Just to add here, in reference to the idea of Yuri K taking Frame 34 through the tent flue hole, that this may explain the black circular masking to the left of the frame, and also how the rest of the image is 'clean', free from swirling snow or even snow on the lens if taken outside.
But that doesn't explain why Yuri K didn't centre frame and focus his shot, and I believe that may be because he wasn't looking through the viewfinder to compose it, he had simply raised his tripod/camera up into the tent apex, like a selfie stick, and then reached up to press the shutter, then hurriedly retracted it before there was any glinting reflection off the camera lens, explaining the damage to the filter.
I believe, as with Semyon's two Eagle Light photo's, that Frame 34 is the same thing; the headlight of a helicopter, that is what is floating down in the image, and it approaches from the left, which equates to downhill.
The hikers had a choice, make themselves known to the military and spend half the night proving their identities and permissions to be there, and show they were not harbouring escapees inside the tent, all of which likely involves being brought down off the ridge, or stage their tent as abandoned/uninhabitably flattened and hide in their trench.
Given that their IDs remained in their rucksacks, and Igor's torch was found on top of 4 inches of snow on the tent (suggesting the hikers placed the snow there, and they wouldn't waste time and risk exposure doing that and not take what they needed to survive if felling the tent at the same time as leaving), everything suggests to me that they hid, felling the tent as quickly as they could, leaving the two ends standing, and that is potentially how Frame 34 was taken.
So why did the Dyatlov Group leave the Tent not fully clothed and without provisions and walk a mile to the Forest in extremely low temperatures ? And no other footprints were found other than those belonging to the Dyatlov Group.
The theory has 3 potential variations, none of which were good for a set of hikers already half-frozen in an estimated -12C inside the tent around 9pm, and -31C wind chill outside of it before this event, with no stove lit and the trench diggers half-dressed. Perhaps they were leaving lighting their stove until bedtime, to ensure it burned through the night, an overhead stove design must've had a limited grate capacity, and then the military search begins at the worst possible moment for them, right at the time when they really needed to light the stove and recover the situation.
1. They emerge and are seen by the helicopter. Even if the group look young and include women, visually the crew would be suspicious of the older man with this young group, just as people are today, and they may well think he could be one of the escapees. It's perhaps unlikely that in 1959 they had a set of mugshots to refer to, and it's dark and snowing. They cannot land on the slope, but possibly could abseil troops down a rope/rope ladder. Any footprints immediately around the tent would disappear in the blown trench snow, as confirmed by the recovery team. If they cannot set someone down they may somehow communicate to the hikers they must set off immediately and meet them at the forest. Dutifully, they do as they are told, quickly fell their tent, and the effects of the cold see some of them leave unprepared. The military are oblivious to how they were dangerously cold to begin with, without heating inside the tent, and do not expect some of them to arrive at the rendezvous half-dressed. After confirming identities they assume the hikers will overnight in the forest or attempt to return to the tent, and leave the search area.
2. They successfully hide, in their freezing trench tomb, canvas and snow above them, sagging/pressing down upon them, immobile for possibly an hour, and in that time those who were half-dressed develop hypothermia. Observation and breather holes have already been cut in the canvas, and when the time comes to leave one or two of those worst affected, unseen by the others in the dark under this 'bedspread', possibly panicking, feeling their are suffocating, or confused by the cold, decide to
cut their way out in order to stand, as opposed to a 9-person sideways shuffle on the ground, a process to begin with one of them most affected by wind chill near the tent flap. In seconds the tent is destroyed. The group then assemble nearby to decide what to do then. The better dressed leave, and the others, possibly blamed for the situation, and unable to easily and speedily recover what they need from the snow-pit-for-a-tent, follow them without clothing or shoes, and nobody thinks to take an axe due to the amnesiac effects of the cold affecting their brain function. Later, the idea of a return to the tent is to retrieve the things they needed to take.
3. They hide, but are rumbled. The military are now highly suspicious of them all. They are forced down off the pass, by threat of gunfire, to rendezvous at the forest where the helicopter will land. They do not care if the hikers have what they need, they are not afforded concern for their welfare. If anyone is set down from the helicopter the tent may be vandalised to avoid an immediate return the moment the helicopter leaves the ridge.
1 & 3 should require their IDs to be produced, which remained in their rucksacks, which is why I favour 2.
Topic: Photographs (Read 121146 times)
