Speaker 1: You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network and this
is a special edition of the High Strangers Factor talking
about the dietlov Pass incident.
Speaker 2: Good evening, everybody.
Speaker 3: My name is Kerry Greenaway and I'm joined in the
studio this evening by a co host, my lovely Andy Mercer.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Andy.
Speaker 1: Hello there, how are you doing tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm doing absolutely fine. Now we have a very very
special treat in store for you guys tonight, because we
have got a very special interview tonight on a subject
that is really close to Andy's heart.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me what the subject is tonight, Andy.
Speaker 1: Absolutely can. It's an event that occurred in the Ural
Mountains in nineteen fifty nine where a group of ski hikers,
which will holiday make us a saintly, but there were
students traveling up north into the Ural Mountains basically met
a rather strange end. They were a very experience to
what they were doing. They knew the terrain reasonably well,
camped for the night, and unfortunately met their end, each
one of them that particular night. So it's nineteen fifty
nine in Russia. But it's actually fascinating me for years
since I first heard about it. It's become known as
the Deal of Pass incident, which is the name of
the leader of the group, ego Ideplov. It was named
after him. It's a particular small region the North Yuroal Mountains.
It will pass between two high peaks, and tonight we
have with us a chap named Keith Okloski who's written
two books on the topic, and I found them absolutely
fascinating and I've listened to Keith talk about the topic
on a number of occasions and it really wanted us
and talk to Keith myself about it. So he's our
guest for tonight.
Speaker 2: Isn't he Yes, he is. Good evening, Keith.
Speaker 4: How are you fine? Thank you, carry, thank you, Thank
you for inviting me on, and thank you for having
me on. Andy.
Speaker 1: It's excellent, I say, really wanted to talk to you,
so it's good to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's very very good to hear.
Speaker 3: You know, you've been researching this situation, this incident for
quite a long time, haven't you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I have for quite a few years now, and
I was met a couple of trips to Russia to
you know, investigate a source if you like, and meet
people who were involved from that time with the incident,
and I went up to the diatalogue past the year,
the summer, not last summer, the summer before, just to
see the place for myself, which was quite quite eye opening.
Speaker 3: And you've come across some really interesting information regarding this particularly,
isn't You've looked at it so many different angles. When
I was looking at your work, You've covered so many
different angles on this. You've literally left no stone unturned.
Speaker 4: Well, I think one thing I try to avoid is
to have my pet theory and then say you know
anything else that contradicts my pet theory, to rubbish it,
or say well it's got to be this and it
can be anything else. Whenever I'm doing an interview, I
often mention the story of somebody I met in Lithuania
who is a survival expert. And as people who know
this story, one of the first theories that comes up
about it is that they were hit by an avalanche,
a partial avalanche, and that that's what caused some of
the injuries, and they moved away from the tent down
to the tree line to get away in case there
was a further avalanche or movement movement of a slab
of slow. Now, this survival expert, we were doing a
bit of filming over there on the atlog story and
he was absolutely adamant that it was he said, not
necessarily a slab of sorry, an avalanche, but it could
have been the movement of a slab of snow, which
can still cause quite a bit of damage. But no
matter what you said to contradict that you know anything
that contradicted it, you wouldn't listen to it. And I
think if you're going to get to the bottom of
what happened to these hikers, you've got to keep an
open mind. Well know will come on to it, but
you know, there's quite a few paranormal theories about this
as well, and I do not discount any theory. My
view is if you can come to me with evidence,
which is why I have kept my website open to
people to contact me. So tell me what you think
and back it up with a bit of evidence, or
show me how you think the sequence of events went.
And I think that's the only way you're going to
do it. You cannot say I've looked into this deeply.
Therefore my answer is the right one, because to be honest,
there isn't a At the moment, there isn't a right answer.
Not only that it could be that everybody looks at
one theory alone, and it could be for all we know,
it could be a mixture of theories.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I agree. I know obviously if you had to
do this on many occasions before, but you wouldn't. I
just give us a brief rundown of exactly what happened
in terms of what we know about the lead up,
if you like to whatever happened to them that night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, as you were saying earlier on Andy, you know,
there were ski It's called ski tourism. That was the
official name of it in those days in the Soviet Union,
and it was very popular with students because it gave
it gave students a chance to get away and let
their hair down. And it's not something saying that a
bunch of students today would probably want to do, because
it was a test of extreme physical fitness apart from
anything else in temperatures that went down to minus forty.
They're on the edge of Siberia there, so it's not
the sort of thing you think, well, we'll just throw
a couple of tents in the back of a car
and we'll drive up into the mountains. They need a
lot more planning than that, but anyway, there was ten
students set out from Sverdlovsk which is now eu Katarinburg
after the fall of the Soviet Union or the breakup
of the Soviet Union, it was in nineteen fifty nine,
they set out to go north into the northern Neural Mountains.
Without going into over great detail, they changed trains that Serov,
which is a town on the way up, and they
got to the town of Ivdel, which is really the
last piece of civilization before we then go into the
ural mountains. And from there they went to a woodcutter settlement,
which was basically the last time anybody else ever saw them.
And then they carried on to an abandoned geologist settlement
which was just basically a bunch of wood wooden huts,
and one of the one of the group there, uri Udine,
turned around to return because he was quite ill, and
he the date then that he turned around to go
back was the twenty eighth of January nineteen fifty nine.
So everything up to that point where we know what
happened to them, because we have an eyewitness from uri Udine.
I know those diaries. I know there's photographs, but going
a bit further down the road will go into you know,
there's theories that they've been doctored, et cetera, et cetera.
But your udon is there up to that last day
when he turned around, so he can confirm that it was.
Everything was what you would call in inverted commas normal.
But he turned around and went back and that was
the last he ever saw of them. I saw of
them alive, I should say. They continued and on the
they continued to the base of the mountain called Colla Seaacle,
which in Soviet that that's actually a Manci that the
local tribe in the area is the Manci, and it
means don't go there, sorry, not don't go there, but
it means dead mountain. Sorry. Their actual destination was another
mountain called o'torten, which was don't go there in the
local Manci language. But yeah. The funny thing about it, though,
is that the the Soviets call them by their heights,
so that dead mountain call that seacle. And I'm not
even sure I'm pronouncing it right because I don't speak Mancy.
It means dead mountain. What it means is it's not
a sinister warning. What it means is nothing grows on
there and it's no good for herding rain there because
there's no food for them. Don't don't go there. At
Mount or Torten is not another sinister warning. It's it's
a difficult place to get to in winter. All the
Manci names mean something in relation to giving you guidance
to the members of the tribe about the various geographical locations.
A lot of people read something into it, you know,
it's like the Mountain of the Dead, which you know,
where they've all died, et cetera, et cetera. But I
can say that in Russia now on my last trip
there many Russians who are in you know, well into
the diatlog story. It's it's it's now being called the
Mountain of the Nine apparently. Yeah, it's quite quite current
usage in Russia now, you know, as an allusion to
the dead the nine dead skiers. So anyway, so on
the night of the first and the night of the
first and second of February, they seemed to deviate from
their route. They actually went up the mountain instead of
more or less going around it, which when I was there,
it seemed a far more logical route to follow it
to just sticked to the tree line, because it's fairly
flat and level. There's reindeer paths as passed that the
man si use, and it tends to follow the river
that's there the outer sphere, so if you stick to that,
it's a pretty easy run. But what they were they
were basically testing themselves, and it could be the Igor
Diatlov wanted to add an extra layer of difficulty, if
you like, to the whole thing by taking them up
the mountain and camping out on the mountain side itself
that night. Nobody knows for sure, but it seemed a
bit of a peculiar deviation to make. But that's one
explanation for it as to what they were doing up
there when they could have taken a bit of an
easier route down at the base of the mountain. Anyway,
that's what they did. When they didn't return, they were
due back. They were due to send a telegram back
about the eleventh or twelfth village called vis High, which
they passed through on the way up before they went
to the woodcutters settlement. They were meant to get back
to vis High and send a telegram around the twelfth
of February. At this point, they'd already been dead for
nearly two weeks, have been dead for twelve days, so
there wasn't an immediate kind of where the hell are they.
People weren't over worried just because they didn't hear, but
as the days started to pass, people were starting to
get worried that the families in particular, and I'll come
on to that later on, because there's a theory as
to why it was. Nothing was done very quickly, so
eventually the parents were going to the university every day
that the tourist club. They were getting quite agitated as
to why nobody was doing anything. So eventually search parties
did set out to go up and start looking for them,
and they found the tent itself on the twenty sixth
of February, so this is almost four weeks after they
were dead. After they died, but no sign of the bodies,
and the tent itself had collapsed and had been There
was slash marks down one side of it where it
looked as if they'd all slashed their way out of
the tent. Some of the search party did make extra
tears to get into the tent. But you see, at
that point, nobody expected to find them dead. They thought
that something had happened or had been some kind of
emergency that they just left the ten. They expected them
find them all further down in the forest alive. But
the first bodies were found the next day. The first
two bodies were found down by the tree line, by
a cedar tree. They were almost naked, they'd had they
just had their underwear on, and they'd also had burn
marks to their bodies, their arms and their feet where
they tried to start a fire. And the cold, the
frostbite was so bad that they were actually putting their
hands into the fire.
Speaker 1: Hard to imagine, isn't it interesting to be that bad?
Speaker 4: It's like I say, the temperature, the official temperature was
minus twenty seven that night. But if you think there's
a strong wind up there, which the ten days I
was up there, that wind was there all the time.
So that must take it down to about minus forty
minus fifty. Sure, so you we've had we've had winter here.
There was one morning a winter I think it was
minus six, and it was absolutely I had all my
clothes on. It was absolutely could you imagine what it
must be like to have your bare hands and trying
to stick them into a fire and your feet into
the flames and feeling nothing because you know, but basically
you're the frostbite was just attacking the whole body and
killing them. It must have been absolutely horrendous. So anyway,
they found the first two bodies, and then almost immediately
they found a further three. Sorry, they found another two bodies,
Igor d'atlov and one of the two girls in the group, Zena,
on the actual mountain side. And on the fifth of March,
which was basically almost two weeks later, they found a
rust and Slobodin's body in between the body of Zena
and Igor Diatlov, almost in the direct line. There was
a couple of one hundred yards between each one of them,
and it's all as if they were trying to make
their way back to the tent. There's some distance away
from where the first two bodies were found. The remaining
four bodies weren't found for another two months. When the
snow started to melt, they tried to build a shelter,
and it was when those four bodies were found and
they found horrendous injuries on them, basically described as car
crash type injuries, especially to the other female in the
group and one of the oldest male in the group,
Semeon Zolatarev. His ribs were completely crushed, so were the
Ludas the other female, she wasnd raped over a rock.
