Search for the Missing Cosmonauts
Did a young pair of Italian brothers uncover evidence of Soviet cosmonauts dying in space?
Filed under Conspiracies, General Science, Urban Legends
| Skeptoid #115 August 19, 2008 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
Episode 115, August 19, 2008
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4115
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During the late 1950's and early 1960's, the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was hot. Both sides built and tested rockets as quickly as they could, trying to be the first to launch an artificial satellite into orbit, often with explosive results. Both sides had their successes, and both sides had their failures. People around the world watched and listened. Some, most notably amateur radio operators, listened more closely than others. And of these, a pair of young brothers from Italy, Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia, reigned supreme. Their library of audio recordings of nearly every flight from the space race is by far the most comprehensive private collection known. But the real reason it's notable is that includes a number of recordings of alleged events that didn't make it into the history books: doomed Soviet cosmonauts captured in their final moments of life, on flights that the Soviets said never happened.
During the cold war, the Soviet Union was a knot of state secrets. More than anything else, the cold war was a war of propaganda, each side trying to show the world that they were the smartest, the fastest, the highest, and the best. In this context, it's not surprising at all that the true progress of their space program would be closely guarded and only the best news released to the world. With their state-controlled media, the Soviets had the ability to accomplish coverups of failures to a degree that would never have been possible in the United States.
Achille and Giovanni were creative and scientific geniuses in the truest sense, both in their twenties. When the Soviets announced the successful launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957 and published the radio frequency for everyone to hear, the brothers scavenged what radio equipment they could and tuned it in. Here is the actual recording they made of Sputnik I:
From that one recording, their self-taught education proceeded like a rocket. They learned how to detect the Doppler effect in signals from orbit, and how to calculate an object's speed and altitude from that. They filled logbooks with conversion tables and Soviet frequencies. And so, when the Soviets launched Sputnik 2 only a month after Sputnik 1, they were well prepared. And this time, the brothers discovered something new: a heartbeat.
It was the heartbeat of Laika, a small dog. Sadly for Laika, Sputnik 2 was a one-way trip; there was no provision for re-entry or recovery. Three months later, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer I, and like the Soviets, published the frequency of the signal. Achille and Giovanni captured it, and then their lives as local media celebrities began. They were the darlings of the local papers and radio stations. They took over a nearby concrete bunker left over from World War II, made improvements to their equipment, and built larger antennas. They called their little radio observatory Torre Bert, and anytime anything launched into space from anywhere, Torre Bert was filled with friends, reporters, local scientists, and anyone who wanted a good time.
The Torre Bert experiment took a more serious turn on November 28, 1960. A West German observatory announced that it was receiving a strange signal on a Soviet space frequency. The brothers tuned in, and heard hand-keyed Morse code repeating the international distress signal, S-O-S, over and over again. Their Doppler calculations showed almost no relative speed, which they interpreted to mean that the distressed spacecraft was on a course directly away from the Earth. The signal grew weaker and was never heard from again. Apparently, the brothers had just recorded evidence that a manned Soviet spacecraft somehow got off course and left Earth's orbit, permanently.
About two months later in February 1961, variously reported as the 2nd or the 4th of the month, they picked up another transmission from space, which experts interpreted at the time as the dying breaths of an unconscious man:
And another signal from the same flight, interpreted by the brothers' father, a cardiologist, as a failing human heartbeat:
The brothers' story and recordings were played throughout Italy. Two days after this publicity, the Soviets announced the failed re-entry of a large unmanned craft.
In April of 1961, a journalist at the International Press Agency in Moscow tipped off the brothers that something big was about to happen. They turned on their equipment, and the next day, listened in on Yuri Gargarin's voice during the first manned space flight.
But, the most dramatic of the brothers' recordings came about five weeks later in May of 1961, the date variously reported as the 17th, 19th, or 23rd. A woman's voice transmission, translated as "Isn't this dangerous? Talk to me! Our transmission begins now. I feel hot. I can see a flame. Am I going to crash? Yes. I feel hot, I will re-enter...":
Want to learn more about this recording? Check out my live show Solving the Missing Cosmonauts.
When I first heard about the Judica-Cordiglia recordings from Torre Bert, I was definitely intrigued. It simply appears plausible. We know that the Soviets covered up their failures. We know that their launch record in those days was absolutely abysmal, far worse than the United States. If Yuri Gagarin made it into space, it almost seems like a foregone conclusion that at least a couple of other guys must have previously died in the attempt.
