As an avalanche forecaster working in the Canadian Rockies, the second I started watching your video on the Dyatlov Pass incident, it just looked to me like an avalanche incident. Slab avalanches are what we are mostly worried about and are linked to the vast majority of the incidents in the mountains. I am not surprised by the incident for different reasons. First off, it doesn't take much of an avalanche to bury someone. Snow can feel like concrete on the run out zone. Second, if it happened at night during a clear blue sky, vapour would have moved upward and out of the snowpack thus weakening the snowpack even more. The speed at which the snowpack can change is extremely fast. Just that process could have triggered that avalanche. It could have also been triggered by the wind or an animal walking nearby (avalanches can be triggered from the bottom of a slope too). Lastly, despite those kids having experience, if they had traveled late and set up camp at night, they may not have seen clearly what was above them. Lastly, not to be judgemental, but in those years, accident in avalanche terrain were quite frequent since the '''snow science'' wasn't that developed nor the information easy to find. Lastly and unfortunately, Russian mountaineers have quite a high risk tolerance toward avalanche terrain and have sadly had a fair amount of incidents and near misses. Koodos to you for your explanations on slab avalanche process. Very well done considering this was likely a new concept for you.
As a Scot? Absolutely feasible. We have mountains that are not that far above sea level. But they will kill you. At times with slab avalanches. Not for no reason that mountaineering experts have for decades recommended 8,000m training here. Thanks, Joe, for logical insight.
I’d be very interested for somebody to go through historic weather data before the incident. If conditions existed for a reactive PWL to develop then I think it’s pretty much solved. We both know avalanche theory and what is seen in the field often may not match, so while the modeling exists to support this theory I’d like to know if it was even possible for a weak layer that they could impact had developed. Dyatlov pass is pretty centrally located so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had more of a continental snowpack. For all we know, they were walking out on a day where widespread, destructive avalanches were highly likely. or maybe they had 3 meters of snow on the ground with only surface problems to worry about.
@@slotcarpalace that is with a persistent weak layer. A slab avalanche requires two things, a strong overlying slab of snow, and a weak layer that it rests on. Persistent weak layers (PWL) are as they are called, persistent layers buried in the snow that is weak for various reasons. PWL are notorious for being triggered from hundreds of yards away, and often produce larger than expected avalanches. PWL generally only form in certain climates and with certain weather conditions. Long, cold periods without precipitation produce PWL. If there was consistent snowfall the year of the Dyatlov pass incident it is less likely that a PWL could have formed, or it could be buried deep enough that it would not be impacted.
I got a reputation with my friends as the person who will cut in to any Dyatlov discussion with just "avalanche" and then promptly leave. Your video gave me great conviction.
Unfortunatley i dont think it was an avalanche. Im pretty sure it was an ice sheet that collapsed on top of them. From what i saw its a fairly rare occurence where an ice sheet overhangs an area and becomes unseen with the snow around it. The sheet snapped and fell on top of the climbers which is why they cut their way out of the tents and why their tents werent buried very deep.
one possible explanation for the radioactivity could possibly be the mantles of old style lanterns. they used to be radioactive...dont know if they still are.
Sounds a little like how the TV show Columbo with Peter Falk worked - The audience would see how the murder of the week was done at the start of the episode and then follow how inspector Columbo worked it all out, often in a surprising way.
This is basically a definition of drama. If you, the audience know something that the protagonist doesn't, you see all the close calls and chances missed and eventually all may be revealed to the characters. You are pulling for them to either do or not do something because you know what the outcome might be from each decision. Drama has been used since story telling began. Oedipus Rex is a famous example that survived through the centuries.
“A Cry in the Dark,” where they accused the mother of killing her baby when it really was a dingo? It was based upon the true story that everyone knew before it aired. A lot of other cheesy docu-dramas covered real life events that seemed sensational but turned out to be mundane. Occam’s razor.
* KNIVES OUT * is the perfect answer to your question at the beginning. Big name cast comparatively speaking with some non traditional character portrayals from some of the cast. Great movie if you can get through it. 1st hour is really slow but the ending makes the rest worth it.
Joe, regarding your question at the beginning: "Foucault's pendulum" by Umberto Eco (a book, not a movie) is about this very topic. It doesn't start with a random accident, but with a simple medieval items list. It's a beautiful demonstration on how you can build a conspiracy theory from anything. And the ending is mind blowing!
Joe, if you're interested, PLEASE look into the Hessdalen Phenomenon. There are so many witness accounts, so much gathered scientific data, photos, videos and it's still a mystery. It would be such a perfect fit for your channel and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. There is a bigger documentary coming in December this year about it.
The old Columbo detective show always show the perpetrator committing the crime at the start of each episode and then the audience gets to watch Columbo hound the suspect until he/she is finally proven or confesses their guilt.
I mean you are not wrong - I’m Russian and I would never NEVER go hiking anytime past October in these northern regions. So really not surprised they froze to death. But also I was always fascinated by this story and hoped it was some kind of a evil forest spirit. A girl can dream lol
I couldn't shake a topic out of my sleeve that might be worth making a video about. But I can say one thing: I have never been disappointed on your channel when it comes to topics, there are always (for me) interesting things to learn, even far from my usual experiences. I've been following your escapades here on UA-cam for many years now and I'm extremely satisfied. THANK YOU Joe 🖖
You do you man. But I like to believe that my original NES that is sitting in a closet is secretly grateful to me that it still continues on in a climate controlled capsule awaiting its chance to be played and loved again one day… (I think I might be anthropomorphizing inanimate objects a little bit…)
The movie "Knives Out" sort of plays out the way you describe at the top of the video. The main character dies of a heart attack at the beginning of the film. But it turns into a murder mystery because everyone WANTED him dead so it's a character study in how horrible people treat each other. The irony is that the characters end up committing crimes trying to cover up his death - believing that one or the other of them had killed him.
