Dyatlov fallout radiation hypothesis

[Missi]

He should have thought that decision over, it seems.
But it also seems nothing mystery-related. Too late to send recovery wishes, though... Seems he got well again.

Thanks for the info. :)

[KFinn]

Yeah, he needed a break, it was a great day, so he talked some of the other guys into doing some sight seeing.  They'd been really have a rough time on the ridge for so long, looking for friends they knew were dead after finding other friends dead.  He just wanted to go do one of the things that made him feel happy; skiing.  And they would up in an area, like many up there, that was not easy to navigate. 

[Ryan]

Nuclear fission products include a lot more than just Sr-90. Yes, Cs-137 is a beta emitter. But it decays to a metastable isotope of barium which gives off a characteristic 662 keV gamma, so Cs-137 should be considered both a beta and gamma emitter. Cs-137 is going to be found alongside Sr-90 in any nuclear fallout. Today, both Sr-90 and Cs-137 are in ample abundance in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The Mayak accident released significant Cs-137. It is not possible that any significant products of nuclear fission would be beta-only.

I need to note that Geiger tubes are not terribly sensitive to gammas; they have a poor gamma detection efficiency. By comparison, Geiger tubes that are sensitive to betas typically have very high counting efficiency. So I can't completely rule out fission products. It is possible that the clothing is just barely hot enough with betas to be easily detected, but not hot enough for its gamma activity to be detected by Geiger counters with limited gamma efficiency. A more sensitive gamma detector, like a scintillator, would easily detect gammas that would be expected from fallout that also produces this much beta emission. So when the radiation was classified as beta-only, I am very interested in what instruments they used to rule out gamma. I would say fission products are possible if and only if the dosimetry lab had poor gamma detection instruments and the clothing fell in a rather narrow window of activity. Still, I don't see it as very likely.

You can actually purchase the same Geiger tubes used to measure the clothing. I interpret "Recalculation was performed on the B-2 installation in a lead house with a cassette counter STS-6 in the number of 4 pieces." as meaning a counter with 4 STS-6 tubes surrounded by lead to cut down on background radiation. (The English term is "lead castle.") STS-6 tubes show up on eBay. They are sensitive to gamma and hard beta. Here is a datasheet (in Russian): http://lampes-et-tubes.info/rd/STS-6.pdf

While atmospheric testing did result in global contamination, I find it very unlikely that clothing in running water would act as a filter and concentrate it to the levels mentioned in the reports, and do so to such an extent that beta but not gamma would be countable.

Beta-only radiation also firmly excludes theories of contamination from the abandoned mining camp. Any minerals containing uranium are going to be alpha, beta, and gamma emitters. An alpha scintillator, or simply using a mica pancake probe with and without a paper shield, would easily detect the abundant alphas emitted by uranium. This also rules out thorium contamination from a lantern mantle; that's also an alpha emitter.

I've also heard people suggest that Krivonischenko's work at Mayak, or Kolevatov's work at a secret institute in Moscow, could have resulted in them having contaminated clothing. That seems unlikely, seeing as:

1. Nuclear facilities, even in the USSR, go out of their way to avoid contaminating worker clothing. You typically change out of your street clothing and into clean work clothing at the start of your shift, and strip out of it and shower at the end, precisely so you don't contaminate clothing you wear home.

2. Even if there were a failure, and one of them "took their work home with them", is it likely that the same contaminated work clothing would then be worn on an expedition in the Urals?

3. Even if that were the case, all four of the hikers found in the ravine had varying levels of contamination on their clothing, which I can't explain via this mechanism.

It seems most likely to me that some time after all the hikers had assembled together, and before the bodies were found, those four (at a minimum) were contaminated with a beta-only emitter.

[ash73]

I'm just getting started on Rakitin's book, there's a lot of detail!

He eliminates the water being contaminated because soil taken from in the stream tested negative. He also eliminates the clothes being contaminated at work, but I'm not yet 100% convinced because Krivonischenko quit due to conditions, so there may have been safety breaches.

He believes the clothes contained a sample of radioactive particles to be passed on to American spies so they could determine the efficiency of USSR nuclear plants; and he mentions an example where this had been done before in a similar fashion with a hat.

What are people's views on the feasibility, given the levels and types of radiation recorded?

[Missi]

Ryan, all the clothes contaminated did belong to Krivonischenko, as far as I know.

ash, I think there are very interesting parts in his book. I don't believe all of that. He criticizes that people leave out aspects they can't fit into their theories, yet he doesn't mention things I read here. Not sure whether he didn't think they were relevant or whether he just couldn't fit them...

[Ryan]

Ryan, all the clothes contaminated did belong to Krivonischenko, as far as I know.

While the radiation report highlighted three pieces of clothing as being especially contaminated above occupational safety levels, all nine clothing samples tested from the four hikers found in the ravine were significantly contaminated. This includes Kolevatov's waistband and bottom part of his trousers, something unspecified and a sheepskin jacket from Zolotaryov, bottom part of trousers from Thibault-Brignoles, and jacket, leggings, white sweater, and brown sweater from Dubinina.

Radioactive contamination can't just spread from one piece of clothing to another without some physical mechanism. This is why I have a hard time believing that Krivonischenko's occupation at Mayak was responsible for all this contamination, even if there were safety breaches.

He believes the clothes contained a sample of radioactive particles to be passed on to American spies so they could determine the efficiency of USSR nuclear plants; and he mentions an example where this had been done before in a similar fashion with a hat.

