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The Dyatlov Pass Incident
Feb. 26th, 2025 09:29 am
On this day in 1959 searchers discovered the abandoned tents of a group of friends near what would become known as Dyatlov Pass.
On Feb 1, 1959, nine young Soviet hikers died on Kholat Syakhl in the Ural Mountains. They were a group of experienced skiers led by 23-year-old student Igor Dyatlov. The group missed a planned check-in by telegram on Feb 12, and on Feb 26, searchers found the hikers’ camp in a very unexpected condition.
*The tent was partly covered in snow, and had been cut open from the inside
*The group’s shoes had been left in the tent
*Footprints led down to a nearby wood, where there were the remains of a fire and two bodies dressed only in underclothes.
*A nearby tree had broken branches, suggesting it had been climbed.
*Three other bodies were found nearby.
*The last four bodies were found in the spring, lying in a stream. Some of these were wearing clothes belonging to bodies that had been found undressed.
*Some of the bodies had severe blunt-force trauma that likely killed them, and others apparently died from hypothermia
*There were no footprints from anyone outside the group
*One of the bodies had traces of radiation
*One witness at a funeral described the victims’ skin as being tanned
*Much later, witnesses reported that they saw mysterious lights in the sky on the night of the incident
In 2021, a study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment which showed that a slab avalanche was a probable explanation.
Check out my Weird Wednesday blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts based on the event, such as:
A link in the chain. There are at least two similar events to Dyatlov Pass. The Chivruay Pass incident took place in 1973 in the Lovozero Massif mountain range and involved the deaths of ten hikers from hypothermia. The Hamar-Daban pass incident refers to the death of six of seven members of a hiking team from hypothermia in the Hamar-Daban mountain range in 1993. Your story could involve some sort of curse or other paranormal bad luck. Maybe an old legend warns of hikers staying on mountains on a certain night, or perhaps a ghost wanders the area, and those who see it are doomed to be lost.
DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers
