How has your favoured DPI theory evolved or changed?

[eurocentric]

Perhaps you maintain the same favoured theory today as when you first learned of the DPI. Or you may have gone through a series of favoured theories, jettisoning others as you learned more about the case which called them into question.

Where has your DPI wormhole journey taken you?

Me, my first thought 3 years ago was radioactive clothing glowing in a darkened tent which freaked out the hikers, and cross contamination led to abandoned clothing, and they ended up in the ravine trying to decontaminate themselves.

I then thought the military used thermobaric bombs on parachutes and staged a cover-up and these were the orange orbs seen by distant witnesses.

I entertained pure hypothermia being the cause, an unheated tent, sweated out from overexertion, wind chill, and descending below the shivering stage at altitude which can fool people they are recovering. But that didn't really explain the flail chests.

Today, after drawing up a 'logic tree', I believe the hikers filled their flasks with contaminated river water near their labaz, (no campfire to melt snow or sterilise it and about to go high altitude for the next 24 hours) and the young men slaked their thirst and hunger sat inside the part secured tent after digging the snow trench and a medical emergency ensured, with high fever leading to the removal of clothing.

The antidote is water and milk, so they headed as a group, on a still night, to find a ravine between 2 peaks, and seizures began there explaining all injuries, unconscious falls without hand or clavicle trauma, and some of the hikers, focussed on the ravine and nearby, had overloaded bladders, while Zina, who wouldn't be trench digging, did not, yet most of them died of the same cause hypothermia and within 6 hours of eating.

Maybe I'll develop something else in time, but this one ticks a lot of boxes for me.

[tenne]

Not arguing but where does the fire under the cedar and the den come in?

[eurocentric]

Not arguing but where does the fire under the cedar and the den come in?

This thread's asking what developmental process others went through on their DPI journey, not an analysis of my latest idea.

But the answer to your question is contained in expanded replies here:

https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?topic=1376.0

& a related thread:

https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?topic=1372.0

[anna_pycckux]

When I first heard about DPI on TV in 2013, I immediately had an idea – it was a pre-planned murder. Khrushchev's time is a time of struggle against anti–Sovietism, with advanced students. The topic did not let me go for a long time, and I found new confirmations of my version: the testimony of Yu . Yudina, V. Askenadzi, B. Slobtsova, archival documents and materials of the criminal case, a penitential article by investigator Ivanov, stories by investigator Korotaev, prosecutor Okishev. THE TRAGEDY BEGAN AT THE END OF 1956 AFTER A SCANDALOUS KOMSOMOL CONFERENCE, AFTER A LETTER FROM THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON COMBATING DISSENT AMONG STUDENTS, AFTER WHICH MANY UPI STUDENTS WERE EXPELLED, AND SOME, SUCH AS VOROBYOV, NIKITIN DEMYANENKO DIED FOR AN UNKNOWN REASON. THE UPI TRADE UNION COMMITTEE WROTE A FALSE DENUNCIATION. THIS RUINED DYATLOV'S GROUP.

[eurocentric]

I'm surprised you only learned of the DPI ten years ago Anna, both due to your generation and as someone so passionate about it, I had assumed the mystery, being internationally known, was common knowledge across Russia. Their Mary Celeste.

Having said that, I have another obsession, across 22 years now, though it isn't a mystery. The 1963 Italian dam disaster at Vajont, the largest post-war industrial disaster in Europe in terms of loss of life, and until a playwright staged a live broadcast on Italian TV it seems 2 generations of Italians had not been taught anything about it in schools, just as I wasn't in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam

So it seems some things are buried, until the media or internet resurrects them.

[anna_pycckux]

So it seems some things are buried, until the media or internet resurrects them.

In 1962, in the city of Novocherkassk, a protest of factory workers arose due to an increase in food prices and a reduction in wages. Khrushchev ordered to suppress the protest at any cost, sent a Kremlin commission to Novocherkassk, which included A. P. Kirilenko, the former head of the regional committee of the Sverdlovsk region. The protest was brutally suppressed, the military killed workers, women and children. And although there were thousands of witnesses to the event, the general public became aware of this tragedy only under Gorbachev, in 1990. Recently, director Konchalovsky made a feature film on this topic.

[Manti]

My first suspicion as I was reading about the case fell on the locals, the Mansi, because there were several signs they were around, such as the trail of a hunter the hikers were following, the "chum" structure with the antlers nearby, the discarded hand-made fur-lined skis near the cedar site, and their testimonies seemed suspicious and trying to deflect blame to a rival group who "are hostile to Russians". It wasn't a murder scenario I was thinking about, more a misunderstanding, where perhaps one or more hunters, shotgun on their back, visit the tent in the evening and try to ask the hikers to move it elsewhere, either because it's a sacred mountain or because it's dangerous to camp there, a misunderstanding ensues, and the hikers leave.

