December 1, 2025 • 27 mins
A hundred Soviet soldiers climbed Finland's sacred "Death Mountain" in 1939. Two days later, every single one was lifeless. Bodies torn apart, limbs scattered across blood-soaked snow. The mystery? Not one footprint from an attacker. No enemy casualties. No explanation. Finnish scouts found spent shell casings everywhere, proving the soldiers fought desperately against something. But fought what? Sami elders had warned them: the mountain's spirits don't forgive trespassers. The Soviets dismissed it as superstition. They were wrong. What force can eliminate an entire armed company without leaving a single track in fresh snow?
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(00:32):
100 Sovietsoldiers climbed a sacred mountain.
Two days later, they were all dead.
Torn apart by something that leftnot one footprint in the snow.
The locals warned them not to go.
They called it Death Mountain.
The soldiers should have listened.
I'm Carol Ann.
Welcome to The InBetween.
(00:58):
Confession time.
Again.
I am somewhatglobally culturally challenged.
Before today,this is about the only thing I knew
about Finland.
Wait.
That's Iceland. See what I mean?
(01:18):
But after hearing about thishorrific incident
that we're going to talk about todaythat occurred during World War II,
I kind of see Finlandin a whole new light.
But let's step back for just a minuteso you can see exactly how we got to
where we arewhen this chilling event takes place.
Okay. Big picture.
Before, like 500 A.D.,Finland is home mostly to the Sami.
(01:44):
But as the soon
to be Finns move in from the east,they push the Samis to the north.
But the Sami influenceon the eastern side of present
day Finland is already entrenched.
The Finns who decide to stay inthe eastern region, take on a little bit
of that Sami color into their cultureand become their little own Finn flavor
(02:04):
known as the Karelians,and forma territory known to this day as Karelia.
Control of the Karelian region,which is between
the eastern border of Finlandand roughly the White Sea, has flip
flopped back and forthbetween its Scandinavian neighbors
to the west and its Russian neighborsto the east several times.
(02:24):
So by the time we get to 1939and into World War II,
the area is again in Russian territory.
Now, at this time, Finland'sborder was just about 20 miles away
from the Russian city of Leningrad,known today as Saint Petersburg.
That makes Stalin a little twitchy.
He wanted a little more spacefor a buffer zone.
(02:47):
But Finland pretty much says, screw you.
So on November 26th, 1939,
Stalin bombs a little Russian city
called Mainila in Finnishor Mainila in Russian.
Anyway, pointbeing Stalin committed a false flag
attack on his own peopleas an excuse to say, They started it. See?
(03:11):
Finland is the aggressorand we must attack them.
And four days later, on November30th, that's what they did.
And that is the start ofwhat is now known as the Winter War.
Stalin starts moving 450,000 troops,
thousands of tanks and a bunch of planeswestward to face Finland,
(03:32):
whose entire population is only like3.7 million.
So they pull togetherabout 300,000-350,000
troops, including all of their reservists.
So Stalin totally thinks he's
just going to plow straightthrough and claim victory in no time.
Stalin is wrong.
The outnumbered Finns approachthe battle a lot
(03:55):
like the Americans fought the Britishin the Revolutionary War.
They didn't line up in the battlefieldto walk straight into the slaughter.
They employed guerrilla tacticsthat totally threw the British for a loop.
And so did the Finns.
They're all decked out in white camorunning around the forest that they know
like the back of their hands on skis,which are way more white than tanks, by
(04:18):
the way, and are better equipped to handlethe -40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures.
And Celsius, that's -40.
Long story short,
the Russians only equipped themselvesfor a cakewalk, not a slog.
So now they're light on supplies,demoralized and severely frostbitten.
(04:39):
They need a break.
They need to get a better vantage pointso they could see the whole area better.
They need Mount Vottovaara,Victory Mountain.
Mount Vottovaara is not a huge mountain.
It's only 1,369ft at its highest.
But considering the complete flatnessof the rest of the area,
(05:00):
it providesa commanding view of everything around it.
It doesn't have a real peaklike other mountains do.
It's more like just a sloping plateau.
Perfect. Or so they thought.
MountVottovaara is not your typical mountain.
The Sami people, who'd been in the areabefore they moved north,
regarded the mountain as a sacred site- a portal
(05:22):
where the boundary between worldsgrew thin and spirits dwelled.
Their animist believes, heldthat every element of nature,
from rocks and trees to animals and water,possessed a divine life force
deserving of reverence, and ritualsinvolving prayers and sacrifices
were performed at the mountainto honor these entities
(05:46):
and securegood fortune in hunts and migrations.
And I can't say that I blame them.
This is just one odd place.
It looks like a place that needsa little appeasing occasionally.
First of all, there are hundredsof these rock formations called seidit.
These are huge boulders, up to ten tons,
(06:08):
precariously balanced on top of smallerrocks.
The conventional geologist wisdomis that they came from receding glaciers
that just happened to deposit the rocksthis way.
Really?
