Meteor

[sarapuk]

If such a rocket had landed at the pass, it would have left a big mess over a wide area.

Perhaps, 'big mess' left by a fallen rocket's stage is an exaggeration. There are examples, when the spot, where a part of a rocket landed, looks quite innocent. This article says more about that: https://www.e1.ru/text/world/2019/02/21/65981111/

Well, there are theories surrounding this rocket event. As that article states,'' incidentally, there's a theory that the tourists at Dyatlov Pass in 1959 died precisely because of the stage's fall, or more precisely, because of its fuel. The toxicity of the fuel at the time is unknown.
After the launch, specialists also survey the area, search for separated fragments, neutralise residual rocket fuel components, monitor the environmental situation, and return evacuated people to their original location.''
However, there is no report of anything like that having occurred at the Dyatlov Group's location. Also, if it had occurred, there would have been plenty of physical evidence.

[Senior Maldonado]

The toxicity of the fuel at the time is unknown.

The toxicity of the fuel was Zero, if we assume that the fuel of upper stage was LH2:

However, there is no report of anything like that having occurred at the Dyatlov Group's location. Also, if it had occurred, there would have been plenty of physical evidence.

As for me, physical evidence was more than enough. And that evidence was excessive water all around the slope:

Vladislav Karelin: "I kicked a footprint with the toe of my boot. It turned out to be made of ice."
Sergey Sogrin: "We, on the other hand, came across what we believed to be a slope glacier formed by groundwater. It was quite long and steeply descended into the valley."
Rudolf Sedov: "There was a large icy space just down the slope. The ice sparkled in the Sun."

When hydrogen burns in the air, a lot of water is produced, while toxic exhaust is zero:
2*H₂ + O₂ = 2*H₂O + <shock wave>

[sarapuk]

The toxicity of the fuel at the time is unknown.

The toxicity of the fuel was Zero, if we assume that the fuel of upper stage was LH2:

However, there is no report of anything like that having occurred at the Dyatlov Group's location. Also, if it had occurred, there would have been plenty of physical evidence.

As for me, physical evidence was more than enough. And that evidence was excessive water all around the slope:

Vladislav Karelin: "I kicked a footprint with the toe of my boot. It turned out to be made of ice."
Sergey Sogrin: "We, on the other hand, came across what we believed to be a slope glacier formed by groundwater. It was quite long and steeply descended into the valley."
Rudolf Sedov: "There was a large icy space just down the slope. The ice sparkled in the Sun."

When hydrogen burns in the air, a lot of water is produced, while toxic exhaust is zero:
2*H₂ + O₂ = 2*H₂O + <shock wave>

Concerning Sergey Sorin. He did not believe in the Avalanche Theory. This is some of what he has to say .''What are the first impressions? The tent is set up on a safe, very gentle slope. Above it, there is no avalanche zone, since the slope flattens out and turns into a horizontal watershed of the ridge. The snow is blown away by the wind almost to the ground, covering up the unevenness. The tent withstood the wind and snowfalls for more than 20 days. People left the tent instantly under the influence of some very strong fright and fear, which haunted them for a relatively long time, since sobering up did not come in the first minutes of flight, and people went far down the slope.'' However he does say that he believes they encounted steeper and slippery conditions lower down the slope and the hikers slipped and fell  and got injured. But thats him speculating.
This sounds like he is contradicting himself !

[Senior Maldonado]

Concerning Sergey Sogrin...

Yes, concerning Sergey Sogrin, who in March 1959 acted as a hiking consultant to Lev Ivanov, while both of them were at the Pass.