It's not a heart attack, unless heart attacks sever the carotid artery with a large ornamental knife. But yes, Knives Out is a pretty good example of this! The cause/manner of death looks like one thing when the body is found ... then a flashback shows something else happening ... and then the rest of the movie sets up yet another reversal.
I don't mind mundane answers to a mystery. It's fun to hear all the crazy theories, especially when some of the crazy can fit, and make you think. But it's also interesting when you see how they arrived at the mundane answer. I've seen a few videos in the last year that talk about the avalanche answer, and it's all interesting. I seem to recall that one of the models they made used the snow simulation software that Disney created for Frozen, THAT's neat.
The fact that they worked with radioactive isotopes seems to cover this aspect. But I agree that radium paint could do it too. Plenty of deep mystery out there.
Just wanted to say i love this channel (and your main one). You do such a great job with your research and explanations, and I love the humor you add in! Found you a few years back and have been watching ever since!! Thanks Joe! Cheers friend.
Similar incident involved a girl named Maura Murray, missing in New England for years. Many wild theories, podcasts, etc on the net, even a book written on her disappearance. Occam's Razor: she wandered off after imbibing and froze to death. Sad case.😭
If you look at enough mysteries, you start seeing mundane things in your day and start doing a mental exposition on what the future investigators would make of your decisions.
I feel that the details of this story is the equivalent of finding a half dozen random puzzle pieces, all of which have an intriguing image on them, and thinking the pieces all fit together. Which is just our want to make them all fit.
Voice from the peanut gallery: no, but my favorite movie idea is to have an incredibly low-stakes household mystery, and each family member is slowly putting the pieces together, tension rises to a fervor like a thriller, until at a big family dinner suddenly everyone realizes what's been going on and we look to the person keeping the secret and they go "So what I smoke?" Hard cut to black, title card. It'd be great. Add in some comedy. Boom, dramedy mystery.
Criminal Minds. They always show the killer of the week right at the beginning of the episode, and then we see the team in a battle of wits with the killer.
I vaguely remember a film, where a woman was grieving her son who died in a plane crash, but everyone told her that didn't happen and she never had a son. After 2 hours of trying to figure out the truth, during the last 5 minutes it turned out that it was aliens that disappeared the plane and wiped everyone's memory in an experiment. But her love was so strong that she remembered anyway. I was utterly disappointed.
Thank you! Now I don't have to look it up on wikipedia. Genuine gratitude, not sarcasm. I always wondered how that was explained, but not enough to watch the movie. I read movies on wikipedia way too often...
Hi Joe, the issue with the radioactivity might also be explained by the use of an incandescent gas mantle. They were made with Thorium, back in the days.
I was wondering if someone hadn't already commented about this. That kind of lantern would be very useful on a trip like that, and the mantle would also be pulverised and spread around really easily.
Your question made me think of Babel and a little bit of Prisoners. Where the characters don't really understand how the random choices they're making are having larger effects. Not exactly the same as you're describing but reminded me of those.
8:00 Some of them worked in Mayak Nuclear Facility, so no wonder there were some radioactive debris on their clothes. After all, it was the 1950s in the Soviet Union. Safety and security were not a priority at the time.
This was great! I really enjoyed your relaxed style. You should do more videos like this here your TMI channel. You always go that extra mile to explain what you cover, so buzz kill or not, I love your synopses. Love that shirt! Please don't retire it. Be well!
May be tmi but my cat might be dying right now and having her be alive when I got home from work and having a new Joe video for us to watch and try to relax means more then I can articulate atm. Certainly notable
The "everything was normal but people freaked out" sounds like something that *Rod Serling* would have done in *The Twilight Zone.* And I have a vague recollection that it's a theme that he did. But I can't think of a specific episode.
In the 1956 Robert Bresson film _A Man Escaped_ (in French, _Un condamné à mort s'est échappé_ ) the outcome of the story is plainly stated in the title. A film so well made it dares to eliminate any mistery regarding the protagonist fate. I guess mistery is essential for short stories (or short films) to work, but is optional for novels (or feature films). Indeed, it is possible to make a novel (as Joyce´s _Ulysses_ and Flaubert´s _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ ) or even a feature film like Jacques Tati _Playtime_ (1964), as Jerry Seinfeld would say, about nothing.
Remember Occam’s Razor, in this case it was probably a Slab Avalanche, unless of course they find evidence to the contrary. All we can really go on is evidence, rather than conjecture imho. Great presentation Joe. Much respect from Western Australia 🇦🇺👍
The owner of the radioactive cloths literally had a day job at a nuclear power plant. Also they had a home made furnace/stove with them. I subscribe to the idea that something went wrong with it, filled the tent with smoke, and they cut themselves out in a panic. Once outside they headed towards the woods for shelter but tragically froze to death or fell in a ravine.
I would go for an incredibly detailed, completely convincing, Chernobyl-style film examination about what happened in the pass - one that completely verifies every angle of the avalanche explanation. And then secretly have a post-credits scene where a chupacabra comes out of the woods and eats the tongue.
