The gruesome, unexplained deaths of Soviet hikers at the Dyatlov Pass in 1959 have inspired countless theories about UFOs and even secret military tests. Now, Russian sleuths have revealed that nature’s wrath killed the group.

Nine graduate students from a local technical university in the Urals region, led by Igor Dyatlov, embarked on their ill-fated hiking trip in February of that year. Being experienced and well-equipped for the journey, they were planning to cover 350km on skis through extremely harsh terrain in the northern Ural Mountains.

It was all going fine initially and many happy photos left by the group attest to this. But the hikers failed to send a signal from their scheduled endpoint, triggering a rescue operation.

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