99. Horror In The Mountains: The Khamar-Daban Incident

7 people hiked up a mountain in August of 1993, but only one made it down alive. What she saw up on the mountain had rendered her completely speechless and has mystified the world for over 3 decades. Show Notes: https://www.heartstartspounding.com/episodes/khamardaban Subscribe on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/heartstartspoundingfor bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to bonus content as well as other perks. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to bonus episodes and more when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@heartstartspounding?lang=enand Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heartstartspounding/ for a daily dose of horror.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Kaelyn Moore?

  It's August 9th, 1993. Alexander Kivitnitsky is on vacation with a group of friends kayaking down this Shenzaya River in Siberia, just a few hundred kilometers north of Mongolia. Thanks to a rainstorm a few days earlier, the swollen river offers the tourists a swift current and plenty of compelling rapids. But at the moment, Alexander and his friends are paddling down a relatively calm stretch, enjoying the day. Above the tree line, they can see the peaks of the Khamar Daban Mountain Range, standing at silent attention, snow-capped even during the summer season. The only noise comes from their paddles cutting through the clear water.

• 0:43Kaelyn Moore?

  That is, until they come around a bend in the river and hear screams. Alexander spots a young woman on the far bank, barely older than a teenager. She's frantically waving her arms to get their attention, screaming in desperation, so hard that the veins in her neck are bulging. They can't tell what she's saying right away, but clearly something is very wrong, and the group paddles hard to reach her. When the first kayak touches the shore, the young woman practically throws herself at Alexander's friend, collapsing into her chest. She's shaking and sobbing, barely able to speak. "Are you okay? Are you okay?" the group asks her.

• 1:28Kaelyn Moore?

  She finally manages to lift her head, tears staining her cheeks, and with a ragged breath she tells them, "My friends, I think they're dead. I think they're all dead." Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. And today, I have quite the mystery for you, my dear curious listener. I'm gonna walk you through the story and the theories about what happened to the girl's friends on the mountain. I'm still trying to make sense of it all as I sit here in our Rogue Detecting Society headquarters. I've been poring through this research, and I need your help to try and piece it all together.

• 2:10Kaelyn Moore?

  If you're new here, we are a community of darkly curious people and we publish new episodes at 7:00 PM Pacific on Wednesdays. That's 6:00 AM on Thursdays if you're listening deep in Siberia, in the town of Murano, where this mystery takes place. The new year is a great time to find new podcasts also. So if you have friends or family that you think would like to join our rogue detecting society, make sure and tell them about us. Over the holidays, my sister-in-law actually told me that everyone in her hair salon is listening to the show now. So tag a friend and make sure to tag Heart Starts Pounding on social media or in a review if you do. I love knowing who you've put onto the show. Now, let's get back to our mystery. And

• 2:55Kaelyn Moore?

  as always, listener discretion is advised.

• 3:02Kaelyn Moore?

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• 3:47Kaelyn Moore?

  and get $300 off your whole-body MRI, go to prenewvo.com/hsp and use code HSP. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com slash HSP. Terms and conditions apply.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  The Unsolved Mysteries podcast is back. I'm Jordan Murphy, and each week I'll take you inside a new investigation. It could be an unsolved murder, an unexplained disappearance, the search for a wanted fugitive, any mystery that still needs answers. We'll follow every new lead, every break in the case, and the moments when a mystery is finally solved. Because after all these years, one thing hasn't changed. Someone, somewhere, knows the truth. Listen to and follow Unsolved Mysteries. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 4:34Kaelyn Moore?

  Our story starts a week before the young woman ran into Alexander and his friends, on August 2nd, 1993. Then, a group of hikers milled outside a train station in Murino, Irkutsk Oblast. Murino is a tiny town in southern Siberia, and frankly, calling it a town is kind of generous. There's a church, there's a train station, and a few guest houses for tourists, and that's about it. It sounds a bit unremarkable, but the town is actually sandwiched between Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, and the Kamardabin mountain range. So, for three-ish months of the year, the temperature reaches the 60s Fahrenheit, that's just over 15 Celsius.

• 5:19Kaelyn Moore?