But the thing is she hadn't actually fallen on the
rock because there would have been deep snow, but there
was deep snow covering them, which is why they didn't
find the bodies for nearly two months. And there was
two other members of the group there. Basically they one
of them had an injury behind his right ear, which
again seems peculiar, but also various types of injuries, with
the worst of them being to Zalataro and to Luda Dublinina,
the the other female, wh her nose had almost been
flattened into her face as well as if should be
plunched by a heavyweight boxer. So they're very strange injuries.
So I don't know how you want to proceed. Because
that that finding of the bodies, which was over the
third to the fifth of May. The cold case was
closed down just a few weeks after that, so I
don't know where you want to proceed.
Speaker 1: Do you think it gives the impression that it was just, well,
that's enough, we found them, now do you need to
worry any further? It goes down that soon afterwards.
Speaker 4: What happened was that the the autopsies were done on
the first bodies, and these first bodies were basically deemed
to have died of hypothermia. So you think, well, fair enough,
you couldn't you could answer necessarily straight away why they'd
left the tent, But obviously something made them leave the tent.
They died of cold, because it was basically you're inside
beery if you don't know, they didn't have enough clothing
on them. Some of them were in bare feet, so
it's like the tent was left in an emergency. Okay,
so you've got a big mystery there, But basically they've
died of hypothermia. They weren't stabbed to death, nobody killed them. Well,
one of them, of the two bodies found by the tree,
did have signs of foam around his mouth. Grave foam
as if something which apparently can be caused by somebody
pressing on your chest, right, they'd be that again as
there's theories over that that some he had possibly been
interrogating him over something and he was being held and
extreme pressure was put on his chest to bring which
would bring foam to your mouth. But it's but basically
it was decided that they'd all died of the cold,
whatever had happened. But then when you find the other
four bodies in the snow shelter, a completely different set
of circumstances. It's like you've got five who would have
died what you would call a normal death from them.
Then you've got these other four who are not all
two of them with extremely serious injuries as if they'd
been hit by a car, but no external marks on them.
So the you know, you think, well, how the hell
have half died that way and this other half have
died this way? It just doesn't make any sense. So
and also what explains car crash type injuries smash ribs
another injuries to the group. There was skull fractures and
this sort of thing. People have tried to explain it
by saying, well, there were where the snow sheltering was
a ravine. And when I say a ravine, it wasn't
five hundred feet higher. I mean, I stood there and
it's a fairly gentle slope and it would have been
covered in thick snow. So the chances of all four
of them falling into this ravine in thick and smashing
themselves so hard that it's just not feasible really, So
it's a no real explanation for those injuries, which is
what comes to the autopsy when sorry, the final conclusion
of the report after the autopsies, which says they died
of an unknown compelling force. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? I mean, obviously, just for everybody listening, there were
no signs of any vehicles in the bias. They hadn't
literally been hit by a vehicle, so that would be
definitely rulled out straight to it. It was in the middle
of nowhere. There's no sense it has actually been hit
by something, So you are left with the question, well,
is it some kind of dropped from a height or
literally thrown? It is absolutely mystery, as you say, so
I can leave those kinds of injuries as safe. If
it was falling into the ravine, which I'm obviously in
the photographs you took them twenty thirty feet, how comes
you all felt at the same time and I know
one particular girl's injuries are particularly graphic and we can
talk about them. And she had the bait of her
mouth removed and tongue.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I was just going to come to that. Sorry,
that was gering, but it wasn't an injury as such.
But it's one of the whole peculiarities of this story
is that her tongue and the root of the tongue
was described as missing. She was where she was lying
on the rock, there was in a stream, and the
stream had obviously it was frozen when they were there,
but the eyes should start, you know, the snow and
the eyes had started melting. So there's one explanation that
microorganisms had eaten away the tongue and the root, which
is possible. Then that doesn't explain the other three that
were also in the stream, but their tongues were okay,
at least there was nothing in the autopsies about their tongues.
It just seems such a peculiar thing to say that
the tongue was missing. And I was in touch with
a pathologist who deals in cold weather deaths in Canada
and he said it was extremely peculiar because his view
of what happened to that group of four was He
says that he's been thirty years covering pathology in northern Canada,
and he said he's dealt with a lot of deaths
of people frozen to death, But he said, where have
they been left for a while? He says, what tends
to happen is you get much smaller animals that haven't
been hibernating attacking the bodies. He would have expected to
see something like that that possibly my not mice hibernate,
but he said, some animals don't hibernate, and it would
be a much smaller animal that may have been eaten
away at the flesh, not on the faces. And we
would have expected to have happened to the others as well.
There's no report of any of that. You could say, Okay,
well that's Canada, this is Russia. But they're very similar.
The climate and the wildlife, it's all very similar. They've
got bears in the north there. They've got bears in
the north in Siberia as well. But he said that
was one thing that he thought was odd about it.
He wouldn't have expected the tongue to have been eaten
on its own or to have disappeared on it, so
I need have expected the flesh of the face to
have gone first, and the same as it wouldn't have
just affected one person, So it's a peculiar.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly, I know. Also that just mentioned a bit
more about that section is that there was blood was
found in the stomach, suggestions she may have been alive
when it happened, as far as I've read, certainly, well.
Speaker 4: It does say that there was blood found in her stomach,
so it implies that possibly the tongue had been removed
with a knife or cut out or whatever. But I
was also in touch with a surgeon who said to
me that to remove somebody's tongue willingly, it's one of
the mostical things you can do. You have to sedate
them and the tongue, various muscles have to be cut,
and then the tongue has to be drawn out for
you to actually cut it. So if you've got somebody
who's unwilling there and they know the tongue is going
to be cut out, they're not just going to lie
there to pull their tongue right out of their head
unless they're being held completely a mobile, which again, if
you think about it. It's the it was late at night,
there was a virtual blizzard blowing if dark. Unless they
had LAMB. It's an almost impossible thing to do if
you're going to torture somebody like that. It's and why
her well. One of the peculiar things about Luda, though,
is she was the most outspoken of the group. If
she always spoke her mind, and if she thought somebody
was an idiot, should tell them to their faith. And
one Uri had said before he died that it saw
that she had her tongue missing, and yet she was
the one that couldn't control her tongue.
Speaker 1: Rather unfortunately hopefully only a coincidence. It does make you wonder, like, oh,
blooming someone really did lose the plot there took her
tongue out Lord.
Speaker 4: For our theories that they were attacked, and she may
have thought, well, you know, you look obviously as a
family program you can't and say you lot can go
and reproduce somewhere else or whatever. And they took great
umbrage and said, well, we're going to teach you a lesson,
But to actually take her tongue out and cut it off,
it's it's very well not impossible but a very very
difficult thing to do.
Speaker 1: So imagine there's certain circumstances. You say, no lighting, absolutely
freezing temperatures, it would have been I mean, unless you
was already knocked unconsciously dated. But then that suggests they
met somebody else. But from what I understand, there's no
revidence that say they met anybody else at the time
to have done this.
Speaker 4: So the other thing is there's no footprints to back
that story. I've had people contact me on my email
and say you're an idiot, because it's quite obvious that
it was the MANCI that did it, or it was
escape prisoners, or it was special forces that did it.
But the thing is, there was only eight or nine
pairs of footprints that were counted the search parties when
they got there. So if there was eight, there was
nine of them. So if there was eight or nine
footprints that they counted, where are the other.
Speaker 1: Footprints exactly exactly to have.
Speaker 4: Been escorted down if they were held at gunpoint, that
you'd expect for other footprints to be further out guarding
them or guiding them down to the tree line. So
it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Absolutely sorry, I was going to.
Speaker 3: Say any of the injuries. I mean, I don't know
about avalanches, just putting it out there. Could it have
been caused by an avalanche?
Speaker 4: That's that's the first theory that I mean, when if
you look at the story first, an avalanche is the
first thing you think of. Because it's in the middle
of winter, it's in the northern ural mountains. You think, well,
there's a lot of snow there. Obviously there might have
been a mini avalanche, or even as this survival export
and I said, a slab of snow, which is the
top layer of the snow, moving down and crushing some
of them in the tent. The theory goes that they
were in the tent, a slab of snow moved down
and caused the crushing injuries to Luda and Zolatarev. They
got the worst of the injuries. The slow had come
down and crushed them while they were lying there in
the tent. The rest of them had to slash their
way out to get out and help them out. But
the contradictions start then because when they looked at the footprints,
there was nobody. They were all walking unaided. So if
they'd had those terrible type of injuries. They'd have needed
to have been carried down probably or certainly helped down.
And what they were saying is that everybody, all the
footprints seemed to be people walking under their own steam.
The injuries to Zolotarev and Dubunina were so bad that
certainly should they wouldn't have expected her to last for
longer than twenty minutes, because her chest was completely crushed
in and so was his. He was in a really
bad way as well. They were all extremely thin, and
he'd fought in the Second World War. It fought at Stalingrad,
so he's quite a tough cookie. But even with all that,
they haven't got anything on their feet. They're not dressed
for the cold. So with serious injuries, your survival time
is reduced even more so and enthirely unlikely. I don't
know what, but it must be like on a crushed chest,
but I can't imagine walk more few feet with it,
let alone walk down with a blizzard starting and walk
down in the snow. I'd certainly be looking for somebody
to help me. But that's the theory about the avalanche.
And but as I say, you can almost contradict it
straight away I gonna say.
Speaker 1: The other big problem, of course, is when the tent
was found, this partial is still standing. If he hit
by an avalanche, even a slow like it would be
completely collapsed.
Speaker 4: Wouldn't it. It would have been a flat land, and
that'd been a large slab would have probably gone right
over it. But it hadn't. The the excuse me, the
tent poles at both ends were still standing, so it
doesn't really follow. And the other the other thing about
it is when I stood where that's getting a lot
of people don't really know exactly where the tent was,
but you can work it out more or less roughly.
But if you look at it up on the ridge
from where the tent was approximately you just think there's
no way that snow would have built that distance. It's
hardly any You can see it on my website. I
still where the roughly was, and I took a photo
to the left, a photo straight above where the ten was,
and a photo to the rock, and there's there's hardly
any slope there. There would have been an off run
for an avalanche to build up. And the other thing
is one of the search parties, the leaders are one
of the search parties had said that his experience in
the Northern Murals that it was very rare to have
avalanches because the fairly gentle mountains, and that they're not steep.
And the other thing is where that ridge is the wind.
There's a constant wind blowing across it, which tends to
lift all the snow near the top. It creates a
kind of a swirling effect after it goes over the
top of the ridge and it lifts the snow that's there,
so it's not very deep either.
