Theories Discussion > Reindeer
Stampede
Ziljoe:
--- Quote from: kylecorbin on November 04, 2023, 03:45:29 AM ---
--- Quote from: Ziljoe on November 03, 2023, 08:24:14 PM ---I would argue that no signs of animal prints is not a sign of no animals.
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A standard in the worlds of logic and investigations is "almost" what you're citing there, but you must use the entire standard:
"Absence of evidence of X is not evidence of absence of X UNLESS evidence of X necessarily would exist under the circumstances."
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I wasn't citing . I was just communicating, poorly . However, I understand your logic .
--- Quote from: kylecorbin on November 04, 2023, 03:45:29 AM ---And the other key issue is a factual one that I did not realize that you had read a wrong version of somewhere (among the countless wrong versions and mistaken memories of things in the case files!): you're thinking these "raised-footprints" were further away than they were:
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I don't know where that photo is taken in relation to the tent. However throughout the case files and statements, traces of footprints are reported to have been seen from next to the tent to as far as the dwarf birch trees towards the ceder. I do not know which version is right or wrong, nor do I know if witnesses were mistaken in someway.
--- Quote from: kylecorbin on November 04, 2023, 03:45:29 AM ---That photo, and the many witness descriptions of those raised-footprints, and the famous "last photo" of the trench being dug for the tent, prove that there was deep snow in the tent area when the tragedy happened and that any heavy entity compressed the snow there that day such that when wind scoured away non-compressed snow over the weeks that followed, the compressed snow was left, and the sun hardened it into ice. If you don't believe me, you'll have to dredge through the witness statements as I did. Use DyatlovPass.com's main page's search box for the words "compressed", "raised", "columns", "platforms", and read these witness-statement excerpts (two of many describing this) to give yourself a fuller idea (and perhaps ideas for other search terms):
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There is snow deep enough most years in the tent area to dig or cut a tent platform. I don't think a trench would be ideal. We can see in the last photo ( which we assume is the tent platform) them digging in what seems to be firn snow . If it was soft snow it would not be ideal and I would think it would collapse under the weight of the ruck sack in the foreground. Also, there was no raised ski tracks of the hikers over the pass to the tent.
Perhaps this suggests a fresh and heavy fall of snow within a relatively small period of time? If there are no raised ski tracks then there can only be a fresh soft snow fall , or a change to the composition of the existing snow.
--- Quote from: kylecorbin on November 04, 2023, 03:45:29 AM ---"And when we discovered the footprints, they were as if on pillars, that is, as if all the loose snow had been blown out, blown away by the wind. The soft snow had hardened underfoot and when the wind blew away the loose snow the footprint remained a little higher. As on platforms. There were impression. It is not what happens on firn snow, let’s say that they were embossed. The snow is blown out so that they remain like pillars, a little higher series of tracks ... The tracks began about 8 (eight) meters from the tent, but no further. Immediately behind the tent, this is how the wind acts... it blows away the snow behind the barrier, then the snow rises a little ... and as soon as it rises a little, then [tracks] began to be visible."
"Starting 30-40 m from the tent were found well preserved, clearly distinguishable traces of human feet. The traces stretched in parallel tracks close to each other, as if people were holding on to each other. Footprints stretched in kind of two directions - we counted on the tent down to the valley 6 or 7 pairs of tracks, and 20 m to the left of them went 2 more pair of tracks. Then in 30-40 m these two groups (2 and 7 tracks) came together and do not part. Traces disappeared on the stone ridges, and below the stones they appeared again, and then were lost. The tracks were very well distinguished. In some footprints could be seen that the person was walking barefoot or in cotton sock, because the toes were imprinted. Due to peculiarities of the winds in the mountains the tracks were well preserved, and they are not visible in the form of depressions but elevations in the form of bars - the snow is compressed under the track and not blown out, and the snow is blown around the tracks. Under the exposure of sunlight the snow tracks further harden and they are stored in this form through the winter."