In 2020, Mr.Sogrin published a book called "What the traces told us", which described what he had seen on the Pass and to which conclusions he had come. From that book:

"In those years, many mountain expeditions came to the Pamirs. That's how I met a master of mountaineering, who was very famous at the time. However, his civilian activities were heavily classified. Even now, when he's in his 90s, he's under the care and protection of the State. Therefore, I won't disclose his name. He was involved in the development of strategic and defense systems, including those related to space exploration. In those days, it was not common to ask people about their work, especially those with such classified information. They could have suspected you of being a spy.
 We were sitting by the fire on the shore of Lake Iskander Kul. We were talking about our mutual friends, the climbers, and those who had stayed in the mountains forever. I told him about the Dyatlov incident. His response stuck with me for the rest of my life.
 "In those days, we used to drop the spent rocket stages in the desolate regions of the Northern Urals."

AFAIK, Sergey Sogrin gives favour to the Rocket theory. His current understanding is that a rocket had an acident and had spat a poisonous cloud over the tent. The hikers had to leave the spot quickly. However,- time was enough to all of them to breathe the poisonous stuff. As for heavy injuries, Mr.Sogrin thinks that Tibo fell from the Cedar tree his head down, Dubinina and Zolotarev had their ribs cracked by snow in the ravine, when they had been dead already.

[Ziljoe]

It is strange why Sogrin doesn't name the person that gave the information which says they dropped dropped rocket stages over the northern Urals?

[Axelrod]

The thing is, the Northern Urals are quite extensive, approximately 1,000 km.
Rocket parts did indeed fall, but later (at least six months later) and at a shorter range than 1,000 km.

Dyatlov Pass is conventionally considered part of the Northern Urals, but in fact, it's the Middle Urals, if you look at the map.
When correspondent Vadim Chernobrov wrote that Dyatlov Pass is in the Southern Urals, Sogrini criticized it and laughed.

But you can just as easily laugh at Sogrin for not understanding anything.
Well, let's say there was an accident with a rocket. But why was there a pyramid of nine people? Why did Thibault fall and crack his skull?
If he didn't see it, then it's a figment of his imagination. Was the attack actually true? There's nothing to suggest it.
Generally, there are things you can laugh about. Sogian's situation lends itself very well to that.

Recently, there was a scandalous trial in Russia involving singer Larisa Dolinyo, and right now my screen is half-filled with all sorts of mockery and parodies.

[Senior Maldonado]

It is strange why Sogrin doesn't name the person that gave the information which says they dropped dropped rocket stages over the northern Urals?

It's not a big deal to find out who that person was. In one of his interviews Mr.Sogrin provided more details about that episode.

"In the mid 1970s, Ivan D. Bogachev, a master of sports from Moscow, came to Pamir in summer as an authorized representative of the USSR Sports Committee for Mountaineering. He worked at a top-secret enterprise or research institute. ... Being with Ivan on the Iskander-Kul lake in the Fan mountains, in the evening we had a conversation around the campfire about hiking, and I told him in detail the story of Dyatlov. I quote his words almost exactly -

<In the 50s, we used to drop spent rockets' stages to the Northern Urals, where they burned up entering dense layers of atmosphere. Perhaps, some parts reached the ground. Dyatlov witnessed and became a victim of such event, as he happened to be in close proximity to the burning rocket carrier. We had chosen that area because there were no houses or people for hundreds of kilometers, except for occasional local hunters who might wander into the area.>

After his words, everything fell into place and received a logical explanation for those events. This was further confirmed by the discovery of pieces of fuselage in the Northern Urals, which were clearly of rocket origin."

[Axelrod]

I've studied the rocket launch schedule, and a rocket accident at this location in February 1959 is definitely ruled out.
This is the landing site of rockets from the cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region, which was launched only six months later.
This cosmodrome was actively used in the following decades, but not in the 1950s and 1959s.

A car collision is possible, but rocket launches are clearly documented.

The launch schedule for the first thousand rockets (approximately before Gagarin's flight) was declassified and published in 2010.
This information is duplicated on several websites, some of it on Wikipedia.
Sogrin is an elderly, sick man and is unable to personally verify this information online.
Printing books with such false information means wasting forests and paper.

[Ziljoe]

It is strange why Sogrin doesn't name the person that gave the information which says they dropped dropped rocket stages over the northern Urals?