Maybe I need to visit thereto rub some of that luck on me,
because there are hundredsof these formations on the mountain.
(06:30):
That's astronomically lucky.
And the trees are completely messed up.
Pine trees, some over 100 yearsold, are only six feet high,
with trunks twisted insideas if shaped by invisible forces.
Not to mentionthe fact that the nearby lakes and ponds
(06:51):
have no fish, plants or anything elseremotely alive.
Wildlife,including insects and larger animals,
avoid the area entirely.
And the persistent, creepy mist all around
is the frosting on the mountain cake.
When Soviet officers talk to the locals
(07:12):
about the mountain, the locals said, Don'teven think about it, cowboy.
don't even think about it.
It's an evil place.
And the spirits living in the seiditdo not look kindly on outsiders
who fail to show the proper respect.
The Soviet officersdismissed these warnings
as archaic superstitions,unfit for a modern army.
(07:35):
And a company of 100 men from the SovietEighth Army are ordered
to climb the mountain and establishan observation post on the summit.
Now, the Finns have been paying attentionand know that
the Soviets are going up the mountain,so they send a small crew to hideout
not too far from the base of the mountain,just to keep an eye on what's going on.
(07:55):
The Soviet soldiers make their way upthrough knee deep snow, under
biting winds, and arriveat the plateau after nightfall,
where they quickly secure perimeter, pitchtheir tents in the central cluster
and begin digging observationslits oriented
toward the finish lines,several miles to the west.
(08:15):
They radio headquarters to let them knowthat their position is secure,
although the thick mistis blocking their view
and forcing them to keep firessmall to evade detection.
Sentries patrol the edges,watching the treeline for any signs
of enemy movement, and everyone settlesinto the cold, quiet night.
(08:38):
But it doesn't stay quiet for long.
Reports from after the fact by thosebrave enough to speak out, or sane enough
to remember, talk about the night airturning thick and oppressive,
making it physically hard to breathe,and a strange hum,
that no one can tell where it's comingfrom, fills their ears.
(09:00):
Then they see it.
Finnish troopsstationed in the valley below
hear bursts of gunfire,the thump of grenade
explosions, the barking of sometimesconflicting orders,
and the screams of panicechoing from the peak.
But it doesn't sound like a fight towardany particular side.
It sounds more likethe chaos is within the camp itself,
(09:23):
rather than an assaulton an outward enemy.
From what they can understand, fromthe short bursts of panic, are hurried
shouts about shadows darting aroundjust at the edge of the light.
Too fast to be human.
They hear the soldiers fire
erratically into the darkness, their shotsspraying in all directions,
as if targeting somethingin the mist itself, but they can't see.
(09:48):
As the hourswear on, the gunfire tapers off
and the radio falls silent,leaving an eerie silence.
According to witnesses, at dawnthe Russians
take stock of whatactually happened in the camp.
As if by some miracle,after all the shooting
(10:08):
and chaos,only one soldier is unaccounted for.
His footprintstrailing into the snow, only
to end abruptly without explanation.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully,but all 99
remaining men are at Defcon1, as the feeling of being watched
by something malevolent, and whispering,coming from nowhere
(10:31):
and everywhere, intensifiesthroughout the day.
As the sun starts to go down.
On the second night,the same hum they heard the night before
returns and the air once again thickens,until it's
physically hardfor the soldiers to breathe.
And once again the shadows just beyond
(10:51):
their vision move with deliberate purpose,too quick to track,
but too intentional to dismissas tricks of the light.
Gunfire erupts again,more sustained and desperate,
with grenades exploding in rapidsuccession and conflicting orders shouted
amid the frenzy, some orderingthe soldiers to stand and fight, others
(11:15):
a desperate pleafor those who can to save themselves.
At first light,a small team of Finnish scouts
advances up the slopeunder the cover of white camouflage,
but everything is quiet- no sentries to avoid,
no usual morning camp noisesand no voices carrying on the wind.
(11:39):
So they keep climbing.
Once they reach the plateau,they see nothing but a
landscape of sheer devastation
where every Soviet soldier lay dead,
their bodies strewn across the ground.
Some dead as they fought.
Some dead as they ran.
(11:59):
The scene defies logic.
The only sure conclusionis the viciousness of the fight.
Some bodies have deep gashesfrom what appeared to be
claws and puncture wounds from fangs.
Some bodies are literally torn limbfrom limb,
while the snow is more red than white.
But then there are some bodies in the snow
(12:20):
with no signs of any trauma,
just a frozen death mask of horror.
Hundreds of spent shell casingscarpet the area, leaving
no doubt that some of the soldiersfought hard against their attacker.
However, a number of the menshowed signs of self-inflicted wounds
with bullets to the head or chest.
(12:44):
Tents lay in shreds, equipmentthrown around
by an obviously strong force,but no traces of an attacking party.
No boot prints from Finnish troops,no casings from enemy weapons,
and no indication of a large forceapproaching
or withdrawing through the pristine snow.
(13:04):
Experienced hunters and trackersamong the scouts scour the site for
any clues as to what could have done this,but they found nothing.
