Missing expeditions: secrets and investigations. The missing expeditions of Djatlov and Franklin

Glory to them, who were not afraid to leave warm and cozy dwellings, hospitable tables and went to the unknown, risking their lives, with only one purpose - to learn the secret or to bring the others closer to its solution.

However, not all the campaigns ended successfully. Many expeditions were lost in an incomprehensible way. Some have not been found, the remains of others found do not shed light on the causes of their death, giving more puzzles than answering questions.

Many of the missing expeditions are still subject to investigation today, because the strange circumstances of their disappearance are haunted by inquisitive minds.

Following the missing Arctic expedition

One of the first in the sad list of the missing is the Franklin expedition. The study of the Arctic served as the primary reason for the expedition's equipping in 1845. It was to survey an unknown section of the Northwest Passage lying between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the temperate latitude zone, approximately 1670 km long and complete the discovery of unknown Arctic regions. The expedition was headed by an officer of the British fleet - 59-year-old John Franklin. By this time he was already a participant in three expeditions to the Arctic, two of which he headed. John Franklin, whose expedition was carefully prepared, already had the experience of a polar explorer. Together with the crew, he traveled from the English port of Greenhayt on the ships of Erebus and Terror (with a displacement of approximately 378 tons and 331 tons, respectively) on May 19.

The history of the missing Franklin expedition

Both ships were well equipped and adapted for navigation in ice, much was provided for the convenience and comfort of the crew. In the holds was loaded a large supply of provisions, designed for three years. Gallety, flour, salted pork and beef, canned meat, lemon juice reserves against scurvy - all this was measured in tons. But, as it was discovered later, the canned food that the inexperienced producer Steven Goldner cheaply supplied to the expedition proved to be of poor quality and, according to some researchers, served as one of the reasons for the death of many sailors from the Franklin expedition.

In the summer of 1845, relatives of the crew received a few letters. In a letter sent by Osmer, an economist from Erebus, it was said that they would wait for their return to their homeland in 1846. In 1845, captains of whalers Robert Martin and Dunnett told of a meeting with two expedition ships waiting for suitable conditions to cross the strait of Lancaster. The captains were the last Europeans to see John Franklin and his expedition alive. In subsequent 1846 and 1847, no further information was received from the expedition, 129 of its members were lost forever.

Search

The first search group on the trail of the missing ships was sent at the insistence of John Franklin's wife only in 1848. In addition to the Admiralty ships, in 1850, thirteen third-party ships joined the search for the famous seafarer: eleven of them belonged to Britain and two to America.

As a result of long, persistent searches, the detachments succeeded in discovering some traces of the expedition: three graves of dead sailors, cans with Goldman's brand. Later in 1854 John Rae, an English doctor and traveler, found traces of the expedition's stay in the territory of the present province of Canada Nunavut. According to the Eskimos, people who came to the mouth of the Buck River were dying of hunger, and among them there were cases of cannibalism.

In 1857, Franklin's widow, after futile attempts to persuade the government to send another search team, sends the expedition herself to find at least some traces of her missing husband. In total, 39 polar expeditions participated in the search for John Franklin and his team, some of them were funded by his wife. In 1859 members of the next expedition, led by officer William Hobson, find a written report about the death of John Franklin on June 11, 1847 in a pyramid made of stones.

The causes of the death of the Franklin expedition

For a long time, it remained unknown for 150 years that "Erebus" and "Terror" were icebound, and the team, forced to leave the ships, tried to reach the Canadian coast, but the arctic nature of the chances of survival did not leave anyone.

Today, the brave John Franklin and his expedition inspire artists, writers, writers to create works that tell about the life of the characters.

Riddles of the Siberian taiga

The secrets of the missing expeditions do not cease to bother the minds of our contemporaries. In today's progressive time, when a man stepped into space, looked into the depths of the sea, uncovered the mystery of the atomic nucleus, many mysterious events that occur to man on earth remain inexplicable. Such mysteries include some missing expeditions in the USSR, the most mysterious of which remains the tourist group Dyatlov.

The vast territory of our country with its mysterious Siberian taiga, the ancient Ural mountains, dividing the mainland into two parts of the world, stories of the numerous treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth, has always attracted inquisitive minds of researchers. Missing expeditions in the taiga are a tragic part of our history. No matter how the Soviet authorities tried to conceal and conceal the tragedy, information about the whole team that had disappeared, growing rumors and fabulous legends, reached people.

Unexplained circumstances of the death of Igor Dyatlov and his expedition

With the name of Mount Holat-Syahyl (which translates as "mountain of the dead"), located in the northern part of the Urals, there is one unsolved mystery related to the missing expeditions to the USSR. People living in these places Mansi knowingly gave the ridge such an ominous name: many times, people or groups of people (usually consisting of 9 people) disappeared or disappeared for no apparent reason. An inexplicable tragedy happened on this mountain at night from 1 to 2 February in 1959.

And this story began that on January 23, a detachment of nine Sverdlovsk tourists, led by Igor Dyatlov, went to the planned ski junction, the complexity of which belonged to the highest category, and the length was 330 kilometers. Again nine! What is this: a coincidence or fatal inevitability? After all, in the 22-day hike originally had to go 11 people, but one of them for good reason refused at the very beginning, and the other, Yuri Yudin, went on a campaign, but along the way he fell ill and was forced to return home. This saved his life.

