“Has science solved one of history’s greatest adventure mysteries?” So asks the headline for this linked article. (The word “Science” ought to be capitalized here, and I would expect a source as credited as National Geographic to know that.) I can answer that question for them: no. No, Science, capital S, has not solved it. All they’ve done is put forward a new theory that is not really new at all.
Their culprit? An avalanche. Specifically a “bizarrely small, delayed avalanche”. As one researcher somewhat condescendingly put it: “People don’t want it to be an avalanche. It’s too normal.” Okay, maybe, yeah. Mea culpa. But as that same individual also readily admits, “This new study doesn’t try to explain everything that happened back in 1959, and the Dyatlov Pass case will likely never be fully closed.”
From the linked article: “The state of undress some [of the victims] were found in remains puzzling…as do reports that note some of the bodies had traces of radioactivity…
The missing eyes and tongue of some victims may have simply been a result of scavenging animals pecking at the dead, but that too remains an open question.” Also not explained by this new theory are the reports of strange lights witnessed in the sky, the sound of explosions, and yes, those allegations of anomalous oversized footprints found at the site. All the new study has really proven is that an avalanche was *possible*, which will be sufficient for the uber-skeptical. This, however, remains anything but a “case closed” situation.