The first thing that came to my mind with the radioactivity… I work in an auction house. Something we call Vaseline glass was really popular-it is a light green and has a glowy quality to it, and in black light it GLOWS. It’s also called uranium glass. For the up to 2% uranium (by weight) that was used in its making. Some in the 20th century piece actually used up to 25%. However it was also used in many, many different types of glass, and many did not have the obvious green glow. Things like fuses, capacitors, etc.. used uranium.. and honestly it. It could’ve easily been used in their torches (flashlights) and lanterns.. they could have easily been pulvervized from the weight of an avalanche.. after all it broke BONES on the people. It’s no small strength to shatter a healthy femur. It was also used in bead work, glass-ceramics, etc. some of the girls or the even the boys could have have some of the beadwork, but it could have easily been destroyed but buried underneath. Throw In the glow in the dark paint, and you have a TON of possibilities to explain low levels of radiation being picked up. Could something more sinister than a natural avalanche have happened to these folks? Yeah, absolutely, after all Soviet era Russia was doing a lot of weird stuff in that decade. But the most likely explication? It was just an unfortunate avalanche that they didn’t appropriately consider or appreciate as a possibility of happening to them when they set up camp.
Joe - Regarding the question (paraphrase), "Has there ever been a movie that started with someone dying of a mundane cause, but then the investigation goes off the rails?" not that I'm aware of. However, I can see it working either as a comedy or, if the conflicts between the investigators become heated or violent, as drama. I can even imagine a writer walking a fine line between the two, but that would be a difficult approach.
I love this idea. One that really emphasizes how easy it is to make conspiracy theories out of nothing when you literally have no rules in terms of from where and when and how you pull your cherry picked "dots" from.
I think that they heard a small avalanche and got frightened, or maybe even had one impact/cover the tent. They Cut their way out of the tent in a panic and fled to the wood line, 1500 meters away, and started a small fire. One guy climbs a tree to try and see if the avalanche threat is past, falls out and busts up his ribs and head, though the snow provides enough cushion to prevent bruising, or he's already cold enough that his soft tissue can't bruise as that requires blood flow and pooling. With a small fire not providing enough protection from the cold some hikers try to make it back to the tent for gear and succumb to hypothermia on the exposed field. Personally I've gone out into the cold bundled up like you wouldn't believe and been toasty warm, until I rounded the corner of a building into a wind that froze me to the bone, sent me scrambling to get back inside in less than 30 seconds. They were likely suffering hypothermia before they left the tree line and the fire. At that point whoever was left scavenged what clothes they could from those that died near the fire and headed deeper into the trees. Those people were found in the creek in the nearby ravine. The missing bits of the people in the creek is easily explained by decomposition, or wildlife in the water, as they weren't found until two months later.
when I first heard about this incident, I smelled avalanche. plus, maybe the reason why they had little to no clothes on when they were found, is because they had little to no clothes on in the tent before the avalanche struck. why? maybe they were not expecting any danger, and maybe there was some hanky-panky going on. they were young kids after all.
What I'd like to see is a recreation (or perhaps several recreations) of events during and after the avalanche to explain how people ended up where they were found. I think it would be fascinating to try to figure out what happened to them.
First movie that comes to mind is The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, but only upon rewatching it does the viewer get that perspective of knowing the mundane truth. Seems like something a well-executed horror movie could pull off. The right story told the right way could still tap that fear, even if the audience knows “the mundane truth.” How people react to stress and what fear does to our minds can be scary.
I told this theory to my father who's a massive paranormal buff, and there's more to it that leads to more questions. First off, why was the tent still pitched if an avalanche fell on it? If it crashed into them with enough force to crush someone's chest and push them hundreds of feet to a ravine, how was it still upright? One of the bodies in the ravine, they found blood in her stomach indicating that her tongue was removed before she died, so it couldn't have been scavengers. (my theory is she bit it off in the chaos by accident) Another one brought up was, why did they not pitch their tent in the woods? They were experienced outdoors people and shouldn't have chosen to pitch it in the open.
Love this Joe. But this idea of knowing the end and watching the process whilst the characters in the story are not aware is called Dramatic Irony. One of the most ancient forms of story telling in theatre. A lot of Shakespeare works like this.
There is nothing better than sitting in my vehicle eating lunch with the breeze blowing in my open windows and watching and listening to Joe Scott. This story is so fascinating to me. Part of me Wants this case to be paranormal In some way.. to think is not mysterious makes me sad.. if that makes sense..
Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is most often the correct answer. If they were hit by an avalanche whilst sleeping: Crush injuries. Panic. Emergency tent exit in the dark. Disorientation. Hypothermia. Death. Scavenger damage to corpse. It takes less effort or perhaps some mischievous intent to invent a fictitious explanation. That's how campfire stories begin :-)
"Is it just me or is there really not that much of a mystery to it?" You are correct sir. Your last video left me satisficed that it was not aliens. The chord of mystery must go from the beginning to the end. The cycle of tension will rise and fall while riding that base mystery. This is Story.
The Netflix show on Elisa Lam very similar. All these stories come down to the obvious explanation being wrongly discounted due to some initial faulty evidence. With Elisa Lam it was "the tank lid was found shut" (it was in fact, found open). With Dyatlov it was "no signs of avalanche were found" as your vid shows. Same with Oak Island - first find was just natural logs, followed by everyone else digging down only to find the last digger's platforms/bracings.
For me with Elisa Lam it was never about the lid but the missing minute of time in the elevator video. And how she appeared to be hallucinating, when bipolar disorder so rarely causes that. Sure it's possible, but so is intoxication from unknown substances. The dismissal of that possibility being "no presence" in her 2-week-old decomposed body irritates the F out of me. I don't appreciate people jumping to conclusions in EITHER direction (toward mundane or mysterious).
This reminds me of Loch Ness and Nessy. I bought into a great many of the arguments until I actually went there. Been back many, many times and quickly realised that the vast majority of explanations as to why the monster could live or visit there just don't make any type of sense when you look at the bigger picture. And as a lover of mysteries it made me sad, BUT, I'm also a big boy and realised a long time ago that sometimes the simplest answer, no matter how boring, is sometimes really does make the most sense.