No tracks or fur from wolves or bears.
The Karelian region does have lynx,wolverines and boar,
any one of which could kill a lone personbut not an entire company.
(13:28):
And even an entire pack of starving wolveswould have sustained
some kind of casualtiestrying to take on that many men.
And the fear, frozen on the facesnow staring blankly to the sky,
suggests something more than an animal.
Trackers tracethe soldiers tracks in the snow.
(13:50):
By the looks of it,a few of them tried running away,
but the boot prints would just stopwith no signs of them reversing course.
They just...like they just vanished.
The air retains a sharp,metallic ozone scent,
reminiscent of an impending stormand a slight
hum still hangs in the air.
(14:11):
One scout of Sami descent later describes
a profound sensation of being watched
by the seidit stones themselves,
and the Finns decide it's time to go.
Their discovery is relayed backto finish headquarters,
but headquarters has their hands fullwith everything else going
on, so they seemingly just let the matterdrop, most likely with advice
(14:35):
from local Sami volunteers in their ranks,
warning them to just let it go.
Since at the time, Russian army units werenot necessarily a fixed number of men,
and no one knows exactly how many menmarched up that hill two days earlier,
no one knows how many men diedand how many managed to survive.
(14:59):
Unlike the Finns,the Soviet military paid attention.
The loss of the company is immediatelyclassified at the highest levels,
and the entire area is flaggedas a no go zone
on military maps, with no rationaleprovided.
In Stalin's Russia, there'sno room for weakness of any kind,
(15:19):
so the official narrative paintsthe division as victims of a heroic but
overwhelming Finnish ambush,complete with posthumous medals
for officers to craft a story of sacrificerather than mystery.
Behind closed doors, however, Russian
commanders are profoundly disturbed.
(15:40):
The injuries don't look likeyour typical battlefield injuries,
and the lack of any enemy casualtiesdefies logic.
Communications in the following weeksorder all nearby units to reroute
without cause,giving the mountain plenty of space.
Apparently,there are a handful of survivors
(16:01):
who are separated and dispatchedto distant hospitals far from the front,
their medical records,listing diagnoses from combat fatigue
to delusional psychosis, with treatments
aimed more at shutting them upthan fixing their trauma.
But it's from them that we have theirconsistent accounts of the thickening air,
(16:24):
the growing primal fearthat bypassed rational thought,
followed by chitteringsounds that scrambled coherent thinking,
and then the full onslaught of whateverwas waiting in the mist.
As the war presses on, Soviet forcesleverage their numerical superiority
to grind down Finnish resistance,
(16:47):
culminating in the Moscow PeaceTreaty of March 13th, 1940, which forces
Finland to cede the Karelian Isthmusand other territories.
The mountain acquiresthe grim nickname of Death Mountain
among Russian troops and civilians,who give it a wide berth after that,
while some descendantscontinue their quiet rituals
(17:11):
to appease the guardians and preventany more disturbances.
In the yearssince, the area's peculiarities have drawn
occasional explorers and researcherswho report lingering
sensations of isolation,a chill that goes to the bone
no matter what you're wearing,and compasses that sometimes
(17:32):
spin erratically, and the occasional hum
that can be heard during extremecold snaps.
Okay, that is a pretty wild ride,
but let's take a step backand just go through some of the logical
explanations that have been offered upto explain this one.
Let's start with the most logical -animal attack.
(17:55):
A large pack of wolves, drivento desperation
by an unusually severe winterand disrupted reindeer migrations,
might explain some of the clawand fang wounds.
Eurasian wolveshunt in groups of up to like 25,
and if they're hungryenough, will turn to the nearest human.
(18:15):
But no wolf remainsare found at the scene,
and such a coordinated assault on 100armed men without leaving tracks,
or without one of them being killed inthe attack, is highly unlikely.
Well, what about a bear attack?
Well,they don't hunt in packs, and a lone bear
is going to shy away from a large groupof people unless provoked.
(18:38):
But no bear prints are found either.
So not a bear attack.
Extreme cold and hypothermia could account
for disorientation, hallucinations,
and even paradoxical undressing,leading to them freezing to death,
especially since the soldiers are notwell equipped for the extreme cold.
(19:00):
How can Russians not be equippedfor extreme cold?
But the soldiers had already gottentheir tents up and had fires going.
They had shelter and heat.
And the injuries recordedgo way beyond frostbite damage,
including deliberate defensive woundsand the evidence of organized,
if futile, resistancepointing to an external enemy.
(19:25):
Could have been an accident.
Maybe the dense mist and foreign forest
noises made their trigger fingersa little itchy.
Maybe someone saw somebody in the shadowsand panicked
with friendly fireand grenades thrown in the confusion.
Except that the weapons showed dischargein omni
directional panicrather than targeted exchanges.
(19:48):
Another part of the accident theoryis that carbon
monoxidepoisoning from tightly sealed tents
and faulty stoves in the freezing nightmight have caused confusion
through toxic build up,explaining the irrational behavior.
