Has science solved one of history’s greatest adventure mysteries?
The bizarre deaths of hikers at Russia s Dyatlov Pass have inspired countless conspiracy theories, but the answer may lie in an elegant computer model based on surprising sources.
ByRobin George Andrews
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A 62-year-old adventure mystery that has prompted conspiracy theories around Soviet military experiments, Yetis, and even extraterrestrial contact may have its best, most sensible explanation yet one found in a series of avalanche simulations based in part on car crash experiments and animation used in the movie
Frozen.
In an article published today in the journal
Communications Earth and Environment, researchers present data pointing to the likelihood that a bizarrely small, delayed avalanche may have been responsible for the gruesome injuries and deaths of nine experienced hikers who never returned from a planned 200-mile adventure in Russia’s Ural Mountains in the winter of 1959.
How Researchers Used GM Car Crash Data And Frozen To Explain A Grisly 62-Year-Old Mystery
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I am a fan of the strange and unusual, so when our Editor-in-Chief Rory Carroll spotted this fascinating story in National Geographic about the Dyatlov Pass incident, he immediately sent it to me. He was right to do so, as this is one of my favourite mysteries and it seems it may have actually finally been solved using, of all things, digitally animated snow from a Disney movie and some old General Motors crash testing data.