It's not a big deal to find out who that person was. In one of his interviews Mr.Sogrin provided more details about that episode.

"In the mid 1970s, Ivan D. Bogachev, a master of sports from Moscow, came to Pamir in summer as an authorized representative of the USSR Sports Committee for Mountaineering. He worked at a top-secret enterprise or research institute. ... Being with Ivan on the Iskander-Kul lake in the Fan mountains, in the evening we had a conversation around the campfire about hiking, and I told him in detail the story of Dyatlov. I quote his words almost exactly -

<In the 50s, we used to drop spent rockets' stages to the Northern Urals, where they burned up entering dense layers of atmosphere. Perhaps, some parts reached the ground. Dyatlov witnessed and became a victim of such event, as he happened to be in close proximity to the burning rocket carrier. We had chosen that area because there were no houses or people for hundreds of kilometers, except for occasional local hunters who might wander into the area.>

After his words, everything fell into place and received a logical explanation for those events. This was further confirmed by the discovery of pieces of fuselage in the Northern Urals, which were clearly of rocket origin."

There are a number of quotes senior Maldonado.
Hence my question. You have taken a long time to regurgitate what has already been  put forward as new information?. This was already said in in 2012 . Your argument for a rocket has always been put forward but you have added nothing new to the debate interesting as it is , the debate already exists. I was expecting something new from your protracted responses .





Many years later, in the early 70s, I met I.D. Bogachev, a master of sports in mountaineering, in the Pamirs. He worked in Moscow at some secret research institute. In the evening, by the fire on Lake Iskander Kul, we were talking about mountains and people. I told him the story of Dyatlov, to which he answered me verbatim the following: "In those years, we dropped spent stages of rocket carriers into uninhabited areas of the Northern Urals, and Dyatlov became a victim of this." It was impossible to ask more questions, he worked, as they said then, in the "box". So he said too much[.[/b]

The question remains, but seems to be strongly denied, that any flying missiles or rocket stages could have fallen in the dyatlov pass region . I still don't know your proposal, that is, if just fuel melted the ground and snow but the rocket stage landed out with the area , or the rocket stage fell close by?.

I don't know why you don't give all quotes, time lines and research the authors of said statements. The case files are the key source of information. Much of what has been said by witnesses after the event would seem to have been manipulated by the media. The media tries to sell story's , not facts.

As I understand it, your theory revolves around a space rocket stage flying over the tent but not landing. Various chemicals dispersed in the air making the snow wet ( I don't know if you mean the fuel ignited and caused snow to melt that created the prints and Ice field or the liquid melted the snow and it is this that caused the footprints?)

I don't know if your argument is that they started the fire at the cedar and this caused an explosion that broke ribs and the wind burn on the trees that ivanov thought he saw.

Please just say it how it is because it's like pulling teeth . Long and drawn out .

What pieces of fuselage were found of rocket design were found in the northern Urals? 

[Senior Maldonado]

you have taken a long time to regurgitate
you have added nothing new
your protracted responses
you don't give all quotes, time lines and research
it's like pulling teeth, long and drawn out

You sound grumpy and a little agressive. Is the life hard? Ballantine's 0.25 should help. Cheers! 

[Ziljoe]

you have taken a long time to regurgitate
you have added nothing new
your protracted responses
you don't give all quotes, time lines and research
it's like pulling teeth, long and drawn out

You sound grumpy and a little agressive. Is the life hard? Ballantine's 0.25 should help. Cheers! 

Thanks , I'll give it a try whilst I wait for you to post a coherent explanation of your missile theory . It might make my life less hard.

[sarapuk]

Concerning Sergey Sogrin...

Yes, concerning Sergey Sogrin, who in March 1959 acted as a hiking consultant to Lev Ivanov, while both of them were at the Pass.

