

Do you have the photo?

Do I have the photo?

Oh, okay.

But like, is one the moon?

No, so it's like pretty much just black and there's like a couple of what we call those.

That could have been anything.

Like light reflections.

Yeah, that could have been.

Or like that could have been, he could have been in his tent with like his lantern.

Yeah, flashlight or whatever.

It's some kind of bright light on black, but does that mean UFO?

I think that's pretty weak based on that picture.

I've seen better UFO pictures.

Yeah.

And then some of them had burn marks.

I said that when they were found into the thought.

Radiation burns?

No.

Well, they could argue potentially.

That's what they're hearing here.

Is it from the alien?

Is it from like radiation?

But also they're like, you know, we knew they were warming themselves by a fire, especially if like hypothermia is creeping in and their fingers are going numb.

Like they start accidentally burn themselves in the fire.

Yeah.

I don't know.

And one of the lead investigators actually wrote a book after he retired.

He claimed he was silenced by the government, but that he always thought the orange orbs had something to do with the death that night.

He claims that maybe the slices in the tent were to try to take pictures.

This feels like a stretch to me.

That they were like, who was taking the picture?

Well, like the lead Igor had a had built like telescopes in the past and stuff.

And so we're like, were they trying to like, you know, use their camera to take a picture of the orbs?

I'm like, why wouldn't they just get, I guess, if they were afraid, why wouldn't you just get out of the tent?

It also doesn't make sense to me that you would slice open your like, only source of protection.

And like that's, I'm assuming like a good quality tent too.

Yes, so that's weird.

There's also somewhere, he alleges also that the treetops were all burned above a certain level, which is weird.

But that's where this UFO is.

Wait, the treetops, say that again?

No, this is only report, I could only see this reported in the book that this guy wrote, okay?

So if you believe him, you believe him, if you don't, you don't.

But he's arguing that the treeline above a certain point it was all scorched, the very tops of the trees were scorched.

I know what I'm thinking.

You're thinking government radiation.

I'm thinking they're in an experimental field and the government's shooting missiles and they're getting hit by effects of the missiles or the sound wave of the missiles.

All right, well, let's get into those theories.

Okay, so your theory was weapons testing.

Yeah, military involvement.

So this area was known for weapons testing.

The injuries could be, as you mentioned, could be due to blast injuries.

That's the word I was thinking of.

We talked about the glowing lights and the radioactive traces.

And remember, I told you that like the Soviets just like closed the case, classified everything.

And yeah, red flag.

Yep.

You close it way too soon.

It was not an avalanche.

But also there was no evidence of like fragments or craters that would indicate there had been any weapons.

Yeah, but maybe it wasn't like missiles that they were shooting at them.

Like maybe it was like ultrasound weaponry.

Well, what and what about the ones who like they just like died of hypothermia?

They didn't die from internal injuries.

Yeah, but didn't they have injuries, though?

One of them had some hairline skull fractures.

Oh, I think and maybe he fell.

And three of them that were at the end.

But the but the five that were found in the first, you know, the first couple of days, the two by the treeline and the three that were fleeing up back to the tent, four of them had no internal injuries.

Did they all have radiation?

We only tested.

They didn't test all of them?

No.

Even after discovering that two were positive?

Yeah, I think they just tested the.

That's poor quality research right there.

And we can kind of explain the radioactivity away.

Also, like, why were they so calm with this?

Like, I feel like a debunk to most is like, I just can't picture them calmly walking away.

Yeah, I'm like, what?

Another thing I'm thinking of, excluding the random radiation, maybe they went crazy.

I knew you were, that's why I tried to debunk.

But not like men TB, but like elevation crazy.

You know what I mean?

Like hypo-oxygenic, like oxygenic, hypoxic.

You know what I mean?

Like, maybe they were like hungry.

Well, there was food left, but nevermind.

I'm thinking like Yellow Jacket.

They were a mile and a half into their.

Yeah, well, only a mile and a half.

I miss, oh my God.

What the, why'd they start camping at only a mile and a half?

Because if they think that maybe the, they just like underestimated the.

Extent of it?

The.

They were supposed to be professional campers, so like hikers.

And they had gone kind of uphill because then the thought was like, what, they probably didn't want to come back downhill to lose whatever progress they had made.