But that theory, never mind
the idea that 1939 tents could seal wellenough to cause a high enough gas buildup,
(20:13):
doesn't account for the extensivephysical trauma and their equipment
being flung all over the placeby something with muscle.
Yet another theory down the environmentpath is that
maybe there was a sudden methanegas release from the thawing permafrost,
inducing mass panicand turning soldiers against one another.
(20:35):
Or infrasound generated by windthrough the seidits and trees,
creating auditory hallucinationsand anxiety
that escalated into frenzy.
Those arr documented effects.
That would account for the hum, the senseof dread, and even some self-harm.
(20:55):
But it doesn't cover the extensive woundsthat were not made by humans,
or the tracks made by those in a hurryto get somewhere else
that just stopped with no sign of themretracing their steps.
Finnish folklore, deeply rooted inSami traditions,
gives us a coupleof interesting candidates for the mayhem
(21:17):
that do a way better job of accountingfor all of the evidence.
The Metsähaltia, or forest guardian,protects the wilderness from disrespectful
intruders by confusing travelers,leading them astray,
or meting out direct punishmentthrough ethereal means.
(21:38):
They can manifest as fluid shadows
or animal like apparitions, and evokeprimal terror without leaving tracks,
which exactlymatches the reports of quick moving shapes
and an overwhelming senseof being hunted by something not human.
Now, while the Metsähaltia mightjust lead you in circles for chopping down
(22:02):
a sacred tree, the Ajatar,
the devil's daughter of the forest bringsplague,
madness and death with a single scream.
For the few Sovietsoldiers who live long enough to speak,
whatever hunted them that night wasn'tcontent with scaring them away.
(22:23):
It wanted them broken and dead.
Local Sami accounts pre-dating the war,described the stretch of forest around
Vottovaaraas a bad place, avoided by hunters, where
strange sounds echo at nightand the air shifts palpably,
suggesting the location itself harbors
(22:44):
qualities recognized for generations
as a threshold where spirits can cross.
Well, what about psychological warfareby the Finns?
Wouldn't be the first time.
And it's a great wayto narrow the fighting force gap.
The US did it in the Philippinesafter World War II.
If you want to learn more about that funlittle adventure,
(23:05):
a link tothe video will be in the description.
The Finns could have made sure the stories
of Metsähaltia Ajatar made their way
through the ranks of the out of townersbefore they climb the mountain.
Once that terrifying seed is sown,
it's pretty easy to feed that terrorwith ghost like ski raids.
(23:29):
Maybe prop up frozen corpses as warnings,
and make a few eerieanimal calls to mimic the supernatural.
Pair that with the forest itselfoozing a sense of isolation,
and you've got a mere suggestion spiraling
into collective hysteria.
Yet the absence of Finnish recordsclaiming credit,
(23:51):
the physical evidencenot being aligned with human tactics,
and the survivors uniform testimoniessuggests something going on
that's more than just amped up fear.
More contemporary supernatural theories
propose inter-dimensional crossovers
at thin veil sites like Vottovaara,
(24:14):
where the intense energies of warfare,combined with the environmental extremes,
weaken reality'sbarriers, allowing entities,
either spiritual or extraterrestrial,from other planes to emerge,
manifesting as the shadows and hum,and creating all kinds of mayhem.
(24:36):
I guess at this point,anything is possible.
And that leads us to our lastpossibility group - some kind of cryptid.
Considering that Finlandis the most forested country
in Europe by percentage,with about 75% of the country being trees,
you would think thatthis would be a Bigfoot haven.
(24:58):
But try as I might,I could not find any reports
of anything coming from anywhereclose to there, other than a whisper
of a few folklore related sightingsand a report of a humanoid figure
around the Saint Petersburg areathat I can't find a source for.
Thanks for nothing, grok.
(25:20):
So at this point,I would put far more money
on a visit from Ajatarthan I would on Sasquatch.
I do think it's interestingthat this incident shares creepy
parallels with some of the crazy storieswe've talked about before.
Like the Dyatlov Pass, where in 1959,
nine experiencedRussian hikers tear out of their tent
(25:43):
into lethal temperatures, barefoot,their bodies scattered with injuries
like crushed skulls and missing organs,but no external trauma.
A lot like those at Vottovaara
Or even the Battle of Los Angeles in 1942,where American anti-aircraft
guns unleash over 1,400 shells
(26:04):
at what they think areJapanese planes over the city.
Yet no wreckage ever hits the ground
and no enemy claims responsibility.
Which is kind of like the Russiansfiring at targets they can't see,
with no signs of an enemyever being there.
If you don't know what I'm talking about,
I'll put the links for thosein the description, too.
(26:26):
In the end,the Vottovaara incident lingers
as one of the Winter War'smost perplexing footnotes,
where human will went toe to toewith ancient forces,
and was brought downnot by bullets or ice,
but by something that didn'teven leave a footprint.
(26:50):
This onegives me the creeps through and through.
Just the sheer brutality of it.