In 2020, Mr.Sogrin published a book called "What the traces told us", which described what he had seen on the Pass and to which conclusions he had come. From that book:

"In those years, many mountain expeditions came to the Pamirs. That's how I met a master of mountaineering, who was very famous at the time. However, his civilian activities were heavily classified. Even now, when he's in his 90s, he's under the care and protection of the State. Therefore, I won't disclose his name. He was involved in the development of strategic and defense systems, including those related to space exploration. In those days, it was not common to ask people about their work, especially those with such classified information. They could have suspected you of being a spy.
 We were sitting by the fire on the shore of Lake Iskander Kul. We were talking about our mutual friends, the climbers, and those who had stayed in the mountains forever. I told him about the Dyatlov incident. His response stuck with me for the rest of my life.
 "In those days, we used to drop the spent rocket stages in the desolate regions of the Northern Urals."

AFAIK, Sergey Sogrin gives favour to the Rocket theory. His current understanding is that a rocket had an acident and had spat a poisonous cloud over the tent. The hikers had to leave the spot quickly. However,- time was enough to all of them to breathe the poisonous stuff. As for heavy injuries, Mr.Sogrin thinks that Tibo fell from the Cedar tree his head down, Dubinina and Zolotarev had their ribs cracked by snow in the ravine, when they had been dead already.

But there was no evidence of poisonous substances found at the ~Dyatlov site. And no evidence of rocket parts. The injuries to Dubinina in particular were too serious to have been caused by snow in the ravine. The Northern Urals cover a huge area of about 130,000 square miles. The Urals are one of the most fascinating places on Earth.

[sarapuk]

The thing is, the Northern Urals are quite extensive, approximately 1,000 km.
Rocket parts did indeed fall, but later (at least six months later) and at a shorter range than 1,000 km.

Dyatlov Pass is conventionally considered part of the Northern Urals, but in fact, it's the Middle Urals, if you look at the map.
When correspondent Vadim Chernobrov wrote that Dyatlov Pass is in the Southern Urals, Sogrini criticized it and laughed.

But you can just as easily laugh at Sogrin for not understanding anything.
Well, let's say there was an accident with a rocket. But why was there a pyramid of nine people? Why did Thibault fall and crack his skull?
If he didn't see it, then it's a figment of his imagination. Was the attack actually true? There's nothing to suggest it.
Generally, there are things you can laugh about. Sogian's situation lends itself very well to that.

Recently, there was a scandalous trial in Russia involving singer Larisa Dolinyo, and right now my screen is half-filled with all sorts of mockery and parodies.

The Urals are one of the wonders of the World. And over 1 million square miles. The Dyatlov site covers about 1 square mile.

[sarapuk]

I've studied the rocket launch schedule, and a rocket accident at this location in February 1959 is definitely ruled out.
This is the landing site of rockets from the cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region, which was launched only six months later.
This cosmodrome was actively used in the following decades, but not in the 1950s and 1959s.

A car collision is possible, but rocket launches are clearly documented.

The launch schedule for the first thousand rockets (approximately before Gagarin's flight) was declassified and published in 2010.
This information is duplicated on several websites, some of it on Wikipedia.
Sogrin is an elderly, sick man and is unable to personally verify this information online.
Printing books with such false information means wasting forests and paper.

Yes its highly unlikely that any rockets passed over the Dyatlov site either deliberately or accidentally. Sogrin is one of many people involved in one way or another who have voiced their opinion on what may have happened at the Dyatlov site.

[Senior Maldonado]

The injuries to Dubinina in particular were too serious to have been caused by snow in the ravine.

Completely true. Talking about injuries of the Ravine-4 hikers we cannot avoid the explosion topic, since neither a pile of snow nor a group of people can cause those injuries which they had. Lev Ivanov almost openly points us to the explosion:

"It wasn't in the usual sense an explosion of a shell or a bomb. It was different, as if a balloon had burst."

Ballon is always a volume. And Ivanov's statement says to us that:
1) An explosion took place indeed.
2) It was a kind of thermobaric explosion, when a big volume of flamable stuff burns in the air.

