"I think that people ran out of oxygen and don't really know what happened up there, maybe some of them just made things up because they weren't sure what had happened"

In this quote, Anatoli Boukreev is going over the events that occurred throughout a mountaineering exploration. He recommends that some individuals may have fabricated stories or theories about what happened because they were unsure of the true cause. This could be due to the truth that they lacked oxygen and were not in a clear frame of mind, or maybe they were simply trying to make sense of a disorderly and uncertain situation. Boukreev's declaration highlights the human propensity to fill in gaps in our understanding with speculation, particularly when faced with an absence of concrete evidence. It also speaks to the value of seeking the reality and not jumping to conclusions based on limited info.