What are people's views on the feasibility, given the levels and types of radiation recorded?

Intentionally contaminating a single piece of clothing would be a very good way for a worker to sneak a radioactive sample out of a secure facility. If detected, the worker could always claim it was an accident. That kind of deniability would be impossible if the worker were caught leaving with a vial or test tube of the substance.

But here, 9 pieces of clothing worn by 4 hikers are all contaminated. That doesn't sound like an intentional way for spies to transport samples.

[Missi]

Ryan, all the clothes contaminated did belong to Krivonischenko, as far as I know.

While the radiation report highlighted three pieces of clothing as being especially contaminated above occupational safety levels, all nine clothing samples tested from the four hikers found in the ravine were significantly contaminated. This includes Kolevatov's waistband and bottom part of his trousers, something unspecified and a sheepskin jacket from Zolotaryov, bottom part of trousers from Thibault-Brignoles, and jacket, leggings, white sweater, and brown sweater from Dubinina.

Radioactive contamination can't just spread from one piece of clothing to another without some physical mechanism. This is why I have a hard time believing that Krivonischenko's occupation at Mayak was responsible for all this contamination, even if there were safety breaches.

Yes, you're right. I took another look. I guess, I misinterpreted the numbers. Those are really more than background.
Contamination could spread, if it's dust particles. But in this case it seems highly unlikely that it did. I guess there must be much more dust...

I also don't think that it's an accidental contamination that one or two brought with them from their place of work.

It's strange. As always...

[Ryan]

I posted two different analyses on the KGB / Radiation / Military Involvement board back in 2019 where I go through the three tables in the report file line by line and determine how they were calculated.

Yes, dust spreads contamination. If multiple hikers were in an area with contaminated dust, then their clothing would likely be contaminated. But once clothing is contaminated, the contamination doesn't spontaneously go back into dust form and spread to other people's clothing. There usually needs to be direct contact. And even then, only a small fraction typically gets transferred.

I've thought about ways occupational contamination could affect everyone's clothing, and everything seems highly improbable. The best I can come up with would be: 1. Everyone's clothing was carried in a single rucksack that was either extremely contaminated itself or contained a piece of extremely contaminated clothing that rubbed against all of them, or 2. Everyone's clothing was laundered together along with something extremely contaminated. These don't seem likely. So I'm left thinking that all the hikers were exposed to airborne contaminated dust, either on the hike before they died, as part of the incident that killed them, or post-mortem.

Unfortunately, no lung tissue for any of the hikers was tested. This might tell if they breathed in radioisotopes.

Soles of boots or bottoms of the outer layer of socks would have been of much interest, as they may pick up airborne contamination settling on the ground and may be especially hot.

The clothing the other five hikers were wearing when they died would have shown whether all nine hikers were contaminated, or if the contamination was somehow localized to the ravine.

Also, testing the tent itself, and the boots and clothing still stored in the tent may help determine if the contamination happened on the night they died, or if anyone was contaminated before that night.

[KFinn]

I posted two different analyses on the KGB / Radiation / Military Involvement board back in 2019 where I go through the three tables in the report file line by line and determine how they were calculated.

Yes, dust spreads contamination. If multiple hikers were in an area with contaminated dust, then their clothing would likely be contaminated. But once clothing is contaminated, the contamination doesn't spontaneously go back into dust form and spread to other people's clothing. There usually needs to be direct contact. And even then, only a small fraction typically gets transferred.

I've thought about ways occupational contamination could affect everyone's clothing, and everything seems highly improbable. The best I can come up with would be: 1. Everyone's clothing was carried in a single rucksack that was either extremely contaminated itself or contained a piece of extremely contaminated clothing that rubbed against all of them, or 2. Everyone's clothing was laundered together along with something extremely contaminated. These don't seem likely. So I'm left thinking that all the hikers were exposed to airborne contaminated dust, either on the hike before they died, as part of the incident that killed them, or post-mortem.

Unfortunately, no lung tissue for any of the hikers was tested. This might tell if they breathed in radioisotopes.

Soles of boots or bottoms of the outer layer of socks would have been of much interest, as they may pick up airborne contamination settling on the ground and may be especially hot.

The clothing the other five hikers were wearing when they died would have shown whether all nine hikers were contaminated, or if the contamination was somehow localized to the ravine.

Also, testing the tent itself, and the boots and clothing still stored in the tent may help determine if the contamination happened on the night they died, or if anyone was contaminated before that night.

So on the branch that we wonder if the radioactive clothes were supposed to be handed off to a spy...are we thinking that the handoff was to be given to an American?  That I might have some strings I could pull to see if I can get any info from this side....  I know someone here (forgive me, I forget who,) did a FOIL request with the CIA on Zolotaryev.  I may have some favors I could beg in to see if there were any spies in the region in 1959.  Sometimes if you go through the right person, they tell you that they can "neither confirm nor deny that there were two guys who failed to meet up with a contact in that region." It will take some time to try and it may be fruitless but if we can confirm Americans were planning on radioisotopes from that region in 1959, I think there might be enough proof to give some real meat to that theory....  Worth a shot, at least...

[RMK]

I know someone here (forgive me, I forget who,) did a FOIL request with the CIA on Zolotaryev.

That'd be MDGross, here:

I recently made an inquiry to the CIA for information about Semyon Aleksandrovich Zolotaryov. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) affords me that right. I had no expectation of getting any information, but I wanted the learning experience.
[snip]