Evening Otorten - Encrypted report

[SURI]

I don't understand how, in 1959, they were able to guess the date of Yudin's death in 2013.

I can still understand that they guessed and wrote down the date of their own death...

Or did Yudin himself decide to die on that date  - April, 27...

Or was it a Higher Power?

Yes, a Higher Power.
Those numbers are not random. If you think about it a little, you might figure it out.

[Ziljoe]

The situation with the numbers in the Combat Leaflet reminds me a little of the Bible Code discussions from the 1990s. Not in a dismissive way — just in terms of how easily patterns can appear when the dataset is small.

For context, The Bible Code was a very popular book by Michael Drosnin. It claimed that hidden messages and predictions could be found in the Hebrew text of the Torah by skipping letters at fixed intervals. Using this method, the author said he found things like:

- the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 
- references to Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War 
- the Shoemaker–Levy comet impact on Jupiter 
- even supposed future world events 

It sounded impressive at the time, but mathematicians later demonstrated that the same method could produce equally “meaningful” predictions from completely unrelated books — Moby Dick, War and Peace, newspapers, anything long enough. The reason was simple: 
when the pool of available symbols or numbers is small, patterns will always appear in hindsight.

That’s the only parallel I’m drawing here.

In the “Sports” section of the leaflet, the hikers were using a fixed time format — hours, minutes, seconds, and tenths. Minutes and seconds can only ever run from 00 to 59. That gives you a very narrow numerical range. When the range is that limited, coincidences are almost guaranteed if you look back at the numbers after the fact.

This doesn’t mean the leaflet wasn’t written with humour or intention — just that numerical matches can happen naturally when the format itself restricts the possible values.

[Axelrod]

This doesn’t mean the leaflet wasn’t written with humour or intention — just that numerical matches can happen naturally when the format itself restricts the possible values.

Science explains this in such a way that we live in quantum chaos, which lives by its own laws, which we do not yet know.

[SURI]

If the Combat Leaflet contains something that happens afterwards and is completely visible, it cannot be explained other than by it being an encrypted message that knew it in advance.

The leaflet predicted that tourists would not be warm, that there would then be snowmen in the Urals, and gave exact numbers on how events would develop and when they would occur.

[GlennM]

Reasoning from a false premise, as this thread does,  may be perfectly logical and rational. It does not equate with the truth. I can give a compelling and logically airtight explanation for how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin. It is still untrue.

[SURI]

The Combat Leaflet is fully consistent with what happened. We see the scene, the names, the numbers. It's not just one thing. The dots connect...

[Ziljoe]

A useful framework here is the dual‑process model of cognition. 
System 1 (fast thinking) is optimised for pattern detection and will find meaningful connections even in small, noisy datasets. 
System 2 (slow thinking) evaluates base rates, sample size, and probability, and tends to treat matches in restricted number spaces as expected coincidence rather than encoded intent.

The leaflet sits in a statistically high‑noise, low‑signal environment: 
small dataset, constrained number range, and retrospective interpretation. 
In such conditions, System 1 naturally produces meaningful‑seeming alignments, while System 2 sees them as artefacts of limited data.

Neither mode is “wrong” — they simply operate on different cognitive principles. 
But from a statistical standpoint, small constrained datasets routinely generate coincidental matches without requiring encryption or foresight.

To expand on this: 
the hikers were highly likely to produce a combat leaflet. 
The subject matter was highly likely to reference the weather, temperature, and the challenges they were enduring — because that is exactly what combat leaflets were used for. 
The format itself copies a newspaper: short sections, topical humour, and a closing sports segment, just as newspapers around the world do.

This means the leaflet is a finite, tightly constrained dataset. 
Its content is shaped by:

- the humour style 
- the newspaper parody format 
- the hiking context 
- the expected audience 
- the limited space 
- the predictable themes (cold, snow, tourists, difficulty, dates, numbers)

When you work backwards from the Dyatlov outcome and search for matches inside such a limited dataset, you will always find something — not because it was predicted, but because the data space is too small to avoid coincidences.

This is the same statistical behaviour seen in Bible Code, Nostradamus interpretations, and numerology: 
a restricted dataset + retrospective interpretation = false significance.

The leaflet isn’t prophetic. 
It’s simply a small, humorous document whose structure and topic make certain themes and numbers inevitable, and therefore easy to map onto later events if you look backwards.