There is no way to understand the impossibility of the reindeer and wolverine hypotheses without fully understanding the physical situation found at the tent area, and there is no way to gain that understanding without many days of examining the many photos/witness statements/interviews. Just reading "some" will not help and in fact might give the wrong impression. Many people here have gotten an excellent understanding of some parts of the case while having a wrong impression of other parts. Indeed, the most famous scientists in the entire case, Gaume & Puzrin, astonishingly embarrassingly misunderstood that the broken bones could NOT have happened at the tent because the victims walked a mile while freezing and couldn't have done so with many broken bones. Fully half of the famous 2021 analysis was wasted due to that misunderstanding!
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Totally agree.
--- Quote from: kylecorbin on November 04, 2023, 03:45:29 AM ---Witnesses agreed that right beside the tent the snow was flattened due to overlapping prints of many people (as we'd know anyway, since nine people skied to there and dug a trench and set up a tent and departed the tent to where they were found later), then a few meters away the raised-footprints began and went directly toward the trees, becoming normal depression-footprints further down, then becoming more filled-in prints, then disappearing under the deeper snow before reaching the trees. All heavy entities left traces in the snow at the tent that night. No one is saying that every entity left pristine prints that all were perfectly preserved, simply that traces were necessarily left due to laws of physics. Necessarily, anything entering/leaving the area that night left a trace in the snow. www.amusingplanet.com/2013/04/raised-footprints-in-snow.html shows many more examples of this phenomenon.
--- Quote from: Ziljoe on November 03, 2023, 08:24:14 PM ---The Wolverine has fat feet to not sink in to the snow.... I would argue that we don't know if there were large , or small animals for that matter. Although the laws of physics might apply to all beasts . Due to weight ratio and foot area , weather conditions etc . Not all tracks will be left. For example, the trail of the hikers on skis was not visible when reaching the pass but was visible lower down... Again, however, there was the raised footprints within a certain area below the tent towards the ceder tree. These prints were not directly from the tent and came and went. It only shows people walked there. It does not show all foot prints . Animals may have come and gone . The animals may have nothing to do with the mystery, but because there's no [prints] does not mean there's no animals.
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https://cascadeswolverineproject.org/wolverine-tracks
https://www.wolverinewatch.org/wolverine-tracks (see examples of deep-snow wolverine prints)
Yes, because there are no prints DOES mean there are no heavy animals, due to the peculiar situation that one night. Your quote above indicates an idea that prints were basically just "here and there", but in fact the print situation was the opposite - a criminologist's dream! There was no way for entities heavy enough to affect the victims to enter or leave the tent area on the snow that night without leaving preserved prints. Literally case closed. Confusing accounts on this website can give readers a different impression, but a full reading is convincing. (Alas, it's that "full reading" that is so difficult and that causes so many here to give up.) The raised-footprints WERE indeed directly from the tent and were NOWHERE NEAR the cedar. All heavy entities left some impression in the snow at the tent area that night. Of course an eagle or other lightweight entity's print would not have been noticed, but anything heavy enough to affect the people in the tent would have been. The fact that NONE of the dozens of searchers/investigators desperately looking for survivors mentioned any such intruders means we can disregard that possibility. Further, in my reply I cited other issues (no hoof/claw marks on tent, multiple witnesses' accounts of orderly tent contents means no panic, etc.). Again, use the full axiom I cited at the beginning above: when evidence WOULD be there but is NOT, we can conclude something did NOT happen. When desperate searchers did NOT do something and did NOT say something that they necessarily WOULD have, we can make conclusions now from that absence. When animals WOULD have left tent marks and WOULD have caused panic inside the tent, we can make conclusions from that absence. When animals entering/leaving the area WOULD have left traces in the snow that would have been preserved, we can make conclusions from that absence.
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I can accept the logic that no heavy footed beast or human followed them due to that conclusion. Like wise it totally eliminates outsiders or staging the tent location. Well 99.9% at least. Please also excuse my reference to the ceder tree , or footprints towards the ceder tree. The direction of foot prints is towards the ceder .
