Today's Morford: VERY creepy story.

[Shakespeare]

Never heard about this one before. :scared:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/02/27/notes022708.DTL

The nutshell: In 1959, nine experienced Russian cross-country skiers — seven men and two women, led by a man named Igor Dyatlov — headed to the Ural Mountains, to a slope called Kholat Syakhl (Mansi language for "Mountain of the Dead," ahem) for a rugged, wintry trek. On their way up, they are apparently hit by inclement weather and veer off course and decide to set up camp and wait it out. All is calm. All is fine and good. They even take pictures of camp, the scenery, each other. The weather is not so bad. They go to sleep.

Then, something happens. In the middle of the night all nine suddenly leap out of their tents as fast as possible, ripping them open from the inside (not even enough time to untie the doors) and race out into the sub-zero temps, without coats or boots or skis, most in their underwear, some even barefoot or with a single sock or boot. It is 30 degrees below zero, Celsius. A few make it as far as a kilometer and a half down the slope. All nine, as you might expect, quickly die.

Why did they rush out, unable to even grab a coat or blanket? What came at them? The three-month investigation revealed that five of the trekkers died from simple hypothermia, with no apparent trauma at all, no signs of attack, struggle, no outward injuries of any kind. However, two of the other four apparently suffered massive internal traumas to the chest, like you would if you were hit by a car. One's skull was crushed. All four of these were found far from the other five. But still, no signs of external injuries.

Not good enough? How about this: One of the women was missing her tongue.

Tests of the few scraps of clothing revealed very high levels of radiation. Evidence found at the campsite indicates the trekkers might've been blinded. Eyewitnesses around the area report seeing "bright flying spheres" in the sky during the same months. And oh yes, relatives at the funeral swear the skin of their dead loved ones was tanned, tinted dark orange or brown. And their hair had all turned completely gray.

[redqueen]

1. I knew it was aliens.

Someone else posted a snippet... and that was my first thought.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. The radiation gives it away. Before I got to that bit, I thought it was gonna be a Yeti story

[redqueen]

9. Yup...

Heh.. yeah, Yetis would be a good guess based on the location. One person I told about this story hypothesized that it was bandits. I LOL'd. :P

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Bandits?! What were they thinking??

[redqueen]

11. Hahaha... no clue!

:crazy:

[ghostsofgiants]

2. Oooh, this sounds interesting!

[Shakespeare]

3. kick...

...'cause it's freaky

[DS1]

4. how would they know the tents were ripped open from the inside?

[Capn Sunshine]

5. direction of the tear & threads

from the inside-- fray on the top part of the fabric.

[Redstone]

6. Russians. Vodka. Need I say more?

Redstone

[qb]

7. I was thinking Blair Witch IV: Curse of the Urals

[spinbaby]

12. I was thinking the same thing

This has the feel of a hoax.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. That's the difference between commie scum and believers in the American-flag-draped cross of Jesus.

Damned weird, that one.

The universe holds many mysteries yet to be experienced, and more yet to be explained.

[JVS]

14. If I'm ever camping with you, remind me to pass out before you tell your stories

[LeftinOH]

15. Some bad caviar and lots of vodka...makes a bad trip.

[MorningGlow]

16. I love this kind of stuff

Always have. But I had never heard this one before. WILD. Would have made a good In Search Of episode!
:scared:

I read the Wikipedia page and looked at some of the photos linked off of that. Totally freaky. I'm thinking it was aliens to start (not evil, just freaked the hikers out), but the Soviet army "cleaned up" the site and muddied the evidence before the official search started (there was a lapse of quite a few days).