[SURI]

This is exactly what they did with Ivanov. Once he revealed an unpleasant truth, they prevented him from publishing it.

The Combat Leaflet somehow knew in advance who would be "frozen" and who was to be spared. It even knew the exact date when this would happen. The numbers don't lie.

[Axelrod]

Reasoning from a false premise, as this thread does,  may be perfectly logical and rational.

You yourself constantly do this in your attempts to explain these events.
You invent non-existent things that weren't responsible for their deaths.

It does not equate with the truth.

I completely agree!

[GlennM]

Axelrod, I can explain with 100 percent certainty how each and every one of them died. That is easy. What happened just before that is not so easy. Why it happened is harder still.Nobody has definitively got those answers right to everyone's satisfaction.. Consider how many times you revise your manuscript. It is not easy, yes? You advance some  interesting ideas, which are appreciated and thought provoking.

Many believe they know, but as I said, a person can be logical and wrong. They can be intuitive and wrong. This is because logic isn't truth. It is a good way to get there though. Ziljoe has the most lucid and probable explanation for the coincidences of the combat leaflet. That does not mean his answer will be embraced or even understood. To fault another forum member who adheres to a theory is akin to mocking a gambler who only bets on red at roulette and then while grinning, bets both red and black . Always safe, never profitable.

"Тhe rescue team was put up below the river, in a large 30-berth tent together with the military rescuers. An officer from the military group served as coordinator of the search mission. On the slope, everything had been blown down by the winds, but traces of the tent site were still visible. The search mission followed those traces, along the slope closer to the cedar, but with no result. The weather was fine, but the snow was deeper than the length of the gauge feelers – Sharavin confirmed that, by that time, more snow had accumulated in the lowland due to the snow slide from the mountaintops."

Oh, there is that pesky snow slide GlennM thinks is possible. Blown down by winds? Another one of GlennM's sacred cows. Me, betting on red again.

[SURI]

More significant is Ivanov's conclusion. The searchers did not investigate anything. The snow slide does not correspond to Ivanov's words about selective force, motive, and the savage group. Motive and selective force mean murder Ivanov's words and the Combat Leaflet interact perfectly with each other.

[Ziljoe]

More significant is Ivanov's conclusion. The searchers did not investigate anything. The snow slide does not correspond to Ivanov's words about selective force, motive, and the savage group. Motive and selective force mean murder Ivanov's words and the Combat Leaflet interact perfectly with each other.

Ivanov’s conclusion isn’t about murder, motive, or attackers. 
It’s about negligence — specifically the negligence of the officials responsible for supervising the hike.

He argues that those in charge of organising and overseeing the expedition should have faced consequences for allowing the group to slip into what he calls “semi‑savage” and then “savage” status. 
The key point is that “savage” has a specific meaning in Soviet tourist terminology, and it has nothing to do with violence.

What “дикий поход” (savage hike) meant in Soviet tourism

This was an official classification used by sports‑tourism committees.

A “savage” group was one that:

- was not registered with the sports committee 
- had no approved route 
- had no control points 
- had no rescue plan 
- travelled outside the official system 

This was considered dangerous not because the hikers were “wild,” but because the state couldn’t track them.

A standard definition from Soviet tourist manuals:

> “Дикий поход — поход, совершаемый без регистрации и контроля со стороны спортивных организаций.” 
> “A savage hike is a hike carried out without registration and without oversight from sports organisations.”

This appears in multiple handbooks from the 1950s–70s.

This is the context Ivanov is using. 
He is criticising the sports committee, not hinting at murder.

---

“The searchers did not investigate anything”

Correct — because they were conducting a search and rescue, not a criminal investigation. 
For the first 24–48 hours, the scene was handled, moved, and disturbed because:

- nobody knew the scale of the tragedy 
- nobody knew about the ravine injuries (those weren’t discovered for two months) 
- nobody suspected a crime 
- the default Soviet procedure was: dead bodies → open a criminal case 

That was standard bureaucracy, not an implication of murder.

---

“Selective force”

This term simply means the injuries were uneven across the group:

- some had chest compression 
- some had skull fractures 
- some had no trauma 
- some died of hypothermia 

In Soviet forensic language, this is non‑uniform application of physical force, not targeted violence.