But regarding how they could have had evidence of radiation then, right?

Yeah, if we, you know, what's your.

So apparently it was very low levels of radiation.

So there's only series after like was a contamination of their lab work.

There had been this nuclear incident that was like similar to Chernobyl, but like on a less grand scale.

Oh, I forgot about Chernobyl.

And one of the hikers on the trip had lived in the contaminated zone and the other one had helped clean it up.

And so these are the two hikers that were tested.

And so was that was left over.

Okay, okay.

So and then also the lanterns that they that were found like at their campsite had thorium, which is a radioactive substance as well.

Okay.

But then like still then how'd they all get all these internal injuries?

Oh, so then how did they do that?

There's this this KGB theory.

Oh, hold on.

When the families asked for answers, that's when all the evidence was destroyed.

Files were made classified.

Of course, they were.

These students were all affiliated with UPI, which was known to churn out KGB agents.

And there's some rumors that two, maybe three of these hikers were KGB.

Like were they sent into the woods to be assassinated because they were failed agents?

Maybe.

There was this job to deliver radiation exposed clothing to the CIA and then they would like, so they would like get this radiation clothing, give it to the CIA and then they would give them like false tips and it would, so they would just run around chasing these false leads.

And I told you almost all the hikers were in their early 20s, but there was that one who was 37.

Red flag.

So old, what?

Quite an age gap.

I told you he was former military.

He actually joined this hiking group at the last minute.

Was he a spy?

That's the theory.

Oh my God.

So he was former military before going to work for the Soviet secret police, and then he transferred to the physics department of UPI.

This guy, I told you we had all these cameras.

There are photos of him with the camera.

His camera was never found.

Oh my God.

So was he, yeah, I mean, this is the Cold War era.

This is some spy stuff.

I guess I'm not so clear on why they would go on to the mountains.

Was there something in the mountain, like a headquarters in the mountain, like in Winter Soldier, I mean, like in Captain America?

It always goes back to Marvel.

Every single Marvel movie, the bad guy lives in a mountain.

In like a snowy mountain?

Yeah.

There was no traces of animal involvement.

Like, I know we talked about Yeti, but like.

No, but that's, well, there was, apparently there was like some, maybe some weird, What about a bear?

But there were no tracks.

That's crazy.

But I feel like there had to have been little scavengers, like I said.

Oh, so was this, I guess the theory then as if these were KGB, was it like a military exercise gone wrong?

Yeah, like who were they?

Was this practicing to be spies?

I don't know.

Was the CIA taking them out?

I don't know.

I don't know.

That's kind of a leap there, but that's the theory.

I feel like there's always a KGB theory when we're talking about.

Every single fire ground comes with a KGB.

Yeah.

And then there's a theory, this kind of goes in with like your weapons.

You were thinking like, was there a weapon that created this like, like, intense sound?

Well, there's also a theory, maybe a weather event created this infrasound.

So like these strong winds that are going through this pass created this low frequency noise, which is called an infrasound.

And they've been, it's been known that it can trigger panic and even disorientation.

And so is that what happened?

It kind of sounds like, yeah.

Was there a weather event that heard this noise?

And then it kind of explains their irrational flight from the tent.

One of the theories I liked was a guy on Reddit.

Okay.

Johnny Bravinci.

He wrote, I find the theory of the wind creating infrasound very interesting.

If there's no evidence of an avalanche and no large animal tracks, what could have caused them to leave the tent?

This type of wind is so loud and disorienting that it could have caused a panic for the hikers and they would have quickly left the tent to try to escape it.

And once they did, they simply got lost and couldn't find the tent again.

They made a fire and those who didn't have much clothing stayed by the fire for a while.

Others tried to go back to the tent for their clothes, but got lost.

A few others tried to head further down the mountain for a better spot to camp for the night, and tragically fell down a ravine and hit some rocks and died, explaining the strange injuries.

So that's a theory.

I mean, that kind of sounds realistic a little bit.

One of these documentaries I watched had this crazy tree theory.

OK, hold on.

That like the tent, you know, we talk about like this tent was sort of a hill and they ran down the hill to the trees, right?

OK.

But this expert claims that like this tent that they were in was made to kind of hang between trees, like an old school cartoon, you know, you put the rope and whatever.

