# Rival theories of the Dyatlov Pass deaths, tested against the 1959 case file

*Research note. Companion to `reinvestigation-2019-2020.md` (the prosecutor's 2020 version, its numbers, its critics and the 2020–2026 aftermath). Fuller quotation of individual sheets is in `case-file-scene-facts.md` and `case-file-forensic-facts.md`.*

**Conventions.** «л.д. N» = лист дела, sheet N of volume 1 of the 1959 criminal case («Дело о гибели туристов в районе горы Отортен»), cited from the scans and translations at `https://dyatlovpass.com/case-files-N` (working copies of the pages used are not included in this folder). Sheet numbers of the autopsy acts: Slobodin 95–103, Doroshenko 104–111, Krivonischenko 112–119, Dyatlov 120–126, Kolmogorova 127–134, Kolevatov 345–348, Zolotaryov 349–351, Thibeaux‑Brignolle 352–354, Dubinina 355–357; Vozrozhdenny's interrogation 381–383; Levashov's radiological expertise 371–377; Ivanov's termination order 384–387; Churkina's tent expertise 303–304; the ravine protocol 341–343; the labaz protocol 8–10; the items protocol 11–20. Russian is quoted where the wording matters, with a translation.

**Bottom line.** Of the rival explanations, only three survive contact with the documents as *possible triggers* for leaving the tent: a small wind‑loaded snow slab (in the three variants compared in §6), a sudden downslope wind, and (much more weakly) an untested toxic exposure. The "fireballs" are explained by two R‑7 test launches on 17 February and 30/31 March 1959; no launch of anything that could reach the northern Urals is recorded for 1–2 February. The Mansi, KGB/CIA, Yeti, fight, alcohol, carbon‑monoxide, ball‑lightning and "paradoxical undressing" versions are each killed by at least one documented fact (§7 and the matrix in §8). The single largest unsolved item common to every surviving version is the mechanism and place of the three ravine injuries (§6).

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## 1. Katabatic (fall) wind — Holmgren & Liljegren, 2019

**Core claim.** A sudden gravity‑driven downslope wind ("katabatic", "fall wind") of the kind that killed eight skiers at Anaris (Sweden) in 1978 tore/buried the tent within seconds, forcing the group to cut out and retreat to the forest where they died of cold; the injuries came from a collapsing snow bivouac. In Holmgren's words: "my take … is that the driving 'unknown compelling force' was in fact an unforeseen and strong gravity wind" and "any tent would have blown away or into pieces … The only survivable scenario would be to run out, conceal the tent and to wait out the ordeal elsewhere, later to regain the buried equipment."

**Proponents and best source.** Richard Holmgren (Swedish archaeologist) and Andreas Liljegren, with Ekaterina Zimina and Artem Domogirov (Yekaterinburg) — Swedish‑Russian expedition of Jan–Feb 2019 that camped on the slope of Kholat Syakhl on the night of 1 February 2019 at −43 °C. Text: R. Holmgren, "Dyatlov expedition – new theory", ARCDOC blog, 2019, https://www.arcdoc.se/se/blogg/dyatlov-expedition-new-theory-41712449 (used via the full mirror https://dyatlovpass.com/swedish-russian-expedition-2019). (Kuryakov's check listed a "hurricane" among its three final versions; whether it examined Holmgren's specific fall‑wind mechanism is not documented.)

**The Anaris facts (Swedish sources).** Per `sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarisolyckan` (refs: SVT 24 Feb 2018, Marie Selander, https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/jamtland/atta-omkom-i-landets-svaraste-fjallolycka-anarisolyckan; Dagens Nyheter 26–28 Feb 1978; Socialstyrelsen, *Hypotermi*, Feb 2003, Bilaga 4 "Anarisolyckan", pp. 136–137, ISBN 91‑7201‑747‑3, by Börje Renström): the accident happened 23–25 February 1978 in the Anaris fells ~100 km west of Östersund; a party of six from IOGT‑NTO Växjö (two girls of 17, four men of 22–37) on a three‑day tour was joined by three day‑tourers. About noon on the second day, after 4 of the 14 km toward the Anaris hut, "uppstod kraftiga fallvindar på 25 meter per sekund och en temperatur på omkring −20 °C" (strong fall winds of 25 m/s at about −20 °C; Holmgren gives the day as 24 February and the start conditions as −15 °C and 6 m/s; the Swedish alpine‑rescue reconstruction gives −16 °C and 5–6 m/s). They dug a shallow trench ("grop"/"dike") sheltered by skis, a wind sack and snow blocks; "Kvar i packningen låg vindsäckar, dunjackor, sovsäckar, mat och varm dryck" — wind sacks, down jackets, sleeping bags, food and hot drink stayed in the packs, because frozen hands could not open them (Renström). Eight of nine froze; the survivor, Krister Almqvist (22), kept physically active all the time. Meteorology (sv.wikipedia, citing the official inquiry): very cold air had pooled on the fell; as a deep low approached, the wind rose first only on the summits while the cold air below held it off; finally it broke through to the trail and "vinden ökade väldigt snabbt" — increased very rapidly. Sweden created its Fjällsäkerhetsrådet in 1979 as a result.

**Facts it explains.** Sudden exit without dressing; the tent left standing yet buried under drifted snow; a flashlight left lying on the snow on the tent (Holmgren: to find the tent again); a retreat in a compact line to the forest (protection from wind); the fire; bivouacs in the ravine; the collapse of a bivouac as the source of the injuries (the empty second bivouac found in May is Holmgren's evidence); three bodies on the way back to the tent.

**Facts it contradicts.**
1. The tent was not blown away or shredded. It stood on its eight pairs of skis with most guy lines tied to ski poles and the entrance pole standing; spare skis and ski poles stood in the snow beside it; it was buried under 15–20 cm of hard snow, fluffy on top (Slobtsov л.д. 298–299; Atmanaki л.д. 214; Brusnitsin л.д. 365: "the tent was installed very firmly"). Holmgren's own premise — "any tent would have blown away" — is falsified by the tent itself.
2. The footprints. Eight to nine people walked *at a normal pace* in a close group for 500–800 m (Tempalov л.д. 312: «люди шли нормальным шагом»; Chernyshov л.д. 91: the tracks stood up as raised columns and "the wind did not roll them over the snow — in that case no tracks would have remained"; Ivanov л.д. 386). Slobodin was found with his cap still on his head, from which Akselrod concluded there was no especially strong wind at the moment of his death (л.д. 316–329). Atmanaki, on the slope in the search: "with any wind you can stay on the slope and go back" (л.д. 215).
3. The ravine fractures. Vozrozhdenny (л.д. 382) compared the force with a car impact or bomb blast; Thibeaux could only have been carried. Holmgren does not quantify how a 0.8 m Anaris‑type trench roof or a 2.5–3 m den roof produces symmetric bilateral rib fractures without a mark on the skin (see §6).
4. No 1959 observation records a fall‑wind event; the check's own microclimatologist gives NW 8 m/s gusting to 30 m/s (Pigoltsina, GGO 2020; see companion file §2.2). Kholat Syakhl is a rounded 1,079 m dome without a plateau or glacier to pool cold air.

**Possible tests.** Instrumented winters on the slope (anemometers at the tent site and at the "shoulder" 100 m above; Puzrin's 2021–22 expeditions already documented very strong wind transport); a reanalysis‑driven mesoscale simulation of the night of 1–2 Feb 1959 (Buyanov cites the meteorologist Grakhovsky for a cold‑front passage with rising wind that night — E. Buyanov & B. Slobtsov, *Тайна гибели группы Дятлова*, ch. 12); a full‑scale test of a 1959 canvas tent on skis at 25–30 m/s.