  The snow melts to reveal a lush, green oasis, and Murino becomes a hotspot for adventure tourists. But though it's a beautiful place in the summer, the area holds a bit of a dark secret. See, Lake Baikal is an interesting lake for a few reasons. It's cold, very cold, it's slightly alkaline, and the deeper you go, the less oxygen there is in the water. It's also nutrient-poor, so not a lot of organisms grow in the lake. This makes it a great place for swimmers. Under these conditions, it can be hard for decomposition to occur, meaning any bodies

• 6:04Kaelyn Moore?

  that are down there, nearly a mile below the surface, could be in near-perfect condition. Some people have imagined it like a silent ballroom down at the bottom of the lake, full of waxy dancers suspended in the waters. And this lake would have been the first thing our hikers saw as they arrived in the area. They were all from Petro Pavlosk in Kazakhstan, and they were members of the same hiking club. After months of training and the two-day train ride, they were practically buzzing with anticipation, once they saw the peaks of the mountain range just beyond them. Massive freshwater lake, but they couldn't get started until they got the go ahead from their fearless hiking club leader,

• 6:49Kaelyn Moore?

  forty one year old Ludmilla Corovina. Ludmilla was an interesting paradox of a woman. Almost every article I've read about her uses the same photo. Her face is framed by soft cropped blonde curls. Her eyebrows are expertly tweezed and the split sleeves on her dress are trimmed with black eyelash lace. She doesn't look like an expert survivalist, and I think that's why I find her so interesting. She really showed people, especially the young girls that went on expeditions with her, that you can wear bows in your hair and eyeliner and you can still summit mountains and camp in the tundra. She was like a blonde Bear Grylls.

• 7:32Kaelyn Moore?

  For this expedition, Ludmilla was not just leading a hobby club. She was an expert and a professional at that, and she was going to hold these hikers to her standards. She had somewhat of a reputation for pushing her students really hard, preparing them for any and every scenario in the wild. There's that old saying that goes, if you fail to prepare, then you prepare to fail. And that is Ludmilla to a T. She had hiked in this mountain range several times, so she knew what to expect for this trip and prepared her students accordingly,

• 8:09Kaelyn Moore?

  issuing packing lists that included winter coats in case the temperatures dropped and a twenty four hundred calorie per day meal plan. Some of the hikers felt like the four meals a day and snacks that she demanded they eat was kind of a lot, but Ludmilla insisted that they be well fed. And maybe it was because she was such a seasoned hiker that she decided for this hike, she wasn't going to stick with the bigger group. No, she was going to take a smaller group of students that wanted a bit more adventure and trek higher into the mountains. So that day, the hiking club was split into three different groups with Ludmilla's sixteen year old daughter Natalia. leading one of them.

• 8:54Kaelyn Moore?

  Each group was going to follow a route with varying degrees of difficulty. And in three days, they would meet up again when their paths overlapped. And then they would hike together to Slud Yanka, where they'd all catch the train back to Kazakhstan. All told, they should cover roughly 130 miles or 209 kilometers over five days. Ludmilla's group consisted of six hikers, all of them longtime members of the hiking club and personally trained by her. At 24, Tatiana Filipenko was the oldest of the group outside of Ludmilla. She had gone several trips with the club, though this would be the most difficult hike she had attempted.

• 9:37Kaelyn Moore?

  15-year-old Timur Bapinov was the baby. It was honestly rare someone so young would be on this difficult of a hike. But both of his parents were outdoorsy people, so he had been trekking through the mountains basically his entire life. 23-year-old Alexander Krizen, went by his nickname Sasha. He started studying with Ludmilla when he was just 12, and they had a very close relationship. He was like a son to her. He'd spent the last few years at University of Moscow, but he came home specifically for this hike with Ludmilla. 17-year-old Valentina Udrachenko joined the hiking club because she had been studying to be a tourism instructor.

• 10:20Kaelyn Moore?