Part of the trouble you find when you research this is that the recordings from Torre Bert are only one small square in a quilt the size of Texas. There are many, many stories circulating about missing cosmonauts who died in spaceflights as early as 1957. According to some Western intelligence sources, as many as 11 fatal Soviet accidents occurred, both in flight and on the ground, all before 1967. We know that the Soviets painted certain cosmonauts out of photographs, in fact you can see some great before & after examples of this on the LostCosmonauts.com web site. We know that the death of at least one cosmonaut killed in a training accident, Valentin Bondarenko, was concealed until 1986, and even then was only declassified after western journalists found out about it in 1980. There's also considerable controversy about the case of Vladimir Ilyushin, who claims to have launched five days before Gagarin, but a problem caused him to re-enter early and land inside China, where he was held captive for a whole year. Some of Ilyushin's supporters even assert that Gagarin's flight never took place; rather that he was hastily shuttled to a mocked-up landing site in Ilyushin's backup capsule so the Soviet propaganda machine could attach a healthy, smiling young face to Ilyushin's heroic flight. Ilyushin still lives in Moscow at last report, and still maintains his story.
Much of the criticism of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers comes from space historian and author James Oberg, who wrote a book based on his investigations into all of these stories of lost cosmonauts. His principal conclusions were that there was insufficient evidence available to substantiate any of these stories. But Oberg's research concluded in 1973, when the Iron Curtain was still strong. 35 years later, virtually everything has been long since declassified. It's now possible to read detailed histories of those early days, and the dates and types of all their launches, failures included, is thoroughly documented. I compared the timelines of what the Judica-Cordiglia brothers recorded to the timeline of the Soviet space program. I did find some problems.
The main inconsistency is that during the times of the Morse code and the astronaut's alleged breathing and heartbeat sounds, the Soviets were still launching dogs and mannequins. A few days after the Morse code recording, Sputnik 6 carrying two dogs was deliberately self-destructed upon a failed re-entry, and three weeks after that, two dogs were launched and safely recovered even though the third stage of their Vostok booster failed and the craft did not achieve orbit.
While it's true that the Soviets did have a proven capability to escape the Earth by the time of the fading Morse code (Luna 1 had passed the moon a year earlier), the Vostok 8K72 booster only had the ability to lift 500 kilograms to escape velocity, way too small for a manned capsule. Even for several years afterward, the Soviets had no rocket capable of lifting a manned capsule beyond Earth's gravity.
In the two months following the brothers' recording of the breathing and the alleged heartbeat, the Soviets made two successful low Earth orbit flights, each carrying a small dog and a mannequin. These are the type of test flights made when you're not yet ready to launch a man.
Following the Soviets' success at launching Gagarin in April 1961, the Judica-Cordiglia version of events suggests that their next feat was to launch a woman, thus the May 1961 recording. However, the Soviets' next launch wasn't until August, and it was another man, Gherman Titov, who flew for a full day in orbit. Valentina Tereshkova, credited as the first woman cosmonaut, didn't fly until more than two years after Gagarin, in June of 1963.
Of course these inconsistencies don't prove anything, they just show that if you accept the Judica-Cordiglia assertions as fact, they show an illogical backwards progression by the Soviets that's contradictory with the character of the space race. The Soviets never took backward steps.
A more compelling reason to be skeptical of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers' interpretation of their recordings is the lack of corroborating evidence from the numerous, far more sophisticated radio tracking stations that existed. These were the days of the Distant Early Warning Line and the birth of the North American Air Defense Command, and the Americans, British, Canadians, Germans and French all had equipment that far exceeded the humble capabilities of homebuilt Torre Bert, with things like tracking dishes that Torre Bert lacked; and moreover, the western propaganda machine would have loved nothing better than to publicize Soviet failures. The best explanation for why such announcements were never made is that no such failures were ever observed.
Indeed, the story of the Soviets announcing a failed unmanned flight after hearing that the brothers' recorded their dying cosmonaut doesn't match the history books. It's a great sound bite but I found no such report anywhere. Moreover, current records show a successful test of an R7 booster carrying a dummy missile warhead on February 7, 1961, about the day of the claimed admission.