**Verdict.** A credible *trigger* for abandoning the tent, fully compatible with the hypothermia sequence, but it cannot produce the ravine injuries by itself and the physical scene (standing tent, calm footprints) argues against a hurricane at the moment of exit.

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## 2. Infrasound / Kármán vortex street — Eichar 2013 (with A. Bedard, NOAA)

**Core claim.** Wind flowing round the dome of Kholat Syakhl shed a Kármán vortex street; the vortices generated infrasound (< 20 Hz) that induced panic and physical distress, driving the nine out of the tent; hypothermia did the rest.

**Proponents and best source.** Donnie Eichar, *Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident*, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2013, ISBN 978‑1‑4521‑2956‑3 (final chapters; the hypothesis was developed with Alfred J. Bedard Jr. of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, whom Eichar consulted). Summaries: Wikipedia "Dyatlov Pass incident", section *Infrasound hypothesis*; Snopes, "Was the Dyatlov Pass Incident a Real Unsolved Mystery?", 28 Dec 2017, https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/12/28/dyatlov-pass-incident/; https://dyatlovpass.com/theories. (Bedard's own published remarks — Failure Magazine interview — could not be retrieved: the site did not resolve and the archive.org copy was corrupt.)

**Facts it explains.** A sudden exit of all nine with no external agent, no strangers' tracks, no damage to the tent beyond their own cuts; injuries attributed to falls and cold; the strong wind recorded in the diaries and last photographs.

**Facts it contradicts.**
1. The tracks show an orderly group walking at a normal pace in one line (л.д. 312, 91, 386), not a scattered panic flight.
2. Rational behaviour for hours afterwards — fire, a flooring of 14 fir tops and a birch, clothes cut from the dead and redistributed (л.д. 341–343, 386) — is incompatible with a panic so complete that they would not step 50 m back to the tent once out of the vortex zone.
3. The three ravine fractures need mechanical force (л.д. 382); infrasound supplies none.
4. Physiology: reviews (NIEHS, *Infrasound: Brief Review of Toxicological Literature*, 2001, cited by Snopes) find no evidence that environmental infrasound induces panic; Snopes: "the number of skiers and hikers known to have been killed by infrasound waves to date is zero".
5. No anomalous wind was recorded; other parties camped in the same district in the same weeks (Karelin's group 50–60 km south, 9–24 Feb; Blinov's group; the Anyamovs hunting on the Auspiya for 5–9 days, л.д. 230–231, 261–262) without effect.

**Possible tests.** Microbarograph array on the pass in winter with simultaneous wind records; CFD of the dome at 8–30 m/s to see whether a coherent vortex street forms at infrasonic Strouhal frequencies; existing human exposure studies.

**Verdict.** Speculative; it predicts nothing checkable in the file and adds nothing that wind + slab + hypothermia does not already give.

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## 3. Military / rocket / "fireballs" (incl. the relatives' "technogenic" version)

**Core claims (a family).** (a) A rocket or missile (R‑7 from Tyuratam, a Kapustin Yar missile, an air‑defence missile, a "Burya" cruise missile) fell or exploded near the tent; blast, light or toxic propellant vapour drove the group out and prevented a return. (b) A nuclear or radiological weapon test explains the radioactive garments. (c) The "fireballs" («огненные шары») in the case file are the evidence. The relatives' counsel Evgeny Chernousov put it in 2020 as «техногенная катастрофа — «очаговое поражение определённой местности», связанное с военными» ("a technogenic catastrophe — a 'focal contamination of a particular locality' connected with the military"; Kommersant 11 Jul 2020, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4415287), and in June 2026 the relatives asked for a new criminal case because the 1959 chemical and histological analyses are missing from the file (companion file §3.4).

**Documented basis in the file.**
* л.д. 344 — clipping «Тагильский рабочий», 18 Feb 1959: at 6:55 local time on 17 Feb a glowing ball the apparent size of the Moon appeared in the ESE at 20°, moved NE; at 7:00 a flash inside it, a very bright core, a luminous cloud elongated to the south spreading over the whole eastern sky; a second flash "like a sickle of the Moon"; maximum height 30° at about 7:05; it faded and fell apart.
* л.д. 264–267 — Ivdel guards Savkin, Malik, Novikov, Anisimov (7 Apr 1959). Savkin: «17 февраля 1959 года в 6 часов 40 минут утра … с южной стороны показался шар ярко‑белого цвета, временами окутывающийся туманом, внутри яркая точка‑звезда. Шёл на север, виден был 8–10 минут» (a bright‑white ball with a star inside, moving north, visible 8–10 minutes; quoted from Ivanov 1990).
* л.д. 290–292 — Karelin: an "unusual celestial phenomenon" seen by his group on 17 Feb around 7:30 Sverdlovsk time on the Toshemka–Vizhay watershed.
* л.д. 209–220 — Atmanaki (Karelin's group): 17 Feb, 6:57, in the east at 30°, "a milky white blur about 5–6 moons in diameter and a series of concentric circles … an asterisk flared up … a huge milk disc 2–2.5 moons in diameter"; "I had the impression that some heavenly body was falling in our direction".
* л.д. 378–380 — Skoryh (Karaul village, 29 May 1959): "around the middle of February", 6–7 a.m., a large glowing ball "the size of the sun or the moon", red and green light alternating inside a white halo, moving north along the ridge; no sound.
* Tokareva (Ivdel meteorologist), quoted by Ivanov 1990: «17 февраля в 6 часов 50 мин. … движущаяся звезда с хвостом … образовывая большой шар, окутанный дымкой … В 7.05 исчез совсем. Двигался с юга на северо‑восток».
* Searchers' radiogram of 31 Mar 1959 (quoted in Buyanov ch. 7): at 4:00 the duty officer Meshcheryakov saw a "star" with a cloud in the south‑east; the searchers asked Ivdel what it was.
* **Nothing in the file describes a fireball on 1–2 February.** Ivanov wrote in 1990 that Atmanaki "saw this ball over Otorten on the night of 1 February"; Atmanaki's own protocol (л.д. 209–220) describes only 17 February, and his group was then still in Vizhay/Chistop, not at Otorten.

**Actual launches (Jonathan McDowell, GCAT launch list, https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/tsv/launch/launch.tsv, accessed 14 Sep 2026; Sverdlovsk time = UTC+5).**
| Date (UTC) | Vehicle | Site | Outcome | Local (Sverdlovsk) | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jan 1959 | 8K72 (Luna‑1) | NIIP‑5 Tyuratam | success | 2 Jan 21:41 | — |
| 29–30 Jan 1959 | R‑11, R‑11M, R‑1, R‑2 tests | GTsP‑4 Kapustin Yar | — | (no times) | short‑range, ~1,700 km from the Urals |
| **2 Feb 1959** | **R‑5M 8K52 "Zvezda‑4" (geophysical)** | **GTsP‑4 Kapustin Yar, LC21** | test | (no time) | a vertical sounding shot ~1,700 km away; cannot reach the northern Urals |
| **17 Feb 1959 01:46** | **R‑7 8K71, LKI III‑2, GCh No. 13** | **NIIP‑5 Tyuratam** | **success** | **06:46, 17 Feb** | Savkin 6:40, Tokareva 6:50–7:05, Atmanaki 6:57, «Тагильский рабочий» 6:55–7:05, Karelin ~7:30, Skoryh "6–7 a.m." |
| 25 Mar 1959 05:25 | R‑7 8K71, LKI III‑3 | NIIP‑5 | success | 10:25 | daylight, not reported |
| **30 Mar 1959 22:53** | **R‑7 8K71, LKI III‑4** | **NIIP‑5** | **failure** | **03:53, 31 Mar** | searchers' 31 Mar 4:00 sighting |

No R‑7 or other long‑range vehicle is listed for 1–2 February 1959. The 17 Feb identification was reached independently by Buyanov in 2007 with the rocket historian A. B. Zheleznyakov: «Железняков быстро установил время пуска 17 февраля — 1.46 по Гринвичу (GMT), что соответствует 6.46 по Свердловску (зона +5h). Разделение 1–2 ступеней произошло в 6.48 (118 с полёта)» (Buyanov & Slobtsov, ch. 7 «Разгадка тайны „огненных шаров"»). A dawn‑lit exhaust cloud of a rocket 1,700 km to the south‑east, at 900 km altitude, is exactly what the witnesses describe (star with a tail, a growing halo, "the cloud spread to the whole eastern part of the sky", fading in ~10 minutes).