  She'd hiked a few times already with Ludmilla. And then there was 19-year-old Denis Shvachkin, who was filling in for another student who backed out at the last minute. Him joining was actually so last minute, he only had time to leave a note for his parents, who were on vacation. And the note read, "Went to the mountains, be back soon." And then there was 16-year-old Victoria Zalasova. Victoria had struggled on her last hike with the club and openly complained about how exhausted she was, which very much annoyed Ludmilla. Knowing how challenging Kamrad Albin was going to be, Ludmilla actually told Victoria to sit it out. But the girl begged to come on the hike,

• 11:05Kaelyn Moore?

  promising to change her attitude. And eventually, Lidmilla agreed. This was the group that set out from Murino on the morning of August 2. In the few black and white pictures that exist of them, they look so young, but so excited, like a high school class about to go on a senior trip. The day they set off, the sky was clear, the sun was shining, and they were making great time. Everything was going so well. They even stopped for a few hours to forage for edible plants. Lidmilla's group was on the most challenging route of the three groups of hikers from the club. But that first day, they were handling it with relative ease.

• 11:48Kaelyn Moore?

  The hike they were on had a moderate difficulty rating. They'd be crossing over two different summits at over 7,500 feet elevation. But it's considered to be extremely safe, especially in the summer, which is when they were hiking. On the afternoon of the second day, Lidmilla checked her watch and compared it to her time stamped map. They had hiked a long way so far, almost to the halfway point. She was really, really proud of her students. They had proven themselves over the last day and a half. And even now, as they climbed to higher elevation, everyone was keeping pace. And so she had an idea, a fun little game to push everyone just a bit harder.

• 12:33Kaelyn Moore?

  She called out to the group and asked, who would be the first to reach the summit? Sasha, Timur? And then Lidmilla kicked up her own speed, which really challenged the other students. Were they all gonna let their teacher show them up? So a race broke out at 7,500 feet, which is 2,300 meters. Everyone was scrambling to the top. 15-year-old Timur started running, but then he was overtaken by 16-year-old Victoria. She wanted to prove that she was up for the challenge after having difficulty completing the last hike she did with Lidmilla. Eventually, the whole group reached the retranslator peak, and they were out of breath. From the altitude and partially from laughing.

• 13:16Kaelyn Moore?

  And it was there that they took a big look out at the mountain range behind them. Seventeen year old Valentina was amazed at the sight. Where she stood, she could see the other peaks on the mountain cascading down to Lake Baikal far below them. They were up really high, like really, really high. They had climbed almost two miles or 3.2 kilometers into the sky in just under two days. Valentina was really proud of her group for what they had accomplished, but a small alarm bell went off in her head. That much altitude in that short amount of time can be really hard on your body.

• 14:02Kaelyn Moore?

  But she wasn't really able to worry about that just then because Lidmila called for all the pupils to come stand together on a platform marker for a picture. "One, two, three," she called out, and they all let out a cheer as the shutter snapped, throwing their fists in the air victorious. They were conquerors in that moment, invincible. After a few more photos and a well-deserved rest, they started their descent from the peak. It was time to go back down and meet up with the other hikers eventually. But the weather had other ideas. As Lidmila looked out at the trail before them, she felt the wind start picking up.

• 14:45Kaelyn Moore?

  She saw gray clouds being carried towards them from a distance. The temperature also started dropping little by little. And then it started pouring rain. The buoyant energy of the last two days evaporated as the group trudged on, soaked down to the bone. Even with plastic sheeting tied around their packs, the rain was relentless. Everything was getting waterlogged, which only added more weight to their backs and slowed their pace down. It was making the hike a lot more arduous and it rendered Lidmila's time-stamped map completely irrelevant. It was designed to follow at their regular pace.

• 15:29Kaelyn Moore?

  She watched as the sun crept lower and lower towards the horizon until dusk settled in, and then she turned to the group and told them that they should stop here and make a campsite. Here, Valentina looked around at where they were on an open, grassy plateau. It was a terrible place to camp in the middle of a storm. There was nothing to shield them from the relentless rain or wind. Maybe they should keep going just a little bit further until they found some tree cover. That way, they would at least be able to make a fire and dry off. But Lidmilla decided that they would be camping here, on the plateau.

• 16:14Kaelyn Moore?

  They got their tent set up, which at least provided some cover, but everyone was soaked by that point. The wind was also picking up and snapped the tent lines twice. It was also impossible to start a fire. Now, I want to quickly touch on something here. Lidmilla later faced strong criticism for deciding to camp on the plateau instead of continuing to descend until the group reached a tree line. Any experienced hiker should know that as soon as you reach the forest, you can make a fire and warm up. Instead, Lidmilla chose a long, cold, miserable night for her group. But Lidmilla was an experienced hiker.