And like in the previous journal entries, they talked about like pitching their tent near the trees.

So did a tree come down on the tent causing the trauma to those three bodies?

Like was it actually?

But there was no there was no evidence of a tree falling.

Because she's claiming they moved the tent.

So she's claiming the tent was put up by the tree.

Also, there is no evidence of a tree falling.

But the tree fell down, caused this trauma to these three bodies.

Their friends were trying to help them.

But again, the tent was found weeks later, not like up the hill.

And she had this whole argument about like a cover up, like it was like the tree.

Who was doing the cover up?

Half the camp or the government?

The the miners.

Because, okay, I'm sorry, there's there's a lot of mining in the area.

So her theory is there's miners in the area.

They were using explosives.

Okay, they set off some explosives.

This explosives caused the tree to fall and fall onto the tent and cause trauma to these three bodies.

And then they hear that like there's these missing people, they panic, they find them, they relocate the tent up the hill.

But, and that all those footprints we saw were actually footprints from like those people who were going to pitch the tent and move the tent and not the actual hikers.

But, I don't believe that.

But then there was no evidence of a tree falling.

There's no evidence of a tree falling.

Yeah, so.

I don't know, it's just like the whole cover up of these people went in and found them before anyone else found them.

I don't know about that one.

Set up the scene and I mean, there was, yeah.

This last one that I kind of like, let me know does like YouTube, short YouTube videos on some of these different mysteries.

And they, I think we use them as a source for MH370.

But the creator says, you know, they must have feared something inside the tent, because once they left the tent, they were calm.

We had like calm footprints away from the tent, right?

So it was something in the tent that caused them to be scared.

And well, there's a theory.

So they had this stove that they wrote about how they would use inside the tent, and it had a vent outside.

And there's actually a picture of it, we'll post to Instagram, that they had built themselves.

So it would like vent all the smoke out.

They could stay inside their tent, cook their food.

So they'd cook their dinner, they had plated it, right?

Because the food was on the plates.

And that maybe they took down the vent, but they took it too soon, and maybe some of those embers kind of like re-ignited it.

They were afraid they were gonna burn it.

And they were getting smoked out of there.

So they cut their way out.

Yeah, or they were like, or did they try to cut holes to vent?

But I'm like, why wouldn't they just open there?

I would think more likely it was so bad, they were trying to cut their way out, because they could have just opened the front of the vent.

And then were they having carbon monoxide poisoning?

Oh, I didn't even think about that part of it, and then these burns that we're attributing to the small fire burns, maybe these burns occurred inside the tent.

And there's a picture of one of them in their coat the day before, and it's burned.

There's evidence of burns.

So perhaps it's an issue they'd had in the past.

I told you they were still food remnants found in the tent.

And as we mentioned, I think if you were experienced, you would have removed your food from the air.

So that's kind of a, I mean, I can...

A lot of these details is making me feel like they weren't that good at hiking.

I think it's just like, there's all these different scenarios, and there's just like one thing that like doesn't make it make sense.

Yeah.

Like I think what happened is if we start from like, I don't know what, I cannot figure out what would cause them to leave their tent.

But not everybody was in the tent to begin with.

Well, they were in one big tent.

Oh, they all started in the tent.

Yeah.

Well, we think, I mean, they were all...

We can assume and leave.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

I didn't think I was thinking like that.

Okay.

So, I feel like if something happened...

One big communal tent.

Why they left the tent in a rush, but appeared calm outside the tent, why they cut the tent instead of going out the front, like, I can't explain that.

But from that point, I think they fled to the trees, right?

Because the trees would offer you the most protection.

Right.

Some of these people had like half cut up clothes that they're wearing, like one of the male, the females was like wearing, had some male clothing.

Just grab whatever she could.

I think, yeah, so I don't think, there's all these theories of people were having, were just like stripping down because they were hypothermic.

But, and it's like, you know, whatever.

Like a reaction to it.

But I think more likely, probably people did flee in a panic because they didn't have their hats and their gloves and everything.

But did they, as people died, were other people trying to take their layers to keep warm?

Oh, that's an interesting thought.

And then, so I think maybe those two people died at the fire.

And then something happened and they separated.