**Lev Ivanov, 1990** («Тайна огненных шаров», «Ленинский путь», Kustanai, 22 and 24 Nov 1990; full text at https://dyatlovpass.com/lev-ivanov, Russian tab). Key sentences: «Как прокурор … я отбрасывал версию испытания атомного оружия в этой зоне. Тогда‑то я и стал вплотную заниматься «огненными шарами»» ("As a prosecutor … I rejected the version of an atomic‑weapon test in this zone. That is when I took up the 'fireballs' in earnest"). «Когда я доложил А. Ф. Ештокину о своих находках — огненных шарах, радиоактивности, тот дал совершенно категорическое указание: абсолютно всё засекретить, опечатать, сдать в спецчасть и забыть об этом» ("When I reported my findings — the fireballs, the radioactivity — to A. F. Yeshtokin [second secretary of the obkom], he gave an absolutely categorical order: classify everything, seal it, hand it to the special section and forget about it"). And his 1990 belief: «Если раньше я считал, что шар взорвался, выделив совершенно не известную нам, но радиоактивную энергию, то теперь я считаю, что действие энергии из шара было избирательным, оно было направлено лишь на трёх человек» ("If earlier I thought the ball exploded, releasing an energy unknown to us but radioactive, now I think the energy from the ball acted selectively, on three people only"), followed by an apology to the families of Dubinina, Thibeaux and Zolotaryov. Weight: a UFO‑framed recollection thirty years later by the man who wrote the termination order; strong evidence for party pressure and secrecy in 1959, worthless as physics.

**Radiation (Levashov, л.д. 371–377, radiological laboratory of the Sverdlovsk city sanitary‑epidemiological station, 18–27 May 1959).** Beta contamination on *selected areas* of three garments, in decays per minute per 150 cm²: brown sweater from body №4 (Dubinina) 9,900 → 5,200 after three hours' washing; waistband of the sweater from body №1 (Kolevatov) 5,600 → 2,700; lower part of the trousers from №1 5,000 → 2,600. The sanitary norm for workers with radioactive substances was 5,000 before washing and background after it. Solid biological samples (organs) were "within the natural level (and due to the presence of the isotope K‑40)". Levashov confirmed the contamination was "by beta emitters of individual, selectable areas of clothing" — i.e. surface dust on cloth, no irradiation of the people, no alpha/gamma reported. Explanations offered: Kuryakov 2020 — the East‑Urals Radioactive Trace of the 1957 Mayak (Kyshtym) accident, in whose zone the hikers had trained, and no contamination on the books they carried (RIA 11 Jul 2020, https://ria.ru/20200711/1574213059.html); Buyanov (ch. 9) — global fallout in the topsoil, «прежде всего, полигона на Новой Земле», carried by westerly winds; Rakitin — a deliberately contaminated "sample" (§5). Relevant biographies: Georgiy Krivonischenko worked from 1957 at Chelyabinsk‑40 (Mayak) and took part in the clean‑up after the September 1957 accident; Aleksander Kolevatov worked in 1953–56 as a laboratory assistant at a classified Moscow institute of the atomic project before transferring to UPI (Rakitin's chapter on Kolevatov, https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin-kolevatov). Both facts make everyday contamination of a sweater or trousers unremarkable.

**Facts explained.** Sudden flight and fear of returning (blast/toxic cloud); the fireballs read as weapons; the radiation; the obkom secrecy Ivanov describes; the ravine injuries by Vozrozhdenny's own analogy («очень похожи на травму, возникшую при воздушной взрывной волне», л.д. 382); the irregularities of the case (no case number; termination "from above" — Perminova, Kommersant 4415287).

**Facts contradicted.**
1. No launch on 1–2 Feb 1959 that could reach the northern Urals is recorded (table above); the documented fireballs are 15 and 58 days after the deaths and coincide to the minute with R‑7 test flights.
2. No debris, crater, scorching, blast damage or landing traces were found in three months of searching the slope, the forest and the Lozva valley (Ivanov л.д. 387: no other people; Maslennikov л.д. 71: "neither human tracks nor tracks of a predatory animal"); the searchers' own first hypothesis was a hurricane, not an explosion (radiograms л.д. 149–153).
3. The tent was cut open *from inside* by its occupants and stands undamaged except for their cuts and wind tears (Churkina л.д. 303–304).
4. Radiation: three garments, beta only, washable, organs at natural K‑40 level, books clean — not a nuclear event and not external irradiation (л.д. 371–377).
5. A blast or toxic cloud hits nine people equally; yet Kolevatov was uninjured (л.д. 345–348), six died of cold hours later after building a fire and a den, and no burns exist except Krivonischenko's campfire burn (act №3, л.д. 112–119: a II–III degree burn "at the campfire").
6. The only variant not contradicted — a non‑lethal toxic exposure that merely frightened them — is untestable because the 1959 chemical analyses are absent from the file (Chernousov, June 2026), which is a gap, not evidence.

**Possible tests.** Range diaries of Kapustin Yar and NIIP‑5 for 1–2 Feb 1959 (RVSN/Roscosmos archives); the missing chemistry/histology sheets (Sverdlovsk bureau of forensic medicine archive); isotopic re‑measurement of the garments if they survive (Sr‑90/Cs‑137 fallout signature vs. a Mayak fission‑product mix); the Sverdlovsk obkom (Yeshtokin) files for Ivanov's secrecy order; exhumation with modern dosimetry (demanded by the relatives, June 2026).

**Verdict.** The "fireballs" are solved (R‑7 test launches on 17 Feb and 30/31 Mar); no documented launch or physical trace supports a rocket or weapon on the night of 1–2 Feb; the version survives only as an unfalsified "toxic exposure" possibility that rests on absent documents.

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## 4. Mansi (attack, or "sacred mountain" retribution)

**Core claim.** Local Mansi hunters killed the hikers, or drove them off a sacred mountain, or (in the mystical variant) the mountain itself — Kholat Syakhl, glossed as "Dead Mountain" in Mansi (Gaume & Puzrin 2021: "the name means 'Dead Mountain' in the local Mansi language"), with a popular legend of nine Mansi having perished there — claimed its victims. It was the 1959 investigation's first working version, which is why the file contains a block of Mansi interrogations.