IIRC one of the students was actually a lab assistant in a facility handling radioactive materials - so that might be an even bigger buzzkill. 1 thing that does nag me slightly is why they couldn't make it to the relative safety of the thick forest in time, or why they didn't take some time to try and salvage some clothes before bolting
Eating out, go up from behind...we are just a dirty as you are Joe. The internet has polluted us all 😀 Loved the video here and on the main channel. 🍺🍺
I bought the avalanche theory. Some were in the tent and others stood outside. Those outside got swept into the ravine and those inside cut their way out of the tent but froze to death in their underwear. All fits perfectly.
If it was that simple, the Dyatlov wouldn't be that mystery that it seems like. The problem with the avalanche theorie is, that there is not enough snow on the tent to inflict damage on people. The little snow you can seen in the photo was apparently blown on the tent over time.
Many old camping lanterns (including Coleman and other name brands) had thorium-based mantles which is, in my opinion, the most likely source of the slight radiation. They were camping, after all. These old lanterns are indeed slightly radioactive to this day.
I thought the radiation was because one of the hikers literally studied in a classroom that had radioactive materials? (I wanna say he studied nuclear physics but I am not certain) Also, Josh Gates did a solid 2 ep special about it on Expedition Unknown. This whole trip was part of a school hiking qualification that had really specific requirements. I thought he and his experts concluded avalanche, too, but like years ago? Good watch if you want an idea of the topography and the real struggles to get to the location.
My dad grew up in the 40s/50. He used to play with uranium in his science clients. And he had a chemistry.. in fact, on my kitchen table I have one of those play kits from that era that we couldn’t ship to online bidder (and we opted to keep it) because of some things that it contained. But I never looked at it myself, I should look at it…. My cats like to set up shop on top of the box (it’s wood) and that might be a bit of a bad idea.
Ooo, and Following (same writer/director as Memento, also a time-twister if I recall). Now I feel like going on a whole spree of watching those kind of movies, and I've never seen Irreversible.
I thought the radioactivity was explained by lantern mantles. As I recall, the mantles of gas lanterns were treated with Thorium to improve light output. I think that's more likely than Radium paint.
It's not exact, but Fight Club opens with the end and the narrator says, "I know this because Tyler knows this." So it kinda basically opens with them telling you right off the bat. But you don't know to pick up on it yet.
@1:52 Yes, this would absolutely work as a narrative for a book/movie/tv show. It would be more about social commentary on human behavior than what happened to the person in the well tho. And while I can't think of any particular example, no doubt stories have been presented this way numerous times.
This may have been mentioned already, but I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of lantern mantles being the source of radioactivity. Thorium was used in lantern mantles all the way through the 1980s.
"melancholia" - starts with the earth being destroyed, ends with the same. "ransom" - kid is kidnapped by a cop revealed in the first 20 min "jaws"... it's a fish.
People like there to be a mystery. Normal life is quite boring really. So to pep it up with a mystery now and again is good for the soul. Keep up the good work.
As an avalanche forecaster working in the Canadian Rockies, the second I started watching your video on the Dyatlov Pass incident, it just looked to me like an avalanche incident. Slab avalanches are what we are mostly worried about and are linked to the vast majority of the incidents in the mountains. I am not surprised by the incident for different reasons. First off, it doesn't take much of an avalanche to bury someone. Snow can feel like concrete on the run out zone. Second, if it happened at night during a clear blue sky, vapour would have moved upward and out of the snowpack thus weakening the snowpack even more. The speed at which the snowpack can change is extremely fast. Just that process could have triggered that avalanche. It could have also been triggered by the wind or an animal walking nearby (avalanches can be triggered from the bottom of a slope too). Lastly, despite those kids having experience, if they had traveled late and set up camp at night, they may not have seen clearly what was above them. Lastly, not to be judgemental, but in those years, accident in avalanche terrain were quite frequent since the '''snow science'' wasn't that developed nor the information easy to find. Lastly and unfortunately, Russian mountaineers have quite a high risk tolerance toward avalanche terrain and have sadly had a fair amount of incidents and near misses. Koodos to you for your explanations on slab avalanche process. Very well done considering this was likely a new concept for you.
As a Scot? Absolutely feasible. We have mountains that are not that far above sea level. But they will kill you. At times with slab avalanches. Not for no reason that mountaineering experts have for decades recommended 8,000m training here. Thanks, Joe, for logical insight.
I’d be very interested for somebody to go through historic weather data before the incident. If conditions existed for a reactive PWL to develop then I think it’s pretty much solved. We both know avalanche theory and what is seen in the field often may not match, so while the modeling exists to support this theory I’d like to know if it was even possible for a weak layer that they could impact had developed. Dyatlov pass is pretty centrally located so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had more of a continental snowpack. For all we know, they were walking out on a day where widespread, destructive avalanches were highly likely. or maybe they had 3 meters of snow on the ground with only surface problems to worry about.
I have seen a slab avalanche suddenly let go about two hundred yards from where we were hiking.
Well, I appreciate that and it means a lot coming from an expert. But I’m just repeating what the researchers said. 🙂
@@slotcarpalace that is with a persistent weak layer. A slab avalanche requires two things, a strong overlying slab of snow, and a weak layer that it rests on. Persistent weak layers (PWL) are as they are called, persistent layers buried in the snow that is weak for various reasons.
PWL are notorious for being triggered from hundreds of yards away, and often produce larger than expected avalanches. PWL generally only form in certain climates and with certain weather conditions. Long, cold periods without precipitation produce PWL. If there was consistent snowfall the year of the Dyatlov pass incident it is less likely that a PWL could have formed, or it could be buried deep enough that it would not be impacted.
