In the canon of DPI conspiracy theories, the prevailing notions are that they were actually in the forest, not on 1079, or they were driven from their shelter on 1079 to the forest. There, they died in order to (1) cover up a mistake (2) stop covert spying operations (3) atone for violating sacred territory (4) killed by escaped convicts (5) assassinated by the military for any number of reasons. I dismiss them all. Why?
You don't leave corpses around! If you are going to the trouble of relocating a tent, as some argue, you will bury the corpses and their tell tale injuries. If you want to make a statement, you display and pose the corpses to send a message. If you kill them for what they saw, did or what they have, you bury the corpses and steal their stuff. If you are an incensed hunter/shamen, you chop the bodies up and feed the bears somewhere else. Since the hikers were far from their goal of going around Otorten, a search party could spend years searching the route if there were no bodies immediately to be found.
The locations and the nature of the remains is a clear indication that there was no outside influence, nor internal strife that produced this result. It may be unsatisfying for families looking for compensation, but it won't happen. It certainly would displease a conspiracy theorist who reasons from a logical, but false premise. The prevailing explanation of hikers being caught out in dangerous weather conditions after suffering a collapse of their temporary shelter and underestimating the distance to a secondary shelter is the correct explanation of the tragedy.
Although I don't personally subscribe to DPI conspiracy it's easy to see how they develop, the scene was confounding, why people left the safety of their habitat, did so underdressed and without tools for survival elsewhere, and some of the injuries being described as typical of the same massive forces as vehicular impact. There is then the issue of items not belonging to the hikers found around the scene of their demise, and certainly bodies being turned after death conclusively proves that a third party had been there, even if its presence had been after death and a benign checking they were dead or who they were.
The problem with conspiracy is it tends to grow into extremely complex theories, featuring expandingly large numbers of people and the motive for their actions is often weak but used to shore everything up.
Short of a deathbed confession, something corroborated, or a posthumous manuscript which does the same, or 7a 0-year Soviet declassification if the military or KGB, we will obviously never know, so unlike other theories which may be debunked or disfavoured over time the conspiracies attain a unique immmortality.
One of the issues I have is the conspiracies appoint superhuman abilities to assailants or pursuers who resist the cold and defy frostbite. For example Vizhayan terrorists following in the hikers tracks would need as much preparation and tent as the Dyatlovs if spending a week away from home, and it wasn't even necessary to risk their necks when they could have poisoned the hikers and saw to it they would never return, written off as 9 deaths from hypothermia.
Nobody would preferably venture up a winter mountain
at night to attack or abduct. The only people who could be in and out are either those who were already present and acclimatised, such as the Mansi, or those with access to helicopters.
I disagree that there could not have been internal conflict, it is unpalatable for some to even consider, but a challenge for leadership between Igor and Semyon could have led to a mutiny, one half leaving to make a snow den, the others remaining at the tent until hypothermia forced them down the mountain, and after a fire failed they had a choice, either lay down and die or storm the castle. When a group splits they vie for resources and survival instinct can do the most unspeakable and out-of-character things. That is not to say this is a favoured theory of mine, but I am open-minded to the possibility simply because it potentially fits most of what was discovered, though not uniquely so.
Topic: The fault with conspiracy theories (Read 12415 times)
