Frozen helped researchers solve one of Russia's greatest unsolved mysteries. Disney Animation's original film features Elsa, voiced by Idina Menzel, the Queen of Arendelle who possessed magical ice powers. The film and its sequel follow Elsa as she grapples with the past and how to be accepted by the world despite her strange powers. The film was one of the biggest Disney hits in a long time, thanks in part to its stunning animation that effortlessly shows the changing of seasons, including the harsh wintertime.
That's where the Dyatlov Pass Incident comes in. In Russia, a group of young hikers in 1959 attempted to pass through the Ural Mountains during a particularly harsh winter. Locally (and ominously) known as "Dead Mountain," the hikers set up camp beneath the snowy slope. They never made it to their next waypoint and, months later, all of their bodies were recovered from the snow.
According to NatGeo, this is where Frozen comes in. John Gaume, who works at the Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory, was watching the film when he noticed the ways in which the snow moved onscreen. Curious about how the animators did that, he traveled to Los Angeles to meet with the specialist who created the onscreen movement of the snow. Gaume then obtained the code to run his own simulations and seemingly cracked the case. Gaume asserts that an avalanche is what killed the nine students and their instructor and he proved this using the code from Frozen.
In the decades after the tragedy, the Dyatlov Pass Incident became a point of speculation in Russia. Many formulated conspiracies surrounding the events, from alien abductions to secret government experiments. When this simple explanation was announced, the public rejected the conclusion, clinging on to the conspiracies that had fueled much of the interest in the incident. The fact that Frozen and its stunning visuals were involved is just another strange face of this already strange case.
Frozen is already known for many things - its earworm of a song, "Let It Go," the complicated and heartwarming relationship between Anna and Elsa, and Olaf, the lovable snowman - but now it can add the solving of this mystery to its list of impressive achievements. Frozen has maintained its staggering popularity over the years, with Frozen 2 becoming the most streamed film of 2020, and the fact that Frozen's innovative animation is seemingly better at solving mysteries than many professional investigators is just another achievement it can add to its list of accolades.
Source: NatGeo