Shock wave from the explosion threw the hikers on the rocks in the creek and pressed them against the rocks.

And no evidence of rocket parts.

Why does evacuatioin team need to leave any rocket parts on the spot? Their mission is to find a fallen rocket stage and get it to the factory, where developers would inspect it thoroughly. If some parts are missing, they probably will not be able to understand why their product collapsed.

Secondly, why do you think that it must be many parts? A rocket stage may land as a single unit, and if it is light enough, it may be taken by helicopter. In our case, the stage obviously leaked its tanks out, thus the rocket's body was not heavy.

[Senior Maldonado]

@sarapuk

A small addition about rockets' parts -- yesterday's finding of a part of the rocket launched recently. It doesn't look like this big part produced a lot of small parts that were hard to find. The major damage to the environment are broken trees. However, on the slope of the 1079 mountain there are no trees.

https://science.mail.ru/news/42093-v-yakutii-nashli-fragment-otdelyayuschejsya-chasti-raketyi-nositelya/?frommail=1&md=1

[sarapuk]

The injuries to Dubinina in particular were too serious to have been caused by snow in the ravine.

Completely true. Talking about injuries of the Ravine-4 hikers we cannot avoid the explosion topic, since neither a pile of snow nor a group of people can cause those injuries which they had. Lev Ivanov almost openly points us to the explosion:

"It wasn't in the usual sense an explosion of a shell or a bomb. It was different, as if a balloon had burst."

Ballon is always a volume. And Ivanov's statement says to us that:
1) An explosion took place indeed.
2) It was a kind of thermobaric explosion, when a big volume of flamable stuff burns in the air.

Shock wave from the explosion threw the hikers on the rocks in the creek and pressed them against the rocks.

And no evidence of rocket parts.

Why does evacuatioin team need to leave any rocket parts on the spot? Their mission is to find a fallen rocket stage and get it to the factory, where developers would inspect it thoroughly. If some parts are missing, they probably will not be able to understand why their product collapsed.

Secondly, why do you think that it must be many parts? A rocket stage may land as a single unit, and if it is light enough, it may be taken by helicopter. In our case, the stage obviously leaked its tanks out, thus the rocket's body was not heavy.

Shock wave couldn't cause the sort of injuries that were suffered by at least 2 of the group, especially Dubinina.
 
No reports of any kind of rocket parts found at the site.

[Senior Maldonado]

Shock wave couldn't cause the sort of injuries that were suffered by at least 2 of the group, especially Dubinina.

Indeed? Here you are going to contradict forensic expert Vozrozhdenniy, who not only saw the bodies but also did autopsy in 1959. I hope you have very strong arguments against the doctor Vozrozhdenniy's conclusion.

Question: How is it possible to explain the cause of the damage to Dubinina and Zolotaryov? Is it possible to combine them into one cause?

Answer: I think the character of the injuries on Dubinina and Zolotaryov – a multiple fracture of the ribs – on Dubinina were bilateral and symmetrical, and on Zolotaryov were one-sided. Both had hemorrhaging into the cardiac muscle with hemorrhaging into the pleural cavity, which is evidence of them being alive [when injured] and is the result of the action of a large force, similar to the example used for Thibeaux-Brignolle. These injuries, especially appearing in such a way without any damage to the soft tissue of the chest, are very similar to the type of trauma that results from the shock wave of a bomb.

No reports of any kind of rocket parts found at the site.

I would suggest to replace "no reports" with "few reports", as we do have some. Vladimir Korotaev mentioned that Stepan Kurikov had found an unknown metallic sheet over there. Also, another local habitant, Mr. Epanichnikov, had found one more part of something big and metallic in the area of interest. All these relates to 1959. And there were later findings as well.

[sarapuk]

Shock wave couldn't cause the sort of injuries that were suffered by at least 2 of the group, especially Dubinina.

Indeed? Here you are going to contradict forensic expert Vozrozhdenniy, who not only saw the bodies but also did autopsy in 1959. I hope you have very strong arguments against the doctor Vozrozhdenniy's conclusion.