**Documented basis (the 1959 testimonies, all through the interpreter Kurikov unless noted).**
* N. V. Bahtiyarov (л.д. 82–83): hunting deer with relatives in the upper Vizhay from 20–21 Feb; learned of the search on 21–22 Feb; hikers had passed through their yurts earlier.
* N. Ya. Bahtiyarov (л.д. 84–85) and P. S. Bahtiyarov (л.д. 86–87): household lists of the Bahtiyarov yurts, 60 km from Vizhay; movements in January–February.
* P. V. Bahtiyarov (л.д. 223), 25 km north on the North Toshemka: "Hikers passed through our yurts twice … There were 12–13 people of the hikers the last time" (other UPI groups).
* S. S. Bahtiyarov (л.д. 224).
* P. Ya. Bahtiyarov (л.д. 225–226): his late father told him «давно с какой-то горы сдуло человека ветром. И опасно ходить на эту гору» ("that long time ago a man had been blown off a mountain. That it is dangerous to go to this mountain") … The mountain about which my father spoke is 40–30 km from our yurts in the upper reaches of the Vizhay river"; and "Mansi don't have a Prayer Mountain nowadays, I don't pray and I do not know of a Prayer Mountain … the elders pray at home, and the young ones do not pray at all"; a group of seven hikers (Blinov's) had slept at his yurt; "I have never been in the upper reaches of Lozva river".
* A. A. Anyamov (л.д. 230–231): at the end of January/early February he hunted for about five days around the Auspiya with three other Mansi and "only saw tracks of hikers — on the road there were tracks of narrow skis … going towards Auspiya river, and then to the Urals Mountains"; "Especially for two days there was a strong wind and snow. During a strong wind we were in the forest"; «Молебной горы там, куда шли туристы, нет. А молебная гора находится в верховье р. Вижая» ("There is no prayer mountain where the hikers went; the prayer mountain is in the upper Vizhay"); he never saw the "five Mansi who are allegedly afraid of Mansi" of the police rumour.
* N. P. Anyamov (л.д. 261–262): hunted nine days in early February; saw the narrow‑ski track on the Auspiya on 10 Feb under 15 cm of snow; "There are no wild tribes in our region. And Mansi did not meet anyone. If they had we would have known"; on 23–24 Feb he went with the Russians to search.
* G. N. Kurikov (л.д. 232; hunter, deputy of the Ivdel city council, the searchers' guide): "I personally do not think that anyone from Mansi attacked Russian hikers, as this never happened before … Sacred mountain, I know for sure is in the upper sources of the river. Nobody lives there in neither summer or winter. The sacred mountain is not guarded by any one. Russian people are allowed to go there … There were no outsiders in the area, that Mansi did not know about … There are no Mansi in the region that would have treated Russians badly."
* Ivanov's termination order (л.д. 387): «население народности манси, проживающее в 80–100 км от этого места, относится к русским дружелюбно, представляет туристам ночлег, оказывает им помощь и т.п. Место, где погибла группа, в зимнее время считается манси непригодным для охоты и оленеводства» (the Mansi, living 80–100 km away, are friendly to Russians, give hikers lodging and help; the place of death is considered by the Mansi unfit for hunting and reindeer herding in winter); «Следствием не установлено присутствия 1 или 2 февраля 1959 г. в районе высоты «1079» других людей, кроме группы туристов Дятлова» (the investigation did not establish the presence of any other people in the area of height 1079 on 1 or 2 February 1959).

**Why it was dropped in 1959.** Alibis and mutual knowledge of every Mansi household within 100 km; no tracks of anyone but the hikers (Ivanov л.д. 386–387; Chernyshov л.д. 91; Maslennikov л.д. 71); nothing taken — 310 roubles in Slobodin's pocket (items protocol л.д. 11–20), money and documents in the tent, the labaz untouched on 2 March (л.д. 8–10); no wounds from weapons or beating (soft tissue intact even on the three with fractures, л.д. 382); the sacred place is in the upper Vizhay, not on the Lozva/Auspiya side; and the Mansi — Kurikov, the Anyamovs, a Bahtiyarov who found 8 roubles at the cedar (Slobtsov л.д. 300) — were the searchers' guides.

**"Dead Mountain" and the "nine Mansi".** The gloss «Холатчахль/Холат‑Сяхыл = мёртвая вершина» is standard in the literature; the story that nine Mansi (or hunters) once died there is retold in popular accounts but appears nowhere in the 1959 testimonies: the only folk warning any Mansi witness recorded is P. Ya. Bahtiyarov's "a man blown off a mountain" about a peak in the upper Vizhay. The modern Mansi view is summarised on https://dyatlovpass.com/mansi ("if this place is truly sacred, then no one will kill anyone there").

**Facts contradicted.** Strangers' tracks absent where sock‑prints survived (л.д. 91, 386); no weapon/beating injuries (л.д. 382); six deaths by cold over several hours (killers would not wait for hypothermia); nothing stolen; alibis; the mountain not sacred and open to Russians (л.д. 232, 230–231).

**Possible tests.** None that could revive it; the version is closed by the documents. (Toponymic check of "Kholat" = 'dead' is trivial and does not bear on causation.)

**Verdict.** Dead. It survives only as folklore.

---
## 5. Rakitin's KGB "controlled delivery" (2010–2013)

**Core claim.** Three members — Semyon Zolotaryov, Aleksander Kolevatov and Georgiy Krivonischenko — were KGB operatives carrying deliberately contaminated clothing to a pre‑arranged meeting on Kholat Syakhl with foreign ("transit") agents who were to smuggle it out as a sample of Soviet plutonium production; the KGB planned a *disinformation* delivery and covert photography of the agents; the agents detected the trap, disarmed the group, drove them out of the tent at gunpoint and killed them by cold and "professional" blows that leave no external marks. In Rakitin's words (ch. 24, «Понятие „контролируемой поставки"»): «Кто‑то из группы Игоря Дятлова нёс два свитера и штаны с радиоактивной пылью для передачи их в заранее обусловленном месте группе «транзитных» агентов. Передача эта планировалась изначально, причём задолго до похода, и встреча с «транзитёрами» на склоне Холат‑Сяхыл вовсе не была случайной. Запланированную КГБ операцию мы назвали бы сейчас «контролируемой поставкой»» ("Someone in Dyatlov's group carried two sweaters and a pair of trousers with radioactive dust to hand over at a pre‑agreed place to a group of 'transit' agents … the meeting with the 'transiters' on the slope of Kholat Syakhl was not accidental. The operation planned by the KGB we would now call a 'controlled delivery'"). «Комитет решил сыграть с заокеанским противником в поддавки — устроить передачу особо ценного в глазах вражеской разведки материала … Не убить, разумеется, а встретиться и под заранее обговорённым предлогом осуществить приём‑передачу ценного радиоактивного груза» ("The Committee decided to play give‑away with the overseas adversary — to stage a hand‑over of material especially valuable in the eyes of enemy intelligence … not to kill, of course, but to meet and, under a pre‑agreed pretext, carry out the hand‑over"). On the killing (ch. 33): «Убийство холодом широко практиковалось как в ГУЛАГовских «зонах», так и в немецких концлагерях» ("killing by cold was widely practised in Gulag 'zones' and in German concentration camps"); «Факт избиения совершенно очевиден для любого беспристрастного исследователя» ("the fact of a beating is completely obvious to any impartial researcher").