Am I saying Achille and Giovanni were hoaxers? Far from it. In fact, in researching their story, I gained tremendous respect for their abilities and for what they accomplished. As I said before, their library of recordings is a treasure of inestimable value, and there's a documentary film about them called Space Hackers, which I found on YouTube, and which I highly recommend. Unfortunately their story is too often told without critique or inquiry into the plausibility of their most extraordinary claims. There are simply too many other possible explanations for their recordings to comprise useful evidence of lost cosmonauts. Is there stuff we still don't know about the Soviet space program? Absolutely. Might it include accidents, even deaths? Probably. Might it include unknown spaceflight failures, possibly even lost cosmonauts? Maybe, but now you're into territory that western intelligence too easily could have known about. I maintain an open mind on the subject, and look forward to your comments on the web site.
© 2008 Skeptoid Media, Inc.
References & Further Reading
Abrate, G., Abrate, M. "Erased from Memory." The Lost Cosmonauts. The Lost Cosmonauts, 24 Apr. 2004. Web. 1 Aug. 2008. <http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/erased.htm>
Burgess, Colin, Hall, Rex. The first Soviet cosmonaut team: their lives, legacy, and historical impact. Chichester, U.K.: Praxis, 2009. 203-228.
Haimoff, Elliot H. "Letter by Dr. E.H. Haimoff of "Global Science Productions"." Letter by Dr. E.H. Haimoff of "Global Science Productions" to the "My Hero" website where an account of Ilyushin’s space mission by Mr Paul Tsarinsky was recently posted. Global Science Productions, 7 Aug. 1999. Web. 1 Aug. 2008. <http://abrax.isiline.it/servizio/letter.htm>
Oberg, James. Uncovering Soviet Disasters. New York: Random House, Inc., 1988. 156-176.
Zheleznyakov, Alexander. "Gagarin was Still THE First. Part Two." Spaceflight. 1 Nov. 2002, Volume 44, Number 11: 471-475.
Reference this article:
Dunning, B.
"Search for the Missing Cosmonauts." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
19 Aug 2008. Web.
24 May 2013. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4115>
Discuss!
10 most recent comments | Show all 63 comments
Those who claim to discredit the lost cosmonauts are using sources and evidence that at best can be called suspect.
1. You are searching for proof (one way or the other) from COMMUNIST soviet union. There has been more than enough proof the soviets of that (or any other time) alter, distroy or kill the authors of anything they want hidden. Its like trying to convict the mafia of crimes by having them volunteer their records.
2. Not looking at tech of that day. For example we had no early warning space based system to confirm any launches from russia. Also back then the multi channel communications from spacecraft and earth were at best primative. So the heartbeat may have come from a radio channel and not a telemetry channel like we enjoy today.
Space limits further examples but you get my point.
The only true unbias evidence comes from these two brothers who's reputation (dispite efforts) has remained untainted by any proof of fraud.
I don't know for sure if there are cosmonauts who lost their lives or floating out in space.
But the evidence available leans more towards that theory than the one that russia has been honest with us case closed.
Just remember to date we still have secret scientific cities in russia where we know NOTHING on what they did/doing
Eric, Northern IL USA
August 26, 2012 10:28pm
Just a point here about the lifting capacity of the Vostok, Brian
"The main inconsistency is that during the times of the Morse code and the astronaut's alleged breathing and heartbeat sounds, the Soviets were still launching dogs and mannequins."
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok-K this was the version of the Vostok family of rockets used for manned spaceflight.
The maiden flight is posted as 22 Dec 1960, which well and truly covers the timeline of the "breathing" incident in Feb 1961, and if the wiki info is accurate, there is nearly four months of flight time before Gagarin, of a rocket with the capability to lift a manned spacecraft. Plenty of time for "incidents" to occur.
Regarding Jim Oberg's comment in his post
" Jusdt some corrections: my research didn't end in 1983, it continues to this day. New stuff appears in the russian press from time to time. It all confirms the J-C fratelli were bunko."
With respect for Jim's research and knowledge, I don't see why the Russian press ( or any for that matter ) be taken as a source of accuracy.
Macky, Auckland
October 22, 2012 12:21pm
I just found this VERY interesting article on the two brothers who recorded the space flights.
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html
One of many facts that stood out on this was the fact they took the recordings of the cosmonaut who was supposedly dying to a leading (aka known and famous) cardiologist who confirmed what they heard.