This doesn't explain the in-vivo rib and skull fractures of the "Ravine 4", so I then started entertaining a moose encounter scenario, because logically, what has the highest percentage of harming you out there in pristine nature? Wildlife. But they weren't bitten, so it must have been a herbivore animal, either protective of its territory or offspring or just curious. Moose have a tendency to try to topple and trample people they consider threatening, or even as a form of "play", which seems consistent with the hiker's injuries, as well as their attempt to climb the cedar. But there were no moose prints found...

I then started favoring the "deadly cold" scenario similar to what Eurocentric describes above: they go to rest in their unheated tent on the slope but the temperature drops at night, the wind intensifies, the tent is torn in several places, they try to endure until the morning but one of them develops frostbite or enters the phase of hypothermia with hallucinations, and starts slashing at ghosts with a knife.  The others decide that they need a source of warmth immediately, a campfire, and set off for the forest... Not all of them make it because some are already hypothermic and their joints give up (Zina, Rustem, perhaps Igor). The Ravine 4 perhaps sustain their injuries as they try to climb the cedar in a delirious state but fall.

Recently..... I'm not sure any more. Especially after watching Oleg's videos from this March on the pass, some things became clear to me:

• The footprints might not be from the Dyatlov group because Oleg's raised footprints showed a lot of erosion after just 2 days.
• The tent site is steeper and more avalanche prone than commonly believed. It's one of the worse places to set up camp anywhere in the area. Maybe something happened on the slope that left them with no other choice? Injury or sickness?
• While it is very cold there, healthy people should be able to reach the forest and start a campfire. They had matches and there is plenty of firewood, dry tree bark, "koosh galls" on coniferous trees that burns really well (sorry don't know if that's the right English translation or not).
• The cedar is too deep into the forest if you just want a campfire, it's in an area with waist-deep or even deeper snow. That's not why they went there. I cannot think of any reason to go there except trying to get away from something or hallucinations.
• And lastly, that there is a possibility of rain and hail, even if the temperature is well below zero. Can that explain things? Perhaps a heavy hail storm forces the hikers out of the tent. Maybe it can even explain the skull injuries. Not the flail chest, though...

[eurocentric]

I knew your journey would be an interesting one Manti, thank you for your contribution.

I still think pure hypothermia can possibly explain everything, it has legs, mainly if resus fractures account for the flail chests, or these mostly happened shortly after death when bodies were placed in the ravine, or deer later walked over the bodies, perhaps through snow. The pathologist only sampled some of 24 different fracture points across 2 bodies for histology, and determined cellular growth, most likely those which penetrated the heart and lung linings, but the rest - who knows when they happened.

These days, and from 1960, it's all CPR, though the Indian army still practice an older technique which I recall learning as part of primary school first-aid. This sees the reviver kneel above the prone patient's head and lean forward to grasp & cross their wrists and press down in the centre of the chest, then lift their wrists up and arms out to the sides, as if rowing, to use gravity to pool blood back to the body and heart, and then back to the chest compression using kneeled reviver body weight, 8 times a minute. The significance of this, if used by Soviets back then, is it tends to place greatest pressure by right-sided revivers to the right of the sternal line, which is where Lyuda and Semyon were fractured, whereas CPR concentrates to slightly the left, where most hearts are.

Thankfully I wasn't taught how to blow smoke up the rectum, which was an 18th century technique.

It's harder to explain the high number of head injuries without corresponding defence injury or fall prevention (not a single broken collar bone). Either they were all caught unawares and clocked on the head in the dark, as an attacker theory, all of them seeming improbable, or they suddenly collapsed and were unable to break their fall so banged their heads.

I personally believe the Mansi found the tent and bodies, but it's always possible they may have had an earlier encounter with the hikers, learned they were heading to Ortoten, and Igor had told a Vizhay witness he was considering pitching there, it's in the case files, and I can imagine that freaking the Mansi for spiritual reasons, seven of their own freezing to death there in a storm, and the weather closing in around the Dyatlovs. In their culture, as many others, they might not have liked it getting 'crowded' up there should another catastrophe occur so may have sought to prevent it, perhaps by vandalising the tent.

As regards the cedar it may have been chosen for its evergreen canopy, if heavy snowfall?