I got a reputation with my friends as the person who will cut in to any Dyatlov discussion with just "avalanche" and then promptly leave. Your video gave me great conviction.
You sound like just the worst person to discuss mysteries with…
I’m sure my video will convince them. 😂
Same. There's nothing mysterious about it.
Unfortunatley i dont think it was an avalanche. Im pretty sure it was an ice sheet that collapsed on top of them. From what i saw its a fairly rare occurence where an ice sheet overhangs an area and becomes unseen with the snow around it. The sheet snapped and fell on top of the climbers which is why they cut their way out of the tents and why their tents werent buried very deep.
one possible explanation for the radioactivity could possibly be the mantles of old style lanterns. they used to be radioactive...dont know if they still are.
Sounds a little like how the TV show Columbo with Peter Falk worked - The audience would see how the murder of the week was done at the start of the episode and then follow how inspector Columbo worked it all out, often in a surprising way.
This is basically a definition of drama. If you, the audience know something that the protagonist doesn't, you see all the close calls and chances missed and eventually all may be revealed to the characters. You are pulling for them to either do or not do something because you know what the outcome might be from each decision. Drama has been used since story telling began. Oedipus Rex is a famous example that survived through the centuries.
"Just one more thing."
Was gonna say the same thing ..RIP Peter Falk.
Damn. I need to get back to my Columbo marathon...thanks for the reminder!
@@zunaidparker yeah we all need a fix of Columbo every now and then !
“A Cry in the Dark,” where they accused the mother of killing her baby when it really was a dingo? It was based upon the true story that everyone knew before it aired. A lot of other cheesy docu-dramas covered real life events that seemed sensational but turned out to be mundane. Occam’s razor.
YES! that was the movie, I was trying to remember the name of it!!
And now I hear Elaine from Seinfeld : Maybe the dingo ate your baaabyy. ^^
Ah yeah I remember that movie
In that situation I would argue that being eaten by a dingo is not the more common event Lol
* KNIVES OUT *
is the perfect answer to your question at the beginning. Big name cast comparatively speaking with some non traditional character portrayals from some of the cast. Great movie if you can get through it. 1st hour is really slow but the ending makes the rest worth it.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story
Yep, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Joe, regarding your question at the beginning: "Foucault's pendulum" by Umberto Eco (a book, not a movie) is about this very topic. It doesn't start with a random accident, but with a simple medieval items list. It's a beautiful demonstration on how you can build a conspiracy theory from anything. And the ending is mind blowing!
His books are awesome
Joe, if you're interested, PLEASE look into the Hessdalen Phenomenon. There are so many witness accounts, so much gathered scientific data, photos, videos and it's still a mystery. It would be such a perfect fit for your channel and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. There is a bigger documentary coming in December this year about it.
I just looked that up and it totally feels like Joe Scott fodder. If you're reading, I second this idea.
I’ll take a look! Thanks!
Thirded!
@@joescott-tmi This looks very similar to the Marfa Lights... They could go together.
The old Columbo detective show always show the perpetrator committing the crime at the start of each episode and then the audience gets to watch Columbo hound the suspect until he/she is finally proven or confesses their guilt.
I mean you are not wrong - I’m Russian and I would never NEVER go hiking anytime past October in these northern regions. So really not surprised they froze to death. But also I was always fascinated by this story and hoped it was some kind of a evil forest spirit. A girl can dream lol
I couldn't shake a topic out of my sleeve that might be worth making a video about.
But I can say one thing:
I have never been disappointed on your channel when it comes to topics, there are always (for me) interesting things to learn, even far from my usual experiences.
I've been following your escapades here on UA-cam for many years now and I'm extremely satisfied.
THANK YOU Joe 🖖
That’s super nice man, thank you. 🤗
Retire the shirt?!?!? NAH SIR!! this shirt is now a cherished nostalgia. It deserves a place on the shelf behind you if nothing else.
Well, I’d replace it with a new one. 😄
You do you man. But I like to believe that my original NES that is sitting in a closet is secretly grateful to me that it still continues on in a climate controlled capsule awaiting its chance to be played and loved again one day… (I think I might be anthropomorphizing inanimate objects a little bit…)
The Big Chill is as close as I can think of, but doesn't check all the boxes.
The movie "Knives Out" sort of plays out the way you describe at the top of the video. The main character dies of a heart attack at the beginning of the film. But it turns into a murder mystery because everyone WANTED him dead so it's a character study in how horrible people treat each other. The irony is that the characters end up committing crimes trying to cover up his death - believing that one or the other of them had killed him.
It's not a heart attack, unless heart attacks sever the carotid artery with a large ornamental knife.
But yes, Knives Out is a pretty good example of this! The cause/manner of death looks like one thing when the body is found ... then a flashback shows something else happening ... and then the rest of the movie sets up yet another reversal.
I don't mind mundane answers to a mystery. It's fun to hear all the crazy theories, especially when some of the crazy can fit, and make you think. But it's also interesting when you see how they arrived at the mundane answer. I've seen a few videos in the last year that talk about the avalanche answer, and it's all interesting. I seem to recall that one of the models they made used the snow simulation software that Disney created for Frozen, THAT's neat.
I am *loving* this 'editorials' that you're making for the TMI, please keep them going!
The fact that they worked with radioactive isotopes seems to cover this aspect.
But I agree that radium paint could do it too.
Plenty of deep mystery out there.
Just wanted to say i love this channel (and your main one). You do such a great job with your research and explanations, and I love the humor you add in! Found you a few years back and have been watching ever since!! Thanks Joe! Cheers friend.
Love this type of video. Feels like just off the bud conversation in a shorter format than a podcast. Keep up the great work!
