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Overview
>Feb 1-2 1959
>The bodies of nine Russian hikers mostly students at Ural Polytechnic were found frozen in the snow in the Ural Mountains
>The hikers were experienced and brought tents, skis, provisions, and by all accounts were prepared for the expedition
>They are described as being generally higher than average in intellect predominantly being engineering students
>During the night something caused them to cut their way out of their tent and flee camp in insufficient clothing
>Cause of death is listed as 6 dying of hypothermia and 3 having died of physical trauma including 2 skull and 2 chest injuries
>2 bodies were found in their underwear around the remains of a fire underneath a tree
>The branches were broken 16 feet up (5 meters for you yuropoors)
>3 were found appearing to have attempted to return to their tent
>4 were found in a ravine buried in snow with 3 sustaining soft tissue damage including missing eyes and tongues
>Footprints indicate they walked not ran
>No indication of other hikers nearby
>One of the bodies tested positive for radiation
>Strange orange spheres in the sky were reported 30 miles (50 cucklometers) south the night of the incident and in the months afterwards geologists and the military would report similar sightings
>Officials cite an avalanche as the cause
>There were no signs of debris or damage to the tree line where the bodies were found to indicate this
>Bodies were found together instead of having been swept away
>Physicists ran models on the terrain and declared it unlikely
>Over 100 expeditions since have not discovered any avalanche conditions
