Twenty-eight documented facts, each with its source, are scored below against the eight published explanations and against this finding. The eight are: A, the delayed wind slab of Gaume and Puzrin (2021); B, the prosecutors' review of 2019–20, which ended with a slab at about 21:00 and a collapse of the ravine bank; C, the version of Evgeny Buyanov, a St Petersburg engineer and mountaineer (2011), a snow slab at the tent that crushed three of them there; D, a katabatic wind, a violent fall wind off the mountain, proposed by the Swedish archaeologist Richard Holmgren (2019); E, infrasound, low-frequency sound off the summit inducing panic, from the American writer Donnie Eichar's 2013 book Dead Mountain; F, a military test, rocket or toxic release; G, an attack by Mansi hunters or a sacred-mountain retribution; H, a KGB operation or a criminal attack, from the pseudonymous Russian author Alexei Rakitin (2013). A green cell means the explanation requires or accounts for the fact; grey means it does not address it; amber means it accounts for the fact only by assumption, or leaves it unmodelled; red means the fact contradicts it, with the reason given under the table. The three slab versions are kept apart because they put the fatal injuries in different places.
| # | Documented fact | Sheets | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | V |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tent cut open from inside: three knife cuts in the downhill wall plus wind tears | 303–304 (Churkina) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | E |
| 2 | Tent still standing on its skis; entrance pole and most guy lines intact; buried under 15–20 cm of hard snow; spare skis and ski poles upright beside it | 298–299, 214, 365 | E | E | E | C | N | N | N | N | E |
| 3 | Dyatlov's flashlight lying on the canvas on 5–10 cm of snow with none on top | 299, 70, 310 | P | P | P | E | N | N | N | N | P |
| 4 | No avalanche debris, crown or run-out seen on 26–28 February; the searchers walked and dug on the slope | 298–300, 214–215, 62–75 | P | P | P | E | E | E | E | E | P |
| 5 | Eight or nine tracks at a normal pace, close together, in a line, for 500–800 m, in socks or barefoot, preserved as raised columns | 312, 91, 215, 292, 386 | E | E | E | C | C | N | N | E | E |
| 6 | Tracks start 15–40 m below the tent in two groups that merge lower down | 215, 315 | N | N | E | N | N | N | N | N | E |
| 7 | No tracks of other people or animals except one dog; no signs of a struggle | 386–387, 91, 71, 177 | E | E | E | E | E | E | C | C | E |
| 8 | Slippers, caps and small items 0.5–15 m downwind of the tent; ice axe by the entrance; a second flashlight, switched on, on the slope below | 299, 70, 215, 191 | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | E |
| 9 | Fire under the cedar burned 1.5–2 h; dry branches broken off to 4–5 m; young firs cut | 68, 92, 218–219, 330–339 | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | E |
| 10 | Doroshenko and Krivonischenko in underwear by the fire; Krivonischenko's shin burn; their clothes cut off after death and carried to the den | 104–119, 341–343, 386 | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | E |
| 11 | Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova on the straight line from the fire to the tent, heads toward the tent, 300, 480 and 630 m from the fire | 69–72, 386 | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N | E |
| 12 | The slope three died of cold; Slobodin's 6 cm skull crack and the ice under him; no alcohol in any of the five March autopsies | 95–103, 120–134, 322 | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | E |
| 13 | Den: a floor of 14 fir tops and a birch at 2.5–3 m depth, clothes laid on it, nobody on it; the bodies 6 m downstream in the stream under 2–2.5 m of snow | 341–343 | N | E | N | E | N | N | N | N | P |
| 14 | Ravine injuries: bilateral rib fractures on two lines, haemorrhage into the heart, a depressed temporal fracture, all without skin damage; «большая сила»; Thibeaux could only be carried; Dubinina lived 10–20 min | 349–357, 381–383 | P | E | C | P | C | E | C | C | P |
| 15 | Kolevatov uninjured, died of cold beside the three injured | 345–348 | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N | E |
| 16 | Clothing redistributed: Zolotaryov and Thibeaux best dressed with footwear; Dubinina in Krivonischenko's trousers; Zolotaryov in her jacket and cap | 341–343, 386 | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | E |
| 17 | Watches stopped at 5:31 (Dyatlov), 8:45 (Slobodin), 8:14 and 8:39 (Thibeaux) | 386, 341 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| 18 | Beta contamination on three garments, 5,000–9,900 decays per minute per 150 cm², halved by washing; organs at the natural potassium-40 level | 371–377 | N | E | E | N | N | P | N | E | N |
| 19 | Post-mortem soft-tissue loss on the ravine bodies after three months in the stream: Dubinina's tongue and eyes, Zolotaryov's eyes, Kolevatov's brows | 357, 351, 348 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | E |
| 20 | Fireballs documented for 17 February and 31 March, none for 1–2 February | 344, 264–267, 290–292, 209–220, 378–380 | N | N | E | N | N | C | N | N | E |
| 21 | Food cache intact on 2 March; money, documents and cameras present; no weapons carried | 8–10, 11–20, 387 | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | C | E |
| 22 | Diaries end on 31 January with no conflict, fear or strangers; the last frames show the tent being pitched in wind at dusk | 21–28; the films | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N | E |
| 23 | Stove packed in its case with the pipes inside; a log for it outside; no fire in the tent | 314 | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N | E |
| 24 | Cameras: four in the tent and one on Zolotaryov's body with a ruined film; a roll of film 15 m below the tent | 11–20, 215 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | P | N |
| 25 | Weather: −25 to −30 °C with strong wind in the resolution; the Burmantovo readings fall from −8 to −21 °C between 15:00 and 03:00; the 2020 microclimate expertise gives NW 8 m/s gusting to 30 | 385; Maslennikov's notebook; Pigoltsina 2020 | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N | E |
| 26 | Mansi: alibis, mutual knowledge of every household within 100 km, friendliness; the sacred place is in the upper Vizhay and open to Russians; Mansi were the searchers' guides | 82–87, 223–232, 261–262, 387 | N | N | N | N | N | N | C | N | N |
| 27 | Slope at the tent: 30° in the 1959 protocol; 15–18° (Sogrin) and 20–25° (Brusnitsyn) from witnesses; 21° at one point in 2019; 15–16° average on a 30 m model that cannot see steps; on the 9 cm drone model of 2021 an average of about 20° with 4–6 m steps over 28–30° above the candidate positions | 3–6, 316–329, 365; Puzrin and Gaume 2022 | E | E | E | N | N | N | N | N | E |
| 28 | Zolotaryov's skeleton, exhumed 12 April 2018: rib fractures as in the 1959 act (posterior rather than mid-axillary line); three right scapula fractures the act missed; front-to-back compression of a supine chest by a surface wider than the ribcage, «большая тяжёлая масса, скорее всего снег»; blast wave excluded; place not determinable from bone | Nikitin, KP 26 Apr 2018; MK 28 Feb 2019 | E | E | E | E | C | P | C | C | E |
Columns: A Gaume–Puzrin 2021: delayed wind slab at the tent; B Prosecutors' check 2020: slab at ~21:00, ravine bank collapse; C Buyanov 2011: snow board at the tent, the three crushed there; D Katabatic wind, Holmgren 2019; E Infrasound, Eichar 2013; F Military, rocket or toxic release; G Mansi attack or sacred-mountain retribution; H KGB or criminal, Rakitin 2013; V This finding: snow on the tent, cold, ravine collapse.