Previously on Atlas Obscura. It's so inexplicable. You can dream up so many different theories and none of them work.

None of them fit the facts. of the

were work, none of them fit the facts. In January of 1959, nine skiers disappear in the Ural Mountains of the Soviet Union.

When a search party goes out looking for them,

they stumble on a scene that cannot be easily explained.

Bodies that look like they've been hit by a truck, some half-clothed, a tent with all of their belongings laid out carefully in place, untouched.

One of the most gruesome and terrifying tragedies that I've ever come across in my life.

The government abruptly closes the investigation.

For decades, rumors swirl.

Was it a secret chemical weapon, a UFO, a KGB operation gone wrong?

Well in 2019 the Russian Prosecutor General's office reopened the case.

I'm Dylan Thuris and this is Atlas Obscura,

celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

If you're just tuning in, in our last episode we explored the

mysterious disappearance and death of these nine skiers in Russia's Euro mountains, which has become

one of the most puzzling unsolved mysteries to emerge from the

former Soviet Union.

Today, we rejoin the story to find out what happened when this case was re-examined in a new life just a few years ago.

And has it been solved? Well, you know, that's a matter of debate.

More, after this. In 2019, after years of pressure from the families of the skiers.

The Russian government officially reopened the case on the incident.

The hikers had become known as the Dietlov party, named for the leader of the group,

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