hiking

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that looks at modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

At the end of January 1959, a Russian cross-country ski team ventured into the Northern Ural Mountains. Their expedition was intended to be a week-long skiing adventure, with the goal to reach a mountain in the Urals called Oroten. But though they set out from Vizhai—the last inhabited settlement that fat north—on January 27, they never came back. Or at least, they didn’t come back on their own. Numerous attempts have been made to reconstruct the events that had led to what has now become known as the DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT, with varying degrees of success. The trouble, you see, wasn’t that the team disappeared. It was the state they were in when they were found. More »