Freaky Russian Wilderness
Megan DobranskyIssue date: 3/6/08 Section: Daily Buzz
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In case you're lazy or don't want to read the links, this is what happened 49 years ago. Ten Russian college students, who were very experienced hikers and cross-country skiers, set off on January 28, 1959 to explore the wilds of the Ural Mountains. One went back because of health reasons before the group made it out of the last inhabited town. So, the rest of the group pressed on without him, but 16 days later when the group didn't report back to the college sports club like they were supposed to, their families asked for a search.
On February 26, here's what they found: the oddly chosen camp, hastily abandoned with footprints showing the group members left either barefoot or with one shoe on; the tents covered with snow and cut from the inside; two bodies dressed only in their underwear about 500 meters from the camp (they probably died of hyperthermia) and three more bodies (they probably died of hyperthermia too) separate and further away.
But that's not the freaky part. The other bodies weren't found until May. Once police uncovered them from several feet of snow, they found the bodies had no outward signs of injury but had experienced extreme, brutal trauma - trauma police said could not have been caused by a human, but rather some "compelling unknown force." Their clothes also had high levels of radiation and one of the bodies didn't have a tongue. Other skiers and hikers were prohibited from entering the pass where the bodies were found for years afterward.
It gets freakier. The official investigation was kept secret and the files were sealed until the early 1990s. Even then, much of the documentation was lost. Numerous sightings of strange orange orbs were reported in the region throughout February of 1959. For years, many people speculated the Soviet Union was testing weapons in the remote area.
In fact, earlier this month six former rescuers and 31 investigators concluded that the military accidentally caused the deaths due to their testing, but that, of course, is refuted.
Some have also concluded it was a natural disaster, missiles from a base in Kazakhstan, murder - either by a soldier or a member of the Mansi people who was pissed the skiers trespassed on their land - or a variety of other causes.
Personally, I'm in favor of the avalanche theory, even though aliens or angry indigenous shamans are way cooler. However it all went down, I suppose the moral is: never, ever under any circumstances go into the Ural Mountains.
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