Speaker 3: Now I want to take Keith back to the actual
point of the tent because there's a lot of things
that surrounding the tent that don't add up, isn't there, Keith.
Speaker 4: That's right, Yeah, it's one of the things. When the
searchers found the tent, there was a flashlight on top
of it. The tent had been covered with a sort
of fairly thin layer of snow, but the flashlight wasn't
just had a very light sprinkling. It's almost as if
the flashlight had been laid on top of the It
was a Chinese made one, but it looked as if
somebody had just put it on top of the tent
and it was remarked on that it was strange that
that wasn't covered with snow like everything else was. So
then you come into another area that the scene had
been set by other people, that the death, As I say,
you go into another area of theories, that they died
somewhere else and that the scene at the tent. What
that theory is saying is that they didn't die there,
s not at the tent. That didn't die there anyway.
But well, what they're saying is the whole scene of action,
if you like, took place somewhere else, but the tent's
been plunged there and made to look as if that's
where it all happened, and that they ran away from it.
But again it's just another theory. But the actual tent itself.
One of the oddities I found which people are looking
at at the moment is the fact that the slashes
to the tent appear to have been made from the inside. Now,
when the tent was taken back for examination to have
it looked at properly, it was examined by a seamstress
who had she who had said that the cuts were
made from the inside of the tent, And I did
say earlier. I didn't mention earlier the tent had been
cut again by some of the search party to make
the holes bigger. They openly admitted it because they were
trying to get inside, to open it all up and
see what was inside. So some of the cuts were
made afterwards, if you like. But her view of the
cuts that were made for supposedly the group to get
out in a panic or in a hurry were made
from the inside, so she deduced that they'd all been
cut from the inside. But having said that, you think, well,
it's a seamstress. She knows about cutting fabric, et cetera,
et cetera, but really call for as some a forensic
specialist to look at it. Yeah, cuts, I doubt if
she had. I don't know what for the forensic facilities
they had available in the Soviet Union in nineteen fifty nine,
but I can't imagine it was CSI in New Orleans
or anything like that. But as one of the things
that were I believe that the newery at the Diatlo Foundation.
I didn't mention it as I'd been contacted by somebody
about it and whether they were going to look at
doing some tests on fabric from tents from that time
to see if it could be cut and deduced, given
to a forensic expert to see if they could tell
which side it had been cut from. I think that
might be quite interesting, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing obviously you've got to just clear
up for people is that we're talking about tents in
nineteen fifties, so there weren't zips at the front, which
you do undoing a few seconds. There were buttons like
the topocoat. Buttons take longer to do that than to
cut the way out. So it's clearly suggest something spoke
them from them to decide to cut the way out
rather than under the buttons. One of the things that
I've come across I wanted to ask, particularly about Keith,
was the idea of once they had cut their way out,
that they appeared to be walking away rather than running.
I don't know if that means anything to you, have you?
Speaker 4: Well? Well, to me, that's that's the crux of the
whole thing. If you're going to cut yourself out of
that a tent, why would you walk? Because the employer
you're destroying your only place of safety to get out,
and then you start walking away. It doesn't make any
sense if there was something that they were getting away
from inside the tent. Once you're outside, you think we're
away from There's been talk of some kind of poisoning
inside the tent or from the stove, which isn't correct anyway,
because they've found it in the stowed position. It had
been new, well it hadn't been used, but it hadn't
been they're saying few from the stove. But even if
you were doing that, once you're outside, well you'd presumably
try and clear the fumes out and get back, because
like I said, it's your only place of safety, it's
the only cover you've got. But to destroy it and
then get outside and then walk away just as make
any sense. And the other thing is that if if
there was a let's argument, say, say a group of
individuals outside the tent that said we're going to kill
you all or whatever, or fired a shot over the
tent and they were quite frightened of what was happening
and they slashed their way out, you probably might have felt, well,
let's make a run for it or whatever. So you
wouldn't just walk casually away from it, which is what
the footprints seemed to say, And the thing is, if
there have been other people outside it, they didn't follow
them down because they were in their The footprints only
were of the group, not of anybody else. This is
the trouble. Every time we go down a particular path,
something contradicts it.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. One of the just thinking which I wanted
to come on to a second as well as we
were talking briefly off there before. The idea that struck
me was the idea of some kind of strange not
light anomally that was outside the tent, that was quite bright,
that unnerved them to the point they thought they were
going to be something to land on them, or someone
said in their direction, cut their way out quickly to
escape it and to discover that actually it was something
in the sky further away. But then for some reason
fact they wanted to get away from it, still not
necessarily run mad, but just wanted to get away from
whatever that was. Because I know, as we were talking
briefly before we started, there was a particular instance that
you discovered in the early two thousands about strange light anominies.
I wonder iful, perhaps that would that make any sense
to you that they thought they'd seen something that was
unnerving them cut their way because they were panicking. I
need to discover it wasn't as close by, or wasn't
what they thought, and then still decided to get away
from it, andmately. Of course they didn't run, so it
still has a problem. But does that kind of make
any sense?
Speaker 4: Well, it does, it does to me, I think. I'm
mentioned in an interview once before. I went camping several
years ago down in Devon and we were on a
campsite which it was all fairly quiet, and a bunch
of yobs came in a car. They were all looted
out of their heads and the car headlights were on
and I actually thought they were going to run me
over in my tent. I actually rushed out of the
tent because I had the flaps were undone, but the
car was God, it must have been about two hundred
feet away. They were well away from me, but there
were the headlights lit up the whole inside of the tent,
and I thought, I actually thought they were going to
run me over, but not delivering, you know, I mean,
they were just steaming drunk, but they were driving around
in the car and the police were called. Eventually but
I literally thought the car was only a few feet
away from the tent and that was going to be
a dead man. But like I said, I jumped down,
and if you like, the danger was a couple of
hundred feet away from me. There were nowhere near me,
and the car turned away. But the effect it had
on me in the tent, I'll always remember it to
this day. It was really frightening. But on the subject
of the lights, the lights are a big part of
this story because from everything that's been said about this story,
there was something going on in the night sky because
several witnesses had seen it. It was seen by people
in Ivdel, which was eighty miles away. But there seems
to be some kind of light phenomenon going on, whichever
I don't know. There's various theories about it, military tests, rockets,
there's talk of ball lightning. There is a theory on
the ball lightning coming down and that's what caused them
to go out of the tent, and that the lightning
was what was seen by people. But all the witnesses
were a good thirty to forty miles away. The work
has been done on the negatives, which I'll put into
my book by somebody at the Diatlo Foundation, which shows
certain things in the negatives taken at night. Some of
them are inexplicable. Some people say it's just damage to
the negatives, but some of the things are repeated in
They can't tell whose cameras the negatives are from. One
of them has got Zolatarov, so we know one of them.
We know that Solatarov had a camera because he was
found with the camera around his neck when he had
all the crushed in ribs. So part of the belief
is that he was outside the tent taking photographs of
whatever was happening in the night sky. They could have
been military flares as part of a military exercise, but
again nobody that's part of the problem with that. Just
because something's happening in the night sky, it doesn't imply
that that's what happened to them on the ground. But
it's quite a coincidence there's something happening that they've possibly
taken pictures of some of it. It's been seen by
other witnesses. There was another group of ski tourists from
the university on the Chess Stop Massive, which is an
area of mountain which is about thirty to forty miles
away from the Diatlogue Pass and they saw it as well.
So it's not denied that there was something going on
in the night sky because too many people have seen it. Basically, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, I've looked at those photographs you were referring to
the new ones that have developed someone. As you say,
you really can't tell anything, but certainly one or two
that looks like there is an object, isn't there in
the sky and somewhat in the distance that you've magnified it. It
looks like it's something. What exactly is is a completely message,
but something does appear to a photographing something. I mean,
of course you've got the classic last photograph on the
real that we've always known about it, the strange sort
of what look could be described as being a flare
in the distance or something close up completely had a focus.
But it certainly suggests that, as you say, there was
something in the sky that night. And so referring back
to the incident you described, if it was the early
two thousands with two people one work at the Boar mine,
I think it was. And now there was a sort
of a ranger, if you like, in the in the
in the woods, not that they had strange experiences of
anomalous lights that actually scared them.
Speaker 4: Do you mind story, brough Well, you're the You're a
Yakimov who was the foreman in the mine. He was
working on his own one night and a mind pit,
and he said there was a light drizzle and everything
was very quiet, and he suddenly became aware of something
was going on around him, and he wondered if it
were because they have a lot of trouble up there
with theft of machinery and equipment and all the rest
of it. And he wondered if it was somebody up
to know good with I was going to try and
steal some equipment. Anyway, he said a set of light.
He said there was a kind of a breeze, and
he said that he shouted out something like who's there
or whatever, and a set of lights came on which
were pointed at him, and he said it was a
really strange feeling because there was no sound at all,
but very the lights were so powerful that he said
that the strength of the beams the shadows they were casting,
like if it hit a tree, the shadow of the
tree would be raise or shark the beam was that strong.
He said, you almost couldn't look at them because they
were so bright. And he said that there was I
think he said there were three or four of them
in a row, as if four people were standing each
hold in a very strong light. So he continued looking
at them, but then he said what happened was the
light started coming towards him and they started splitting up.
The more lights were being created, and he said they
started juggling all over. He said the effect was if
you had a group of people who were trying to
scare you, and that there were multiplying, and he said,
and the lights were going all over the place as
if they were holding the light in their hands like
they say it was a flashlight that had a large handle,
because he said the light started going all over the
place as if they were But he said, what the
effect was that they were coming towards him. And he
said the feeling he had was a real fear. So
he got behind a piece of machinery and he hid
and everything stopped, but the lights. The light stopped and
still continued shining towards them, but he didn't look them,
and eventually the lights just eventually switched off. He said
there was a bang like a large electric electric shock,
and a quite a strong breeze, and he said, but
he said, the effect that it had on him, he said,
he felt really ill for several days afterwards, he said,
he said it was a kind of a queasy feeling.
But he said that he went then to the works canteen.
He felt he had to report it. But when he
started telling people, people looked at him and said, you're nuts,
Well you wud I suppose a blog comes along and
starts saying some lights have attacked me and all the
rest of it. And he said that he didn't really
want to pursue it because his feeling was not what
he's going to believe me anyway, But he felt that
he should report it in a way because he thought, well,
no matter how strange the thing was that happened, he thought, well,
if it is somebody playing silly game that and a
load of equipment goes missing, he'll get the blame. That
that was the one thing that was on his mind.
But he said he felt so ill that he almost
he almost was going to take time off work. He
felt so queasy and strange and tired. For it lasted
for about a week to ten days. But anyway, about
a short while after that, he read in the local
newspaper where forest stranger working in the same area, and
he's given me the coordinates of both where both incidents
took place. And they're not far from the diatlog pass.
