The Disappearing Soviet Cosmonauts

Conspiracy theories have spread to various aspects of life, including astronomy.

Cosmonaut suit belonging to the space agency of the Soviet Union. (Pexels)

Quoting from Wikipedia, the Lost Cosmonauts or Phantom Cosmonauts is a topic of conspiracy theory that believed that several Soviet cosmonauts had gone into outer space, but their existence was never publicly acknowledged by the Soviet Union or Russian space authority.

Proponents of this theory claim that the Soviet Union attempted to launch several manned space flights before the flight of Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, as the first human to successfully penetrate outer space. They believe that every cosmonaut who was on the mission before Yuri Gagarin died in the launch attempt. Wikipedia contributors state that the Soviet Union government must withhold any information related to the failure of their space program to prevent any negative response from the public during the height of the Cold War from 1948 to 1953.

Explanation

Indeed, in fact, there have been many failures of the Soviet space program before and after the successful launch of Yuri Gagarin. One of the many space programs that existed during the Cold War may have stemmed from the demands of the Space Race, a period of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States (US) between 1955 and 1972 that pushed each side to use their resources to the maximum limit. Of course, the Space Race aims to determine who will be the first to send a human into orbit. The Soviet Union’s victories in the initial period of the Space Race sent the US into a panic as they feared they would lose the rivalry.

Citing from All That’s Interesting, one example of an accident in the Soviet space program that occurred before Yuri Gagarin’s launch was the Nedelin Disaster. Wikipedia informs that the Nedelin Disaster is the name given to the accident that occurred on October 24, 1960, at the Baikonur launch pad. In detail, what happened in 1960, at exactly 18.45 local time, was the explosion of the second-stage engine of an R-16 prototype, the first type of intercontinental ballistic missile successfully operated by the Soviet Union. The explosion occurred as a result of the engine being accidentally started, killing an unknown number of military personnel and technical workers. Wikipedia puts the death toll at 54 to 300, but All That’s Interesting says there were at least 78 dead.

Furthermore, in March 1961, just about a month before Gagarin’s Vostok 1 mission on April 12, 1961, a Soviet cosmonaut died at the age of 24 as a result of a massive fire that broke out in a training capsule (small spacecraft) filled with oxygen. The Soviet Union government just acknowledged the accident in 1986. Reuters through the New York Times said that the victim who died was named Valentin Vasiliyevich Bondarenko.

Then, in 1967, another cosmonaut died when the parachute in his space capsule failed to open. The cosmonaut was named Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov, a friend of Yuri Gagarin. Komarov’s condition after the accident was deplorable. Gagarin himself died a year later while training on a fighter jet, adding another name to the long list of deaths linked to the Soviet Union’s space program.

Komarov’s charred remains. Only the heel bone ‘managed to survive’. Rare Historical Photos lists Komarov as the first human to die on a space mission. Beyond that, there are many more accidents related to the Soviet Union’s space program. (Rare Historical Photos)

Wyatt Redd, the author of the article “The Haunting Mystery Of The USSR’s Lost Cosmonauts” express that there has long been a circulating allegation that the deaths (certainly related to the Soviet space program) that are known to the public are only a small fraction of the total number of people who died. “Even, some argue that a number of cosmonauts were lost in outer space.”

The claim of Two Brothers

One of the most popular claims about the allegation comes from the Italian brothers Achille and Giovanni Battista who proclaimed to have ‘discovered’ several failed secret Soviet space missions. The claim led to allegations that both of them, as former amateur radio operators, supported this Soviet Union’s space program conspiracy theory.

According to Wikipedia, the recognition stems from the two of them as they are deciding to set up an experimental listening station outside Turin, Italy in the late 1950s. Achille and Battista use a disused German bunker at a location called Torre Bert. Working with modest equipment they improvised, they both claim to have managed to monitor transmissions from the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite series program and the first US satellite, Explorer 1. This success occurred through the use of equipment that records flight information such as telemetry, sound recording, and visual data.