I would love to go thereand see those crazy rock formations,
but I will make sure to let the mountainspirits know that I come in peace
before I set foot on that mountain.
If you would like the thrill of anotherchill down your spine
that is not related to a Finnish winter,click right here.
(27:15):
Be careful out there,
and I will see youhere again, on The InBetween.
100 Sovietsoldiers climbed a sacred mountain.
Two days later, they were all dead.
Torn apart by something that leftnot one footprint in the snow.
The locals warned them not to go.
They called it Death Mountain.
The soldiers should have listened.
I'm Carol Ann.
Welcome to The InBetween.
(00:58):
Confession time.
Again.
I am somewhatglobally culturally challenged.
Before today,this is about the only thing I knew
about Finland.
Wait.
That's Iceland. See what I mean?
(01:18):
But after hearing about thishorrific incident
that we're going to talk about todaythat occurred during World War II,
I kind of see Finlandin a whole new light.
But let's step back for just a minuteso you can see exactly how we got to
where we arewhen this chilling event takes place.
Okay. Big picture.
Before, like 500 A.D.,Finland is home mostly to the Sami.
(01:44):
But as the soon
to be Finns move in from the east,they push the Samis to the north.
But the Sami influenceon the eastern side of present
day Finland is already entrenched.
The Finns who decide to stay inthe eastern region, take on a little bit
of that Sami color into their cultureand become their little own Finn flavor
(02:04):
known as the Karelians,and forma territory known to this day as Karelia.
Control of the Karelian region,which is between
the eastern border of Finlandand roughly the White Sea, has flip
flopped back and forthbetween its Scandinavian neighbors
to the west and its Russian neighborsto the east several times.
(02:24):
So by the time we get to 1939and into World War II,
the area is again in Russian territory.
Now, at this time, Finland'sborder was just about 20 miles away
from the Russian city of Leningrad,known today as Saint Petersburg.
That makes Stalin a little twitchy.
He wanted a little more spacefor a buffer zone.
(02:47):
But Finland pretty much says, screw you.
So on November 26th, 1939,
Stalin bombs a little Russian city
called Mainila in Finnishor Mainila in Russian.
Anyway, pointbeing Stalin committed a false flag
attack on his own peopleas an excuse to say, They started it. See?
(03:11):
Finland is the aggressorand we must attack them.
And four days later, on November30th, that's what they did.
And that is the start ofwhat is now known as the Winter War.
Stalin starts moving 450,000 troops,
thousands of tanks and a bunch of planeswestward to face Finland,
(03:32):
whose entire population is only like3.7 million.
So they pull togetherabout 300,000-350,000
troops, including all of their reservists.
So Stalin totally thinks he's
just going to plow straightthrough and claim victory in no time.
Stalin is wrong.
The outnumbered Finns approachthe battle a lot
(03:55):
like the Americans fought the Britishin the Revolutionary War.
They didn't line up in the battlefieldto walk straight into the slaughter.
They employed guerrilla tacticsthat totally threw the British for a loop.
And so did the Finns.
They're all decked out in white camorunning around the forest that they know
like the back of their hands on skis,which are way more white than tanks, by
(04:18):
the way, and are better equipped to handlethe -40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures.
And Celsius, that's -40.
Long story short,
the Russians only equipped themselvesfor a cakewalk, not a slog.
So now they're light on supplies,demoralized and severely frostbitten.
(04:39):
They need a break.
They need to get a better vantage pointso they could see the whole area better.
They need Mount Vottovaara,Victory Mountain.
Mount Vottovaara is not a huge mountain.
It's only 1,369ft at its highest.
But considering the complete flatnessof the rest of the area,
(05:00):
it providesa commanding view of everything around it.
It doesn't have a real peaklike other mountains do.
It's more like just a sloping plateau.
Perfect. Or so they thought.
MountVottovaara is not your typical mountain.
The Sami people, who'd been in the areabefore they moved north,
regarded the mountain as a sacred site- a portal
(05:22):
where the boundary between worldsgrew thin and spirits dwelled.
Their animist believes, heldthat every element of nature,
from rocks and trees to animals and water,possessed a divine life force
deserving of reverence, and ritualsinvolving prayers and sacrifices
were performed at the mountainto honor these entities
(05:46):
and securegood fortune in hunts and migrations.
And I can't say that I blame them.
This is just one odd place.
It looks like a place that needsa little appeasing occasionally.
First of all, there are hundredsof these rock formations called seidit.
These are huge boulders, up to ten tons,
(06:08):
precariously balanced on top of smallerrocks.
The conventional geologist wisdomis that they came from receding glaciers
that just happened to deposit the rocksthis way.
Really?
Maybe I need to visit thereto rub some of that luck on me,
because there are hundredsof these formations on the mountain.
(06:30):
That's astronomically lucky.
And the trees are completely messed up.
Pine trees, some over 100 yearsold, are only six feet high,
with trunks twisted insideas if shaped by invisible forces.
