When new to this tragedy you are corrupted into accepting a set of assumptions about what happened at the tent as though they were known facts. This despite much of it not making any sense, and some of it even defying the laws of time and physics.
Once programmed with this it then requires unlikely natural events or complex theories to explain what happened, and all that followed, including persistent, motiveless, superhuman attackers who leave no footprints, to yetis and UFOs. None of these theories ever explain everything; they uncover as many questions as they do answers, and all the while, the elephant-in-the-room, hypothermia, the cause of the demise of just about all other missing hikers in sub zero temperatures, or climbers who did not directly die from falls, is dismissed or ignored - because where's the 'mystery' in that.
Through a thousand copycat web sites, Youtube videos, blogs and articles, the sensationalistic journalese goes like this: "They cut their way out in panic and fled into sub zero temperatures dressed only in their underwear. Later bodies were found with horrific, unexplainable injuries, including broken rib cages, missing eyes and tongue, and some clothing was found to be highly radioactive".
The official story doesn't seem prepared to budge from that 61-year-old starting point. It continues to imagine there was some real or imminently perceived danger (the fear of an avalanche) which caused 9 hikers to cut/tear their way out of their tent in panic and run away, so much so they lost sight of their tent, in visibility they now claim to have calculated was down to a very precise 16m.
It's easy, or should be, to debunk it. Because regardless of line-of-sight visibility it should still have been possible for hikers to simply retrace their own footprints to relocate their tent, and an experienced group, had they run away, would know if they had travelled up or downhill, enough to have a stab at finding the tent, and yet they made no effort - no footprint evidence showed this.
The official story claims they set up their tent at 5pm, yet 2 photo's showed them digging a trench in daylight, and it was sundown at that time of year at 4:29pm - significant as this places them high on an exposed ridge without a source of heating (stove wasn't unpacked, tent ridge ropes not completed) or means of getting dry (chill from sweating) for far longer.
It's suggested snow collected on the tent and collapsed it before the recovery team arrived. But snow cannot possibly collect on a cut open tent side, defying gravity, and we know windscour should blow freshly fallen snow off the other side at that exposed altitude. Igor's torch was found on top of 10cms of snow, on the tent, with only a few centimetres on top of the torch. The only logical conclusion to make is he placed it there, on top of snow placed on a tent they felled and covered with snow, the same clumpy-looking snow shown in the recovery photo which looks identical to the trench spoil around it, and being compacted this would not blow away.
I have seen you post about the tent/snow, but disagree with your otherwise logical conclusion that the hikers placed it there simply to pin down their tent overnight. Taken in isolation that works fine, but along with many other theories it becomes Whack-a-Mole when you then have to consider why they didn't first retrieve what they needed to survive, not just clothing, but one of the three axes when deciding to head to the woods to start a fire.
That is why I have them felling their tent and covering it with snow to stage it as abandoned, when seen by a helicopter Semyon appears to have photographed, and while laid down inside their trench, hiding away, they develop hypothermia, and this also then explains their bizarre method of egress.
9 hikers, or 7 inside if preferred, surely do not kneel inline and cut their way out in an emergency like that, if wishing to leave in the fastest way possible, if, for example, hearing loud expansion cracks in the ridge above them as night temperatures plummeted and believing an ice slip was imminent. It would be elbows everywhere, and surely the person nearest the flap, which rescuers did not confirm was found closed, would be better served cutting there. They'd all de-tension the canvas for the person next to them, slowing down their collective escape. All it required was one or two vertical cuts for 7 or 9 people to pile out of an 8ft long tent in seconds. Instead they made all manner of horizontal and vertical cuts and a series of stabbings at one end.
This is why I have them laid down, canvas and snow above, in the dark, hypothermic brain fog/confusion setting in among the trench diggers who had stripped off some clothing to get dry, and then their means of leaving in order to get up and stand is more explainable, as does setting off without what they need. They would likely have already cut breather and observation holes and would expand upon these.
Even if they did all hack at an erect tent in a panic you'd still anticipate they'd be able to grab some survival gear on the way out, this being a compact space with everything inside highly organised. Things were literally 'to hand'. Even a man leaving a sinking ship can grab a life vest.
Finally we have this equally bizarre assembly of 'panicked' people 50 yards away. This is highly contradictory. If they are otherwise okay, not affected by hypothermia yet playing follow-my-leader down the pass, then they should do one of two things, either continue leaving in a disorganised manner if the perceived danger has not passed, or if the perceived danger has passed (or is then considered a false alarm) make some effort to return to the tent to retrieve what they needed to survive. There's no point fearing for your life enough to flee your source of shelter and warmth if you do not then take clothing for warmth and tools for preparing shelter/wood cutting elsewhere in outdoor temperatures which will otherwise kill you. You don't save your life and then commit suicide.
To me everything points to hypothermia developing on the ridge. All the bizarre behaviour and the forgetfulness. The better dressed were less affected, so took control. They did not flee in panic, it was the exact opposite, slowed down by the effects of the cold, including brain function. Igor waltzed off without his coat, his hat, his gloves, his shoes and his torch. And the moment nobody remembered to take an axe they were all near certainly dead, because without it they had to climb trees to cut thinner branches with knives, or tear them off at the growing point, and this could not sustain a big enough fire, led to exhaustion (critical in sub zero temperatures), and injuries. They'd only have knives, and matches, because they were already in their pockets.
The cracked ribs at the den are likely to be attempts at chest compression resuscitation. It just so happens the same ribs, 2 to 7, are the multiple fracture sites typical of just about every chest resus atttempt, as shown on numerous studies of cadavers at autopsy dating back 60 years, and women of any age (Lyuda) and older men (Semyon) are most prone due to osteoporosis. They would be attempting to restart the hearts, when people collapsed into Stage 3 hypothermia.
Topic: Can anyone explain the official explanation of a few months back? (Read 24485 times)