• 16:58Kaelyn Moore?

  She was a master, the most experienced of the group, so I have to believe that she knew the risks she was taking by camping on the plateau, and I wonder if there was some other factor that forced her hand? The next morning, Lidmilla woke up groggy from a horrible night's sleep. The rain had finally stopped, thank God, but her relief was short-lived. When she stepped out of the tent, she saw probably the worst thing she could have imagined in that moment. A fresh layer of snow covered the plateau in front of her. She gasped, and when she exhaled, it barely formed a fog in the air,

• 17:41Kaelyn Moore?

  as if her breath wasn't warm enough. She quickly roused her students, telling them that they had to pack up now. They needed to get moving. They had to warm up. Remember, they were in wet clothes all night while it was snowing. While they broke down their tents, Ludmilla finally managed to get a fire going. It didn't really do much to dry their gear, but at least everyone was able to eat a hot breakfast. It was a start. Once they were all fed and packed, they had to set out. Ludmilla carefully led the group down the slope, struggling to keep the wind from pushing her down the wet rocks.

• 18:20Kaelyn Moore?

  But they had barely made it 30 yards before she heard a loud crash behind her. Sasha had stumbled and fallen. Ludmilla rushed back to help him and told Valentina to take the lead. She pulled Sasha back up to his feet, but had to support his weight in order to keep him upright. She had to keep him moving, though, even if it meant half carrying him down the mountain. But then Sasha screamed, and he collapsed hard onto the ground. Before Ludmilla could move to pick him up again, Sasha's body started convulsing, as if he was having a seizure.

• 19:04Kaelyn Moore?

  And then he started foaming at the mouth. To the group's horror, blood started pouring from his eyes and his mouth. And before anyone could decide what to do, how to help, Sasha went still. He was dead. He was dead.

• 19:28Kaelyn Moore?

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• 20:13Kaelyn Moore?

  but our listeners can now get an additional 20% off plus free shipping with code HSP at J I Y U skin.com. That's J I Y U skin.com and use code HSP for an additional 20% off. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. This episode is brought to you by Toyota. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal from your local Toyota dealer. Make a smart buy on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or get a Corolla Sedan, packed with the latest features, advanced tech, and head-turning style. Take a test drive in two of Toyota's most popular SUVs, the spacious, family-friendly Grand Highlander and adventure-ready RAV4.

• 20:57Kaelyn Moore?

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• 21:32Kaelyn Moore?

  Ludmilla sat down on the rocks next to Sasha's body, awash with horror and grief. Sasha was one of her favorite students. She had known him since he was 12 years old. Looking into his vacant eyes, she already knew the truth of what had happened, but she still pressed her finger to his skin to just check for a pulse. There wasn't one. She tried to keep her composure, but the rest of the group was in shock. They couldn't speak. They all had tears in their eyes. None of them had ever seen anything like this before. Sasha was fine two minutes ago. Ludmilla didn't know exactly

• 22:16Kaelyn Moore?

  what could have caused his rapid death, but deep down, she knew that they had to get off this mountain now. But she couldn't leave Sasha's body behind. She was still responsible for him. So she told the rest of the group that they should continue to safety and then send help back for her. The other five stood there for a moment, still too stunned to move. But Ludmilla wouldn't have been a master if she couldn't train her students to follow direction under pressure. So they started with their descent again, this time with Valentina in the lead, leaving Ludmilla with Sasha's body. But as they started walking,

• 23:00Kaelyn Moore?

  just a few moments later, they heard another scream, this time from Ludmilla. They immediately turned back, scrambling up the wet rocks to help their teacher. Tatiana reached her first. Ludmilla was lying still on the ground next to Sasha with foam around her mouth. In the moments since they left her, she had also died from what appeared to be the same symptoms. Tatiana put her hand to her teacher's face and the rest of the group ran to her side. Everyone except for Valentina.

• 23:40Kaelyn Moore?

  Valentina got close enough to her teacher to see what happened, but then she took a few steps back. Something about this scene was not right. Something was definitely not right. And that's when she heard Tatiana start gasping for air. She turned and saw that Tatiana was clutching her throat like she couldn't breathe. She sputtered and choked, clawing at her neck, raking deep red lines across her skin. Timor and Victoria leapt to their feet, but not to help her. No, they started scrambling to get away from the girl because they knew that this was some sort of sick pattern that was happening.