---

Why Ivanov was angry

Because the sports committee:

- didn’t know where the group was 
- didn’t know their route 
- didn’t know their checkpoints 
- had to get basic information from a student 
- failed to supervise the expedition properly 

That’s why he felt he let people down. 
That’s why he blamed the officials. 
If he believed the cause was rockets, UFOs, or murder, he would not be attacking the sports committee — he would be attacking the military or the state.

His anger is directed at negligence, not a cover‑up of violence.

[SURI]

Ivanov saw everything from the perspective of an investigator and provided us with an overall insight into the case. He pointed out specific things cleverly and covertly.


Unfortunately, the murder is hinted at.

●  "There was a directed force that selectively acted on individuals, excluding others."
●  "It seemed like when the hikers walked on their feet more than five hundred meters down from the mountain, someone dealt with some of them as direct targets."


The group's savagery only became apparent in the final stages. The Combat Leaflet supports this.

● "Moving into the stage of "savagery" at the final stage."


2 knew, but were silent.
Ivanov did not have to mention these two officials at all, just like the others who simply neglected something. But he chose these two again because he thought it was important. These 2 knew, but they were silent. They only benefited from the silence.

● "But there were those for whom silence was beneficial. These two absolutely guilty people in the death of the guys"

Ivanov was attacking the real culprits, which was not the army or the state.

[Senior Maldonado]

Ivanov saw everything from the perspective of an investigator and provided us with an overall insight into the case. He pointed out specific things cleverly and covertly.

I am afraid we need to be very selective with Ivanov's statements and with the insights provided. Looking at his two statements:

1) "It seemed like when the hikers walked on their feet more than five hundred meters down from the mountain, someone dealt with some of them as direct targets."
2) "It was just an ordinary case of mass casualties. That's all. ... They don't have any external injuries that indicate an attack."

we can say that only one statement could be true, but not both. Assassination of 9 people with an exotic weapon is not an ordinary case surely.

[SURI]

You have to understand Ivanov. For Ivanov, it was an ordinary case. An ordinary murder case, as he indicated in his statements, of which Ivanov had solved several during his career. He even mentions two cases from his practice (an accident and a deliberate act) so that the reader can understand the connection with the Dyatlov case.

Yes, there were mass casualties, but he never mentioned the assassination of 9 people. He always used the term "selective force." He also ruled out soldiers and therefore an attack from outside. But there was still a selective force and motive.

Ivanov was constant, always expressing the same thing, but in different words.

Maybe I'm talking a bit like Ivanov now.😉

[Ziljoe]

The phrase ‘ordinary case’ does not appear in any of Ivanov’s official statements or interviews. It comes from modern paraphrasing, not from Ivanov himself. 

Ivanov never said murder, never used the legal term for homicide, and explicitly wrote that there were no injuries indicating an attack. 
 
‘Selective force’ in 1959 forensic language means uneven injuries, not targeted killing. Semi savage is a hiking terminology , it does not mean they become savage . Its used in other descriptions of hikers and hikes getting reprimanded.

 The only people Ivanov blamed were the sports officials for negligence, not for murder.”

[GlennM]

I have learned that the Evening Otorten is a representative type of Russian social satire. It follows a formula which Soviets found humerous. Any connection between the content of the document and the outcome of the hikers is coincidental and inferred by 20/20 hindsight. Think reading tea leaves. Think Barnum Effect. Any attempt to do a forensic assessment of Ivanov is no more than overlaying the authors presumptions on his records. Ivanov's testimonies are a mashup of two different recitations separated by decades. His records are not universally understood owing to translation, colloquial interpretations, cultural differences and whether the authors of forum comments presume good or bad intent in their point of view as well as Ivanov. The combat leaflet was prepared whereas the certification document for Ortoten cairn was never discovered. The implication is for me, that all was well with the group up to and including the time the leaflet was penned. The leaflet's purpose was to reinforce group cohesion. That cohesion is demonstrated by the various groupings of the deceased. Western logic says that hikers predicting their deaths in the cryptic form of a funny sheet of paper only remotely makes sense if they were a quasi religious cult. Remote, like the distance from here to Alpha Centauri.

[SURI]

Ivanov admitted that the tourists did not freeze to death, but he could not publicly utter the word murder either before or later. This needs to be understood. He could only indicate it with appropriate expressions. He was a master of words.

