The Questions That Remain
Dmitry Nikishin (Дмитрий Никишин), 12 June 2012. Public domain (released by the author). Picture source
The avalanche account fits much of the record but not all of it, and other explanations still have supporters.
1959 to today
The story
A stone memorial over the group's grave stands at Mikhailovskoe Cemetery in Yekaterinburg, the city then called Sverdlovsk. The pass near where they died now carries Igor Dyatlov's name.
The avalanche story explains the cut tent, the sudden exit and the walk downhill. It is weaker on why searchers saw no clear avalanche debris, and why the slope failed so many hours after the cut.
Other ideas have been put forward for decades. Gaume and Puzrin list infrasound panic, animals, a Yeti, local Mansi people, katabatic winds, a quarrel and weapons tests. Some people point to the radiation on the clothes, to orange lights reported in the sky that night, and to the bomb comparison in the 1959 testimony.
The record answers some of these. The 1959 investigator found no sign of other people or of a struggle, and noted that the Mansi in the region were friendly to hikers. The 2020 prosecutors said a rocket launched on 2 February 1959 flew the other way. A 2019 Swedish and Russian expedition argued that the wind alone, hitting the tent, was enough.
What everyone agrees on is smaller and sadder. Nine skilled hikers left their tent at night in deep cold, and none of them came back.
What the record says
Solving the Dyatlov Pass mystery is an enormous task, which is far beyond the scope of this paper.
Gaume and Puzrin, Communications Earth & Environment (2021), Discussion
a 2019 Swedish-Russian expedition disagreed with the ICRF conclusions, instead proposing that the direct impact of katabatic winds on the tent was the main contributing factor.
Gaume and Puzrin, Communications Earth & Environment (2021), Introduction
it had no relation to the tragedy at the pass, because the rocket flew in a completely different direction and fell near the city of Emba
Komsomolskaya Pravda, 11 July 2020, on the prosecutors' check of a 2 February 1959 rocket launch (dyatlovpass.com translation)
The list of theories comes from Gaume and Puzrin's review of the literature. The absence of other people and the note on the Mansi are from the 1959 resolution. The rocket finding is the 2020 prosecutors' claim as reported by Komsomolskaya Pravda; the underlying defense ministry papers are not public. The orange lights are reported in the literature cited by Gaume and Puzrin; this story has not checked the original witness statements. No theory yet explains every detail to everyone's satisfaction.