• 24:23Kaelyn Moore?

  Ludmilla had touched Sasha and then fallen sick, and then Tatiana touched Ludmilla. Whatever was happening, it seemed to be spreading through the group, jumping from body to body like a parasite. Fearing exposure, Timor and Victoria ran. Valentina and Dennis took refuge behind some large rocks, trying to hide, but Tatiana stumbled towards them, still choking, still desperate to breathe. She fell to her knees and crawled the rest of the way to a large rock, and then, seeking any form of relief, she actually bashed her head against it,

• 25:03Kaelyn Moore?

  over and over, beating her own skull in front of Dennis and Valentina. And right on cue, whatever this thing was hit Timor and Victoria next. They started coughing and spitting up blood. They were choking. They also clawed at their throats and then their arms and then torsos, tearing at their own clothing. Dennis ended up shoving Valentina out from behind the rock. They had to get out of there, but she was frozen in horror. He kicked her, forcing her to move. "Go," he told her. "Crawl down the slope. I'm right behind you." And just like that, Valentina's fight-or-flight switch engaged,

• 25:47Kaelyn Moore?

  and she descended in blind panic. Fusing to look back, she ran and ran and ran until the snowy tundra melted into a more humid forest. And even then, she kept running until she felt the warm summer sun peeking through the canopy. She turned to Dennis to tell him that they had made it, but she realized that Dennis wasn't behind her. It wasn't clear at what point he had stopped running with her, but he definitely did not make it down the mountain. Terrified and almost in hysterics, Valentina pulled her wet sleeping bag out of her pack

• 26:29Kaelyn Moore?

  and wrapped it around herself in a pitiful attempt to stop shaking. She laid down on her tent canvas in the cover of the trees and then everything went black. She wasn't sure if she fell asleep or if she slipped into a coma. But when Valentina woke up, it was almost 24 hours later, August 6th. It felt like she was waking from a horrible nightmare. And reality sunk in when she looked around and realized that her friends were nowhere to be found. It was just her alone in the forest. All she had was the pack on her back, no food, no map, no compass.

• 27:13Kaelyn Moore?

  She had no idea how long it would take her to get out of the forest. So she knew that she had to get supplies, which meant she had to go back, back to where the bodies were. So she climbed back up and she saw the grisly scene just as she witnessed it in real time. Except now Dennis was there too. It looked like he only made it a few yards before the symptoms had started. For some reason, beyond anything she could comprehend, Valentina had been spared. Once she gathered the supplies she needed, she started back down the mountain to try and find help. She was totally disoriented and definitely in shock,

• 27:58Kaelyn Moore?

  but one clear, logical thought seemed to permeate through the fog in her mind. "I survived," she told herself. "Just keep surviving." Initially, she used some power lines to guide her, hoping that they would lead her to a town, or at least to other people. She wasn't really sure how she made it to the river, where she saw Alexander. It was like some unseen force had been guiding her. But while she was sitting there, she saw a group of tourists kayaking down the river, and she screamed to get their attention, flagging them down. She was saved. The kayakers carried Valentina to Sludjanka,

• 28:41Kaelyn Moore?

  where she gave a statement to authorities. Like I said, she was still clearly in shock, so there were a few differences between this initial statement she gave and ones that she made later on, at least differences that I noticed while doing the research. But the main points of what happened remained. Her group started bleeding from the eyes, foaming from the mouth, and one by one, her friends had suffered horrible and violent deaths. But after the bodies were recovered, the coroner's autopsy findings were much more banal. They didn't really match what Valentina had witnessed.

• 29:22Kaelyn Moore?