I mean, they're not exactly next door, but they're in
the they're in the area. And this forest ranger was
an old seasoned salt I feel like, who'd spent all
his life working in the forests on his own, and
more to the point, he had a rifle with him
because his responsibility was to look after his area of
the forest and tend to the wildlife and just make
sure everything was all right. So he've got a man
who lives out in the forest, who's used to being
on his own and dealing with bears and wolves and
everything else in all weathers. So not a blog that
was going to be easily frightened. And the same thing
happened to him because he tracked this forest stranger down.
He read something in the paper about it, and he
tracked him down and spoke to him, and he gave
a full account, and it was exactly the same thing.
It happened to him. He was sitting one night after
he'd done his work in his area of the forest,
and a set of lights lit up, and again the
same thing. He looked at him, and the lights started
coming towards him, and he hid behind the log, and
his feeling was one of terrible fear as well. And
don't forget, he had, as I say, quite a powerful
rifle with him as well, but he said he didn't
even want to use it. He was just afraid of
whatever it was that was there, because he felt that
whatever it was, it wasn't human or if you like,
of this earth. He said. His only thought was to
try and get waste somehow, but he didn't want to
show himself again. And the same after a couple of hours,
the lights the lights had stopped while he was hiding,
but he could see them because they were going over
the log where he was. And eventually the lights closed
down again with a massive electric kind of bang and
again a breeze. So exactly the same thing had happened
to him. Now you could say, well, he's around on
the bend as well and all the rest of it.
But I keep a very open mind on this type
of thing. Because it's two different individuals working in It's
not like two forest workers or two people from the
same work gang, or two forestry workers. Two totally different
individuals and didn't know each other where exactly the same
thing has happened to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were wishing our chat room as the station
manager owner were saying that there are incidents of strange
life normally is sort of recorded for around the world.
But what I find the most fascinating thing, so he's
the fact how they were affected by them. These are
two guys you wouldn't normally have been spooked by anything
like this, but yet they were both as say, to
the point that one guy has a rifle a dozen
fans even using that, so he obviously felt a real
sense of danger in those lights.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and more to the point, I don't know what
to be like to actually have to live and work
in a forest nearly all your life, but you become
a part of it, I suppose. But there's plenty of
bears up there, there's packs of wolves. This this guy
was living in amongst them, and that that didn't phase
them at all. You know, he had a rifle for
the bears, But so there was something that was so
strange if you liked that was beyond his understanding, which
basically is it is. He was so fearful by it
that he just didn't want to go anywhere near it.
He wanted to get as far away as possible. And
he also had the same feeling of queasiness and tiredness
for about a week afterwards, he said to your Reakimov,
I met Youryakimov when I was over there a couple
of times and interviewed him, and you can see a
picture of him on my website. You came, yes, yes, yes,
but I find them quite plausible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to me, that's what strikes me is
the thing that maybe the lights, these anomalies were seen
by the group outside the tent. They cut their way out,
the light disappears, but they think, I don't find hanging
around and see if that comes back. And one of
the things that I've always found interesting is, of course
they had a cash of supplies in the woods not
too far away. And when I've looked at the map,
this is my own thinker, don't you think of this, Keith?
But it looks almost as if they took the wrong turney.
They came out of the tent when one direction, thinking
they were heading towards their food cash, I need to
realize that they'd gone the wrong way. And they kind
of kept going down to the edge of the trees,
partly because it gave them some cover, partly maybe getting
away from those lights, but in the hope that they're
gone to the right place to their cash. Was I
going to realize they were in the wrong place, which
is why someone started to head back towards the tent.
So you do I find wondering that maybe the sat
there waiting, is it a lot going to come back?
You know, what is it going to affect us? And
then argue breaking out about whether to go back to
the tent or not. I mean, it doesn't explain everything, obviously,
but what do you think of that? The idea that
they went in the wrong direction.
Speaker 4: It's quite possible because when we were camping there, we
actually can't where the cash was at the base of
the mountain, and it's quite a steep run upper. But
it would have made sense to have come out of
the tent and then to and I must have been
that's quite a plausible scenario that they would have gone
back towards it because it really I can see why
they went where they went down to the tree line,
because that was where that tree line is. And bear
in mind it's moved forward now about It must have
been at least one hundred meters the trees have started
moving up the up the slope of the mountain from
when they were there. But it was actually the closest
point to the tent. But it would have made far
more sense to have if you like, guided yourself slightly
to the right to get back to where they'd left
the cash. To get to get there's a stone belt
ridge there that runs down from the mountain. It's sort
of dips down and then it comes up again to
where there's a lot of exposed rocks, and they were
they were to the side of that, so they had
to have gone around that area to get to where
the cash was. And again, that doesn't make a lot
of sense that they would not go there, because at
least there was some food there. There was there was
some supplies and provisions. That would have made more sense
to do that than to have gone where they did.
But you know, the other thing I suppose you got
to say is it was late at night. There was
there was a blizzard. There must have been some element
of being whatever had happened to them that had caused
them to do that. There must have been a maybe
an element of shock. Even so then they probably but
you see again, they were up there testing themselves, if
you like. So here's something that happens out of the ordery.
You'd expect, you expected them possibly to say, well, let's
get a grip here and see what we're doing. I mean,
they walk into their virtual deaths with their feet and socks. Zola,
as I say, had fought it, had won medals for
close combat fighting, and he'd fought in Stalingrad, so I
can't imagine he'd have been easily phased by something. But
it must have been something that was so shocking that
it made them behave like they did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly as I said. Just my thinking about that.
They came out you saying, in a blizzard, they're in
the dark, they've been disoriented at least by something that's
caused them to want to leave that they studied going
one direction, and by the time reach the tree line,
we've gone the wrong way.
Speaker 4: It's possible and certainly possible. I can see that. I
can see that the tree line is a place of
safety in the I mean, part of my theory on
the Soviet military thing is if that if there was
an exercise going on and two aircraft had supposedly flown
over that two boars, if there'd been a couple of explosions. Alatara,
who has got military experience and has fought in the
war as maybe said, were we we've ended up in
the middle of an exercise. Let's get the hell out
of here, or at least get to the trees where
if there's going to be blasts and trapnel were better
protected down there. And it could be that the blasts
were happening a bit further away, But it made sense
to think, well, we're in a in the middle of
an exercise, to try and at least get to a
place of safety, even if we're leaving ourselves exposed. So
it's possible.
Speaker 3: You have given them a bit of you know, protection
from the exposure as well, wouldn't it Well.
Speaker 4: We would, yeah, it gave would give them protection for
the wind up there is by I was there in
August and every time we went up onto the mountain.
It's a constant. I'm not saying it blows you over,
but it seems to come over the top of the
mountain and it comes over the ridge and it's just
constantly against It's like you're standing there and there's somebody's
standing beside you and they're leaning on you're pushing you over.
I remember I injured my knee quite badly up there,
and I went up onto the where they had the
memorial rockies where they've got the Datlob memorial, and it
was so bad. I was standing there and I hobbled
around at the other side of it just to get
away from the wind. So that wind, it really is constant.
So if you think that's in August and it was
chilly en off in August, you can imagine what to
be like at minus twenty seven and minus forty, so
it would literally cut through you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Well, there's another aspect of this that I was quite interesting.
But they lit a fire, didn't I.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they attempted to, like well, they did like it,
because the burn marks on the bodies showed that there
must have been some flames from it. But it was
a I'm not saying a half hearted attempt, but it
wasn't enough to keep them alive By any stretch of
the imagination, and even if they've got a massive, roaring
fire going, it has to be said that how long
would that have kept them going because they had to
constantly be going away from it to get more wood.
Speaker 2: So it was relighted.
Speaker 3: Was like a fire start or something like that on
any of the bodies afterwards.
Speaker 4: Well, it's peculiar because they're saying that some of them
have matches. And the the man who was lev Vano's boss,
who I've got the two interviews with him in my book,
he said that there was matches lying around by the fire,
although there's nothing reported about the matches in the actual
So the you know, the initial invested, the investigation that
was carried out, but it's believed that had some matches
to start the fire, but other people disputed. But I
don't see how they could have done it without matches.
Speaker 1: Absolutely be questionable with matches win. It's that kind of
cold and the wind's blowing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just.
Speaker 3: Thinking that it's bad enough in just like a breeze.
Isn't it like a match let alone in those kind
of winds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, there was there would have been protection where
they were because they were the cedar tree, although it's
now within the forest if you like, because it's the forests.
They were on the edge of the tree line there,
but there is a bit of protection from the wind
because the wind is quite as harsh down there. But
there still would have been it still would have come
down the mountain. There would have still been wind. There
was a strong wind blowing that night, so there still
would have been some effect of the wind, and it
would have been pitch black as well. So I just
don't see how basically, I couldn't see how they could
do anything considering it was so dark. The whole thing
is just peculiar. Where they built the snow shelter, You think, well,
they must have been feeling their way around even to
do that.
Speaker 1: It would have been in the dark, of course it
would have been yeah, yeah, But I noticed about the
fact they were climbing. One of the of the trees
had damage up to sixteen feet high, as if they
were you were pulling branches off, or were climbing up
the trees to see if they could see further. Because
I know, obviously you have a campfire burning, you were
a light in the immediate area, but you actually blind
you do anything further away, so I could perhaps clean
tree climbing to see if they could see anything going
on nearer the tent, perhaps branches.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I've stood by that tree and I've got
pictures of it on the website. There's some dispute as
to whether it is the cedar tree, but it's it's
pretty down. You can see I'm not saying it's the
branch as they broke, but you can see a number
of the branch. I think a lot of souvenir hunters
have been held themselves to it. But again, why would
you just constant? Why would you climb sixteen or twenty
feet up a tree when there's other trees about further
down you can just snap them. I presumed maybe they
didn't want to walk too far, but it implies that
they were going up the tree to try and see
what was happening at the tent. Because what happens when
you're when I was walking down from where the tent
was located, it kind of disappears from view it was
held out. I mean, the tent wasn't up, but there
was there's flags there, which they're not quite the height
of the poles. But as you're going down the slope
towards the tree line, and you look back you can
see it disappearing. It's almost like it's on a ledge
and it starts to disappear from view. And part of
the theory is that they've gone up the cedar tree
to look back to the tent. But why would you
do that if there wasn't a reason to. Then there
must have been some reason. And again I think that's
quite clause that they were doing, because they found skin,
you know, that have been torn and stuck on the
on the tree itself. There was obviously bodily marks left
on the tree from where they've been climbing up it
and maybe cut or graze themselves on it. So they
must have been going up there to try and see
the tent. But again, without light, you couldn't see.