**Best source.** Алексей Ракитин, *Перевал Дятлова. Загадка гибели свердловских туристов в феврале 1959 года и атомный шпионаж на советском Урале*, Екатеринбург: Кабинетный учёный, 2013, 672 pp., ISBN 978‑5‑7525‑2841‑5 (publisher's page https://armchair-scientist.ru/rakitin-dyatlov-pass/); web version «Смерть, идущая по следу…» (2010–2011) at http://murders.ru/Dyat_gr_1.html — ch. 24 = `Dyat_gr_30.html` (controlled delivery), ch. 27 = `Dyat_gr_36.html` (Zolotaryov), ch. 33 = `Dyat_gr_47.html` (the attack), ch. 35 = `Dyat_gr_49.html` (the ravine). English précis: https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin.

**Documented basis Rakitin builds on.**
1. The radioactive garments (л.д. 371–377) — the sweater on Dubinina (№4) and Kolevatov's sweater waistband and trousers (№1); Rakitin argues the sweater was Krivonischenko's, given to Dubinina.
2. Krivonischenko's job at Chelyabinsk‑40 (Mayak) and Kolevatov's 1953–56 employment at a classified Moscow institute of the atomic project, followed by an unexplained transfer to full‑time study at UPI (https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin-kolevatov).
3. Zolotaryov: NKVD‑troop war service, last‑minute joining of the group, tattoos, a *second* camera found on his body whose film is damaged; the case inventory lists four cameras although the films imply at least five or six (https://dyatlovpass.com/1959-cameras).
4. Real precedents of US HUMINT collecting radioactive samples (1954 "radioactive water", 1957 "hat from Tomsk‑7") — Rakitin's own examples in ch. 24.
5. Ivanov's 1990 account of obkom pressure and the file's irregularities (no case number — Chernousov; "termination ordered from above" — Perminova).
6. Small "windows" cut in the tent (Churkina л.д. 303–304), the redistribution of clothing, Doroshenko's injuries "in the agonal state and post‑mortem" (Vozrozhdenny act №2), which he reads as signs of the killers' presence.

**Weakest points.**
1. No document of any kind — no KGB or CIA record, no name, no defector, no later admission — supports the premise; every link is inferential. Rakitin himself presents the encounter as a reconstruction («Смеем предположить…», "we dare to suppose").
2. No tracks of anyone but the nine (л.д. 386–387, 91, 71) on a slope where sock prints survived for 3–4 weeks; a party of several armed men arriving and leaving on foot or skis left nothing.
3. "Professional" blows that produce symmetric bilateral rib fractures and a comminuted skull fracture *without any soft‑tissue damage* contradict the forensic expert: asked whether Thibeaux could have been struck with a stone held in a hand, Vozrozhdenny answered «В этом случае были бы повреждены мягкие ткани, а этого не обнаружено» ("in that case the soft tissues would have been damaged, and this was not found", л.д. 382).
4. The "delivery" never happened: the contaminated garments stayed on the bodies and in the den (л.д. 341–343); killers who had come for a sample left it, together with the cameras, money and documents (л.д. 387: «наличие всех ценностей группы»).
5. The contamination is trivial — three surface spots at 5,000–9,900 β‑decays/min/150 cm², at or twice the sanitary norm for radiation workers, washable — not a plausible "sample" of a plutonium plant's product, and comparable to contamination Krivonischenko could have carried from Mayak on his own clothes.
6. The predicted evidence — photographs of the strangers on Zolotaryov's body camera — cannot exist as evidence: that film is damaged and blank.
7. Silence of the record: the diaries and the six films show only the group (last frames: pitching the tent in wind); no witness, no Mansi, no searcher saw outsiders (л.д. 232, 261–262, 387).

**Possible tests.** CIA CREST / NARA and FSB archive requests for any 1959 operation in the Sverdlovsk region; re‑measurement of the garments' isotopic mix (fallout Sr‑90/Cs‑137 vs. Mayak fission products/plutonium) if they are still in the archive; exhumation to look for the beating Rakitin asserts (the relatives' 2026 demand would also test this).

**Verdict.** Internally coherent and well written, but unfalsifiable and unsupported by a single document; positively contradicted by the absence of strangers' tracks and by the forensic absence of external injuries.

---

## 6. The hypothermia sequence: prosecutor 2020 vs Buyanov 2011 vs Gaume–Puzrin 2021

All three accept the 1959 forensic findings that six died of cold and three of compressive injuries, and all three put a small snow slab («снежная доска», wind slab) at the start. They differ on *when*, *where the injuries happened*, and *why nobody went back*.

| | **Prosecutor's check, 11 Jul 2020 (Kuryakov)** — sources: companion file §2; RIA/Kommersant/Interfax 11 Jul 2020; Lenta 2 Feb 2024 | **Buyanov & Slobtsov 2011** — *Тайна гибели группы Дятлова*, Екатеринбург: Уральский рабочий, 2011, 196 pp., ISBN 978‑5‑85383‑501‑6; ch. 8 «Разгадка тайны травм», ch. 12 «Тайна лавины», ch. 15 «Реконструкция» (online at litresp.ru; author's summaries at https://www.mountain.ru/legacy-material.php?article_id=9663 and https://dyatlovpass.com/buyanov) | **Gaume & Puzrin 2021/2022** — *Commun. Earth Environ.* 2:10 (28 Jan 2021), https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00081-8; follow‑up 3:96 (2022), https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00393-x; interview https://dyatlovpass.com/puzrin-gaume (28 Mar 2022) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Slab ("лавина"/«снежная доска») on the cut‑in tent; slope "21°, up to 30° at the tent" | Wind slab of density 0.4–0.6 undercut by the tent platform («подрезка пласта … МНОГОКРАТНО увеличила опасность»), released during the night under the load of a storm (cold‑front passage, Grakhovsky) | Wind‑loaded slab on a buried weak layer at a local 28° step; release delayed by cohesion until wind‑transported snow above the cut reached the critical load |
| Time | Tent finished ≈19:00 (1 Feb, ≈17:00 + 2 h pitching); slab «примерно в 21.00»; deaths 01:00–02:00 on 2 Feb (4–5 h after the last meal); fire ≈1.5 h | Night of 1–2 Feb, after the group had lain down («коллективный спальник»); no clock time claimed | 9.5–13.5 h after the cut was made (i.e. after midnight if the platform was cut ≈15:00–16:00), back‑calculated from the forensic 6–8 h since the last meal |
| Size / mechanics | No dimensions given; "снежная доска … их вытолкнуло" (the slab pushed them out); two outside (Zolotaryov, Thibeaux), the rest cut the tent; exit 12–14 s | A "small avalanche" («обвал небольшой лавины»); injuries by *compression between two masses* — snow above, the hard floor (skis, backpacks) below: «сдавливание человека с двух сторон значительными массами» | Slab ≈5 m long (tensile fracture length 5.0 m), run‑out only 1–2 m below the tent; MPM simulation: 0.125–0.5 m³ blocks of 400 kg/m³ at slab speed give thorax deflections in the range of 6–12 rib fractures — "severe but not fatal" |
| Where the injuries occurred | **In the ravine.** The four built the flooring, undercut the snow bank; «тонны подрезанной снежной массы накрыли ребят … Их снесло с настила и засыпало трёхметровым слоем снега»; «три‑четыре метра снега — это примерно полтонны … травмы причинены давлением обтекающей силы» | **At the tent.** «И характер травм, и характер событий достаточно определённо указывали на воздействие обвала небольшой лавины» (ch. 8); the three were crushed on the downhill edge of the tent | **Undecided.** "Both in our original paper and now we do not insist that the injuries occurred in the tent. We just say that the slab could have caused them" |
| Why they left and did not return | Forced out by the slab; walked 50 m together to the stone ridge («естественный ограничитель лавины»), visibility 6–16 m; could not find the tent again; «Это была героическая борьба. Паники не было» | The tent was destroyed/buried and could not be re‑pitched in the storm; the priority became warming the injured; «Группа начала отступление вниз по склону организованно» — an organised retreat to the forest carrying the injured (Akselrod's thesis, adopted) | Not addressed beyond: they "went down the undisturbed snow cover, leaving footprints"; no claim about the return |
| Order of deaths | Doroshenko & Krivonischenko at the fire; Dyatlov, Slobodin, Kolmogorova on the way back; the four in the ravine last (01:00–02:00) | Same order; the injured died last in the den of cold + trauma | Not modelled |
| Consistency with Vozrozhdenny (л.д. 381–383: Thibeaux could only be carried; Dubinina lived 10–20 min) | Consistent (injuries at the place of death; Tumanov 2019 agrees: «Свои травмы ребята получили в тех местах, где и были найдены поисковиками») | **Contradicted**; Buyanov rejects the expert's "urban experience" («оценки «дееспособности» … во многом неправильны») | Hedged (cites GM/San Diego data that 6–12 broken ribs are survivable and walkable "with some help") |
| Main documentary problem | The two "avalanches" (slab at the tent + snow‑bank collapse in the ravine) are independent events; the second is unmodelled and the den flooring lay intact 6 m from the bodies with no bodies on it (л.д. 341–343); slope angle and tent position unknown; footprints/flashlight show no debris at the tent (companion file §4) | A 1.5 km night walk/carry of three people with a crushed chest, a crushed skull and a fatal heart haemorrhage, contradicting л.д. 382–383; the ravine layout (flooring vs bodies) unexplained | Delay range depends on an assumed cut time; no explanation for 8–9 tracks on undisturbed snow if 3 were crushed; the ravine untouched; their 2022 observed avalanches were on a *steeper, uncut* slope 3 km away |