[Senior Maldonado]

The phrase ‘ordinary case’ does not appear in any of Ivanov’s official statements or interviews. It comes from modern paraphrasing, not from Ivanov himself. 

Sorry, it does. Ivanov explicitly says that it was an ordinary case.

For Ivanov, it was an ordinary case. An ordinary murder case, as he indicated in his statements, of which Ivanov had solved several during his career.

Yes, Ivanov called it ordinary case. But he denied that it was a murder. He qualified it as an accident.

[Ziljoe]

Sorry, ive tried to find it but i can't, and relies heavily on context. Where does he say it was an ordinary case?

[SURI]

Yes, Ivanov called it ordinary case. But he denied that it was a murder. He qualified it as an accident.

The context suggests that it was both. He couldn't write that it was a murder and an accident, so he wrote it like this, covertly combined into one sentence, hoping that the reader would understand it based on his previous and following words. You still don't understand his style of speech.

His hidden (encrypted) speech was excellent.

"I am sending a camera found in the mountains that belonged to your son Zolotaryov."

https://dyatlovpass.com/case-files-volume-2-64?rbid=19667

[Senior Maldonado]

Sorry, ive tried to find it but i can't, and relies heavily on context. Where does he say it was an ordinary case?

Please, read scans of Ivanov's letter at this link:
http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/fond-dyatlov/album/296717/

And please, pay attention on this fragment:

[Ziljoe]

Sorry, ive tried to find it but i can't, and relies heavily on context. Where does he say it was an ordinary case?

Please, read scans of Ivanov's letter at this link:
http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/fond-dyatlov/album/296717/

And please, pay attention on this fragment:

Thank you senior,

I have read it before but i haven't fully explored the possibilities of what is being said. Its clear that he isn't implying murder for sure and im being being pedantic on routine and ordinary.

Ivanov clearly says the case was handled as a routine accident, but the rest of the letter is quite mixed — he moves between describing the 1959 handling, his later reflections, and some speculation from much later in life.

What I’m trying to understand is how you interpret that passage in the wider context of the whole letter. 
Do you think Ivanov meant “routine” only in the bureaucratic sense (i.e., accidental deaths with no crime), or do you think he was hinting that he later believed something more was behind it?
I'm contemplating that he is trying to make a distinction between his expertise of these big cases that he was involved with and then questioning why he was drafted into a routine case , my point being , it was below his expertise for such of a general winter accident and there may have been more to it?

[SURI]

In the two previous cases, Ivanov shows that it was the same ordinary case as these two. If it was just an ordinary accident, he would have written – It was an ordinary case, it was an accident and he would not have used the word murder at all.  But he felt the need to put it like that in one sentence at once.

And below that he noted:
"Therefore, there is no need to go into details that the hikers' films and other documents have not survived."

Reading between the lines – The tourists' films and other documents did not survive because it was a murder. That's how the whole context sounds.

"It's no secret now, but as a criminal prosecutor I registered 530-560 intentional murders in the region every year".

[SURI]

It's quite clear. All the material evidence of the crime had to be destroyed. Why would they destroy it if it didn't provide anything? Evidence is, after all, evidence that contains valuable information. This is a very important revelation.

"All the papers that did not provide information and everything else that also did not provide information, we burned. this is accepted in investigative bodies. that's how they write: such and such material evidence to destroy".

[Ziljoe]

There's a lot going on here and I'm using AI to try and get context. This Ivanovo letter or letters seem to be the trigger to how the Dyatlov mystery came into the public domain and media. The documents we have seem to be a mix of a request to Ivanov about reopening the case . The incident was a secret in the region and locals still new about it but i think this was mid 80's .

Ivanov replied and stated it was a routine case . The sports committee was at fault , the hikers were operating semi savage ( which means not properly supervised by the sports committee). Irrelevant documents get destroyed, basically he's saying there's nothing to see. Ill let the AI response take over below:

“Why We May Be Mixing Two Different Ivanov Documents”

Over the last few years, a lot of discussion about Ivanov’s writings has been based on the assumption that we are looking at one continuous document. But when you examine the sources closely, it becomes clear that what appears online is actually a mixture of two completely different texts, written years apart, for different purposes, and in very different tones.

This merging may be creating contradictions that were never present in the original documents.

Below is a structured outline of the issue.