Speaker 1: Anything unless they believe there was some kind of normally
that was.
Speaker 4: Visible there at the tent of some kind.
Speaker 1: Ye, unless it was some kind of a life normally,
perhaps it did reoccur, which is what kept them perhaps
away from going back to it.
Speaker 4: Well, the theory is that they went. One of the
theories is that they went there to escape whatever was
there and would were waiting for it to die down
before they went back. But if you've got any sense,
and they were all intelligent, educated people, they were obviously
in mortal danger for what they'd done. They put themselves
into extreme cold with wearing virtue virtuale and other they
must have show it started shivering almost immediately, so it
was just a matter of time before hypothermia overcame them anyway,
let alone the serious injuries. But presumably if there was
something that the tent that was dangerous, then there must
have been more of a danger than the danger than
they were in.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, I mean obviously if they don't even have
the time to get dressed properly slash the way out
of the tent to escape it. But you know, it
often comes back to that same thought, Well, if it
didn't run away from it, then whatever it was they
thought there would be threatened by clearly wasn't there when
they got outside, but decided, regardless of the fact that
the tent was still probably still serviceable even it had
holes in, started to walk away from it. You know,
it always strikes because that just seems an odd thing
to do. However, you kind of try and paint the picture.
Speaker 5: Well, it does the only thing it's that possibly they
that And again I know it's my pet theory, but
contradict it if you want.
Speaker 4: But if there was a military exercise going on, like
me in the tent that night with that car, I
thought the car was literally on top of me, and
it wasn't. There was a Okay, I didn't slash my
way out, but I really got out of there as
fast as I could. Could it be that they slashed
the way out of the tent. The explosions they heard
were maybe a third of a mile away, but the
mere fact there was explosions and lights coming down. Zlatara
may have said, we're in where there's a military exercise
going on over there. There's a danger it's coming this way.
You wouldn't necessarily run, but you'd start walking quickly. It's
a possibility if it's far enough the way, but you
realize if it gets any closer, you're in great danger.
But he said it could be. He said, let's get
down to the tree line, wait till this passes, and
we'll come back. Because you wouldn't necessarily run at that point,
you could just walk fast. I think it's just a
it's just a guess, really.
Speaker 1: It's some of the said that much experience you ever
studying this, and I think your guesses are pretty valid,
certainly well but contradicting.
Speaker 4: You know, the thing with the military theory is there's
another theory that was put forward by a Russian journalist
and he was the first person who really started pulling
this case apart, and his view was that they were
they died somewhere else and the military were responsible. They
they set the scene, if you like, of the tent
where it was, and just put the bodies where they were,
that they'd all died of from an explosion or whatever.
The bodies had been moved from where it had happened,
because where it had happened there was damage to trees,
and you could work out pretty quick what may have
happened if you see trees uprooted or smashed branches, dead
birds and all the rest of it, and they they
had been placed there. There was a pilot the day
before the tent was found by the searchers. There was
a pilot who had flown over nearly the tent and
had seen the tent on the side of the mountain,
and he said he saw two bodies beside it. Jannadi
Patruccia of his name was. I met his widow when
I was over on my last visit, and she said
that she felt it was always very strange because he
died in an air crash four years later, three or
four years later.
Speaker 1: So what do you think of the idea that he
was all set up in terms of what he'd claimed
to have seen from his plane flying over.
Speaker 4: Well, he radioed back, which is what you would do.
He radioed back the fact that he'd seen the tent.
And if you look in my book, there's an interview
with the man who is lev Vanov's boss, and he's
interviewed by a current I think he's just retired, and
Leonid Proshkin. He's, if you like, an up to date investigator.
He was doing the same sort of job, so if
you like, he got a modern detective interviewing an older
detective to put it in a rough way, and he
said that he's looked through the whole case files and
all the rest of it, and he said, I find
a peculiar that every day that the search was going on,
there's between six to twelve telegrams going backwards and forwards,
and on the twenty fifth, the day he radio back
about the position of the tent. There's not one telegram.
All the telegrams have disappeared. That is it said every day,
literally every day over the whole period, you know, the
twenty first, twenty secon, twenty third, whatever, and then the
twenty fifth is nothing, and then the following day, the
twenty sixth, another dozen telegrams.
Speaker 1: That is definitely suspect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's an modern investigator Russian who said that
to him, and when he said that to levy Van
as well. So if getting your orkashev, he says, I
can't explain that basically, which you can.
Speaker 3: Now, Ah, my goodness, where do you start? Because everything
seems to contradict each other, doesn't it, Andy, You know,
we seem to be going around in circles with this.
You know, you've got almost like a frantic being left
leaving the tent to calmly seeming to walk down to
the tree lines. And there are contradictions on every single
step of this. This incident is absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 1: Instally difficult to build up a complete coherent picture of
all the events that occurring to account for all of
them in any kind of conspiracy or explanation of an
unusual event has to be able to account for all
the things that have occurred in order for it to
be seen as completely coherent and one you can absolutely
run with. But as keep saying, there are when again
the elements that suggest this could be my Russian military operation,
the kind of they indirectly found themselves the middle of all,
actually got caught up indirectly. But again you have the
problem of no, not really lots of evidence of other
people being near them at the time, so it suggested
something being seen further away. So I guess keif we
were to kind of drag you into court of law
and demand you give us your explanation, you would head
towards the idea of a Russian military operation that they
were either indirectly caught up in or directly as in
they're actually in the center of it.
Speaker 4: Well, it's the owner is I would I tend towards
that course. Like the survival expert has knowledge of avalanches.
I've studied the Soviet military for many, many years, particularly
Soviet military aviation and the military activities of the Northern Urals.
That area is all about military aviation and missiles, So
it's not a recognized training area necessarily, but that's not
to say it wasn't. But it seems to tend towards that.
But I'll contradict my own theory in that I know
enough about, say, missiles and bombers and aircraft to try
and piece together some kind of scenario that happened to them.
But I can't make it fit. That's the problem. I
can't say there were three Yak twenty fives flew over
from a base. There was a base about eighty miles
away to the east. It doesn't seem to add up, though.
That's the problem. But the reason why I still tend
to think there's some kind of military involvement or whatever
is because there's two things. One is the radiation and
the other one is the arrival which I put in
my book of the arrival of the second most powerful
man in the Soviet legal system, who basically the day
after the case was closed, sorry, the day after the
radiation report was finished, he arrived, went went to the
prosecutor's office and went to see the local the heads
of the local Communist party in spurred Lovs and closed
the whole case down. And he said to Klinov who
was in charge of the prosecutor's office, and to Ivanov
and to Akashov, tell them, I e. The parents of
the group, it was an accident and that's it. You know.
He didn't say anything else. And what he's saying, and
it's in my book what he's saying is what Akashov
was saying is that Urrokov sat there, he derived from Moscow.
It said he didn't have the slightest interest in what
they had to say about the case. He said he didn't.
They asked him about armaments tests, he said, they said
he did deny it, but he didn't say anything else either.
He said, it's almost as if the whole case was
clear to him. He knew what had happened, but he
wasn't saying anything. And then he says, close it down
and tell them it was an accident. And what Kashov
says is you imagine we've just found or recently found
the last four bodies which have got strange and terrible injuries,
and were told to close it down because he had
organized a trip back up to the di Atalog Pass
with a group of troops to really go around the
whole area and search and to try and see if
they could get to the bottom of it. He said
they weren't allowed to do it. The whole thing was
just shut down. So why would you do that if
it was an avalanche or ball lightning? I mean, it's
a blow going to come from Moscow, the second most
powerful man in the legal system and not even admit
its ball lightning or whatever or an avalanche, just say
close it down and tell them it was an accident.
Why would he even do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that screens of the military incident being
covered up, doesn't it?
Speaker 4: It does to me, it does, but but I can't
I can't fit. If you like, you've got a jigsaw
there and you can't quite see the pieces, but I
can't make it fit.
Speaker 1: That comes back to that same problem. Doesn't you got
the guys in the ravine? How those injuries occur?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the other thing is about Akashova talks about radiation.
There's an implication that lev Vanov undertook that on his own.
I mean, he was just a detective if you like
the Soviet of equivalent, he was investigator. But if you
like a Soviet detective, anything to do with radiation and
nuclear is the whole subject of nuclear matters, if you like,
in the Soviet Union, would have been a red light area.
Would nobody in his right mind would go near it
if they thought that was responsible. So the instruction that
came for the radiation tests came from Moscow to conduct
tests and see if there's any radiation involved. So it
implies that there's something there to do with radiation, but
what exactly nobody knows. But don't forget also that the
whole area up there, they didn't close it down as
some people say. What happened was they wouldn't give permits
for anybody to visit. I mean just as today, to
go up there, officially you have to register with a
I had to register with the police and the Ministry
of Emergency Situations. You can do it without, but you
don't really want to get in trouble. You don't want
to be stopped and asked for your papers by anybody,
and so what you're doing here and at least if
you're registered you can travel okay. But in those days
security was very tight. You couldn't go anywhere you liked.
Swirred Lobskin those days was a closed city, so they
just stopped giving permits out other than if you're a
forestry worker, you had a reason to be there, but
nobody else could go up there. So basically they closed
the whole area down for four years. So it makes
you wonder where they're doing something or whatever. If there
was elements of radiation up there, maybe they were tied
in that up. Who knows. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: In the autopsies of the bodies that they did. Wasn't
there radiation on some of the bodies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was, yeah, and on the clothes beta radiation,
which which is suggestive of military type radiation. Some people
have said it was fallout from there was a nuclear
bombs were tested up in an island mechanic pronounce it,
but Novalla Zemlia up in the Arctic Ocean. That maybe
there had been fallout of radiation from those bombs, but
it's a bit fanciful. The thing is there's a nuclear
warhead storage area and they replaced nuclear warheads and getting
rid of the older ones in that that was there
when when this happened, that just started so that there
was a nuclear warhead storage area in that region. So
would there have been a leak or something from that? Again,
that's possible. Akishov says in his interview that he had
been talking to somebody who said that, I mean, there
was a moratorium on nuclear tests. But he spoke to
somebody in the Soviet Union from that time who said
that they moved nuclear testing up from where it was
in the Caucasus up in the northern Urals. But he
wouldn't say any more than that. So there there's a
suggestion that there's some kind of nuclear testing going on
up there. But again, if you're testing, whether it's on
the ground or you know that they weren't allowed to
do it over they'd signed agreement not to do it overground.
But if there was some testing that was underground, could
it have been a leak of some kind from that?
It's quite possible.
Speaker 2: But the levels weren't that high.