  He reported that the hikers died of general hypothermia, except for Ludmilla, who had suffered a heart attack. All six showed signs of bruised lungs and malnutrition, contributing factors to their deaths. Basically, he ruled that this had been a tragic accident that might have been avoided if the group had been better provisioned. But when other people heard the official cause of death, particularly the hiker's death... Friends and families. This explanation just did not sit right with them. They were so confused. How could someone die from hypothermia in August? This wasn't the tundra. The average low in those mountains during the summer months

• 30:08Kaelyn Moore?

  was forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. That's not really that close to freezing. There was a photograph from the plateau campsite. The grass was green and lush. One of the rescuers on the retrieval team claimed that the hikers hadn't had jackets on, and he blamed Lyd Milla for pushing extreme measures on her students. But again, we have pictures to show the contrary, multiple pictures showing them in jackets. Malnutrition also directly contradicts Valentina's account that the group ate four times a day, plus snacks during rest breaks. Hot meals were a must on this trip. She said, quote,

• 30:49Kaelyn Moore?

  "We had cereal, dry milk, crackers, stewed meat, carrots, beets, onions, candies, chocolates." I think the calculation was based on a twenty-four hundred calorie per person per day. Bruised lungs also struck people as a little weird. This is usually caused by some kind of blunt force trauma injury, like a car airbag going off and slamming into your chest. But there's nothing in Valentina's statement to suggest that happened to any of the hikers, let alone all six of them. I will add here, though, we might be dealing with a translation issue. The autopsy reports were done in Russian.

• 31:31Kaelyn Moore?

  A separate autopsy forensics report lists pulmonary edema instead of bruised lungs, and honestly, that makes a lot more sense. Pulmonary edema means that there's too much fluid in your lungs. Literally, it used to be called lung water. It can be brought on by high altitudes, especially if you ascend too quickly. And there's a few symptoms of pulmonary edema that will sound familiar. Coughing up white froth, gasping.

• 32:02Kaelyn Moore?

  A feeling of drowning. Out of all the coroner's determinations, this is the only one that even comes close to explaining the hikers' bizarre and horrific symptoms before they died. However, we looked into this, and we found a paper written on high-altitude pulmonary edema, or HAP, written in 2023, that clarified you're typically not at risk for pulmonary edema until you reach 8,000 feet. And even at the top of the summit, the hikers were short of that, though this can occur at as low as 6,500 feet. The first symptoms are a nonproductive cough and chest pain,

• 32:46Kaelyn Moore?

  which it didn't really seem like any of the hikers experienced. They had ascended quickly, but not that quickly. They had given their bodies a little bit of time to acclimate. So even if the symptoms matched, it did seem unlikely that it was caused by the altitude. So if it's that easy to poke holes in the official version, what did happen? As I'm sure you've guessed, there are all kinds of wild internet theories about this mystery. Here are three that I want you to consider. So I mentioned earlier that the group was making such good time during the first few days of the hike. They stopped to forage,

• 33:31Kaelyn Moore?

  and as a master survivalist, Ludmilla made sure that her students knew how to recognize edible plants, basic preparedness. Well, one theory that I've seen crop up suggests that while foraging that day, the hikers inadvertently picked the wrong kind of mushroom. They cooked them for breakfast that morning, and then, one by one, they suffered an extreme reaction to a very bad trip. The chemical in mushrooms that causes hallucinations is technically a toxin, but you have to ingest a lot of it before it becomes fatal. But theoretically, the hikers could have eaten enough to bring on overdose symptoms, like seizures, psychosis, heart attacks. And some people have reported

• 34:16Kaelyn Moore?

  hallucinating people crying blood while under the influence of mushrooms. This could also potentially explain why Valentina survived. Maybe she just didn't eat as many as the rest of the group. But that doesn't really sit right with me. Lyd Milla knew what was safe to eat. And even if she didn't recognize the mushrooms, would she really take a chance on something unfamiliar unless it was a last resort? They still had plenty of food. It also seems like somewhat of a stretch that everyone in the group suffered from the most extreme worst-case-scenario trip reaction, all within a few moments of each other. Another theory plays on Cold War paranoia.

• 35:00Kaelyn Moore?

  The Kamarabyn Range is vast, over 260 miles, and it's in a relatively low population of southern Siberia. Remember, Moreno, the tourist hotspot, barely has five buildings on the map. What if the Russian military used this isolation to their advantage? Running covert operations or experiments in the mountains? Lyd Milla's group was hiking a different route than most tourists. Maybe they surprised military patrol, seeing something that they weren't supposed to? Could that explain why the autopsy report didn't seem to match the symptoms? Was this part of a larger cover-up?

• 35:45Kaelyn Moore?