Similar incident involved a girl named Maura Murray, missing in New England for years. Many wild theories, podcasts, etc on the net, even a book written on her disappearance. Occam's Razor: she wandered off after imbibing and froze to death. Sad case.😭
If you look at enough mysteries, you start seeing mundane things in your day and start doing a mental exposition on what the future investigators would make of your decisions.
I feel that the details of this story is the equivalent of finding a half dozen random puzzle pieces, all of which have an intriguing image on them, and thinking the pieces all fit together. Which is just our want to make them all fit.
I might argue that The Lovely Bones matches that description.
The mantel on the lanterns (kero lamp) contained thorium as well.
Voice from the peanut gallery: no, but my favorite movie idea is to have an incredibly low-stakes household mystery, and each family member is slowly putting the pieces together, tension rises to a fervor like a thriller, until at a big family dinner suddenly everyone realizes what's been going on and we look to the person keeping the secret and they go
"So what I smoke?" Hard cut to black, title card. It'd be great. Add in some comedy. Boom, dramedy mystery.
I'd love to see a movie like what Joe mentions at the beginning. The whole premise being "what will they do and how much in the dark are they".
I appreciate you using the “boom under the table/Hitchcock story”
The simple explanation is usually the correct one.
Criminal Minds. They always show the killer of the week right at the beginning of the episode, and then we see the team in a battle of wits with the killer.
I vaguely remember a film, where a woman was grieving her son who died in a plane crash, but everyone told her that didn't happen and she never had a son. After 2 hours of trying to figure out the truth, during the last 5 minutes it turned out that it was aliens that disappeared the plane and wiped everyone's memory in an experiment. But her love was so strong that she remembered anyway. I was utterly disappointed.
Thank you! Now I don't have to look it up on wikipedia. Genuine gratitude, not sarcasm. I always wondered how that was explained, but not enough to watch the movie. I read movies on wikipedia way too often...
Hi Joe, the issue with the radioactivity might also be explained by the use of an incandescent gas mantle. They were made with Thorium, back in the days.
I was wondering if someone hadn't already commented about this. That kind of lantern would be very useful on a trip like that, and the mantle would also be pulverised and spread around really easily.
Your question made me think of Babel and a little bit of Prisoners. Where the characters don't really understand how the random choices they're making are having larger effects. Not exactly the same as you're describing but reminded me of those.
When Cosmo Kramer is arrested as the smog strangler
Love your rambling, always fun to 'hang out' with you. :)
8:00 Some of them worked in Mayak Nuclear Facility, so no wonder there were some radioactive debris on their clothes. After all, it was the 1950s in the Soviet Union. Safety and security were not a priority at the time.
This was great! I really enjoyed your relaxed style. You should do more videos like this here your TMI channel. You always go that extra mile to explain what you cover, so buzz kill or not, I love your synopses. Love that shirt! Please don't retire it. Be well!
May be tmi but my cat might be dying right now and having her be alive when I got home from work and having a new Joe video for us to watch and try to relax means more then I can articulate atm. Certainly notable
A morbid comment on an tmi channel I think deserves a like from Good ol’ Joe
:(
She survived the stroke prolly cuz I told her Joe liked my comment
The "everything was normal but people freaked out" sounds like something that *Rod Serling* would have done in *The Twilight Zone.*
And I have a vague recollection that it's a theme that he did.
But I can't think of a specific episode.
In the 1956 Robert Bresson film _A Man Escaped_ (in French, _Un condamné à mort s'est échappé_ ) the outcome of the story is plainly stated in the title. A film so well made it dares to eliminate any mistery regarding the protagonist fate.
I guess mistery is essential for short stories (or short films) to work, but is optional for novels (or feature films). Indeed, it is possible to make a novel (as Joyce´s _Ulysses_ and Flaubert´s _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ ) or even a feature film like Jacques Tati _Playtime_ (1964), as Jerry Seinfeld would say, about nothing.
Remember Occam’s Razor, in this case it was probably a Slab Avalanche, unless of course they find evidence to the contrary.
All we can really go on is evidence, rather than conjecture imho.
Great presentation Joe. Much respect from Western Australia 🇦🇺👍
One of my favorite TV shows, Columbo, started every episode by showing who did it. In fact people called it a how-dunnit not a who-dunnit.
The owner of the radioactive cloths literally had a day job at a nuclear power plant.
Also they had a home made furnace/stove with them. I subscribe to the idea that something went wrong with it, filled the tent with smoke, and they cut themselves out in a panic. Once outside they headed towards the woods for shelter but tragically froze to death or fell in a ravine.
I would go for an incredibly detailed, completely convincing, Chernobyl-style film examination about what happened in the pass - one that completely verifies every angle of the avalanche explanation. And then secretly have a post-credits scene where a chupacabra comes out of the woods and eats the tongue.
The first thing that came to my mind with the radioactivity… I work in an auction house. Something we call Vaseline glass was really popular-it is a light green and has a glowy quality to it, and in black light it GLOWS. It’s also called uranium glass. For the up to 2% uranium (by weight) that was used in its making. Some in the 20th century piece actually used up to 25%. However it was also used in many, many different types of glass, and many did not have the obvious green glow. Things like fuses, capacitors, etc.. used uranium.. and honestly it. It could’ve easily been used in their torches (flashlights) and lanterns.. they could have easily been pulvervized from the weight of an avalanche.. after all it broke BONES on the people. It’s no small strength to shatter a healthy femur.
It was also used in bead work, glass-ceramics, etc. some of the girls or the even the boys could have have some of the beadwork, but it could have easily been destroyed but buried underneath.
Throw In the glow in the dark paint, and you have a TON of possibilities to explain low levels of radiation being picked up.