Speaker 4: Well, they weren't that high, But it's a peculiar thing
to even test for while if you find bodies dead
that look, you know, if you found somebody who had
just been hit by a car, you wouldn't say testing
for radiation though that's true. Sorry I'm not being facetious there,
but you know, the whole radiation thing is odd. But
the beta particles wash off in water, and don't forget
all the bodies had been lying water for weeks, so
a lot of the worst of the radiation have already
been washed away.
Speaker 1: There are some questions around the autopsies, aren't there about
exactly who had what injuries? From what I remember reading,
it's a bit slap dash as to how it was handled.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you are, but I'll be honest with you, I
don't believe the autopsies are I think. I think the
trouble is if you come to this case as a
newcomer and you look at it and you say, well,
it happened in nineteen fifty nine. There's a lot of
other paperwork, but we have got the autopsies. You look at,
but everybody looks at them as if they're as if
Moses had brought them down from the map. They're set
in stone, and you can't dispute anything. Well, why can't
you dispute it? The Soviets were you know, we're quite
good at disinformation. To hide something, all you've got to
do is say, well, half of them died of hypothermia,
half of them died from terrible injuries. And you can't
you can't explain it, can you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Could it have been that they'd all been killed in
a blast, And it was obvious that they've been killed
in the black you know, burst lungs and ear drums
from the pressure a wave from a blast. But if
you put one cause of death that they'd all died
in a blast, it's quite obvious that the military are
or someone with the military is responsible. If you say,
even if you said they'd all died of hypothermia, people
and say, well, what the hell made them that? But
once you start mixing it all up, Luda's tongue missing,
I'm not even sure. I believe that you've got to
question everything, really, But the trouble is when you question everything,
then you've got nothing solid to base your theories on.
But I think that's it's meant to be.
Speaker 1: Again, we've got the photographs, of course of the bodies,
but we don't necessarily know that they've not been doctored
either the actual physical bodies and not the photographs of
the bodies themselves not being changed around between being found
and then being a photographed.
Speaker 4: And I mean, all we know about the bodies is
that they died definitely in very strange circumstances. And then
the next thing you go along to is the report
of how they were all found and the autopsies. Those
are the only the one thing that might start looking
at it. But the trouble is if it's a pressure wave,
you wouldn't find them. But if you dug the bodies
up now you could test the bones for further radiation
or whatever possibly, or even the injuries. You could look
at the injuries again because of presumableeds. The bodies would
still have the broken limbs and everything, so you could
maybe work something out from that, but there's no chance
of exhuming the bodies for that anyway.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that some of the bodies are buried
in one graveyard and others are in a different graveyard.
They were most hoping to bring them all together, but
even that's not been allowed as it for moving the bodies.
Speaker 4: No, there's two. Two of them are buried in an
the cemetery. I mean, there's talk about why that was done,
as if there was KGB involvement, because the other cemetery
is supposedly for higher ups of the time, if you like.
But I've been to both cemeteries and there's wild dogs
in them that people jacking up Heroin. They're not place
you really want to go in on your own. It's
the relatives that won't allow Zanatarev and it's Colabatov. The
relatives won't allow their two bodies to be exhumed to
be taken across to the main cemetery because Uri Union
is buried with the rest of them now in the
main area. But Uri con save it and the Diatlo
Foundation had made an attempt to at least try and
bring them all together, which is always quite a noble gesture,
but they wouldn't allow him to do it. So what
he did was he's moved. He dug up some of
the soil near the twos and he's moved that over,
so at least there's a kind of a symbolic gesture
of them being together.
Speaker 3: I was reading an article regarding this, and one of
the theories is to do with the infrasound phenomenon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's been put forward in one book. But the
thing is that there's two elements of that infrasound. One
is that there was an infrasound weapon, and the other
one is that the infrasound was created by the kind
of vortex effect of the way the mountain is. Again,
both are possible. What I would say about the infrasound, say,
the vortex effect is that not everybody is affected in
the same way by Some people are not affected by
it at all. So it implies that all nine of
them would have had to have been affected. And the
thing is, if they're really disorientated, they wouldn't be walking
in a straight line down to the tree to the
tree line. They'd be wandering all over the place if
it was having that kind of effect on their mental faculties. Well,
by the walk down to the tree line almost implies
a kind of an organized trip down there. And the
other thing is with infrasound, it doesn't create mechanical damage,
you know, the kind of injuries that they sustained, the
broken ribs. Infrasound only effects soft tissue. It doesn't affect
bones at all.
Speaker 1: It's also a topic that often talked about in the
world of the paranormal, the fact that there could be
some of the causes of people's strange experiences are down
to infrasound. But it's very much open for debates. Certainly
it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the other thing about the weapon element of
that there was a gentleman called Vladimir Gavrol that a
lot of he was Russian, but he was living in
France back in the I think of nineteen thirties, I'm
not sure, but he'd done a research into in for
a sound. But the trouble with that is a lot
of people thought he was he'd done some very good
research in other areas, but a lot of people thought
he was coming off the wall with you know, his
work on infra sound. I've heard that from experts in
the field, not from people who say he's talking a
lot of nonsense. And the possibility that there was a
weapon you can actually weaponize in for a sound, but
apparently you would need with a state of research into it,
and this is today, you would need a machine that
was the size of a forty foot container to use
an infrasound weapon, which and bear in mind this is
nineteen fifty nine, So you need to get something size
of a forty foot container up into the mountains when
you can barely get yourself through the mud to use
it up up in the And why would you do that?
Why not? If you had an infrasound what why not
use it in a city you know, or at least
in a facility rather than help into the middle of
nowhere in the middle of a blizzard. Doesn't make a
lot of sense.
Speaker 2: No, that's true.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It's just something I read. I thought i'd bring it
to the table.
Speaker 4: It's it's quite plausible. I mean. The other thing I'd
say about infra sound is I camped up on the
mountain one night that the wind was there, and there's
been hundreds of people. It's actually a very people pass
through the Diatlogue Pass regularly going north and south. It's
part of a route. Now there's loads of people go
up there, camp up there, and it's to my knowledge
and to the diatlog foundations on nobody's ever been affected
by infrasans. It opened in nineteen sixty three, since the
area reopened it and it's like Piccadilly Circus up there now.
But you'll be you'd be where we were, where the
cash was. You come down from the route from where
the memorial stone is, and there was people passing by
every day who were hiking. But there's it's a it's
a route to the northern you know, the polar urals,
and people go it's it's an established route now. The
Mansea there as well all the time, and although they're
not they're not into there. They've become like what's the
word the modern American Indians Now, I think a lot
of the old ways of the Mansi are dying out
with the reindeer. I believe the government there in Russia
may be wrong on it, but I think they get
the state's sub today to make them stay in the
area so at least and stay as populated as they
do with other ethnic groups in Russia, because it's a
it's a very underpopulated area the whole of so if
you go north across Siberia, there's massive area, bigger than Africa,
and it's hardly anybody living there.
Speaker 1: It is one of those things you can find someone
doing the research in this couple of years when I
first uncovered it, sort of shit at home night and
cozy and comfortable, just trying to imagine what it must
be like to be out and those sort of areas
in the middle of winter. I mean, you said to yourself,
even in August, it's pretty unpleasant. But to be there
in the middle of say February, in that deep snow,
that's not my idea of holidays the best of times.
Speaker 4: No, But having said that, they trained for it. I'm
not a young man anymore. But they were early twenties,
extremely fit, and they had all the gear for it,
so and they enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: The thing.
Speaker 4: The thing is in the Soviet Union in those days,
in the West, people had rock and roll and there
was a lot more money in say the USA. I'm
not saying it was quite the same in Britain, but
teenagers had things to do. But in the Soviet Union
those days are still recovering from the war and there
wasn't a lot of money about and youngsters. I'm not
saying that young youngsters in their early twenties, but they
needed to let their hair down and that was a
way of doing it because the society there was riddled
with KGB informers. So there was a chance to get
away out of the city and go out into the
wild and just be yourself for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Ian, just doing my research into this, it was
very much a closed society and you did feel very
much that you could be what whatever you were doing.
It to be careful and I know one of the
theories that does bounce around is but one the chapters
whose name was so I just escaped my screen, who
was considered to be older. The rest of good was
all a tie off. He was thirty eight, and he
said to myself he had military experienced forty in the
stylingrat that it seemed a little odd that someone was
so much older than the rest of the group should
be involved. But I mean, again, from what I understand,
he was part of his training. He was trying to
become an expert ski guy.
Speaker 4: And I think it was yeah, he was, he was,
and he was he'd been working in the Altai Mountains,
which is another very popular area for ski tourism, and
to him it was it was just a way of
keeping his hand in that. There is talk that he
had a bit of a soft spot for Zena. She
was a very attractive She was one of the two
females in the group, very very attractive. So, but the
thing is he was actually old enough to be the
father of everybody in the group. When you think it
was actually his birthday. The night he died, he would
have been thirty nine, but he was. He didn't really
seem to fit despite that, what you rejudin said about
him was that once they got to know him, he
was he fitted in, He sang songs with him, and
they considered him one of the lads. But it's a
bit of a nod. There's a theory that he was
a KGB agent and that they were meeting there. They
were meeting foreign agents in the Northern Urals to handover
radioactive materials because a couple of them had been working
or were involved with nuclear secret nuclear establishments, and that
they were going to hand over some radioactive material. The
KGB was in charge of the whole operation. But I
always say to that theory, well, why why would you
trek into the middle of the mountains and meet some
secret agents when you could hand it to the monastery
corner or you know, or a dead letter drawing. There'd
be a lot of easier ways of doing it. Apart
from anything else. If the KGB was everything, if they
thought there was something going on that you'd find any
secret agents who met them up they just looked for
their tracks. But I can I just can't imagine it, really,
But it's it's a theory.
Speaker 1: Did the old standard sit in the park so won't
hand over the briefcase that looks like a briefcase.
Speaker 4: What's the point. It just doesn't make sense to me
because you would need two groups to meet up in
I'm not saying it's the middle of nowhere, but it's
there's blizzards, and it's not like you say, I'll see
that tree over there that's ten ten trees down from
the other one. I mean you could, you could say
you could meet up there, but it just doesn't make
a lot of sense. It really doesn't. It's and also
part of that theory works only if you consider that well,
one member of it, if you like, was in on it.
The rest of them weren't in on it. So how
was he going to explain to everybody else? He's into
three blokes in the middle of nowhere and he's given
them something. I mean, I haven't really gone into that
theory too well because I just don't think it holds water.
But if something comes along and says I've got a
document here that proves it, because they'd set it all up,
and who's to say how things work or don't work.