  But if that's the case, how did Valentina get away? Why wasn't she dealt with after she reemerged in Slidyanka? Or at any other point in the following 30 years? If we're playing the paranoia card, we gotta deal the hand all the way out. Finally, there's a theory that a lot of people cling to, and I will say it's maybe the most believable. It's the nerve gas theory, which also carries shade of the sinister Red Scare. We know that the Soviet Union produced and used nerve agents, and the hiker's symptoms bear some resemblance to nerve gas poisoning. Seizures, heart attack, foaming at the mouth, bruised lungs.

• 36:30Kaelyn Moore?

  One internet sleuth on YouTube, who goes by Kadaber, determined that one of the deadliest, most powerful nerve agents in the Soviet arsenal was tested in Komarabinsk surrounding area. But how were the hikers exposed? Well, Kadabber explained that these kinds of poisons can dissolve in water and remain suspended for several months. If there were nerve agent tests in the area, perhaps they contaminated a local water source and then remained there dormant. Then during the hike, there was that huge rainstorm. Streams overflow, plains are flooded.

• 37:14Kaelyn Moore?

  The contaminated water moves into the mountain pass. After the rain stops, the water starts to evaporate. But the nerve agent gas remains clustering low to the ground. Somehow Sasha is exposed. It gets on his skin and his clothes. Maybe this explains how the symptoms seemed to jump from person to person. Physical contact may be spread the poison amongst them. But this theory doesn't really offer an explanation on how Valentina avoided exposure. In fact, at one point, Victoria bit Valentina on the hand. So the chain of physical contact was met aggressively.

• 37:57Kaelyn Moore?

  And there's one last thing that I do want to mention about this. Pulmonary edema would explain many of the symptoms Valentina described. But again, it seems so unlikely that six experienced hikers would suffer from extreme altitude sickness at just 7,500 feet. But what if the edema wasn't caused by elevation? Six months before the Komarabinsk incident, a doctor in San Antonio, Texas, described a condition called hypothermic lung edema. In extremely basic terms, he theorized that patients suffering from even a mild case of hypothermia

• 38:41Kaelyn Moore?

  could develop pulmonary edema if their core body temperature wasn't increased in the right way. The science behind This is pretty complicated. It uses terms like capillary permeability and respiratory acidosis and oxygen solubility. So I'm not really going to try to explain it. The watered down version really isn't all that important anyways. All I wanted to point out is that it offers a different cause for pulmonary edema. It also might explain how someone could die from hypothermia in the middle of summer. They didn't freeze to death, but maybe they were cold enough that when their body started to warm up that morning, it

• 39:22Kaelyn Moore?

  triggered the edema and that proved fatal. It's not a perfect explanation. It doesn't address why Valentina survived, but it does feel like a sort of middle ground between bruised lungs and nerve gas. Today, the case of the hikers is officially closed. The official report says it was hypothermia and one heart attack. Somehow, in their report, Ludmilla suffered a heart attack at the same exact moment that six of her students died of hypothermia. When asked in 2018, Valentina actually agreed with this explanation, though. She felt like those symptoms fit what happened. She did mention that during the trip, she

• 40:07Kaelyn Moore?

  actually was chewing on golden root more than the others in the group. And one of the alleged benefits is reducing symptoms of altitude sickness, which could explain why she was the only survivor. To me, there are two possible explanations, and both are honestly terrifying. One explanation is that a seasoned professional hiker, one whom all of her students trusted with their lives, made a bad judgment call, which cost almost the entire group their lives. The other is that there was some factor in the area beyond everyone's control, just lurking on the mountain. And honestly, I don't know which

• 40:52Kaelyn Moore?

  one is scarier. But what seems more realistic to you? Well, if you're a part of the High Council, you can join me on Footnotes on Patreon, where I'll be going over my research file on this case and sharing more of my opinions and theories as to what happened. But for now, that's all I have for you today. And until next time, stay curious.

• 41:17Kaelyn Moore?

  Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research and writing by Abigail Cannon. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstarts pounding dot com. Do you want more Darkly Curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content, our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven day trial.

• 42:00Kaelyn Moore?

  Link in the bio or go to patreon dot com backslash heartstarts pounding. But whatever you do, stay curious.