This article gives much more information that gives more credence to their showing the missing cosmonauts and give extream doubt to the "official soviet" information the debunkers continue to use.
The biggest thing in my mind that continues to IMO prove the lost cosmonaut theory is that even today no one can poke holes in the credibility of these two brothers.
The thing I wonder is how debunkers can claim the accuracy of their monitoring of NASA is spot on and is proven by cross checking with NASA records.
But continue to say they are inaccurate or misenterpreting the facts based on the LACK of confirmable facts from russian archives.
Archives that have been PROVEN to be altered, distroyed, or misleading at the best of times.
Again can some debunker tell me why you put so much faith in the russians but not two boys who have no facts to say they were liers, confused, or inaccurate?
Eric, Northern IL USA
March 15, 2013 1:15am
Researchers can do their best, but I don't think the public at least are ever going to know the whole truth about those days, from both the American and Russian sides.
I continue to find inconsistencies with Brian's report re the timelines of the alleged tragedies as against the payload capabilities of the various rockets.
I'm wondering if Brian got the Vostok-8K72 mixed up with the Luna-8K72, as to the 500kg payload.
Certainly the Vostok 8K72K was used for actual known manned spaceflights, but the earlier Vostok-L 8K72 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vos
ok-L had a payload of approx 4550 kgs and was used for early tests of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_spacecraft, preceding by at least six months the dates of the first of the alleged misadventures in Space, showing here that if the info is correct, the Russians had rockets capable of manned vehicle carrying ability from May 1960 onwards.
It may be possible, in fact quite likely, that the Russians tried manned flights with either a Vostok L or K, with disastrous results.
(Looking at photos of the Vostok spacecraft, it reminds me of something out of Steampunk)
I am still at a loss to understand why Jim Oberg (much respect for his decades of research and service to Space) would regard the Russian press, or any press for that matter, as a credible source of confirmation that the "J-C fratelli were bunko", in his Jan 2 2012 post.
Macky, Auckland
March 16, 2013 1:36am
Macky, I believe that Mr Dunning was referring to the relevant escape velocity and not just the payload.
As a rough example a rocket that could send a 360 kilo payload to the Moon, could only place say a 4,000 kilo payload into a low Earth orbit.
With the heavier payload the rocket couldn't reach escape velocity of about 40,000 kph to leave Earth gravity. So, I think the point was that OK, maybe the heavy ship could get into space but it wouldn't stay up for long. So that seems to rule out the alleged lost flight supposedly hurtling away from Earth, like David Bowie's Major Tom lol
I think Lost Cosmonauts is a bunch of hooey, sure we probably don't know every nut and bolt of the program but they certainly don't seem to have hidden anything major, even the Bondarenko oxygen fire - that some speculate the knowledge of may have prevented the Apollo 1 tragedy - was revealed in the 80s.
There are certainly plausible explanations for much or all of the mysterious data, even the voice recordings, IF they were not hoax and did come from space, could have been an audio recording to test microphone communications.
As rough and ready as the Soviet program was, it took time and money to train a cosmonaut, it was a small tight-knit team, I can't see them just throwing them up in craft that killed dogs in failures.
People forget, there were a lot of dog flights prior to manned missions, just to see if an animal could survive up there.
gari, winchester, UK
March 16, 2013 2:05pm
I'm sure much of what you're saying has as good a chance of being true, gari, as any other speculations.
I was posting to Brian's main point, that no such manned flights were possible during the times of the alleged tragedies due to "Vostok 8K72 booster only had the ability to lift 500 kilograms to escape velocity, way too small for a manned capsule."
In fact, if the wiki's are correct, the ability to lift manned capsules existed since May 1960, eleven months before Gagarin, plenty of time for incidents to occur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_(rocket_family)
This information conflicts with Brian's and if true, negates his strong argument against the possibility of the alleged incidents occuring, at least as far as the Russian rockets' capabilities are concerned.
Another point of Brian's I debate is "the western propaganda machine would have loved nothing better than to publicize Soviet failures. The best explanation for why such announcements were never made is that no such failures were ever observed."
Having observed the public uproar following Torre Bert's radio interceptions of the alleged incidents, I believe it is a strong possibility that the US and Western authorities moved swiftly to silence any further disclosures of Soviet mishaps from all sources, followed by the debunking of Torre Bert.