But and that's the thing I wanted to mention, there's
a lot of forgery starting to appear now with regard
to this story because when I was last over there
in Russia, I was told that there was a piece
of canvas that was being touted around that supposedly had
blood on it that was found in the KGB archives,
which was from the tent, which had blood of genuine
blood on it, that they'd been murdered there. And it
turned out the whole thing's a forgery. And there's other
documents that have been appearing their forgeries. So there's all
sorts of disinformation starting to come out about it now
as well. So you've got to be careful what what
particular route you go down.
Speaker 1: Well, I remember writing, think of the tent itself has now disappeared.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, that was one of the first things
I asked about. It disappeared completely. The trouble is, if
it was a bit of a touchy subject, if you like.
It was believed to have been kept in the police
station and put into a cupboard, and nobody knows basically
what happened to it. It would a souvenir hunter take it,
you know, nobody knows really it's it could be that
it was it stayed in a cupboard for ten or
fifteen years and somebody was cleaning the place something we
don't need. They're all dead now, and we'll just check
it out.
Speaker 1: So a little bit like Andy's brain game missing, isn't it?
Speaker 4: Well, but nobody knows what happened to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like Jeffk's brain vanishing from the archives. It's like,
this is actually quite important evidence, but now let's just
discard it. I'm talking about the the more kind of
there's some more crack pot pharys. Of course, one we
really have to addresses the idea of the Yetti the
wonder More Snowman attack in them. I'm going to have
to ask you, what do you think of that theory?
Speaker 4: Well, I put everything in a in a kind of probability,
so I'd put the possibly at the top of that theory.
You can have the avalanche, the military accident, possible mancy
killings or whatever. You can put them up near the top.
I'm afraid I've got to put the YETI theory down
near the bottom because it's I haven't researched the yety
too much. But you've got a large homonoid creature that
resembles a bear. You would expect the you would expect
it to probably use its teeth or claws, if and
you would expect those marks to appear on the bodies,
which there was no kind of animal attacks. It could
be the crushing injuries came from, you know, for Zalatarev
and Luda. You know, yet he had crushed, you know,
held them and crossed them in a kind of a
bear hug, which is But the thing that argues again
says there's no tracks. Yeah, and yet it is like
a large bear, say, or you'd expect to see some
kind of tracks, wouldn't you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I know we have the single photograph of rather
blurred image in the background of what has been purported
to in the yetti. But I know, having looked at
the photographs myself, the next photograph, the previous photograph on
the real shows one of the group in cloven that's
not dissimilar to the figure that you see in the background.
Suppose of the YETI is that kind of eliminates that
one for me anyway?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well, supposedly the French he was born in
a gulag Nikolai Bob Brignor. He's supposedly returning from having
had a Jimmy riddle. Somebody's funny idea of a bit
of a joke of taking a picture of it. Admit it,
it does have a it's got a crouching when you
look at it. It's kind of a kind of sinister
stance because it's like it's crouching, isn't it. But it
had just been behind a tree and he was just
gingerly making his way back. I suppose he would be
crouching a bit anyway.
Speaker 1: But taking a temperatures rather risky of the better times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. I mean if somebody comes along
and who knows that they thought the stealer cant had
was extinct, and yet they found one in nineteen thirty
six in a fishing net. But if somebody provides evidence
of a very large tribe of Yettis in northern Siberia
that moved around a bit, you know, you never know
that there might be one. But until somebody produces some evidence,
this is the trouble. You can come out with all
sorts of things, but you need to back it up
with some kind of credible evidence. You've got to explain
the lack of well, nobody's ever caught yet yet. There's
there's pictures, there's film you know, there's some film of
Bigfoot and what have you, but there's no footprint there.
You know, expect and also I would think a large
animal that didn't have a lot of reasoning power, that
was in a rage, i'd expect them to virtually demolish
the tent.
Speaker 1: Absolutely to ask you better than this. You don't talk
all the time. I think I was going to say,
was obviously a paranormal station. We're not going to discounts
yet is altogether, but I think we could rule them
out in this particular case.
Speaker 4: No, if you're talking paranormal, I would be looking at
what's happening in the sky. To me, again, with paranormal
kind of activity, you would have to again produce evidence
of it. But there's something odd going on in the sky,
if you take the negatives, has been fairly you know, genuine.
A lot of it's inexplicable. But if something is going
on in the sky, there's some kind of which ties
in with what Yuri Yakimov was saying about the lights.
There's also and this thing about the snap of electricity.
There's talk of some kind of energy based weapon, which
is a possibility because Ivanov, when you read his interview.
He didn't do it. He did an article with a
journalist in nineteen ninety which is in my book, and
it's almost like he was reaching the end of his
life and he wanted a kind of a tone for
the whole thing. But he talks about unidentified flying objects.
He's saying it's not to say that it's a you
you know of alien, but there's something going on. He
says it himself. They found a kind of a burn
mark on a tree trunk which was perfectly symmetrical, a
circle which had been created by a burn. And that's
what he sort of talks about, that it could be
something that was in the sky, may not even have
come from it may have been he doesn't say, a
military thing, but there's something going on which is kind
of technology based. Yeah, I would go along with that.
It's inexplicable, but there is seems to be some kind
of evidence that's leading towards it. But it can be explained.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely my own personal thinking of that stuff.
I've read that it's something in the sky light normally
of some kind, whether it's a military experiment or I'm
not a big fan of other worlds spacecraft, but possibly
sort of testing craft that was experimental and when it
hushed that up because it went wrong, that kind of thing.
Something seems for me to fit much of this, but
again we have the anomalies of what actually happens to them. Certainly,
but be very quiet and that my good friend Kerry.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Andy, No, seriously, I want to look at
There was something that really interested me on your website,
which was to do with the computer simulation that somebody
had done that came up with some very interesting results.
Now this is based around the methanal theory, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he said a little bit about that.
Speaker 4: Well, it's what it was, Ben Firth. What is. What
he was saying was that he'd run computer simulations on
all the theories and that kept coming up with ninety
seven percent probability. And that's to me, that's pretty good.
I work in computer security, but to me, that's applause.
If something comes up ninety hit, you've got to take
some attention to it. But the mental he's saying that
that menthanol was introduced into the food source that they
were eating, and that that is what had affected them,
that whoever had done it as possibly as a bit
of a joke. They realized that somebody had done it,
they attacked whoever had had, if you like, put it
into their food, but it was affecting them quite badly,
would drive well, virtually driving them wild. I mean, the
theory is on my website, but it implies that one
member of the group, though, is doing something to the others.
But as I say, it's you know, if it comes
up with ninety possibility, then I think you've got to
look at it. Because one of there's a number of
theories there that they were possibly eating mushrooms, that they'd
had fly Algaric. I think it was, you know, but
things that would would affect their mental faculties, and that
would account for the weird, the weird, bizarre behavior of
slashing their way out, you know, whether it's ment and
all there was making them go wild, if you like,
but it also blinds you, I mean, mental poison. It's poisoning.
It's it's a toxic substance. So whether you go with
menthan All or any other you know, the fly Algaric
or whatever, you know, magic mushrooms, call it what you will,
that they possibly been experimenting with it, that that would
account for the weird, bizarre behavior. And what Ben was
saying about the menthol all was that they realized that
it had been done to them, and that's why they
had attacked the person who had done it. What he's
saying is that he tried to climb the cedar tree
to get away from them, but that then they started
climbing up after him. But it's and he's he's saying,
I thought it was just alcohol and it be harmless.
That the water and fuel got mixed up. So if
you like a prank that went wrong, indeed.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't explain the light anomalies in the sky
or some of them more weird injuries that some of
them then got.
Speaker 4: Well what What what Ben was saying is that you know,
again the fall down the ravine, heavy snow on top
of them causes the rib compress and fractures. I don't don't.
I don't necessarily know that's true, because I suppose there's
possible slow building up on top of the course of
the fractures. But I can't imagine the snow would flatten
your nose into your into your head.
Speaker 1: And that does leave us the same problem, doesn't it
When we're talking about even the military involvement, that things
in the sky being military craft or testing weaponry. It's
getting down to what physically happened to them. That's the bit.
There's always the troubling bit, isn't it if you're talking
about the idea that being the military operations. Been saying
before that you have to have evidence of these people
being nearby to of course the physical injuries. If they
were caught in the area and were threatened with suffering,
if he kept it, didn't keep quiet, and they decide, well, no,
it's no good, they're not going to keep coming. You
have to kill them. There's no evidences. That's that's the
really trouble, isn't it.
Speaker 4: But what I would say about that, though, is there's
no evidence up by the tent. And don't forget the
footsteps that they saw only they started depending on there's
several variations on where the footsteps started. They didn't start
right at the tent. Some people say it's four hundred meters,
some people say eighty meters, some people say twenty from
the rescuers. The footprints started some distance away and okay,
it's only their footprints, but they petered out before they
got to the tree line. When you get down to
the tree line, I mean talking about the day they
found the tent, there was no footprints at all, so
they didn't know what had happened. They didn't know where
they were. The bodies were all there, but of course
they couldn't see them, and there was no footprints. There
was no footprints at all around where any of the
bodies were found, so something could have happened there.
Speaker 1: So is it the thing the snow itself to me
cover them over or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well there was no found To put it that way,
Nobody said we've found footprints here. But what they did
was find the bodies, but there was no footprints around them,
or the possibly may have been the footprints of the group,
but nobody mentions any footprints. It's like the snow covered everything.
And of course what happened was, even if there had
been any footprints there, by the time the rescue parties
got there started digging up the bodies, any other footprints
are going to be obliterated. There was I mean, there
was five search parties that had to bring a large
tent in to accommodate everybody. So you got these people
traps in over the whole area. And what this Russian
journalist was saying, the one who first started pulling the
case apart, was his view was when they talk about
the nine eight or nine pairs of footprints going down,
he says he doesn't believe it because he said, once
they found the tent, people were coming in from all directions.
A message had gone back saying we found the tent,
so everybody gravitates towards it, and they're tramping all over
the place, And he thinks that they would have been
following the footprints and just walking all over them, because,
as I say, they didn't think it was like a
murder scene or the crime scene. They just think we
found them, and we'll follow the footprints and they'll be
around on the bottom somewhere, or if they couldn't find it,
that they'll be nearby. All we've got to do is
find them. So yeah, there's no no real reason for
them not to cover up everything. You know, they think, well,
we've we've really got them, so there's no need to
protect any footprints or anything.
Speaker 1: Well, the thought that kind of just crossed my mind
quite literally as you were talking about it, is that
maybe there was a military activity close by that that
didn't actually involve these guys that themselves directly, but because
it was sensitive area, they just wanted to keep the
whole thing quiet. They're, Okay, something stranger has happened to
these guys, but we're not worry about that, because it's
important that this area has kept people kept clear of it.
