Miscellaneous > Non-DP Related Mysteries!

The Pont-Saint-Esprit “incident”

<< < (2/3) > >>

Nigel Evans:
Or avalanches!

Loose}{Cannon:
A cover-up and the root cause are two entirely different things.    nose1

Nigel Evans:

--- Quote from: Loose}{Cannon on May 20, 2019, 08:57:22 AM ---A cover-up and the root cause are two entirely different things.    nose1

--- End quote ---

* The purpose of a cover-up is to keep the root cause secret.
* Hence the root cause must qualify as requiring secrecy.
* This permits the investigator to exclude theories that would not require secrecy.
* Maybe 73 out of the 75 in the case of the DPI.  grin1

Morski:
Fair enough, cover up is for things you don`t want others to know. How about things you can`t explain, while people demand explanations?
The whole effort - mental and physical, to cover up what seems to be a pretty large event in the middle of nowhere, that turned out to be fatal for nine people, is hard to explain for me, and for a reason. How many people were involved in the searching and the investigation? Students, police staff, soldiers, volunteers, prosecutors. Each with his own mind set and understandings. Some of them since day one, some replaced, some with little to no idea of the whole event. The cover up suggests, that no one between the tens of people would open his mouth later on. Yes, the mighty KGB would erase you and your family if needed, but let`s keep a cool mind, it wasn’t the VChK`s time anymore. The scale of the cover up would have been huge, while the actual implementation is so disappointing. It definitely makes you wonder.

You cover up things to deceive people, and if the Soviet authorities wanted to do so, they would have done it. I don`t question their abilities to do a cover up, I just can`t believe they failed so hard. Instead of eliminating questions, they basically just added more. You can screw up an investigation for a number of reasons, but to fail a cover up performed by probably the most powerful Soviet institution, and in a so much less informational environment (compared to any given more modern era), with high rank individuals involved, would be a spectacular event.

In that line of thoughts, I am really interested how was the case really covered by the Russian media after things went viral at that time. Could it be, that this was one of the first tragedies in such scale in the postwar period, so it naturally became a public interest of some sort, that wasn’t expected? Even attempts to spread the word (for the funerals for example) were somehow obstructed, that didn’t stop people to attend them. Looking at the photos, this wasn’t the case of just several family tragedies. It was shared among ordinary people. So it could be that the authorities wanted to put things in order as soon as possible. Some high ranking staff had to deal with it, because the local authorities didn`t know how to handle it - they couldn’t solve it.
So it is either clumsy performed investigation, because they had no idea what they are dealing with at the time, or clumsy cover up even if they did know.
I tend to stand for the first, at least for now.

gypsy:

--- Quote from: Морски on May 21, 2019, 01:58:54 PM ---
So it is either clumsy performed investigation, because they had no idea what they are dealing with at the time, or clumsy cover up even if they did know.
I tend to stand for the first, at least for now.

--- End quote ---

I think it is unlikely that all people involved in the investigation were just clumsy. The state had resources to do better with this case. Both Okishev and Ivanov were absolutely clear that they were ordered to cease the investigation and create a cover story. (disclaimer: one does not cancel out the other, the conduct of investigation looks poor to me as well, but that does not justify what happened in the aftermath, e.g. exclusion zone in the area)

In regards to stage a cover-up, it is not needed to deceive all people involved in search, students etc. They are not relevant enough or they do not have full access to case files and other information. The other practices of deception by Russian/Soviet state is to create a disinformation that leads people into blind alleys with investigation, withhold important parts of evidence or spread false information. For the purpose of a coverup, there is nothing better than having bunch of UFO/Yeti freaks hanging around the topic...you can just sit back and watch the entire thing turn into a farce. The purpose of a coverup is not necessarily to make people believe in the false story, but to create an envinroment where everything is being questioned and everybody loses the focus on what is important.

I agree with Nigel on this one, there was probably a formal/legal reason that justified the cover-up of the incident. This version is consistent with the statements about folllowing the orders by Ivanov, Okishev and Lyuda's brother. I see nothing that would disqualify their opinions, views and explanations.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page