[tenne]

I started this journey with the theory that the deaths were an accident because the skiers were not where they were supposed to be but because how they died was at the hands of something to do with the government they did a cover up.

I am no longer certain that it was an accident. given the shooting of Lyuda Dubinina  on a previous trip and some of the photos show them, IMO, being followed and there are photos that were strangely changed. I believe they were targeted and the scene set up. Now why? no idea

I still believe, based on talking to many oldtimers whose lives depended on winter skiing and trapping, that the tent could not be carried like it was ( I showed them all the photos) and that plays into them being in a place they were not supposed to be at or at a time they were not supposed to be there and were wiped out to protect that secret

now what that secret was? no idea, rarely do we know when a cover up is successful because if we know, then the cover up wasn't. except in cases where that information is let out after to thumb someone's nose ie; the faked invasion plan of the allies in WW2

[eurocentric]

I started this journey with the theory that the deaths were an accident because the skiers were not where they were supposed to be but because how they died was at the hands of something to do with the government they did a cover up.

I am no longer certain that it was an accident. given the shooting of Lyuda Dubinina  on a previous trip and some of the photos show them, IMO, being followed and there are photos that were strangely changed. I believe they were targeted and the scene set up. Now why? no idea

I still believe, based on talking to many oldtimers whose lives depended on winter skiing and trapping, that the tent could not be carried like it was ( I showed them all the photos) and that plays into them being in a place they were not supposed to be at or at a time they were not supposed to be there and were wiped out to protect that secret

now what that secret was? no idea, rarely do we know when a cover up is successful because if we know, then the cover up wasn't. except in cases where that information is let out after to thumb someone's nose ie; the faked invasion plan of the allies in WW2

Them being somewhere they shouldn't be is what added to my thermobaric (oxygen vacuum) bomb idea, the Russians developing this around that time, and though formally it's attributed to 1960 it's easy to imagine some prototype being tested earlier. One of Semyon's photo's, though they are of course hard to decipher, and may not even have been taken on the DPI at all, looks not unlike a parachute about the unfurl. The recent shoot down of the Chinese spy balloon over the US looked similar in one still image when it collapsed.

note the blobs (2 potential bombs) as if slung underneath -

https://dyatlovpass.com/resources/340/gallery/Zolotaryov-camera-05.jpg

and 2 here, with a potential detonation -

https://dyatlovpass.com/resources/340/gallery/Zolotaryov-camera-06.jpg

[tenne]

As I have posted before, I am the grand daughter of a northern ontario trapper. He and his friends and my dad made their living making trips like this all winter. Not one of the old timers I have ever shown the photos to think that the tent could be carried like that so I do believe they were in the a place they weren't supposed to be.

They may not have known the significance of what they saw but were followed. some of the photos show what I believe to be people in the background.

some of the photos are so obviously tampered with, IMO, I'm not sure they could have done it that quickly with the technology available at the time.

I also believe that the clothing was tested for radiation to see if there had been some leakage when whatever happened, happened

[Ziljoe]

I can't remember exactly when the DPI came to my knowledge. I think it was also around 2013, possibly popped up on you tube when I was searching about camping advice in cold conditions. I have a vague memory about there being a documentary on UK TV about the same time. I bought one of the many book's about the case and my journey started.

I thought and played around with many of the ideas put forward and kept coming back to an avalanche or something in the environment. Wind, cold, some kind of flood or change in the ground under the snow. I have never ruled out , outsiders but it's too messy and the rib fractures along with the injuries don't, to me , lean towards a human physical fight.

I spent a lot of time reading as many forums and ideas as I could. Everyone of these theories seems plausible and their authors write with convincing conviction. Unfortunately they all seem to run into speculation at some point.

Our member WAB was interesting and infra sound along with the research on the kabetic winds also seemed to fit the problem. I was still stuck with how the injuries occured though. The fractures etc. (I have no problems or suspicion with the abrasions on the hands along with small cuts).

I had Intially completely ignored anything to do animals , they reported that there was no sign of Wolves, wolverines, moose etc. Then Igor B wrote on the forum , I followed his links and read his argument . I found  it to be  good on a number of levels. His reasoning to the injuries in particularly , its his logic that changed how I viewed the events after the exit of the tent. ( We don't have to subscribe to the reason for leaving the tent was a wolverine).

And.....then there's our Teddy and Igor's book. I had to drop some assumptions and view the case from a different perspective. I am still going over this today . The paper trail is compelling.

Then we recently had posts from some of our russian forum members. It was put forward that they used the mystery for misinformation to the west, this may answer some of the coverup and is certainly not impossible, it also gives reason as to why it is still being kept confidential.