It could be that they're almost like covering it up,
not because they knew that was the real reason why
that happened, but because it was just open too many questions.
I didn't want to be asked, I didn't want answers
for so they just kind of mudded it all that
and they said, no, shut it all down.
Speaker 4: Now, well that's actually quite plausible. Yeah, I would go
along with that, and it would also explain Europical arriving
from Moscow and saying close it down, and who knows.
They'd say, well, fiddle around with the autopsies a bit
and make it look muddy the water if you like,
but shut it down. We don't want any more. And
I've got a feeling you could be onto something with that,
you know, because the may well have been something going
on and it didn't necessarily directly affect them, but they
could see that something that may have harmed them was nearby,
and oh god, we've got to get away from here.
But it didn't directly affect them in that sense, and
they died of the cold or whatever. And the military thought,
oh god, you know, because of what we've been doing here,
they've all died. But you're not going to make that public.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean my next book, I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well enough to write.
Speaker 1: I'll just give my whole plot away, haven't, I'll tell you.
Speaker 4: And that's actually worth looking into. That's to me, that's
quite plausible. Definitely, yeah, yeah, no, it's very plausible. But
like I say, I don't know we'll ever get to
the bottom of it. The people are starting to die
off now. But I believe that there's something in the
FSB archives. I'll be surprised if there wasn't. But you know,
the what was the KGB. I find it impossible to
believe that they wouldn't have been involved, considering two of
the group were working with secret nuclear facilities, just even
the security element of it, that they have been involved.
But they say they were never involved. But that's a
stock response.
Speaker 1: Have you ever spoken to Slelanos about the case she's
a Russian.
Speaker 4: Well, the trouble is that she's almost competition if you like,
not that anybody. She's got her theory, I've got Donnie
Aiker has got his theory. I mean, her theory is
actually again pretty plausible. I mean she's she's investigated it,
but I don't know that I agree with it. But
but again it's plausible. But what it needs is somebody
to find I don't know, if you like a bit
of evidence just to take it, but it needs something
to come out of the woodwork, and just so you
can start saying, right, well, it is this and we're
going this is the direction it should go in. But
until that day comes, I mean, there might be something
that's military archives are held south of south of Moscow,
but getting in there, I think, but getting in to
look at them, i'd say that I'd say one of
the nearest chances this might have been solved was when
Yelsin was in power. He had been at the same
university at them, and he thought what they were, you know,
ski tourism was great, and Elsin tried to be open
about the biological warfare accident they had in that city
as well. Yeah, Yeah, he was all for pensions being
paid to people who had been affected and all the rest.
He didn't try to hide it. But Yelson was long gone, sadly,
but when he was in powered there might have been
a chance to get to the bottom of it. But
the way the way things are now in Russia, it's gone.
Everybody says that's heading back to the old days. Unfortunately,
as far as the truth or security goes.
Speaker 1: Sadly, I was sitting in the last few months of
specially with America, it does almost feel like we were
looking at a Russia going into isolation to turn it
out of it.
Speaker 4: Really, it's quite sad because I actually like the Russians.
Met everybody in Russian and I'm not there's plenty of
anastic people there, but I met nothing. But I met
one or two rude people. But I find them very basic,
down to earth people and if you need help, they'll
give it to you. I mean, there was two guys
who took me off the mountain after wreck my knee.
They got short their tripped by a week to get
me back to Katharinburg set seven nearly seventeen hour drive.
They wouldn't take.
Speaker 1: A penny off me, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: I mean, somebody here driving you from there to London,
you know, on a motorway. Let all the crap we
went through there, and they just wouldn't take anything off me.
They it's just on paying for a meal on the
way back. And I find them very decent, straightforward people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and what you said before, it's sounding that would
be toward you now had to be for those guys.
Speaker 4: Well, I was actually frightened, genuinely from because I thought,
I can't expect anybody to carry me. It's thirty miles
to Ushma, which is the Mansei village where the vehicle was.
I mean, I wouldn't have been left forever there because
I think they would have got some help up to me.
But I was going to be on my own for
a while there. And it's not doubt about it, but
and it's it's dangerous and there's bears there and all
the rest of it. But there seems to be an
unwritten code in the mountain. So if you need help,
you get it, no matter what.
Speaker 1: What actually happened to you. I didn't quite catch the
exact eve.
Speaker 4: The thing is, I used to do a lot of
powerlifting when I was younger, and Moneys are basically wrecked
from it, you know, heavy squatting, and I mean I
stopped it years ago, but I've kept itself reasonably fit.
But Moneys are in great shape. But the backpacks we
had weighed I think well, so on saying metric, it's
fifty five pounds, which is quite heavy. And the trouble
is it's the mud there is absolutely terrible. So after
we dropped off the truck, we had the best part
of twenty five or thirty miles to track and the
pace that they set up was so you imagine doing
it's like doing a cross country run in full kit
if you like, fifty five pounds. And I was doing
all right, but what happened was the mud was so
bad on the trail that I was using a ski
pole to I'd hold on to vegetation with my left hand,
walk around the edge of the mud, use the ski
pole over on the right and get myself across the mud.
Because if you went into the mud, it would go
up to your middle year fight. We were all wearing boots,
I mean my mud. My boots were full of mud,
and the socks were soaked in mud, and you know,
but you just you just didn't okay, you just carried on.
But what happened went here there was a large pool
of mud that I thought was probably only about an
inch or too deep, and it was anything but and
the effect of me got so fast swung me. My
leg was trapped, if you like, my whole twisted around
at forty five degrees with the weight of my backpack
and went But I mean, I was still able to continue,
but it wasn't a good omen, shall we say? So? Anyway,
we pitched the tent where the cash, you know, where
the group had left the cash, and went up and
down the mountain a few times, and we'd set up
a kind of a campfire with logs around. It was
pretty good, and I've just eaten and I stood up
and it felt like suddenly got a red hot poker
and rammed it right into the middle of my knee,
pain like it, and I sat back down. I thought, well,
maybe I've just stood up a funny way. But I
literally could not put any weight on it. And of course,
with barely two days to go, I thought, what do
I do now? Because that that's sort of I mean,
I couldn't put anyway on it. I couldn't walk. I couldn't.
You couldn't even use the ski pole to hobble, and
I mean I was literally hobbling. And I thought, well,
I'm miles away from anywhere. I can't expect anybody to
carry me away sixteen a half stone, So what the
hell do you do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, dear well.
Speaker 4: Past, I had to go. I've got two people that
help help me out. Well, there was three of them actually,
But when I they said the best thing to do
is go up to the memorial stone. And there and
there were people passing by, but I had to sit
by the memorial stone. And I mean it was there
for hours and hours and hours, but I could have
been there for weeks. The forest what they said was
the forestry. One guy that came along said, I'm going
north into the polar Urals on these giant quod bikes.
He said, if you're still here, pick you up on
the way back. And I thought in a couple of hours,
but he so, I'll be back in about ten days.
And all bags and a bottle of water. So I
thought I'd better get more peanuts because I'm going to
be in for a bit. It wasn't I was actually
quite worried, you know. So it wasn't because I thought
I'm literally helpless and if I've been on I mean
we we when we were driving through the because after
they picked me up, I mean they had a real
built for all the muck. You know, I was going
into huge potholes and going through deep muddy with it. It
was a four wheel drive with several sets of years.
It was built for it. But we were making slow progress.
But we we would come across people on my own,
you know, not fancy but like trekkers. One guy had
a tent on his back and he was just hiking
on his own. I mean, way would I do that there?
Because the people that were taking me they stop and ask,
you know, do you need any help or you okay?
And they always say yeah, I'm fine or whatever. We
saw a couple of Nancy women and we spoke to them,
but they were very not suspicious, but they were wary.
They said, well, but no way would I go through.
And I actually had somebody, a lady. I'm not going
to nam her, but she said, I regularly go on
hiking expeditions in the UK and I'd like to go
through the urals on my own. What what what do
you recommend? And I said, well, you know, I said
I would not recommend. She didn't speak any Russian either,
but I said, I wouldn't recommend going up there on
your own at all, if if you've never been there before,
And and I sent to her what happened to me?
I said, if something happens to you, I said, there's
massive bears up there, one person on her own who
doesn't speak the lang say, she broke her ankle and
you can't get a satellite signal there. So you're as
good as finished.
Speaker 1: You really are, right son? You god on that.
Speaker 2: Kind of No.
Speaker 3: I'm really sorry, but we are coming to the end
of the show, but just before we disappear, I just
wanted a quick because you're working on a really a
new interesting case about a lighthouse at the moment, aren't you, Keith.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I've done it. It's the flann And Islands,
the Three, the Disappearance of the Three Lighthousemen. I've actually.
Speaker 1: We were up.
Speaker 4: There filming with the Discovery Channel a couple of years back.
I mean, my book's out it's called The Lighthouse. But
that's a fascinating case as well.
Speaker 3: Sorry, would you come back and tell us all about
that in another show.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah, it's not. It's not as convoluted the tale
as the diatlog story. But it's a strange one because
again everybody, like with the atlov everybody says it's obviously
an avalanche, which it is, and everybody says the disappearance
of these three men was a giant wave, which we
don't believe it was. Because I've spoken to a number
of lighthouse keepers because it's a profession. That's the profession
itself is dead now because all lighthouses are automated. But
I've spoken to one of them. Well, I've spoken to
both of the last two remaining alive men who were
on the Flannings, and I've also spoiled had a lot
of help from another keeper who'd worked with the Northern
Lighthouse Board. He wasn't on the Flannings, but he was
on several others, and between us, especially him, Alistair Henderson,
he's come up with some excellent theories on it. And
it's not a giant wave. I don't believe at all.
Speaker 3: But we'll say that for the next we do with you,
if that's okay, because you really do have to wrap
it up tonight, I'd like to thank you so so
much for joining us. It's been absolutely fascinating, so thank
you for joining us.
Speaker 4: Yep, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: And thank you Andy because you've been very helpful tonight
as well.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, absolutely love it. So we're hoping to
have a good a conversation about this. I haven't go
for hours more, but I know they're not very happy
with me. I did the talk and talk and talk.
Speaker 2: So I go.
Speaker 3: I'd like to thank everybody in the chat room for
joining us, So thank you for that. I hope you
enjoyed tonight. Spread the word if you did, because it
goes to a podcast afterwards. We're also on the podbean.
We're also on the Internet archive. We're also on YouTube.
In fact, we're just about everywhere at the moment, so
please spread the word. Thank you so much for joining us,
and we'll be back with our weekly shows on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's Tuesday, so take care. Everybody.
Speaker 3: Say good night, lads, good night, good night lads, good kidnight.
Speaker 1: M hm.