---

1. There are two separate Ivanov documents

A. The 1989–1990 memo to the Sverdlovsk Prosecutor’s Office
- Internal, bureaucratic, and dry 
- Written when the office asked whether the Dyatlov case should be reopened 
- Concludes: no crime, no murder, no grounds to reopen 
- Mentions routine destruction of irrelevant materials 
- Notes that some films/documents did not survive 
- Only fragments are known — the full memo has never been published

B. The 1991 manuscript/letter
- Personal, emotional, speculative 
- Sent to a TV program during the glasnost era 
- Mentions “directed radiation,” “wide beam,” “burned fir trees,” etc. 
- This is the only full Ivanov document available online 
- It reflects late‑life speculation, not official conclusions

These two documents are not the same and were written in different decades.

---

2. Online sources often merge the two documents together

Several websites present:

- fragments of the 1989–1990 memo 
- pages from the 1991 manuscript 
- journalist commentary 
- editorial notes 

…all on the same page, in the same font, without clear separation.

This creates the illusion of a single continuous “letter,” even though the content comes from different years and different contexts.

---

3. This merging creates artificial contradictions

When the two documents are placed together:

- routine evidence disposal (from the memo) 
appears next to 
- speculation about radiation beams (from 1991)

This makes it look like Ivanov was hinting at something or contradicting himself inside one document, when in reality the statements belong to different eras and different purposes.

The “hints” only appear when the texts are stitched together.

---

4. The early memo itself is missing

We do not have:

- a scan 
- a transcript 
- a photocopy 
- or an archival release 

of the 1989–1990 memo.

What we do have are consistent quotations from multiple independent Russian sources (journalists, researchers, Ivanov himself, and his daughter) that all reference the same lines.

So the memo almost certainly existed, but it has never been published in full.

---

5. The only complete Ivanov document online is the 1991 manuscript

This is the one with:

- radiation 
- beams 
- fireballs 
- burned trees 
- political digressions 
- personal anecdotes 

It is not an official investigative document and should not be treated as one.

---

6. Why this matters

If we treat the merged online version as a single letter, we risk:

- attributing 1991 speculation to the 1959 investigation 
- reading contradictions that were never present 
- assuming coded hints where none existed 
- misunderstanding Ivanov’s actual official position 

Separating the documents may help clarify what Ivanov really said in his official capacity versus what he speculated about decades later.

---

7. Suggestion

It might be useful for the forum to:

- separate the two documents clearly 
- label which lines belong to which era 
- avoid treating the merged online version as a single source 
- re‑evaluate interpretations based on this separation 

We may all benefit from a cleaner, more historically accurate understanding of Ivanov’s writings.

[SURI]

You are unnecessarily discrediting Ivanov because you don't understand him or rather don't want to understand. He says the tourists didn't freeze to death and in his letters he blames two officials for their deaths, and that's the end of it for him. He couldn't arrest them. If the hikers did not freeze to death and the real truth of their deaths was hidden from the people, the fault of these officials cannot be mere negligence. These two were silent and benefited from the silence. This is extremely important.

[Ziljoe]

I think we’re reading very different things into Ivanov’s memo. 
The document itself is a bureaucratic summary stating the case was an accident and shouldn’t be reopened.  He doesn’t say they didn’t freeze to death, he doesn’t accuse anyone of murder, and he doesn’t imply a cover‑up. 

If we want to interpret him, we should start from what he actually wrote, not what we wish he meant.

Routine and ordinary are two similar words but have different meanings , routine means to follow a set of processes and i believe this is what Ivanov is saying, that is it was a routine case , they followed the rules , he gives examples of the other cases he had been involved in as evidence that he knows what he's taking about.

He's replying to people asking if the case is worth reopening in the new era of Russian freedom of information. There is a frenzy of stories about UFO etc and new released material as i understand it.

He's writing sometime in late 80s early 90s regarding several other newspaper articles on the incident in response to a request private request.

He  replies in a formal tone and says it was routine , the sports committee failed the tourists and 2 of the people at the top were being protected from negligence. That's the first bit.

[SURI]

Yes, we see it differently.

[GlennM]

There has been a patient and learned discussion on the tooic. Too, there is an obvious unwillingness to resolve this thread, I see it as arguing for the sake of argument. This goes to some deeper need. I feel that we should navigate away from it. It is a trivial topic and peripheral to any real understanding of the tragedy. I am out.