I remain quietly confident that what we are left with is a survival effort. The bodies lie where they fell or could go no further.


I believe the skiing with heavy weight can be done. It was done in ww2 by many plus they had to carry ammunition etc on top of food, sleeping blankets, shelter etc. It can be done and was done.

With mantis reference of a moose , it's not the strangest idea. I do wonder if there's a link with the "eagle photo " and a moose antler. Some one might be able to work that out with  fractal maths perhaps.





Here's the photo of the Mansi sticks with antlers , the chum.




These are just thoughts.

The photos that Eurocentric refers too are tiny bits of the photo. I doubt that they would focus for any type of parachute.

[eurocentric]

Thank you Ziljoe. This thread works two ways, it shows the evolution of a member's favoured theories and also where they're at now. I had you down as either wolverine or slab slip, but wasn't sure. Everything any one of us ever posts about the DPI is speculation though, the previous most prolific poster had that as his catchphrase.

I think the 'antlers' is actaully a snowflake which has landed on the lens and is melting and sliding down. Others with an interest in photography have agreed. That shot follows another similar one of 'Eagle Light' which is in focus, and the light is in the sky, so the camera lens looks upward.

For anyone interested in Semyon's bizarre film, if indeed it was his camera, and assuming the images were taken on the hike and not some earlier event, here are snipping tool grabs from additional images which appear in Keith McC's second e-book. One is truly odd and looks like a neon seamstresses dummy.








This extra photo I'm not sure of the authenticity. It appeared in a Polish forum and is simply claimed to be another image from the film. If so the negative must by then have been highly scratched. Interesting if it is authentic, as it has 2 features, the light and a dustbin-lid shaped object with a bevelled edge to the right.

[MDGross]

For me, Zolotaryov remains a man of mystery. His brother was wounded in the war, returned to his home village and then executed for collaborating with the German occupation force. After the war, Zolotaryov wanted more military training, but was never accepted into any program. He worked at several jobs, moved from city to city, but lost jobs most often for disciplinary reasons. He was nearly kicked out of the communist party. Of the Dyatlov nine, he had the most reasons by far for wanting to flee the Soviet Union. Was the KGB tipped off and then took action? I don't know. A couple of years ago, under the Freedom of Information Act, I asked the CIA for any information they might have on Zolotaryov. I was informed by letter that they couldn't confirm or deny that they had any information and that they couldn't confirm or deny that they didn't have any information. Huh?
As with any Dyatlov nine theory, this raises many questions and offers few answers. If Zolotaryov was involved, I cling to the hope that files still exist within the KGB or CIA or both and might be brought to light some day.

[eurocentric]

For me, Zolotaryov remains a man of mystery. His brother was wounded in the war, returned to his home village and then executed for collaborating with the German occupation force. After the war, Zolotaryov wanted more military training, but was never accepted into any program. He worked at several jobs, moved from city to city, but lost jobs most often for disciplinary reasons. He was nearly kicked out of the communist party. Of the Dyatlov nine, he had the most reasons by far for wanting to flee the Soviet Union. Was the KGB tipped off and then took action? I don't know. A couple of years ago, under the Freedom of Information Act, I asked the CIA for any information they might have on Zolotaryov. I was informed by letter that they couldn't confirm or deny that they had any information and that they couldn't confirm or deny that they didn't have any information. Huh?
As with any Dyatlov nine theory, this raises many questions and offers few answers. If Zolotaryov was involved, I cling to the hope that files still exist within the KGB or CIA or both and might be brought to light some day.

The execution of Semyon's brother and also Tibo's father under the Stalin regime would likely produce the bond that quickly developed between those two hikers.

[Ziljoe]

I lean towards something natural. The wolverine and Igor B's page got me out of a rut. Although there seems to be doubts over the spraying capability of the wolverine , I keep the possibility open, along with other observations like the injuries being caused by the collapse of a snow den/ cave.

Interestingly enough , as I have just found out , it might be on our main website but I've never come across it, one of the other groups doing their tourist trip at the same time , that ended up joining the searchers had there own troubles.

They had to dig snow dens to continue and survive. In fact, it seems that many of these trips by students had numerous problems. This includes the tents, various gear, internal fights , along with wood stoves and getting hot food.

There are many observations that can be had from the written diaries from previous trips. All the students, including those that joined the search seemed to be highly active in the hobby of long trips.

A snow slip or slide is still up there along with build up of snow on the tent, some kind of poisoning/toxin to extreme cold for the exit of the tent.