I'm sure it will be different tomorrow, but today I am quite taken by Korotaev, the first investigator on this case, who was soon dismissed and the case given to Lev Ivanov.
Quote below is from:
https://dyatlovpass.com/rocketWe read further the memoirs of the investigator Korotaev ("AiF-Ural", No. 5, 2004):
"... From the case, which I conducted, are missing the testimonies of Mansi Anyamov and Sambindanov. They said that they had observed an elongated body over the taiga, behind which burst out flames ...
"I remember well how I was present at the autopsy of corpses by medical experts Vozrozhdenniy and Ganz. The bodies had no visible damage, but the bones were badly broken. Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle skull was literally flattened ... After the autopsy, we were ordered to get into barrels with alcohol.
"I immediately reported the results of the autopsy to the members of the government commission, who at that time were drinking in Lozva. But the new discoveries turned out to no use for them: everyone was satisfied with the version of the death of hikers from hypothermia. Soon after I was removed from the investigation.
"Many ask a logical question: if the hikers were killed by a rocket, why didn’t anybody from the military say anything till now? We think that they actually talked, (and) not once. According to the memoirs of veterans, almost all of Sverdlovsk was saying that hikers were victims of weapons tests. And relatives of the dead suspected the military.
"The light of the rocket shells was seen in Serov on February 2 at about 7 am .... If the rocket deviated and did not reach the planned test site, in my opinion, the agency that launched the rocket, must send to the site of the fall and conduct aerial investigation to find out what is the aftermath of the accident. ... If aerial investigation took place we can assumed that the remaining four people were picked up."
And interview with Prudkov's wife:
NAVIG: Did your husband say anything about Dyatlov group?
VI: No, we were all law-abiding and, probably, there was a non-disclosure. Here's what else was said among the population that after they found everyone,
there were planes and helicopters that took something from the place of the tragedy.[end quotes]
I have wondered for a long time how come Luyda and Zolotaryev had such terrible broken bones, but T-Bo just had a head crack. This makes his injuries more in line with theirs: his skull was "literally flattened."
These quotes from Korotaev and Prudkova let us know that, at the time, everyone was talking about the rocket theory, the families, the townspeople, the Mansi ... it was the talk of the town! And he also says that Kirilenko was reporting directly to Krushchev! That of all the frozen bodies and accidents in the general area that year, this was the only case where someone reported the findings to Khrushchev.
At any rate, this theory is that the Russians were testing rockets in the remote taiga, a spent rocket shell deviated off course and came down on or near the tent, emitting some kind of poison (rocket fuel?) and radiation. I have googled "1959 Russian spent rocket shell" about a thousand times and have failed to discover what one might have looked like, or what poisons it might have contained, and did it have radiation?