Author Steph Young: The American Dyatlov Pass Incident

I came across this little-known story, which bears remarkable similarities to the Dyatlov Pass incident – yet it happened in 1978 in a National Park in America!

Described by the Washington Post in 1978 as “The American Dyatlov Pass,” it concerns the curious, bizarre, tragic and ultimately still unsolved case of the death of four young men in the woods in the mountains of the Plumas National Forest.…who fled something…. in absolute terror for their lives..and paid the ultimate price… It’s the most curious and inexplicable case…

It had started out with five men – one was now missing and the other four were dead. One of the deceased men was found in a cabin. This cabin had enough food and fuel to heat it for several months - but this fuel was never used, and most of the food was uneaten, and the man found dead inside had lost 100 lbs. He had slowly starved to death. He was also found wrapped up like a shroud. Three of the other men were found at varying distances from the cabin, and in various conditions of death...

Why did they leave their car and run through waist to neck high snow into the darkness with absolutely no idea where they were running to? What were they running from that night? And, what was so utterly terrifying that one of them, having miraculously made it to an abandoned trailer, was too terrified to ever leave it, so terrified that he stayed there for between eight to thirteen weeks, slowly starving to death? Not even leaving the trailer to get the food rations in the store next to the trailer?

What were they fleeing from? What were they hiding from? It’s like something out of a horror movie in all honesty....