Before I begin a heads up, this episode contains some gruesome and graphic moments.

The rescue team was baffled. They couldn't make any sense of the scene. How had these five hikers died?

And where were the other four bodies?

It was February 1959 at an icy mountain pass near Siberia.

Nine hikers had gone missing there recently and the rescuers arrived to find five bodies scattered about.

Some burned, some nearly naked. One had human flesh in his

mouth. There was no apparent cause of death and all nine hikers were quite experienced. So why had they

abandoned their tent and run half naked into the forest? Had there been an accident? Were

they attacked? No one knew. And for six decades those unanswered questions

promote fierce debate and dark conspiracy theories among locals, the Russian equivalent of Roswell.

Last year, however, scientists finally determined what happened at that snowy mountain pass.

It's a strange tale involving cadavers and a Disney movie. But at

long last, we know why those burned, naked, and very dead bodies turned up in the Siberian wasteland.

From the science History Institute, this is Sam Keene and the

disappearing spoon, a topsy-turvy sciencey history podcast, where footnotes become the real story.

In 1959, a 23 year old Russian engineering student named Igor Diatlov recruited eight university friends for an expedition.

He wanted to climb a peak in the remote Yural Mountains.

The team ranged in age from 20 to 24 and included two women.

The Soviet government also sent along a 38-year-old minder making 10 people total.

All were experienced skiers and winter campers.

They were unbelievably tough as well.

On a previous expedition, a hunter accidentally blasted one of them with his shotgun.

...