Question: How is it possible to explain the cause of the damage to Dubinina and Zolotaryov? Is it possible to combine them into one cause?

Answer: I think the character of the injuries on Dubinina and Zolotaryov – a multiple fracture of the ribs – on Dubinina were bilateral and symmetrical, and on Zolotaryov were one-sided. Both had hemorrhaging into the cardiac muscle with hemorrhaging into the pleural cavity, which is evidence of them being alive [when injured] and is the result of the action of a large force, similar to the example used for Thibeaux-Brignolle. These injuries, especially appearing in such a way without any damage to the soft tissue of the chest, are very similar to the type of trauma that results from the shock wave of a bomb.

No reports of any kind of rocket parts found at the site.

I would suggest to replace "no reports" with "few reports", as we do have some. Vladimir Korotaev mentioned that Stepan Kurikov had found an unknown metallic sheet over there. Also, another local habitant, Mr. Epanichnikov, had found one more part of something big and metallic in the area of interest. All these relates to 1959. And there were later findings as well.

Similar to is not a definite statement of what caused the injury or injuries. The word means what it says. No known rocket parts were found any where near the site of the incident.

[Senior Maldonado]

Similar to is not a definite statement of what caused the injury or injuries. The word means what it says.

When the forensic expert said "are very similar", for me it means that if Ivanov had found signs of explosion near 1079, the expert would have not been surprised at all. The explosion would have fitted what he had found inspecting the bodies. Please note, that Ivanov had started to look for explosion's signs about 20 days before Vozrozhdenniy told him about shock wave. It means that Ivanov had other reasons to suspect that something had been blasted at DP. That's why I cannnot understand why you say that "Shock wave couldn't cause the sort of injuries". What could cause that sort of injuries then?

No known rocket parts were found any where near the site of the incident.

Yes. So what? The DPI is a mystery. One cannot expect to have both at the same time: a mystery and a rocket's wing protruding from snow. There is no easy way to solve the mystery of DPI. Until another cause of DPI is completely proved, Rocket theory has full right to be considered. 

[sarapuk]

Similar to is not a definite statement of what caused the injury or injuries. The word means what it says.

When the forensic expert said "are very similar", for me it means that if Ivanov had found signs of explosion near 1079, the expert would have not been surprised at all. The explosion would have fitted what he had found inspecting the bodies. Please note, that Ivanov had started to look for explosion's signs about 20 days before Vozrozhdenniy told him about shock wave. It means that Ivanov had other reasons to suspect that something had been blasted at DP. That's why I cannnot understand why you say that "Shock wave couldn't cause the sort of injuries". What could cause that sort of injuries then?

No known rocket parts were found any where near the site of the incident.

Yes. So what? The DPI is a mystery. One cannot expect to have both at the same time: a mystery and a rocket's wing protruding from snow. There is no easy way to solve the mystery of DPI. Until another cause of DPI is completely proved, Rocket theory has full right to be considered.

All theories can be considered. Some maybe more than others ! If a blast was responsible for the demise of the group how come bodies were found in various locations and positions with some injuries that were very unusual. 

[Senior Maldonado]

If a blast was responsible for the demise of the group how come bodies were found in various locations and positions with some injuries that were very unusual.

It is important to understand that the blast killed only Ravine-4 hikers. Those hikers were the only ones who managed to keep alive till then. All other hikers had been either dead or unconscious by the time of the blast. Many people think that a rocket should explode immediately when it hits the ground. Probably, for most cases that is true. But DPI is different -- the blast had happened IN A FEW HOURS after the rocket bumped the slope. We can recall Evgeniy Okishev words from his 2013 interview:

"Shortly before that we met with a worker of one of the prison camps in the North Urals. He described strange flashes of light which he and his wife saw late that evening on their way home from the cinema. The light came from the direction of the supposed accident with the hikers. We also received evidence from other local residents, and all of them spoke about a similar phenomenon".