The final composition of the group: five students, three graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, instructor of the camp site. Of the nine members - two girls. All the tourists of the expedition were skiers with experience and had experience of living in extreme conditions.

The purpose of the detachment of skiers was the ridge of Otorten, that from the Mansi language is translated cautionary "do not go there". On the ill-fated February night, the detachment set up a camp on one of the slopes of Holat-Sahyl; The top of the mountain was 300 meters from it, and the mountain Oorten - 10 km. In the evening, when the group was preparing for dinner and was engaged in the design of the newspaper "Evening Ottern", something inexplicable and terrible happened. What could frighten the guys so much and why they panicked from the tent they cut from inside is not clear until today. In the course of the investigation it was found that the tourists left the tent in a hurry, some did not even have time to wear shoes.

What happened to the Diatlov expedition?

At the appointed time, a group of skiers did not return and did not make itself felt. Native guys sounded the alarm. They began to apply to educational institutions, to the camp site and to the police, demanding that they start searching work.

On February 20, when all waiting times had expired, the leadership of the Polytechnic Institute sent the first detachment to search for the missing expedition of Djatlov. Soon after him, other units will follow, police and military structures will be involved. Only the twenty-fifth day of search brought some results: a tent was found, cut at the side, in it - intact things, and not far from the place of spending the night - corpses of five people, whose death was caused by hypothermia. All the tourists were in crouching from the cold poses, one of them had a craniocerebral injury. The two have traces of epistaxis. Why did those who ran out of the tent barefoot and half-dressed people could not or did not want to return to it? This question remains a mystery to this day.

After several months of searching, four more corpses of the expedition members were found on the snow-covered bank of the Lozva River. Each of them was found fractures of limbs and damage to internal organs, the skin had an orange and purple hue. The corpse of the girl was found in a strange pose - she was kneeling in the water and she did not have a tongue.

Subsequently, the whole group was buried in Sverdlovsk at the Mikhailovsky Cemetery in a mass grave, and the place of their death was marked by a memorial plaque with the names of the deceased and with a screaming inscription "There were nine of them." The mountain pass, which has become unconquered by the group, has since become known as the Djatlov Pass.

Unanswered Questions

What happened to the expedition of Dyatlov? Until now, there are only numerous versions and assumptions. Some researchers accuse the death of a detachment of UFOs and as proof they quote the eyewitnesses about the appearance of yellow fireballs that night at the Mountain of the Dead. The state weather station also recorded unknown "spherical objects" in the area of the death of a small detachment.

According to another version, the guys went to the ancient Aryan underground treasury, for which they were killed by its keepers.

There are versions according to which the missing expedition Dyatlova died in connection with the testing of various weapons (from atomic to vacuum), poisoning with alcohol, with a ball lightning, with the attack of a bear and a snowman, with the descent of an avalanche.

Official version

In May 1959, an official conclusion was issued about the death of the expedition of Dyatlov. In it was indicated its reason: some spontaneous force, which the guys could not overcome. The perpetrators of the tragedy were not found. By the decision of the first secretary Kirilenko the case was closed, strictly classified and transferred to the archive with the instruction not to destroy it until a special order was issued.

After 25 years of storage, all closed criminal cases were destroyed. However, the "Case of Dyatlov" after the expiration of the statute of limitations remained to lie on dusty shelves.

The lost schooner "Saint Anna"

In 1912, the schooner "Saint Anna" set sail around the Scandinavian peninsula and disappeared. Only in 2 years on foot the navigator V.Albanov and the sailor A.Kondar returned to the Great Earth. The latter became self-absorbed, dramatically changed the type of activity, and never once did anyone want to discuss what happened to the schooner. Albanov, on the contrary, said that in the winter of 1912 the "Saint Anna" was frozen in the ice and carried it to the Arctic Ocean. In January 1914, 14 people from the team received the permission of Captain Brusilov to go ashore and make their way to civilization by their own forces. On the way 12 died. Albanov developed a vigorous activity, trying to organize searches for the frozen schooner's ice. However, Brusilov's ship was never found.

Other missing expeditions

Many swallowed the Arctic: aeronauts led by the Swedish scientist Salomon André, the Kara expedition under V. Rusanov, the Scott team.

Other missing expeditions of the 20th century are connected with the tragic and mysterious circumstances of the death of the seekers of the Golden City of Paititi in the endless jungles of the Amazon. To solve this mystery, three scientific expeditions were organized: in 1925 - under the guidance of the British military and topographer Forset, in 1972 - the French-British team of Bob Nichols and in 1997 - the expedition of the Norwegian anthropologist Havkshall. All of them completely disappeared. Especially striking is the disappearance in 1997, when the technical equipment of the expedition was at the highest level. They could not be found! The locals say that everyone who seeks the Golden City will be destroyed by the Uchipayri tribe - the Indians, who guard the secrets of the city.

Missing expeditions ... There is something mysterious and ominous in these words. These expeditions were equipped and sent to solve some problem or explain to the world some riddle, but their very disappearance became for contemporaries and descendants an incomprehensible mystery.