Slobtsov
”There were footprints of bare feet, but in socks. Some were from valenki, and occasionally we could make out the tread of a ski boot. All of these prints were raised higher than the actual wind-scoured surface of the slope. We followed these prints from the tent in the direction of a spreading cedar, which was clearly prominent on the hill. First we lost, and then we found, the tracks again. They appeared again in the birch-tree undergrowth, and then they went down along the ravine which led to the Lozva River.”
--- Quote from: kylecorbin on November 04, 2023, 03:45:29 AM ---And we haven't even mentioned the "elephant in the room" on the slope. No animals would have gone onto that slope that night. The only thing that high up from the trees was a high sense of adventure. All the animals had sense enough to stay away.
Again, this discussion thread was about heavy hoofed animals, and those would have compressed snow far more than the human feet did. If after all of the above we are still going to discuss a heavy hoofed animal that necessarily would have left dozens of preserved snowprints coming into and going out of the tent area in the peculiar conditions that formed the other preserved prints we have, then we literally may as well discuss why Santa's reindeer leave no prints in snow on roofs next to chimneys. I'm not willing to let Pandora distract anyone else by continuing to discuss impossibilities:
"The absence of hoof marks on the tent and in the snow, and the orderliness of items inside the tent, prove that nothing trod on the tent or in the snow nearby and nothing caused the victims inside to thrash around in panic. If we start discussing things that CANNOT have happened, then we do indeed, as you said, open Pandora's Box."
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From your assessment, do you think there could have been a heavy fall of fresh snow from the start of the tent being pitched to the time of the incident/evacuation of the tent?
kylecorbin:
--- Quote from: Ziljoe on November 04, 2023, 09:18:21 AM ---... them digging in what seems to be firn snow . If it was soft snow it would not be ideal and I would think it would collapse under the weight of the ruck sack in the foreground. Also, there was no raised ski tracks of the hikers over the pass to the tent. Perhaps this suggests a fresh and heavy fall of snow within a relatively small period of time? If there are no raised ski tracks then there can only be a fresh soft snow fall , or a change to the composition of the existing snow.
...
From your assessment, do you think there could have been a heavy fall of fresh snow from the start of the tent being pitched to the time of the incident/evacuation of the tent?
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Yes, as the two new scientist teams concluded when analyzing the 1959 weather data. I don't use my own assessments on factual matters. The scientists concluded that weight of new snow and wind pressure on the slope directly above the tent (shown in the victims' final photo), adding up over several hours, caused it to partially collapse on them. We know what the snow was like there, from the photos and from weather data. No witnesses mentioned ski tracks, or absence thereof, specifically next to the tent, so I assume the 9 victims' 18 skis flattened the whole area coming to the tent and was covered over by snow, or as Sharavin said had become a solid crust of snow, smoothed into the rest of the slope, unlike individual footprints/hoofprints/pawprints that don't flatten an entire area and thus can be seen later. Sharavin also said the tent area was on a different part of the slope, so it well might be that the tent area had more snow than the area right beside it, and/or different wind-scour patterns. He also said, "When we approached the tent, we really walked without skis, but our boots did not leave marks on the firn snow." (Firn is not a word I want to use since 99% of people don't know what it means, especially since it has to go thru Russian translation. Fortunately, it means something similar to "Firm snow", so most people will think it's a typo and will still get the correct idea.) Let's move this non-reindeer discussion elsewhere and let the reindeer and wolverines get lassoed and herded back into Pandora's Box now, please.
Ziljoe:
Excellent, please create a new thread for revisiting some kind of snow slide/collapse to continue the topic. The phrase firn snow has always been a term for contesting. It's been discussed many times. Hard, firm ,frozen,you choose .The snow was firm on arrival of the search team and seemed to stay that way as we can see from the lack of foot prints by many of the searcher's. If the conditions of the snow were the same whilst the hikers were crossing the pass to the tent site then I would expect the possibility of raised tram lines . Anyway , perhaps I'm splitting hairs , but it has provoked some new thoughts on the matter. Beasts or no beasts.
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