- Sources:
- Wikipedia
- The St. Petersburg Times
- The Moscow Times
- SFGate
- Digital Bits Skeptic
- Skeptoid
- MetaFilter
None of the principles survived this incident; therefore no first hand account is available. It was later confirmed that strange orange lights or “bright flying spheres” were sighted in the direction of the incident from fifty kilometers farther south. The expedition might have encountered ball lightning, which is uniquely consistent with many of the details of this case. In particular, one hypothesis for ball lightning is antimatter, which has been suggested by Professor Philip M. Papaelias of the National University of Athens, Greece. Matter annihilates antimatter in Earth’s atmosphere, so the source of antimatter is extraterrestrial and complete annihilation takes from minutes to hours depending upon the initial size.
Here is the Dyatlov Pass story told as an encounter with ball lightning, or an Anti-Matter Matter Object (AMMO). The AMMO was attracted by rising heat from the fire outside the group’s tent, which generated a small thermal relative to the surrounding environment. The ball of fire descended outside the front of the tent and caused the members to abandon their tent in a hurry. They might have thought the tent was on fire and cut their way out away from the entrance. None had time to put on both boots; most only wore socks that they slept in. The hikers ran downhill, and the AMMO descended down the fall line, which gave the hikers the impression that they were being pursued.
Matter antimatter annihilations produce gamma radiation. Those who looked directly at the AMMO got sunburned faces from the invisible gamma rays. Gamma radiation will break molecular bonds. An experiment is needed to test whether gamma radiation will selectively destroy pigment molecules in hair. Prolonged exposure to sunlight can bleach pigment out of plastic, so this might explain the gray hair found on the victims. Forensic evidence suggested that the victims might have been blinded, which AMMO can do in the form of actinic conjunctivitis. Radiation was detected on clothing in the form of beta particles. Free neutrons produce beta decay, and antimatter will annihilate matter atomic nuclei and liberate neutrons in the process, which is consistent with an AMMO hypothesis. Electrostatic and gamma radiation properties of AMMO impair reasoning and the mind resorts to confabulation.
Ball lightning levitates, so only tracks of the party were found by searchers afterward. After five hundred meters, snow covered the tracks of the hikers. The search party did not arrive on the scene for another twenty-four days. That night the hikers headed for trees. Four climbed a tall pine tree to get above the pursuing AMMO. The AMMO may have pursued them for a number of reasons. Lightning will strike people standing in a field, attracted electrostatically by electrons coming through the human body from ground. The other five remained under the tree and may have been overcome by the AMMO. These five had orange to brown tan complexions from gamma radiation sunburn. The AMMO caused at least two of them to lose consciousness, Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, who may have gotten too close to the AMMO for the warmth it produced.
All the while annihilations reduced the size of the AMMO. Ball lightning might be an antimatter comet and therefore mostly ice. When ice melts it produces water and water vapor. Water vapor might give ball lightning its fiery properties, by vaporizing and mixing with matter air, annihilate and produce visual spectrum light through Compton scattering.
Some of the four in the tree climbed onto a branch five meters above the ground. Their weight, plus snow on the branch, caused the branch to break and all four tumbled down. Other branches below them broke and were later found scattered over the ground. Some sustained cracked skulls and ribs in the fall, but the injuries were not fatal. Those who fell out of the tree were injured, including Slobodin on the ground with a cracked skull. Heat from the AMMO started a smoldering fire with the branches that fell on or near it.
Ludmila Dubinina fell toward the AMMO and tried to scream. To scream we inhale. Dubinina inhaled and got a mouth full of antimatter water and water vapor. It annihilated her tongue and the lining of her mouth and throat (Digital Bits Skeptic, igor, 2008 March 11). The resulting gamma radiation seared her tissues, so she survived and did not bleed to death. She may have lost consciousness.
The conscious survivors prepared to leave and get medical attention. They removed clothing from the unconscious, Krivonischenko and Doroshenko. Dubinina’s coat and hat were found on Zolotarev. Dubinina revived, since she was wearing Valley Forge style boots in the form of Krivonishenko’s wool pants, when her body was recovered. The conscious set off wearing the outer clothing of the unconscious, which they had removed. Krivonishenko and Doroshenko never revived and died of hypothermia where they lay at the base of the tree.
Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, and Slobodin tried to make their way back to the tent but died of hypothermia on the way. The other four took another route and fell into a ravine, where a snow slide covered them with four meters of snow. They never dug their way out and died. None of the victims showed any signs of external injuries, and no trace of an explosion was ever found. Other explanations abound, but only AMMO is capable of explaining the weird details in such a compelling fashion.
For an extended analysis of AMMO read Antimatter Hypothesis.