Could something more sinister than a natural avalanche have happened to these folks? Yeah, absolutely, after all Soviet era Russia was doing a lot of weird stuff in that decade. But the most likely explication? It was just an unfortunate avalanche that they didn’t appropriately consider or appreciate as a possibility of happening to them when they set up camp.
This whole mystery was a perfect example of Occam's razor.
The question you start with reminds me of a very funny movie from the ‘80s called “ The Gods Must be Crazy.”
I’m so thankful for TMI. One can never get enough of Joe Scott!
rekon thats right mate! people like drama! drama gets likes! Hate drama myself but rekon you nailed it! Love your work mate!
I definitely appreciate these followup vids..
Joe - Regarding the question (paraphrase), "Has there ever been a movie that started with someone dying of a mundane cause, but then the investigation goes off the rails?" not that I'm aware of. However, I can see it working either as a comedy or, if the conflicts between the investigators become heated or violent, as drama. I can even imagine a writer walking a fine line between the two, but that would be a difficult approach.
I love this idea. One that really emphasizes how easy it is to make conspiracy theories out of nothing when you literally have no rules in terms of from where and when and how you pull your cherry picked "dots" from.
I think that they heard a small avalanche and got frightened, or maybe even had one impact/cover the tent. They Cut their way out of the tent in a panic and fled to the wood line, 1500 meters away, and started a small fire. One guy climbs a tree to try and see if the avalanche threat is past, falls out and busts up his ribs and head, though the snow provides enough cushion to prevent bruising, or he's already cold enough that his soft tissue can't bruise as that requires blood flow and pooling. With a small fire not providing enough protection from the cold some hikers try to make it back to the tent for gear and succumb to hypothermia on the exposed field. Personally I've gone out into the cold bundled up like you wouldn't believe and been toasty warm, until I rounded the corner of a building into a wind that froze me to the bone, sent me scrambling to get back inside in less than 30 seconds. They were likely suffering hypothermia before they left the tree line and the fire. At that point whoever was left scavenged what clothes they could from those that died near the fire and headed deeper into the trees. Those people were found in the creek in the nearby ravine. The missing bits of the people in the creek is easily explained by decomposition, or wildlife in the water, as they weren't found until two months later.
when I first heard about this incident, I smelled avalanche. plus, maybe the reason why they had little to no clothes on when they were found, is because they had little to no clothes on in the tent before the avalanche struck. why? maybe they were not expecting any danger, and maybe there was some hanky-panky going on. they were young kids after all.
What I'd like to see is a recreation (or perhaps several recreations) of events during and after the avalanche to explain how people ended up where they were found. I think it would be fascinating to try to figure out what happened to them.
Expedition Unknown on Discovery did 2 episodes, went to the location, and did exactly this, illustrations, too.
First movie that comes to mind is The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, but only upon rewatching it does the viewer get that perspective of knowing the mundane truth.
Seems like something a well-executed horror movie could pull off. The right story told the right way could still tap that fear, even if the audience knows “the mundane truth.” How people react to stress and what fear does to our minds can be scary.
I told this theory to my father who's a massive paranormal buff, and there's more to it that leads to more questions. First off, why was the tent still pitched if an avalanche fell on it? If it crashed into them with enough force to crush someone's chest and push them hundreds of feet to a ravine, how was it still upright? One of the bodies in the ravine, they found blood in her stomach indicating that her tongue was removed before she died, so it couldn't have been scavengers. (my theory is she bit it off in the chaos by accident) Another one brought up was, why did they not pitch their tent in the woods? They were experienced outdoors people and shouldn't have chosen to pitch it in the open.
As for the missing tongue - it was way below freezing, licking a lamppost under such conditions is very risky.
As far as the radiation goes, the clothes that had the radiation belonged to people who worked with radioactive material back home/school.
I'd watch this movie, and I think it'd be a great way to illustrate how people can draw incorrect conclusions.
Love this Joe. But this idea of knowing the end and watching the process whilst the characters in the story are not aware is called Dramatic Irony. One of the most ancient forms of story telling in theatre. A lot of Shakespeare works like this.
There is nothing better than sitting in my vehicle eating lunch with the breeze blowing in my open windows and watching and listening to Joe Scott. This story is so fascinating to me. Part of me
Wants this case to be paranormal
In some way.. to think is not mysterious makes me sad.. if that makes sense..
Hey. Me too. Sitting in truck window open. Awesome lunch made lovingly by my wife and listening to Joe.
@@patrickbarry1822 very sweet..
I grew up loving paranormal stuff. Aliens, ghosts, cryptids, etc. I’ve become more skeptical over the years but it does feel like a loss.
Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is most often the correct answer. If they were hit by an avalanche whilst sleeping: Crush injuries. Panic. Emergency tent exit in the dark. Disorientation. Hypothermia. Death. Scavenger damage to corpse. It takes less effort or perhaps some mischievous intent to invent a fictitious explanation. That's how campfire stories begin :-)
"Nine dead. Not great, not terrible." -Dyatlov
this is literally joe Scott: Behind the Scenes, by the way, I am waiting for the Artemis III video and where is the dart video
That kind of movie you talked about early in the video sounds like multiple-award material if it's done well.
The Upside of Anger with Joan Allen had that stotyline about her missing husband, but without the reveal at the beginning.
"Is it just me or is there really not that much of a mystery to it?"
You are correct sir.
Your last video left me satisficed that it was not aliens.
The chord of mystery must go from the beginning to the end.
The cycle of tension will rise and fall while riding that base mystery.
This is Story.