**Where the documents constrain the choice.** (i) Vozrozhdenny's mobility statements (л.д. 382–383) favour injuries *at the place of death* — i.e. the prosecutor's location, whatever one thinks of his "half a tonne of flowing force". (ii) The ravine protocol (л.д. 341–343) — flooring at 2.5–3 m with clothes laid on it and *no bodies on it*, bodies 6 m downstream under 2–2.5 m of snow in the water — is compatible with a snow‑bank collapse that displaced them (prosecutor), with a later slide of the bodies (Buyanov), or with death on the flooring and post‑mortem transport by the spring melt; none of the three has modelled it. (iii) The last‑meal interval of 6–8 h (л.д. 103 and the other four March acts) fixes the *deaths* of the slope three at roughly 6–8 h after supper, not the time of leaving; Kuryakov's «примерно 21.00» is inferred from the wind‑chill curve, not from the file. (iv) The tent cuts and the walking tracks are common ground for all three.

---
## 7. Minor theories, each with the fact that kills it

| Theory | Killing fact (sheet) |
|---|---|
| **Carbon monoxide / stove accident** | The stove was packed: «…в чехле лежала печка. Трубы последней находились внутри печки, что говорит о том, что печку не пытались развести, затопить, хотя … [снаружи] … чурбачок, несомненно, предназначенный для печки» — Lebedev (л.д. 314): the stove lay in its case near the entrance, its pipes inside it, so nobody had tried to set it up or light it, although a log intended for it lay outside in the snow. No combustion source, no soot, and CO victims do not cut their way out and walk 1.5 km in a line. |
| **Fight / quarrel inside the group** | «Ни в палатке, ни вблизи неё не было обнаружено следов борьбы или присутствия других людей» (л.д. 386); all nine left together (8–9 tracks side by side, л.д. 312, 91) and then cooperated for hours — fire, den, clothes cut from the dead for the living (л.д. 341–343, 386); the only injuries on the slope three are fall‑type abrasions and Slobodin's crack from a fall (л.д. 103); no alcohol in any of the five March autopsies (л.д. 103, 111, 119, 125, 132). |
| **Yeti / Menk / "snowman"** (Discovery Channel 2014; revived by the 2019 KP–Tumanov expedition's exhumation talk) | No animal tracks anywhere except one dog (Chernyshov л.д. 91; radiogram л.д. 177: «следов волков здесь нет»); no bite, claw or grip injuries on any body; the missing tongue and eyes are recorded by the autopsy as post‑mortem changes of bodies that lay in running water (л.д. 357: the head soft‑tissue defects and the "bath skin" «являются посмертными изменениями (гниения и разложения) трупа Дубининой», a body that lay in water before it was found; Kolevatov л.д. 348: «являются посмертными изменениями трупа»). |
| **Methanol / alcohol poisoning** | «наличие алкоголя не обнаружено» (Slobodin, л.д. 103) and «наличие алкоголя не установлено» (Dyatlov, л.д. 125) — the same finding in all five March autopsies (л.д. 103, 111, 119, 125, 132); the group's only spirits — a flask of alcohol — was brought back *intact* from the tent on 26 Feb (Brusnitsin л.д. 365); methanol blindness and incapacity are incompatible with building a fire, cutting 14 fir tops for a flooring and walking 1.5 km. |
| **Paradoxical undressing as the sole explanation** | They were already undressed when they *left*: footwear, outer clothing and the diaries stayed in the tent (л.д. 386) and the tracks are of feet in socks (л.д. 312). Those found with least clothing had it cut off *after death by the others* — «Вся одежда имеет следы ровных разрезов, т.к. снималась уже с трупов Дорошенко и Кривонищенко» (л.д. 386; л.д. 341–343) — while Zolotaryov and Thibeaux were fully dressed with footwear. Undressing therefore presupposes the exit; it cannot cause it. |
| **Ball lightning / lightning** (N. Evans, discussion at https://dyatlovpass.com/theories) | No electrical marks or burns on anyone except Krivonischenko's campfire burn (act №3, л.д. 112–119) and singed hair on Doroshenko; a February thunderstorm at −25 °C is practically excluded; the "camera on a tripod pointed at the sky" premise is not in the protocols (the cameras were packed in the tent, л.д. 11–20). |
| **Flooded / ice‑covered den; the four "fell into the stream"** | The flooring lay intact at 2.5–3 m depth, 6 m *upstream* of the bodies, with clothes laid out on it and no one on it (л.д. 341–343); the bodies were under 2–2.5 m of snow in the stream bed; the rib and skull fractures are ante‑mortem, symmetric, without external wounds, and the expert attributed them to «воздействие большой силы», comparable to a car impact or blast — not to a fall into a shallow stream (л.д. 382); the flooring itself — «Настил состоит из 14 [п]ихтовых и 1 берёзовой вершин на снегу. На настиле обнаружены вещи» — was undisturbed. Water explains only the post‑mortem tissue loss (л.д. 357). |
| **"Gulag escapees / clean‑up squad"** | Same as the Mansi and KGB columns: no tracks of outsiders (л.д. 91, 386–387), nothing stolen (л.д. 387), no weapon or beating injuries (л.д. 382). |

---

## 8. Fact × theory matrix

Columns: **A** small slab avalanche, Gaume–Puzrin 2021 (delayed wind‑loaded slab at the tent; injuries "could have been" at the tent); **B** prosecutor's check 2020 (slab at the tent ≈21:00 + hypothermia; ravine injuries from a snow‑bank collapse); **C** Buyanov 2011 (snow board at the tent; the three injured at the tent; organised retreat); **D** katabatic wind (Holmgren 2019); **E** infrasound (Eichar 2013); **F** military / rocket / toxic (Chernousov, relatives; rocket‑fall variants); **G** Mansi attack; **H** criminal / KGB (Rakitin).
Cells: **E** = explains or requires it; **N** = neutral / does not address; **C** = contradicts (reason in the notes below, keyed row.column).