If the reports had continued, especially from other more reputable sources, the public's distress may well have all but closed the space program down worldwide.
Macky, Auckland
March 16, 2013 6:38pm
Gari you make some interesting points.
But you are attempting to look at though USA eyes and not communist russia.
For example the idea they valued cosmonauts over other considerations (due to training, money, tight nit ect) flies in the face of other russian situations where they proved they value presitge over life.
Just look at the example of the first russian nuke subs.
For lack of space they were unsafe radioactive death traps. Just look up the incident of K-19
Now that is relatively small potatos compared to the prestige of the space race.
Whats a few cosmonauts that they EASILY could destroy the evidence of a fatal incident.
I must bring back to the fact the italian brothers.
They were SPOT ON on the american program (as proven by records later) even to the fact of finding john glens "secret" frequencies.
But we CONTINUE to doubt their accuracy in the russian program based on russian records that are at the best of times unreliable.
Lastly I find some debunkers facts laughable.
Like the one suggested that they sent up capsules with recording (or bounced signals off them) to "test" communications systems.
You can prove the dogs as tests (which the brothers did accurately) with no questions.
But I have yet to see debunkers show records of russians doing the communication recording tests, with the results and applications, as a regular situation.
Macky kudos to you for pointing out they DID have the rocket capacity.
Eric, Northern IL USA
March 20, 2013 1:41am
Well having provided the information, that according to Wiki, and other sites, the Russians certainly did have the ability to lift manned flights into orbit during the times of the alleged tragedies, we can return to the question of whether Torre Bert recorded what they said they did, or was it just sensational nonsense.
There have been some technical reasons for why some of the claims may be bogus, but according to Brian's article, the Italian brothers certainly did pick up Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1.
Assuming the same orbital paths were being used by the Russians, I find no reason to doubt why those early disasters were also not genuine, and picked up by Torre Bert, given our new information that they were possible re the then-current Russian rocket lifting capability.
It must have been a huge uproar, people all over the world buying newpapers and listening to the radio for the latest news from space.
The nitty-grit is, that public opinion and perception of NASA space programs have always been an essential ingredient for funding and momentum, in the US.
Had those Russian space disasters continued to be publicised, they could have wrecked the American space program.
Lonely deaths in space have an enormous effect on the imagination, several posts right here endorse that fact.
My belief is that the US and Western powers moved swiftly to quash continued reports of the disasters, and a debunking began which included Torre Bert, and continues to this day.
Macky, Auckland
March 22, 2013 6:28pm
fascinating, once again a story i was unaware of.
can an enthusiatic hobbyist discover signals that a bored government paid knob twiddling time server will miss? absolutely!
from personal experience this happens all the time
Marky raises an interesting point i'd never considered, about news of Russian Deaths damaging the US publics thirst for space adventure.
I can tell you British Goverments before 1979 were terrified of offending the USSR particularly labour governments. so i can accept the UK covering up a soviet space disaster
as example of my above statment i cite Jim Callaghans attempt to obstruct the building of the Katyn Memorial in Cannock, Staffordshire
tim bucknall, Congleton
April 27, 2013 3:59am
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It is not disputed that the brothers recorded the first Russian satellite, the first American satellite, the heartbeat of the dog, and lets not forget John Glenn - via a frequency deliberately kept secret by NASA.
The brothers aroused so much interest they were visited by the KGB prior to getting invited to NASA. While at NASA they exchanged information to learn of two more Russian frequencies they didn't yet know. NASA was very surprised that these guys were able to record John Glenn, to say the least.
The Soviets' policy was simple - launch their missions without telling anyone. Once their pilot was back or their satellite was successfully in orbit, they would announce the mission to the public - only if successful. If it was not, then the mission simply wasn't announced or was reported as an unmanned loss. They retroactively went back and altered photos and cosmonaut records to erase all memory of those who didn't perform up to the program's expectations. They were able to keep huge, major disasters (involving the deaths of over 150 people in one case) completely secret from the west for 25+years.
I think that the personnel heard in the recordings in question are test pilots, not 100% bona fide cosmonauts. This was communist Russia, not the U.S. They were probably ordered aboard, told they simply needed to ride up and ride down, and that they would be a great state hero if they survived. If not, nobody would ever know their name.
Dave, Houston, TX
August 13, 2012 12:41pm