So the three people thought maybe we can get back to the tent to get more supplies, right?

And then the other four, again, they had, at this point, they were more than halfway back to their secret cache of supplies.

Yeah, but then maybe something happened to them where they fell and they, you know, or they were staying in this den by this water.

And so they had like their own mini avalanche there, which caused them to get injured.

I mean, it sounds like, again, as I said, they had to have died within 20 minutes of their injury.

So them being like injured at the tent and then making it all this way and then dying, I don't buy.

Doesn't make any sense.

What else?

This is very, I'm so confused.

I really don't know what to believe.

Yeah, but like why they left the tent?

Why'd they cut themselves out of the tent?

Why were they like, just yeah, so unprepared out, like when they left the tent without anything?

I don't know.

So then, I mean, that's why I was like, I could see this like the wind disorienting them initially and causing them, they get, they hear this loud noise, they can't explain, they don't hear for their life, they like run.

And then it's like now, and it sounds like this is probably like 8 p.m.

or so.

So it's not like this was like 4 a.m.

and they just had to make it like two hours to daylight.

Like, you know, they had a whole night ahead of them.

Right.

Oh, I don't know what to believe.

Like nothing, like you said, nothing sounds 100% believable.

I like the idea of a military experiment, but I think freaking nature is more likely.

But do you believe avalanche?

No, not the avalanche.

Yeah.

The wind thing.

Yeah.

I don't know.

You don't believe Yeti.

You don't believe UFOs.

I want to believe the Yeti.

I mean, hold on, the UFOs kind of fit, okay.

But like then you pointed out the fact that the two people with radiation were the two people who like were near radiation.

Yeah.

Why didn't they test everybody else?

But I don't know.

I think freaking nature.

I'm going to go with freaking nature, but not avalanche.

You sound just like the USSR who was like freak of nature.

We can't explain.

I mean, I want to say that there's more to it than that.

Well, actually, no, no, I'm going to take that back.

The KGB shit kind of sounds interesting to me.

Like maybe it was all just a facade for training and they all failed, and thus they're all dead.

But like, were there like other footprints that didn't match their footprints?

Yeah, I think too, you know what I mean?

Like how thorough was the search of the scene?

Well, I feel like too, you have all these people who are searching, you're going to just contaminate the whole thing.

So it's like, would we even be able to tell if?

And we do have some pictures of how, what you're going to post to Instagram of how like the scene was found, but not a ton.

Like people like, they really should have taken a lot more.

I think the sloppy...

It's always sloppy investigative work.

Investigation makes it suspicious.

All right.

So leaving here, still not knowing.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't feel confident in any of it.

All right.

That was a good one.

Well, you guys let us know what you think.

Yeah, what do you think?

AGB, Avalanche, Yeti, UFO.

What were the other ones?

Tree Theory.

Tree Theory.

That was stupid.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire.

There's a lot.

And these were only a bit.

You said there were 75.

75 theories.

How many do we just do?

I feel like I gave you more than you probably wanted to hear.

Okay.

Well, let us know what you guys think.

And just a reminder, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens.

That's the number 3 SchemeQueens, all one word.

We're also on Reddit, same username.

If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, our contact page, and our discussion board, where you can engage with us and share any updates on the topics that we have discussed.

Let us know how we're doing and what you want to hear next.

There are also opportunities to financially support us.

There are links to buy a sick cup of coffee, links to our recently updated merch store, and affiliate links.

And as always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens, the likes.

What should the people do?

Take out your phone.

Do you know a hiker?

Great.

Stop right now and send this episode to your best friend who's a hiker and tell them to take a hike, but not this kind of hike.

But not in like, this doesn't even, I like to hike, I like to camp.

This doesn't even feel fun to me.

This is dead of winter on a mountain in Russia.

Yeah.

Like, and like the warmest you are is.

Below 30, like.

It's like hovered together.

I think two of the bodies actually were found in the ravine were like clutched together.

Oh my God, that's so sad.

Yeah, this doesn't even feel fun.

Who wants to be this cold all the time for three weeks, you know?

I like winter camping, but not like that.

That's ridiculous.

Anyway, send this to your people who are hikers.

Tell them to take a hike, but not this kind of hike.

And give us a review.

Yep.

Interact.

And we'll see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.