So, local residents saw the flash from the explosion late in the evening, while the hikers ran from their tent early in the evening (they had not finished to change their clothes after climbing the slope and had not started their evening meal). That gives 3-4 hrs gap between the rocket's landing and the blast.

For the hikers, who were not Ravine-4, cause of their death was not the blast. It was hypothermia. You may object that hypothermia does not work that fast, so people get dead within 3-4 hrs. And you will be right, if we consider natural environments. But we should keep in mind that typical rockets' fuel components are cryogenic liquids -- LOX, LH2, etс. If there is a leakage of such stuff from a tank, it boils and evaporates mixing with air. Air temperature that in winter is low by itself, on getting cryogenic add-on might become EXTREMELY LOW. We remember that winds of the Pass blow from top of the slope downhill, the direction of the Cedar tree and the Ravine. Any attempt to return from the Cedar tree to the tent means that hikers have to get closer to the rocket's leaking tanks and face extremely low temperatures. Thus hypothermia would develop very quickly. Zina, Rustem, and Igor attempted to return, and they got frozen in dynamic poses.

[amashilu]

Yes, the ravine4 died of different injuries than the ones who died of hypothermia, but we should also keep in mind YuriK’s terrible leg burns. Pain from burns is extreme and it is suggested he bit off his finger in his attempt to bear the pain. So yes, the end results was probably hypothermic death, but the burns played a significant role.

[Senior Maldonado]

Yes, the ravine4 died of different injuries than the ones who died of hypothermia, but we should also keep in mind YuriK’s terrible leg burns. Pain from burns is extreme and it is suggested he bit off his finger in his attempt to bear the pain. So yes, the end results was probably hypothermic death, but the burns played a significant role.

I guess that Krivonischenko received his burns not from the Cedar's tree fire. All hikers reached the Cedar tree together. Other hikers would not had allowed him to put his leg in the flame and receive the burns. In my view he received the burns, when he tried to approach the fallen rocket's stage at the very beginning of the incident. Working rocket's engine is a good source of heat. It's also possible that they were beta burns, since a mysterios beta emmiter might had arrived with the rocket.

[amashilu]

I agree he did not put his leg in the fire.

[Senior Maldonado]

An experimental rocket of this type probably can be considered as a candidate for hard landing at DP in 1959.

[Missi]

The idea of a meteor is kinda intriguing. I don't exactly know, why you switched from discussing that to missiles and rockets, but here we are. For better clarity, I'll tackle the meteor first and the missiles in a second post (making it easier, if an admin wants to cut the thread).

So here we go. The meteor:

I've seen pictures of Tunguska and the video of Chelyabinsk. I think, one of the main questions would be, where the supposed meteor exploded, as in height above ground and position relative to the map. You'd need a combination that results in

• far enough away from the tree line, that there are no trees seriously harmed by the shockwave
• near enough to the tent, that it's plausible for the hikers to be out to relieve themselves
• far enough from the tent, that the shockwave wouldn't damage it
• near enough for the hikers outside to receive said injuries

Adding to the position of the explosion, there's the strength of it. It'd be interesting to have a simulation including those four variables to play around...

The timeline drawn out by citizentom leaves some questions to me, that is:

• Considering the group expected to be attacked, it is plausible that they fled. But expecting to flee for an unknown time, I'd have grabbed clothes. Even considering that they may have had a concussion from the explosion, I believe it's rather unlikely that they just stormed off into the night, not taking jackets or blankets.
  Why wouldn't they have taken blankets and clothes, at least after establishing, there was no immediate danger nearby?
• Even considering the atmosphere of the cold war: They were in the middle of nowhere. Why would they think, anyone would attack them specifically or the uninhabited area they were in? The only way, an enemy bomb (publicly known at that time) could have reached the area would have been by plane. Could an approaching meteor be mistaken as an airplane, soundwise?
• Not a question, but still: They were experienced hikers. They knew the ural mountains in winter. They knew the cold there and I'm sure they knew about the effects of cold to fingers, hands, feet, legs and so on. I can't believe someone would put a burning peace of wood, no matter how much it has extinguished to the state of embers, to their leg, especially since this would include the danger of putting their own clothes on fire.