Not to mentionthe fact that the nearby lakes and ponds
(06:51):
have no fish, plants or anything elseremotely alive.
Wildlife,including insects and larger animals,
avoid the area entirely.
And the persistent, creepy mist all around
is the frosting on the mountain cake.
When Soviet officers talk to the locals
(07:12):
about the mountain, the locals said, Don'teven think about it, cowboy.
don't even think about it.
It's an evil place.
And the spirits living in the seiditdo not look kindly on outsiders
who fail to show the proper respect.
The Soviet officersdismissed these warnings
as archaic superstitions,unfit for a modern army.
(07:35):
And a company of 100 men from the SovietEighth Army are ordered
to climb the mountain and establishan observation post on the summit.
Now, the Finns have been paying attentionand know that
the Soviets are going up the mountain,so they send a small crew to hideout
not too far from the base of the mountain,just to keep an eye on what's going on.
(07:55):
The Soviet soldiers make their way upthrough knee deep snow, under
biting winds, and arriveat the plateau after nightfall,
where they quickly secure perimeter, pitchtheir tents in the central cluster
and begin digging observationslits oriented
toward the finish lines,several miles to the west.
(08:15):
They radio headquarters to let them knowthat their position is secure,
although the thick mistis blocking their view
and forcing them to keep firessmall to evade detection.
Sentries patrol the edges,watching the treeline for any signs
of enemy movement, and everyone settlesinto the cold, quiet night.
(08:38):
But it doesn't stay quiet for long.
Reports from after the fact by thosebrave enough to speak out, or sane enough
to remember, talk about the night airturning thick and oppressive,
making it physically hard to breathe,and a strange hum,
that no one can tell where it's comingfrom, fills their ears.
(09:00):
Then they see it.
Finnish troopsstationed in the valley below
hear bursts of gunfire,the thump of grenade
explosions, the barking of sometimesconflicting orders,
and the screams of panicechoing from the peak.
But it doesn't sound like a fight towardany particular side.
It sounds more likethe chaos is within the camp itself,
(09:23):
rather than an assaulton an outward enemy.
From what they can understand, fromthe short bursts of panic, are hurried
shouts about shadows darting aroundjust at the edge of the light.
Too fast to be human.
They hear the soldiers fire
erratically into the darkness, their shotsspraying in all directions,
as if targeting somethingin the mist itself, but they can't see.
(09:48):
As the hourswear on, the gunfire tapers off
and the radio falls silent,leaving an eerie silence.
According to witnesses, at dawnthe Russians
take stock of whatactually happened in the camp.
As if by some miracle,after all the shooting
(10:08):
and chaos,only one soldier is unaccounted for.
His footprintstrailing into the snow, only
to end abruptly without explanation.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully,but all 99
remaining men are at Defcon1, as the feeling of being watched
by something malevolent, and whispering,coming from nowhere
(10:31):
and everywhere, intensifiesthroughout the day.
As the sun starts to go down.
On the second night,the same hum they heard the night before
returns and the air once again thickens,until it's
physically hardfor the soldiers to breathe.
And once again the shadows just beyond
(10:51):
their vision move with deliberate purpose,too quick to track,
but too intentional to dismissas tricks of the light.
Gunfire erupts again,more sustained and desperate,
with grenades exploding in rapidsuccession and conflicting orders shouted
amid the frenzy, some orderingthe soldiers to stand and fight, others
(11:15):
a desperate pleafor those who can to save themselves.
At first light,a small team of Finnish scouts
advances up the slopeunder the cover of white camouflage,
but everything is quiet- no sentries to avoid,
no usual morning camp noisesand no voices carrying on the wind.
(11:39):
So they keep climbing.
Once they reach the plateau,they see nothing but a
landscape of sheer devastation
where every Soviet soldier lay dead,
their bodies strewn across the ground.
Some dead as they fought.
Some dead as they ran.
(11:59):
The scene defies logic.
The only sure conclusionis the viciousness of the fight.
Some bodies have deep gashesfrom what appeared to be
claws and puncture wounds from fangs.
Some bodies are literally torn limbfrom limb,
while the snow is more red than white.
But then there are some bodies in the snow
(12:20):
with no signs of any trauma,
just a frozen death mask of horror.
Hundreds of spent shell casingscarpet the area, leaving
no doubt that some of the soldiersfought hard against their attacker.
However, a number of the menshowed signs of self-inflicted wounds
with bullets to the head or chest.
(12:44):
Tents lay in shreds, equipmentthrown around
by an obviously strong force,but no traces of an attacking party.
No boot prints from Finnish troops,no casings from enemy weapons,
and no indication of a large forceapproaching
or withdrawing through the pristine snow.
(13:04):
Experienced hunters and trackersamong the scouts scour the site for
any clues as to what could have done this,but they found nothing.
No tracks or fur from wolves or bears.
The Karelian region does have lynx,wolverines and boar,
any one of which could kill a lone personbut not an entire company.
(13:28):
And even an entire pack of starving wolveswould have sustained
some kind of casualtiestrying to take on that many men.