| # | Documented fact (sheet) | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tent cut from inside — three knife cuts (89 and 42 cm and a third) plus wind tears (Churkina, л.д. 303–304) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N |
| 2 | Tent still standing on its skis, most guy lines and the entrance pole intact, buried under 15–20 cm of hard snow; spare skis and ski poles standing beside it; one ski pole cut into pieces (л.д. 298–299, 214, 365) | E | E | E | **C** | N | N | N | N |
| 3 | Dyatlov's Chinese flashlight lying on the tent canvas on 5–10 cm of snow with none on top (Slobtsov л.д. 299; Maslennikov л.д. 70; Tempalov л.д. 310) | E¹ | E¹ | E¹ | E | N | N | N | N |
| 4 | No avalanche debris, crown or run‑out seen on 26–28 Feb; searchers walked and dug on the slope (л.д. 298–300, 214–215, 62–75) | N² | N² | N² | E | E | E | E | E |
| 5 | 8–9 pairs of footprints walking at a normal pace, close together in a line, 500–800 m, in socks or barefoot, preserved as raised columns (л.д. 312, 91, 215, 292, 386) | E | E | E | **C** | **C** | N | N | E |
| 6 | Tracks initially in two groups, merging lower down (Atmanaki л.д. 215; Lebedev л.д. 315) | N | N | E | N | N | N | N | N |
| 7 | No tracks of other people or animals (except one dog); no signs of struggle (л.д. 386–387, 91, 71, 177) | E | E | E | E | E | E | **C** | **C** |
| 8 | Slippers, caps and small items 0.5–15 m downwind of the tent; urine trace; ice axe by the tent; a second flashlight, switched on, found 450 m below the tent on 7 March (radiogram л.д. 191; Atmanaki л.д. 220 says "100 m") (л.д. 299, 70, 215) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N |
| 9 | Fire at the cedar burned 1.5–3 h (Maslennikov л.д. 68: about 1.5 h; Sogrin л.д. 333: 2–3 h); dry branches broken to 4–5 m ("a window" toward the slope); 6–20 young firs cut (л.д. 3 об., 68, 92, 218–219, 330–339) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N |
| 10 | Doroshenko and Krivonischenko in underwear by the fire; Krivonischenko's 31 × 10 cm shin burn; their clothes cut off after death and found in the den (л.д. 104–119, 341–343, 386) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N |
| 11 | Dyatlov, Slobodin, Kolmogorova on the straight line cedar→tent, facing the tent, 300 / 480 / 630 m from the cedar (л.д. 69–72, 386) | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N |
| 12 | The slope three died of cold; Slobodin's 6 cm skull crack and the "ice bed" under him; no alcohol (л.д. 95–103, 120–134, 322, 386) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N |
| 13 | Den: flooring of 14 fir tops + 1 birch at 2.5–3 m, 6 m upstream of the bodies, clothes laid on it, nobody on it; bodies in the stream under 2–2.5 m of snow (л.д. 341–343; 4–4.5 m per л.д. 386) | N | E | N | E | N | N | N | N |
| 14 | Ravine injuries: Dubinina ribs R II–V on two lines and L II–VII, haemorrhage into the heart; Zolotaryov ribs II–VI right; Thibeaux depressed comminuted temporal fracture — all without external soft‑tissue damage; «большая сила», like a car impact/blast; Thibeaux only carriable; Dubinina lived 10–20 min (л.д. 349–357, 381–383) | N³ | E | **C** | E⁴ | **C** | E | **C** | **C** |
| 15 | Kolevatov uninjured, died of cold beside the three injured (л.д. 345–348) | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N |
| 16 | Clothing redistributed: Zolotaryov and Thibeaux best dressed with footwear; Dubinina in Krivonischenko's trousers, Zolotaryov in Dubinina's fur jacket and cap (л.д. 341–343, 386) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | N |
| 17 | Watches: Thibeaux two watches at 8:14 and 8:39 (л.д. 386; 9:38 / 9:15 in л.д. 341); Dyatlov 5:31; Slobodin 8:45 (л.д. 386) | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| 18 | Radiation: β‑only contamination on three garments (9,900 / 5,600 / 5,000 decays·min⁻¹ per 150 cm²), washable; organs at natural K‑40 level (л.д. 371–377) | N | E | E | N | N | N⁵ | N | E |
| 19 | Post‑mortem soft‑tissue loss on the ravine bodies after ~3 months in the stream — Dubinina's tongue and eyes, Zolotaryov's eyeballs, Kolevatov's brows and cheek (л.д. 357, 351, 348) | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| 20 | "Fireballs" documented for 17 Feb (6:40–7:30) and 31 Mar (4:00) — none for 1–2 Feb (л.д. 344, 264–267, 290–292, 209–220, 378–380) | N | N | E | N | N | **C** | N | N |
| 21 | Labaz intact on 2 March; money, documents and cameras present; no weapons carried (л.д. 8–10, 11–20, 387) | E | E | E | E | E | E | N | **C** |
| 22 | Diaries end on 31 Jan with no conflict, fear or strangers; last photos show the tent being pitched in wind at dusk (л.д. 21–28; films, dyatlovpass.com/1959-cameras) | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N |
| 23 | Stove packed in its case, pipes inside; a log outside; no fire in the tent (Lebedev л.д. 314) | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N |
| 24 | Cameras: four in the tent and one on Zolotaryov's body (film ruined); a roll of film 15 m below the tent (л.д. 11–20, 215; dyatlovpass.com/1959-cameras) | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N⁶ |
| 25 | Weather: −25…−30 °C with strong wind (л.д. 385); Pigoltsina 2020: NW 8 m/s gusting 30, wind‑chill −30 → −46; "two days of strong wind and snow" (Anyamov л.д. 231) | E | E | E | E | E | N | N | N |
| 26 | Mansi: alibis, mutual knowledge, friendliness; the sacred place is in the upper Vizhay and open to Russians; Mansi were the searchers' guides (л.д. 82–87, 223–232, 261–262, 387) | N | N | N | N | N | N | **C** | N |
| 27 | Slope: mean 21–23°, local steps up to 28–30°; the tent platform cut ~1 m into the slope; 1959 snow properties compatible with a wind slab (Popovnin 2019; Gaume & Puzrin 2021; 1959 scene report "30°", л.д. 3–6) | E | E | E | N | N | N | N | N |

