Dyatlov Pass Incident

Basic Information

On February 2, 1959, nine ski hikers died in the northern Ural Mountains in Russia in a bizarre incident. Apparently, the hikers tore open their tent from within and wandered into the night barefooted, whereupon most died of hypothermia. While the corpses showed no sign of struggle, two had fractured skulls, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue. According to some reports, their clothing contained high levels of radioactivity. Soviet investigators ruled "a compelling unknown force" as the cause of the incident.

Sources

Bibliography

1. How creepy do you want it? - article at the San Francisco Chronicle

2. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• Perhaps the hikers were the victims of an alien abduction, demonic possession, or of a mythological creature.
  • Some kind of radiation elemental, maybe?
• Pibloktoq … or something like it … might be involved, although the specific condition is thought to be exclusive to the Eskimo as far as we know.