And the fear, frozen on the facesnow staring blankly to the sky,
suggests something more than an animal.
Trackers tracethe soldiers tracks in the snow.
(13:50):
By the looks of it,a few of them tried running away,
but the boot prints would just stopwith no signs of them reversing course.
They just...like they just vanished.
The air retains a sharp,metallic ozone scent,
reminiscent of an impending stormand a slight
hum still hangs in the air.
(14:11):
One scout of Sami descent later describes
a profound sensation of being watched
by the seidit stones themselves,
and the Finns decide it's time to go.
Their discovery is relayed backto finish headquarters,
but headquarters has their hands fullwith everything else going
on, so they seemingly just let the matterdrop, most likely with advice
(14:35):
from local Sami volunteers in their ranks,
warning them to just let it go.
Since at the time, Russian army units werenot necessarily a fixed number of men,
and no one knows exactly how many menmarched up that hill two days earlier,
no one knows how many men diedand how many managed to survive.
(14:59):
Unlike the Finns,the Soviet military paid attention.
The loss of the company is immediatelyclassified at the highest levels,
and the entire area is flaggedas a no go zone
on military maps, with no rationaleprovided.
In Stalin's Russia, there'sno room for weakness of any kind,
(15:19):
so the official narrative paintsthe division as victims of a heroic but
overwhelming Finnish ambush,complete with posthumous medals
for officers to craft a story of sacrificerather than mystery.
Behind closed doors, however, Russian
commanders are profoundly disturbed.
(15:40):
The injuries don't look likeyour typical battlefield injuries,
and the lack of any enemy casualtiesdefies logic.
Communications in the following weeksorder all nearby units to reroute
without cause,giving the mountain plenty of space.
Apparently,there are a handful of survivors
(16:01):
who are separated and dispatchedto distant hospitals far from the front,
their medical records,listing diagnoses from combat fatigue
to delusional psychosis, with treatments
aimed more at shutting them upthan fixing their trauma.
But it's from them that we have theirconsistent accounts of the thickening air,
(16:24):
the growing primal fearthat bypassed rational thought,
followed by chitteringsounds that scrambled coherent thinking,
and then the full onslaught of whateverwas waiting in the mist.
As the war presses on, Soviet forcesleverage their numerical superiority
to grind down Finnish resistance,
(16:47):
culminating in the Moscow PeaceTreaty of March 13th, 1940, which forces
Finland to cede the Karelian Isthmusand other territories.
The mountain acquiresthe grim nickname of Death Mountain
among Russian troops and civilians,who give it a wide berth after that,
while some descendantscontinue their quiet rituals
(17:11):
to appease the guardians and preventany more disturbances.
In the yearssince, the area's peculiarities have drawn
occasional explorers and researcherswho report lingering
sensations of isolation,a chill that goes to the bone
no matter what you're wearing,and compasses that sometimes
(17:32):
spin erratically, and the occasional hum
that can be heard during extremecold snaps.
Okay, that is a pretty wild ride,
but let's take a step backand just go through some of the logical
explanations that have been offered upto explain this one.
Let's start with the most logical -animal attack.
(17:55):
A large pack of wolves, drivento desperation
by an unusually severe winterand disrupted reindeer migrations,
might explain some of the clawand fang wounds.
Eurasian wolveshunt in groups of up to like 25,
and if they're hungryenough, will turn to the nearest human.
(18:15):
But no wolf remainsare found at the scene,
and such a coordinated assault on 100armed men without leaving tracks,
or without one of them being killed inthe attack, is highly unlikely.
Well, what about a bear attack?
Well,they don't hunt in packs, and a lone bear
is going to shy away from a large groupof people unless provoked.
(18:38):
But no bear prints are found either.
So not a bear attack.
Extreme cold and hypothermia could account
for disorientation, hallucinations,
and even paradoxical undressing,leading to them freezing to death,
especially since the soldiers are notwell equipped for the extreme cold.
(19:00):
How can Russians not be equippedfor extreme cold?
But the soldiers had already gottentheir tents up and had fires going.
They had shelter and heat.
And the injuries recordedgo way beyond frostbite damage,
including deliberate defensive woundsand the evidence of organized,
if futile, resistancepointing to an external enemy.
(19:25):
Could have been an accident.
Maybe the dense mist and foreign forest
noises made their trigger fingersa little itchy.
Maybe someone saw somebody in the shadowsand panicked
with friendly fireand grenades thrown in the confusion.
Except that the weapons showed dischargein omni
directional panicrather than targeted exchanges.
(19:48):
Another part of the accident theoryis that carbon
monoxidepoisoning from tightly sealed tents
and faulty stoves in the freezing nightmight have caused confusion
through toxic build up,explaining the irrational behavior.
But that theory, never mind
the idea that 1939 tents could seal wellenough to cause a high enough gas buildup,
(20:13):
doesn't account for the extensivephysical trauma and their equipment
being flung all over the placeby something with muscle.
