the presence of any strangers in the accident site before arrival of search groups. The investigators interrogated all people who were near to the place of the accident, first of all, hunters and locals. According to these evidences the investigation followed the track of Dyatlov’s group on their way to the Second Northern mine.
The investigators quickly came to the conclusion that locals and hunters weren't involved in the tragedy. As well as there were no «strangers» next to the accident site. The hunters Anyamov and Sheshkin who saw the traces of «narrow» skis of Dyatlov’s group on the Auspia definitely said that they would know if there was someone. According to the evidences of hunters (in particular, Cheglakov and Pashin) when Dyatlov's group went along Auspia river they were following a hunter-mansi footprints who was trailing an elk. But then approximately at a distance of 10 km from the place of the accident they went separate ways – the hunter went aside following the elk’s trace and Dyatlov's group went further along the river.
Hunters and locals couldn't tell anything certain regarding the causes of the group death. But everyone pointed to the danger of strong winds on an open woodless top of mountain ridges. They noticed that on the ridge hurricane force wind is capable to freeze a person for a very short time if one cannot take a shelter in woods, in a hollow, i.e. in the place protected from wind. A forester Pashin said that when such winds were blowing he had to wait in the hollows up to 6 days being warmed by the fire. The hunters mentioned that the hurricane force wind could blow within 10 days and more atop, and some old residents noted that they knew the cases when people died from a strong wind in the local mountains. Ryazhnev, Dryakhlykh, Popov and others witnessed that at the beginning of February they observed unusually strong winds and frosts under 30 degrees. Therefore according to evidences of the locals wind played a fatal role in this accident especially taking into account visible causes of Dyatlov’s team death from freezing.
The investigation hasn’t found any objects by which Dyatlov’s group has been injured in such a strange way; nothing in particular didn't help to identify their cause. They failed to discover the place where the injuries have been made: atop, near the tent, on the slope or down in the woods. Vozrojdenniy has concluded that Dubinina could live no more than 10–20 minutes having her heart injured and this seemed to exclude the possibility of receiving any injuries in the tent zone. In fact, 8 or 9 pairs of footprints going down have been found, but it seemed obvious that Thibaut, Dubinina and Zolotaryov couldn't walk down injured like this. They also didn’t find if the wounded were being carried or transported. The slope near the tent was not steep, from 15 to 20 degrees, by different estimates, and a snow like a hard crust didn't suggest that there was a possibility of avalanche descending on the tent. Well, no trace of an avalanche on the slope was found. Although anyone was not looking for this trace thinking that the slope is insufficiently abrupt.
In addition the investigation found that members of Dyatlov’s team died approximately 6–8 hours after the last meal. Three watches out of four on their wrists showed close time: Slobodin-8.45, Thibaut – 8.14 and 8.39 (he had two watches), and Dyatlov’s watch showed 5.31. According to the practice of rescue operations the watches usually stop on a hard frost approximately one hour after the death of the person. But it doesn’t always happen. Nevertheless the watches stop time showed that Dyatlov’s team were lost about 7.00-8.00 in the morning on February, 2th.
The funerals of three victims took place on May 12 on the Mikhaylovskoye cemetery and Zolotaryov was buried later on the Ivanovskoye cemetery next to Krivonishenko.
Lev Nikitich Ivanov, the investigator of the prosecutor's office who conducted the case of Dyatlov’s group couldn't find an explanation for the causes of the accident. He could not overcome contradictions, connect the known facts and construct a scene of the accident.
In the case one can certainly notice a few «lines» that the investigators developed in order to make up different versions based on different assumptions. Such was a line checking absence or presence of outsiders on the Tragedy place, including, first of all, local residents. Such was a line checking actions of the leader relating to compliance of expedition arrangement and actions en route. As well as checking of absence of some nonlegal and conflict behaviour of Dyatlov's group that could result in the accident during expedition. It is important to understand that all these lines have been checked but they gave a negative result, that is why assumptions that created them didn't become «working drafts» of Dyatlov's accident. At the same time other «lines» of the investigation were not «completed» because of lack of information that the investigators didn't have access to or couldn't find. For example, there was incomplete data about meteorological situation on the Tragedy day, launches of missiles and nuclear tests on Novaya Zemlya. Of course, considerable part of information was not available and it was very difficult or impossible to obtain it those years.
Having studied the evidences of several witnesses (of meteorologist Tokareva about «fiery sphere» flight observed on February 17, the evidences of Atmanaki, Karelin, militaries Savkin, Anisimov, Malik, Novikov, witness Skorykh and evidences of other searchers about viewing of «fiery spheres» on March 31) Ivanov started to assume that the accident with Dyatlov’s group could be connected with some kind of «experiments». He tried to understand the nature of those «experiments», visited the place of the accident once again and investigated the woods. In one place he noticed that branches of fir-trees were scorched. A strange skin color of the victims also evoked some suspicion. That’s why Ivanov decided to make an expert examination and investigate bodies and belongings of victims for radiation. These are his words written down by the journalist Bogomolov for the article «Secret of fiery spheres», a newspaper "Lenin way", Kustanai, of November 22 and 24, 1990: «…Having agreed with the scientists of UFAN (Ural branch of Academy of Sciences of the USSR) I carried out very extensive research of clothes and different body organs of the victims for the presence of «radiation». Besides we made the comparison with clothes and internal of the people who were killed in the car accidents or died a natural death. The results turned out to be surprising. The non-specialists will not be able to understand the analysis results but I will mention only the following ones: the brown jersey of one tourist who had bodily injuries showed 9900 disintegrations per minute, and after the sample has been washed – 5200 disintegrations, i.e. these data point to the radioactive «mud» which could be washed off. It has to be said that before these corpses were found they were intensely washed by meltwater under the snow – actually there were rivers. Therefore at the moment the tourist has died the radioactive «mud» was many times more…". "…When I reported Eshtokin on my findings, fiery spheres and radioactivity, he gave me absolutely explicit instruction: everything to be classified, sealed up, and handed over to a special service and for me to forget about it all. It is needless to say that I executed this order to the letter…»
As a result of all these actions the case was closed by date of resolution on its extension till May 28, 1959. After having been checked in Moscow by the USSR prosecutor's office the criminal case was returned on July 11, 1959, and according to the order of Klinov, the prosecutor of Sverdlovsk, for some time it was kept in the confidential archives (pages 370–378 of the "criminal case" were handed over to the top secret archive). But then it was declassified and handed over to the archives of Sverdlovsk region. There were all indications that Klinov's instructions to Lukin, a head of investigation department in the prosecutor’s office, and to Ivanov, the subordinate of Lukin, to classify the case, were a direct consequence of that Eshtokin's order Ivanov mentioned (and in the beginning of investigation A.P. Kirilenko's instructions not to disclose the facts). After all it is clear that Ivanov reported about progress of the case both to Klinov and Eshtokin. He couldn't «ignore» Eshtokin’s and Kirilenko's instructions as well as he couldn’t hand over them to Klinov as they were orders both for Ivanov and for Klinov. And Klinov followed the order of the second secretary of regional committee to classify the case. It is evident that Eshtokin's decision was based on the information provided by Ivanov. Obviously he had no other information. After having checked the case the prosecutor's office of RSFSR (the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) didn't report any new information and didn't give any instructions to classify the case.
Trying to classify the materials