**Notes on the "contradicts" cells (and the flagged neutrals).**
* **2.D** — Holmgren's mechanism requires a wind that "would have blown away or into pieces" any tent; the tent stood on its skis with guy lines and the entrance pole intact (л.д. 298–299, 214, 365).
* **5.D** — People walking at a normal pace in a line, with the imprint preserved as raised columns, is not a group hit by hurricane‑force flow (Chernyshov л.д. 91: the wind "did not roll them over the snow"; Atmanaki л.д. 215: "with any wind you can stay on the slope and go back"; Slobodin's cap still on, л.д. 316–329).
* **5.E** — Infrasound‑induced panic predicts scattered flight; the file shows an orderly group walking together (Tempalov л.д. 312) and rational work for hours afterwards (fire, den, clothing, л.д. 341–343).
* **7.G / 7.H** — An attacking party arriving and leaving on foot, skis or reindeer would have left tracks on a slope where the victims' sock prints survived 3–4 weeks; none were found by searchers or by the Mansi guides (л.д. 386–387, 91, 71).
* **14.C** — Buyanov places the three crushing injuries at the tent, 1.5 km from where the bodies lay; the forensic expert stated Thibeaux "could only have been carried or dragged", would have been unconscious, and Dubinina died 10–20 min after the injury (л.д. 382–383).
* **14.E** — Infrasound supplies no mechanical force; panic‑flight falls do not give symmetric bilateral rib fractures on two lines without a mark on the skin (л.д. 356, 382).
* **14.G / 14.H** — A beating or blows with an object would have damaged the soft tissue: «В этом случае были бы повреждены мягкие ткани, а этого не обнаружено» (Vozrozhdenny, л.д. 382).
* **20.F** — A rocket/weapon on the night of 1–2 Feb needs a launch that does not exist in the record (GCAT: only the R‑5M "Zvezda‑4" sounding shot at Kapustin Yar on 2 Feb, and R‑11/R‑1/R‑2 tests on 29–30 Jan); the fireballs the file does contain match the R‑7 launches of 17 Feb 01:46 UTC and 30 Mar 22:53 UTC to the minute.
* **21.H** — Killers who had come for the contaminated "sample", the photographs and the group's cameras left all of them behind, with the money and documents (л.д. 387: «наличие всех ценностей группы»).
* **26.G** — The only Mansi in the area (the Anyamovs, hunting on the Auspiya) saw only ski tracks; the sacred mountain is elsewhere, unguarded and open to Russians (л.д. 232); the Mansi searched with the Russians (л.д. 262, 300).
* ¹ **3.A–C** — a flashlight placed on the slab snow is consistent with a slab, but no snow on top of it after 25 days means very little net deposition at the tent — a problem for the *heavy wind transport* Gaume–Puzrin need to erase all traces (their 2022 field observation of one‑hour erasure was on a steeper slope 3 km away).
* ² **4.A–C** — explained away rather than explained: a slab "about 5 × 5 m" with a run‑out of 1–2 m whose crown and debris were covered by wind‑blown snow before 26 Feb (Puzrin–Gaume interview 2022); the prosecutor's check gave no dimensions at all; Buyanov reads the torn rear guy lines and the snow on the tent as the traces.
* ³ **14.A** — Gaume–Puzrin's model produces the injuries at the tent but the authors "do not insist" on that location; if the injuries were at the tent, 14.C applies to them as well.
* ⁴ **14.D** — Holmgren attributes the fractures to a collapsing bivouac roof but does not quantify the force; the prosecutor's ravine mechanism is the same idea.
* ⁵ **18.F** — the *nuclear/radiological* sub‑variant is contradicted (organs and the group's books clean; three washable spots of β‑dust at 1–2× the sanitary norm are not a weapon signature, л.д. 371–377; RIA 1574213059); the *toxic‑propellant* sub‑variant makes no radiation claim.
* ⁶ **24.H** — Rakitin's key prediction (photographs of the strangers on Zolotaryov's body camera) is untestable: the film from that camera is ruined.

**Reading the matrix.** No column is free of a "C" except A and B (the two slab‑at‑the‑tent versions that leave the ravine open or explain it by a second snow collapse) — and their weakness is the flagged neutrals (rows 3, 4, 13–14): the physical slab traces are asserted to have vanished, and the ravine mechanism is either unmodelled (B) or not claimed (A). D (katabatic wind) fails on the standing tent and the calm tracks but would be rescued by any evidence of a fall‑wind event that night. E, G and H are contradicted by the same two hard facts — the walking tracks/absent tracks and the injuries without external wounds. F is dead as a rocket‑fall story and survives only as an untested toxic exposure.

---

## 9. Sources used (primary and load‑bearing)

*1959 case file (scans/translations, https://dyatlovpass.com/case-files-N):* л.д. 1, 2, 3–6, 8–10, 11–20, 21–28, 62–75, 82–83, 84–85, 86–87, 88–93, 95–103, 209–220, 223, 224, 225–226, 230–231, 232, 261–262, 264–267 (via Ivanov 1990), 290–292, 298–300, 303–304, 309–312, 313–315, 316–329, 330–339, 341–343, 344, 345–348, 349–351, 352–354, 355–357, 362–369, 371–377, 378–380, 381–383, 384–387. Autopsy acts 104–134 as tabulated in `case-file-forensic-facts.md`.
*Ivanov 1990:* «Тайна огненных шаров», «Ленинский путь» (Кустанай), 22 & 24 Nov 1990 — https://dyatlovpass.com/lev-ivanov (Russian tab).
*Launch record:* J. McDowell, General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects, launch list, https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/tsv/launch/launch.tsv (rows 1959‑S32, 1959‑S281, 1959‑S301, 1959‑S296–S300); A. B. Железняков via Buyanov ch. 7.
*Katabatic:* R. Holmgren, https://www.arcdoc.se/se/blogg/dyatlov-expedition-new-theory-41712449 (mirror https://dyatlovpass.com/swedish-russian-expedition-2019); sv.wikipedia "Anarisolyckan"; SVT 24 Feb 2018; Socialstyrelsen *Hypotermi* 2003, Bilaga 4, ISBN 91‑7201‑747‑3.
*Infrasound:* D. Eichar, *Dead Mountain*, Chronicle Books 2013, ISBN 978‑1‑4521‑2956‑3; Snopes 28 Dec 2017, https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/12/28/dyatlov-pass-incident/; https://dyatlovpass.com/theories.
*Slab:* J. Gaume & A. M. Puzrin, *Commun. Earth Environ.* 2:10 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00081-8; A. M. Puzrin & J. Gaume, *Commun. Earth Environ.* 3:96 (2022), https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00393-x; interview https://dyatlovpass.com/puzrin-gaume; Louhi et al. critique https://dyatlovpass.com/louhi.
*Buyanov:* Е. Буянов, Б. Слобцов, *Тайна гибели группы Дятлова*, Екатеринбург: Уральский рабочий, 2011, ISBN 978‑5‑85383‑501‑6 (chapters 7–9, 12, 15; online at litresp.ru); https://www.mountain.ru/legacy-material.php?article_id=9663; Izvestia/AIF 3 Jun 2026 (companion file §3.4).
*Rakitin:* А. Ракитин, *Перевал Дятлова…*, Кабинетный учёный, 2013, ISBN 978‑5‑7525‑2841‑5, https://armchair-scientist.ru/rakitin-dyatlov-pass/; web text http://murders.ru/Dyat_gr_30.html, _36, _47, _49; https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin, https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin-kolevatov, https://dyatlovpass.com/1959-cameras.
*Prosecutor 2020 and critics:* companion file `reinvestigation-2019-2020.md` (RIA 1574208839/1574213059, Kommersant 4415256/4415287, Interfax 716956, KP 27154, Lenta 2 Feb 2024, Tumanov in KP https://www.kp.ru/daily/26971.3/4026055/).
*Mansi:* case‑file sheets above; https://dyatlovpass.com/mansi; Chernousov on the "technogenic" version, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4415287 and https://360.ru/news/obschestvo/advokat-nazval-argument-dlja-vozbuzhdenija-novogo-dela-o-gibeli-gruppy-djatlova/.
*Unreachable / substituted:* Failure Magazine (Bedard interview) — DNS failure and corrupt archive.org copy, replaced by Eichar's book as summarised by Wikipedia and Snopes; risk.ru (Buyanov articles) — HTTP 500, replaced by litresp/mountain.ru/wikireading copies; McDowell `launchlog.txt` — 404, replaced by the GCAT `launch.tsv`.