The Netflix show on Elisa Lam very similar. All these stories come down to the obvious explanation being wrongly discounted due to some initial faulty evidence. With Elisa Lam it was "the tank lid was found shut" (it was in fact, found open). With Dyatlov it was "no signs of avalanche were found" as your vid shows. Same with Oak Island - first find was just natural logs, followed by everyone else digging down only to find the last digger's platforms/bracings.
For me with Elisa Lam it was never about the lid but the missing minute of time in the elevator video. And how she appeared to be hallucinating, when bipolar disorder so rarely causes that. Sure it's possible, but so is intoxication from unknown substances. The dismissal of that possibility being "no presence" in her 2-week-old decomposed body irritates the F out of me. I don't appreciate people jumping to conclusions in EITHER direction (toward mundane or mysterious).
The Dyatlov Pass reminds me of the Sodder children disappearance. It was most likely a fire in the case of the Sodder children disappearance.
Yeah thinking of covering that one.
@@joescott-tmi Pllleeeease don't.
Eaten out buttole?! NowTHIS is the content I was hoping for.
I've eaten a lot of buttholes and have yet to be accused of being an alien.
This reminds me of Loch Ness and Nessy. I bought into a great many of the arguments until I actually went there. Been back many, many times and quickly realised that the vast majority of explanations as to why the monster could live or visit there just don't make any type of sense when you look at the bigger picture. And as a lover of mysteries it made me sad, BUT, I'm also a big boy and realised a long time ago that sometimes the simplest answer, no matter how boring, is sometimes really does make the most sense.
IIRC one of the students was actually a lab assistant in a facility handling radioactive materials - so that might be an even bigger buzzkill. 1 thing that does nag me slightly is why they couldn't make it to the relative safety of the thick forest in time, or why they didn't take some time to try and salvage some clothes before bolting
in regard to the radiation, there's also thorium mantles. But the "they had radioactive stuff everywhere in that period" comment is very true, hahah
A small slide can have enormous weight.
Eating out, go up from behind...we are just a dirty as you are Joe. The internet has polluted us all 😀
Loved the video here and on the main channel. 🍺🍺
I bought the avalanche theory. Some were in the tent and others stood outside. Those outside got swept into the ravine and those inside cut their way out of the tent but froze to death in their underwear. All fits perfectly.
If it was that simple, the Dyatlov wouldn't be that mystery that it seems like. The problem with the avalanche theorie is, that there is not enough snow on the tent to inflict damage on people. The little snow you can seen in the photo was apparently blown on the tent over time.
Got an ad for skiing before this video which i think is very ironic
I much prefer the plausible answer than the continuous mystery.
The show "Candy" on Hulu describes somewhat closely what you're talking about in the beginning.
As I said in the original video. The mantles used with some kinds of lanterns are radioactive.
Many old camping lanterns (including Coleman and other name brands) had thorium-based mantles which is, in my opinion, the most likely source of the slight radiation. They were camping, after all. These old lanterns are indeed slightly radioactive to this day.
Yeah, I got a lot of that in the comments. Would have been good to include but I didn’t run across it. Missed opportunity.
@@joescott-tmi It's impossible to absolutely nail every reasonable possibility for every topic. You've done a great job here. Thank you for your work.
I thought the radiation was because one of the hikers literally studied in a classroom that had radioactive materials? (I wanna say he studied nuclear physics but I am not certain) Also, Josh Gates did a solid 2 ep special about it on Expedition Unknown. This whole trip was part of a school hiking qualification that had really specific requirements. I thought he and his experts concluded avalanche, too, but like years ago? Good watch if you want an idea of the topography and the real struggles to get to the location.
My dad grew up in the 40s/50. He used to play with uranium in his science clients. And he had a chemistry.. in fact, on my kitchen table I have one of those play kits from that era that we couldn’t ship to online bidder (and we opted to keep it) because of some things that it contained. But I never looked at it myself, I should look at it…. My cats like to set up shop on top of the box (it’s wood) and that might be a bit of a bad idea.
Irreversible and Memento worked pretty well using the opposite of that. With good storytelling everything is possible.
Ooo, and Following (same writer/director as Memento, also a time-twister if I recall). Now I feel like going on a whole spree of watching those kind of movies, and I've never seen Irreversible.
I thought the radioactivity was explained by lantern mantles. As I recall, the mantles of gas lanterns were treated with Thorium to improve light output. I think that's more likely than Radium paint.
Thorium lamps are also a thing, and they’re slightly radioactive.
It's not exact, but Fight Club opens with the end and the narrator says, "I know this because Tyler knows this." So it kinda basically opens with them telling you right off the bat. But you don't know to pick up on it yet.
@1:52 Yes, this would absolutely work as a narrative for a book/movie/tv show. It would be more about social commentary on human behavior than what happened to the person in the well tho. And while I can't think of any particular example, no doubt stories have been presented this way numerous times.
This may have been mentioned already, but I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of lantern mantles being the source of radioactivity. Thorium was used in lantern mantles all the way through the 1980s.
Radiation : Maybe Thorium infused camping lantern mantles?
"melancholia" - starts with the earth being destroyed, ends with the same.
"ransom" - kid is kidnapped by a cop revealed in the first 20 min
"jaws"... it's a fish.
You just described every single Coen Brothers movie.
Coleman style camping lanterns used to use mantles with Thorium in them because they were brighter. Thorium is radioactive.
The media piece you're looking for is Internet- historian's latest video about guy trapped in cave
You make the stores and the truth sound good dude!
I've read somewhere that one or two of the guys worked with radiation. So... Who knows.
There are also radioactive lantern mantles which could cause the increased radiation levels.
People like there to be a mystery. Normal life is quite boring really. So to pep it up with a mystery now and again is good for the soul. Keep up the good work.
Regarding the radiation, my mind went to old propane lantern mantles being radioactive.