Notes: 1. I have carefully selected the story: I heard this story from one of the mountaineers. It attracted me because of its possible connection with Unknown Flying Objects. 2. The material gathered: personal talk to the persons who collect stories about people found dead in a strange way in the mountains. 3. The point I want to make: mountains are haunted by spirits whose solitude must be respected by any intruders. 4. My most wanted response: People never seize an opportunity to conquer the mountains. I want my audience to remember that any exploration of our planet earth is dangerous because many secrets are still unknown. I would like to concentrate on the hypothesis: the disaster may be assigned to supernatural sources but in fact it could have been explained in a simple way. However, witnesses tend to disappear; secret files may be destroyed, as well. 5. Purpose: to narrate a story that may find responses in the audience. Goal: people become victims of their own disbelief in supernatural forces. Lesson: the world is full of dangers but we are eager to explore and conquer it. Plot: a story of a group of mountaineers found dead on the slope of the mountain fifty years ago, no explanation is available. 6. Developing the action and drama to visualize the plot: it was an open secret that the mountain spirits would kill any group that contains nine mountaineers. 7. A story sequence: Introduction: who? Nine mountaineers in their early twenties; where? In the Altai Mountains; when? In February 1959; Conflict: between mountaineers and nature; Unfolding of the plot: at first they were on the safe side because they were ten; then one of them fell ill, nine people went to the mountains; Climax: the movement of the frightened mountaineers to the tent;
Denouement: the cause of deaths is still unknown.
I will pay attention to the eye contact with my listeners when delivering the narrative speech.
Death in the Mountains
It was many years ago, namely fifty years has already passed, for the disaster I am going to talk about took place at the beginning of February in 1959. It’s a true story, for I heard it from a person who used to be a mountaineer himself and who collected stories of failure from all over the world.
All of them were experienced mountaineers, despite their young age – they were in the early twenties. They wanted to conquer a mountain in the Altai which had quite a bad reputation. The locals believed that that mountain hated the number nine: so mountaineers tried to safely calculate the number of participants. Dyatlov’s group consisted of ten mountaineers, as they might have been prejudiced as well to be on the safe side. They were eight young men and two young women. They arrived at the top of the mountain in high spirits, well equipped, in perfect health, and with great hopes of conquering the mountain top.
However, in the last moment one of the mountaineers fell ill. He was not able to take part in what had been so carefully planned long before. The mountaineers knew that their time was limited, for they had to come back to studies after winter vacation. They did not believe in superstitions, and found no trouble in being now not ten, but nine.
They said goodbye to those who were seeing them off in the camp at the foot of the mountain and started their climb, the sun shining brightly, their faces smiling, good humor hanging in the air, and all life ahead. When you are young and healthy, when you climb mountains and develop your strong will, how admirable it is, how wonderful! The weather was fine and life was marvelous for these young people in their early twenties, strong, clever, and goal-oriented. All was friendly, hopeful, and cloudless. A day passed, and nobody returned. Those in the camp got alarmed. A rescue team arrived. As the weather was still fine, a helicopter flew into the air in the direction of the mountain top. There, the pilot saw them, corpses scattered in about half a mile from the lonely and torn tent.
When the members of a rescue team landed on the slope of the mountain, they saw the dead bodies. The tent was torn with a knife from the inside. Those who were inside it, seemed to be fleeing from it in horror. One of men ran away for about five hundred meters wearing only one sock. Some of the bodies were far from the tent, scarcely dressed. Two frozen bodies were found round a fire. The team leader was found crawling back to the tent, his face directing to it. One of the two girls was closest to the tent. She lay in blood from her throat, without any visible would on her body. Only three mountaineers had severe wounds but their skin was not even torn.
It was clear that the mountaineers decided to spend a night on the slope of the mountain. They had a meal and got inside a tent to have a sleep. Then something incredible happened. One of the mountaineers might have been out. He must have seen something horrible that caused panic inside the tent. All scattered in panic as if they were blinded by something – some light, some alien presence, some explosion, – the truth is buried with them.
Could it have been an UFO that caused all the deaths? Could it have been an explosion caused by a rocket on test? What secret could these young lovers of adventure reveal? What killed them? The end of the story is somewhere in secret archives. Who gains from a superstitious version that is based on the unlucky number of participants?
People can’t escape from their love for adventure, even at the cost of their life.