Disney’s Frozen eventually helped some researchers solve a 62-year-old cold case. Some new findings in Communications Earth and Environment show how these people used technology from the Pixar movie to solve the Dyatlov Pass incident. For those who didn’t know, a team of students and their instructor went on a mountaineering expedition in the Ural Mountains in 1959. What followed was pretty gruesome. Their tent was found after a snowstorm ripped open from the inside and bodies with traumatic injuries were scattered all over nearby areas. People wondered how this could have happened without witnesses, and soon conspiracy theories began to bubble up from all directions. However, everything changed when a contemporary researcher looked on Frozen For the first time.
A few years ago, Gaume noticed how well the movement of the snow was portrayed in the 2013 Disney film Frozen – so impressed that he decided to ask the animators how they did it. He eventually went to Hollywood to talk to them. 14 / x pic.twitter.com/Nj34ejn7vo
– Dr. Robin George Andrews 🌋 (@SquigglyVolcano) January 28, 2021
In 2013, at the height of Frozen fever, Johan Guame of the Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory marveled at how Disney was able to create such realistic snow. The technology to simulate that movement was unparalleled. So Guame sent the animators an email to inquire. From there, he traveled to Los Angeles to meet the specialist responsible for the on-screen movement. The researcher has obtained a version of the snow animation code for his avalanche simulations. Gaume intended to find out how avalanches would affect the human body.
In this catastrophe, the travelers’ bodies were found with extreme injuries, including blunt puncture wounds and cracked skulls. It turns out that when a wall of snow hits a precise angle, that ice can be like a projectile. With the data in hand, you could build a model to explain these gruesome injuries with a very normal avalanche. The displacement of the bodies may be due to some students trying to get their friends to safety instead of leaving camp alone. It’s a wild ride to think that a simple computer simulation could shed so much light on a 60-year-old case, but here it is.
“People don’t want it to be an avalanche,” says Gaume. “It’s too normal.”
Had you ever heard this story before? Do you think the explanation makes sense? Let us know in the comments