Dead Mountain

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This in itself wasn't unusual, as travelers frequently made the journey up this mountain. But their trek up what the locals refer to as dead mountain would prove to be disastrous and would become a mystery that endures to this day. It was 23-year-old engineering student Igor, who put together the skiing expedition in the Euro mountains for his friends, who were largely other young students. All had experience with winter camping. All were strong skiers. So these people knew what to expect, and were well prepared for an intense journey. We know that on the first of February, they began their journey, setting up camp on dead mountain slopes. And that, so far as the story goes, is the last thing we are entirely sure of. During that night, something bad happened. Something catastrophic. Something that caused the team to abandon their camp entirely. In fact, they left in such a panic that they didn't even pack or get dressed. They were so eager to escape that a knife had been used to slash open the side of the tent so that they could move more quickly. When rescuers found the campsite days later, they came upon a scene of utter chaos. Sleeping bags strewn about boots and winter gear scattered over the icy ground. It took months to locate all nine of the bodies. Most to died from hypothermia, but there were four whose deaths were far more violent. Two had suffered injuries that much resembled car crash victims. Their chests were crushed. One had a skull fracture so bad that bone fragments were found in his brain. And horribly, one was missing her eyes in tongue. There was one other detail that confused those trying to piece together the events of that night. There were traces of radiation in some of their clothing. Soviet investigators were befuddled. The conclusion they came to was that the hikers had been killed by a, and I quote, compelling natural force. In other words, they had no idea what had happened on that night. They closed their case and then sealed the evidence. Naturally, this became fertile ground for conspiracy theories and there were many, many of those. There were tales of secret weapons testing and of attacks by the indigenous people of the mountains. Or perhaps this had to do with the secret meeting with CIA operatives that had gone wrong. There were of course theories about aliens with whispers that glowing orange orbs had been seen in the sky nearby. And of course, there were also Yeti attacks to consider. And there were theories that didn't seem so far fetched as well. For instance, that this was the result of an avalanche. But this was for a long time considered one of the weaker theories as the rescuers saw no obvious debris when they arrived on the scene weeks later. And so it was largely dismissed, but not forever. In 2021, a couple of Swiss researchers, Johann Gamm and Alexander Puzzren, decided that it was time to crunch the numbers. So they used the site's topography, as well as historical weather data and measurements of snow friction, and built a computer model which illustrated how a very rare type of avalanche, the slab avalanche could have been the culprit. The model showed a scenario where fast flowing air coming down the mountain pushed snow downward towards the tents. Such a localized event wouldn't have left very much in the way of debris. It was far from certain, but their work helped create the case for a small avalanche. The Russian government came to a similar conclusion when it had reopened the case of the hikers in 2019. The theory was that falling snow slabs drove the team out of the camp quickly and poor visibility made it impossible to find their way back, missing half of their clothing and shoes, and with no shelter, one by one, they succumbed to the bitter cold. But here's the thing. The avalanche theory doesn't explain everything. For instance, the traumatic injuries that some of the hikers sustained seemed severe for such a small, localized snow slide. More importantly, not a single hiker returned to camp after leaving warm clothing or shoes at the campsite. Was this, in fact, disorientation? Well, we can't know for sure. Nearly 70 years later, after the Dyatlov pass incident, named after the student Igor Dyatlov, who planned the trip, what we do know is that it endures as a mystery. Science has given us better theories, but without complete evidence, we may never understand, for sure, how these nine hikers ran off into the wilderness, never to return. The dead keep their secrets to this day. They would seem dead mountain. Does the same. 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Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/curiosities. That's betterheelp.com/curiosities. King Nijoya of Bamoon in Western Cameroon is often celebrated for his adaptability in the face of European colonialism. For decades, he managed to survive various colonial regimes by remaining pragmatic, taking advantage of different religious educational and economic practices from Europe to remain on top. But attempts to paint him as a perfect hero also do him a disservice by reducing his complexity. He was, after all, an authoritarian, interested in power for his own sake as much as for using it to maintain Bamoon's independence. Curiously, through all of this, the strongest tool in his arsenal wasn't a weapon or his treasury. It was a unique system of writing that he developed that soon spread throughout his kingdom. Nijoya was indebted to Muslim cavalry for helping to secure his throne when he was younger, and so he allowed the teaching of Islam through the use of Arabic. But in the late 1890s, he began to feel that widespread use of Arabic in Bamoon perhaps undermined his authority and allowed too much foreign influence. He claimed to have a dream, one in which a voice commanded him to draw a symbol on a slate, and then pour water over it and drink the water. This was likely inspired by a Muslim practice where words from the Quran are inscribed on a slate and then washed off with the belief that consuming the water will help the drinker to heal or grow stronger from the words. But King Nijoya took the dream as a calling. Not to ingest words from the Quran, but to make his own unique system of Bamoon writing that he could use to spread his own word. To kick off the project, he invited workers and officials of all kinds from throughout the country to contribute symbols to the Bamoon alphabet, which led to somewhere between 700 to 1,000 characters in the first version. They look awesome. It's a big grid filled with all kinds of creatures. of figures, but there were way too many to memorize, and so King Nijoya spent the next several years refining the list until he had his new script down to 80 distinct characters. And soon, hundreds of people were using his system of writing, which came to be known as "Aka Uku" after the sound of the first few letters of the alphabet. And then around 1906, Nijoya allowed German missionaries into Bamun. He was pragmatic as ever, learning from them how they taught and ran classrooms so that he could set up his own classrooms teaching "Aka Uku". This was important to him because if his people could write in their own language, then they could build their own lives away from the ears and understanding of colonizers. That being said, it also allowed him to conduct his own business in semi-private. In fact, as "Aka Uku" began to grow in popularity, Nijoya developed a secret code language "shu mom", which was only to be used by palace officials. Years later, once the Germans lost the First World War, Bamun fell into the hands of the British, who encouraged Nijoya to adopt Islam as the state religion because it would allow them to administer the colony in the same way they did their other largely Muslim African colonies. Pragmatic as ever, Nijoya complied forcing the many Bamun Christians that he had allowed to convert in the German years to convert to Islam. Now it must be said that he may have seen this change as being for their own good, but it was also for his own good. You see, Nijoya had over a thousand wives, which Islam was a lot more tolerant of, whereas the German Christian missionaries had never been too happy with his polygamy. But even Nijoya's craftiness had its limits. Bamun, which is a part of larger Cameroon, shortly thereafter fell into the hands of the French after they divided up the country with England. And they were much less accommodating than the Germans and the British had been. They fundamentally saw Nijoya's rule as a threat to their power, and so they split up his kingdom into a bunch of smaller fiefdoms, with the rulers of each reporting directly to them. As he led the people in protest, they used his own best weapon against him, language. They spread French throughout Bamun, so that it simply became safer, easier, and more profitable to do business in French than Akah Oku. On top of this, many Christians were ready to turn on him after he'd forced them to convert. Eventually, after inciting unrest, Nijoya was sent into exile, where he died two years later, in 1933. Over the years, the beloved script that he had worked so hard to cultivate fell out of use, becoming a near-extinct language. Many of the books that he wrote in that language were well preserved, and the modern ceremonial kings of Bamun have since made much of it available online. And as a result, today some locals are learning the script again, curious about this strange language that also helped preserve their unique culture. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosity's. This show is created by me, Aaron Manky, in partnership with I Heart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people who make it over at grimandmild.com/curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcovered book, available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon. This is all the same stories, but with healthy interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at patreon.com/grimandmild. 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