Yet another theory down the environmentpath is that
maybe there was a sudden methanegas release from the thawing permafrost,
inducing mass panicand turning soldiers against one another.
(20:35):
Or infrasound generated by windthrough the seidits and trees,
creating auditory hallucinationsand anxiety
that escalated into frenzy.
Those arr documented effects.
That would account for the hum, the senseof dread, and even some self-harm.
(20:55):
But it doesn't cover the extensive woundsthat were not made by humans,
or the tracks made by those in a hurryto get somewhere else
that just stopped with no sign of themretracing their steps.
Finnish folklore, deeply rooted inSami traditions,
gives us a coupleof interesting candidates for the mayhem
(21:17):
that do a way better job of accountingfor all of the evidence.
The Metsähaltia, or forest guardian,protects the wilderness from disrespectful
intruders by confusing travelers,leading them astray,
or meting out direct punishmentthrough ethereal means.
(21:38):
They can manifest as fluid shadows
or animal like apparitions, and evokeprimal terror without leaving tracks,
which exactlymatches the reports of quick moving shapes
and an overwhelming senseof being hunted by something not human.
Now, while the Metsähaltia mightjust lead you in circles for chopping down
(22:02):
a sacred tree, the Ajatar,
the devil's daughter of the forest bringsplague,
madness and death with a single scream.
For the few Sovietsoldiers who live long enough to speak,
whatever hunted them that night wasn'tcontent with scaring them away.
(22:23):
It wanted them broken and dead.
Local Sami accounts pre-dating the war,described the stretch of forest around
Vottovaaraas a bad place, avoided by hunters, where
strange sounds echo at nightand the air shifts palpably,
suggesting the location itself harbors
(22:44):
qualities recognized for generations
as a threshold where spirits can cross.
Well, what about psychological warfareby the Finns?
Wouldn't be the first time.
And it's a great wayto narrow the fighting force gap.
The US did it in the Philippinesafter World War II.
If you want to learn more about that funlittle adventure,
(23:05):
a link tothe video will be in the description.
The Finns could have made sure the stories
of Metsähaltia Ajatar made their way
through the ranks of the out of townersbefore they climb the mountain.
Once that terrifying seed is sown,
it's pretty easy to feed that terrorwith ghost like ski raids.
(23:29):
Maybe prop up frozen corpses as warnings,
and make a few eerieanimal calls to mimic the supernatural.
Pair that with the forest itselfoozing a sense of isolation,
and you've got a mere suggestion spiraling
into collective hysteria.
Yet the absence of Finnish recordsclaiming credit,
(23:51):
the physical evidencenot being aligned with human tactics,
and the survivors uniform testimoniessuggests something going on
that's more than just amped up fear.
More contemporary supernatural theories
propose inter-dimensional crossovers
at thin veil sites like Vottovaara,
(24:14):
where the intense energies of warfare,combined with the environmental extremes,
weaken reality'sbarriers, allowing entities,
either spiritual or extraterrestrial,from other planes to emerge,
manifesting as the shadows and hum,and creating all kinds of mayhem.
(24:36):
I guess at this point,anything is possible.
And that leads us to our lastpossibility group - some kind of cryptid.
Considering that Finlandis the most forested country
in Europe by percentage,with about 75% of the country being trees,
you would think thatthis would be a Bigfoot haven.
(24:58):
But try as I might,I could not find any reports
of anything coming from anywhereclose to there, other than a whisper
of a few folklore related sightingsand a report of a humanoid figure
around the Saint Petersburg areathat I can't find a source for.
Thanks for nothing, grok.
(25:20):
So at this point,I would put far more money
on a visit from Ajatarthan I would on Sasquatch.
I do think it's interestingthat this incident shares creepy
parallels with some of the crazy storieswe've talked about before.
Like the Dyatlov Pass, where in 1959,
nine experiencedRussian hikers tear out of their tent
(25:43):
into lethal temperatures, barefoot,their bodies scattered with injuries
like crushed skulls and missing organs,but no external trauma.
A lot like those at Vottovaara
Or even the Battle of Los Angeles in 1942,where American anti-aircraft
guns unleash over 1,400 shells
(26:04):
at what they think areJapanese planes over the city.
Yet no wreckage ever hits the ground
and no enemy claims responsibility.
Which is kind of like the Russiansfiring at targets they can't see,
with no signs of an enemyever being there.
If you don't know what I'm talking about,
I'll put the links for thosein the description, too.
(26:26):
In the end,the Vottovaara incident lingers
as one of the Winter War'smost perplexing footnotes,
where human will went toe to toewith ancient forces,
and was brought downnot by bullets or ice,
but by something that didn'teven leave a footprint.
(26:50):
This onegives me the creeps through and through.
Just the sheer brutality of it.
I would love to go thereand see those crazy rock formations,
but I will make sure to let the mountainspirits know that I come in peace
before I set foot on that mountain.
If you would like the thrill of anotherchill down your spine
that is not related to a Finnish winter,click right here.
(27:15):
Be careful out there,
and I will see youhere again, on The InBetween.
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