In principle I think, it's a fascinating idea, but the particulars in A how different people and objects were affected by the supposed blast and B how the hikers acted doesn't add up (by now). That is just my feeling, but be free to provide calculations and proof as to what effects one specific blast strength would have.

[Missi]

Part 2: The missile or rocket

I personally don't believe either a missile or a rocket to be the culprit, so I concentrate on pointing to aspects that don't add up, either in argumentation or in how things would affect other aspects.

Let's assume there was a rocket stage that fell on the mountain:
Where did it fall, so that the hikers would have seen the need to evacuate their tent?
Why did they find it necessary to leave the tent? (Where did the poisonous cloud come from if the fumes where not toxic? Senor Maldonado states both things!)
Why did they leave the tent fast enough that they couldn't bring more clothes but went down the slope slowly? (It's stated the prints suggest slow descend.)
When, where and how were they injured? Assuming they were injured when the rocket stage landed: How did they come down the slope? Assuming they already were down be the forest: Why were they there? In any case: Why did the group split up?
Senor Maldonado suggests that the burned leg was caused by the rocket stage when it was still hot. Why was he there, if there was supposedly a toxic cloud around the area? Why did he have time to go there yet they didn't have time to get proper gear out of their tent? Did he go there later? Then why? Why alone?
If the rocket didn't explode right away, why did the supposed cryogenic liquids result in some freezing to death faster than the others, but the ravine 4 managed to survive that part? Why were they in the ravine? Why did the explosion reach them there?
Back to the leg burn, which was suggested could also have been caused by a beta emitter: Why is the burned area just the leg, nothing more? The autopsy report states, that the underpants on that leg show signs of burning, which is not consistent to beta emitters. More of: beta radiation is stopped by relatively thin layers of things. Considering, he didn't leave with torn underpants in the first place, those should have provided safety from beta radiation burns.
Why should Tibo have climbed the cedar in that scenario?

There's so much that's in itself contradicting...

[Missi]

An experimental rocket of this type probably can be considered as a candidate for hard landing at DP in 1959.

I have added some marks to your article, the blue ones, which state that although the idea was already there in the late 1950s, the main research came later and it was during that later time, when the practical aspects were addressed and the first prototype was build. So it's highly improbable that this kind of rocket was the culprit for the demise of the dyatlovites...

[Senior Maldonado]

I have added some marks to your article, the blue ones, which state that although the idea was already there in the late 1950s, the main research came later and it was during that later time, when the practical aspects were addressed and the first prototype was build. So it's highly improbable that this kind of rocket was the culprit for the demise of the dyatlovites...

First, I want to say that what I suggest is just a theory, and as it cannot be proved 100% there might be different options within it.

Yes, USSR had been attempting to create robust nuclear rocket engine for decades, and that is understandable. It is not possible to jump from nothing to a fully industrial nuclear engine immediately. Very long and hard work is required to reach this goal. Nobody expects that USSR had rocket engine powered by nuclear reactor already in 1959. However, much simpler experemental models could have come already. In a simple scenario you still have traditional chemical rocket, but you add radioactive material to preheat chemical components of its fuel, which are probably cryogenic.



Another simple approach is to build radioisotope engine, which uses thermal energy of natural decay of an isotope. Such engine has obvious drawbacks, but they are not so critical if you put the engine in an upper stage. Upper stage starts when it is in cosmos already, where engine's thrust is not significant and main benefit is high specific impulse.

I also believe that conceptualy new rocket engine cannot be designed on paper only. In this case it will fly on paper only as well. At each step you need to make experiments to select best way to proceed. E.g. you need to define which isotope you will use in the final model. and for that you need to try many of them in practice.