In the 1960s, the two of them released several recordings of alleged radio communications from secret Soviet space missions, including one that claimed to be the dying suffocating sound of a missing cosmonaut. In total, Achille and Battista released nine records in four years. All released recordings are listed in the following list:

1. In May 1960, when an unnamed cosmonaut went missing as the orbit of his space capsule deviated from the course.
2. In November 1960, when Achille and Battista find a message asking for help in Morse code from a troubled space probe.
3. In February 1961, the moment a cosmonaut dies in a weak condition.
4. In April 1961 just before Gagarin’s flight, a capsule was recorded circling the Earth three times before re-entering the atmospheric environment.
5. In May 1961, a weak signal called for help from an orbiting capsule.
6. In October 1961, in which a Soviet Union probe wander from its course and disappears into the darkness of outer space.
7. In November 1962, a space capsule rebounded from the atmosphere and disappeared during its entry into the Earth’s orbit.
8. November 1963, the date on which an unidentified female cosmonaut died during the entry process to Earth.
9. In April 1964, the moment when a cosmonaut was lost when his capsule caught fire while penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere.

A recording refers to the fifth notation that was successfully obtained by the two brothers Achille and Battista. (YouTube)

Moon Program Accusation

In addition, citing Wikipedia (which did not attach the originator of this statement), some sources claim that before the historic Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, the Soviet Union had attempted to defeat the US. However, the experiment, which allegedly took place on July 3, 1969, through the use of the Soyuz 7K-L3 (which has a close relation to the Soyuz 7K-LOK) aircraft loaded by an N1 rocket, ended in an explosion, destroying the launch pad, and killing the cosmonauts manned inside it.

When it comes to facts, there was indeed an accident that befell the Soviet Union on July 3, 1969. However, the aircraft package used at that time did not contain any cosmonauts on board. An analyst from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) even suggested that the failed launch may have been intended to send an unmanned probe to the vicinity of the Moon and then return it to Earth.

Wikipedia reports that official sources say the Soyuz 7K-L3 is not ready for a manned mission. The lander module, LK, was successfully tested several times, but the orbiter was not successfully tested and was accompanied by (perhaps referring to the application for) closing the program in late 1974. The application for closing the program was officially rejected and kept secret until 1990 when the government allowed its publication under a policy whose naming concerns openness and transparency.

Wikipedia contributors were right when they stated that the Soyuz 7K-L3 program did not end in 1974, as the fact that this program was officially canceled in 1976. But on the other hand, it should be clarified that the Soyuz 7K-L3 program ended earlier, in 1974, though only de facto. That means, activities related to the Soyuz 7K-L3 program have ceased to exist since 1974, but the legal realm just declared the ‘emptiness of activity’ about two years later.

“Even (if) the cosmonauts are in the Soyuz 7K-L3 (then there is an accident), they will be rescued through a system that will carry the payload to a safe place, two kilometers from the runway,” explains Wikipedia through a modified language. It should be noted that all Soviet launches to the Moon via N1 carrying the Soyuz 7K-LOK control system package failed although fortunately no crew was assigned to each of these flights.

Cosmonaut Mikoyan

The claim, regarding the accident on July 3, 1969, is thought to correlate with a hoax about the flight failure of Major Andrei Mikoyan, a figure known as one of the Phantom Cosmonauts. His identity itself is still unclear, considering that Mikoyan may only be a character in a story that, as has been explained, is a hoax.

What Mikoyan is associated with, is that two Soviet cosmonauts died in their attempt to reach the Moon in 1969. Those who were expected to successfully land on the Moon failed to enter the Moon’s orbit and then passed by the object. In the story that spread, the failure was caused by the most common reason, namely damage to several systems. This story is based on the television series The Cape in the episode “Buried in Peace” which aired on October 28, 1996.

In that episode, the fictional story that was explained was that the crews of a space shuttle that was on a task to repair a communications satellite had a rendezvous with a derelict Soviet spacecraft with the crews on board who died aboard. The character who plays Lincoln in The Punisher, Tom Nowicki, is the man behind Major Andrei Mikoyan in this episode.

A rare scene in which a cosmonaut is seen focusing during landing training using an LK lander module. (Encyclopedia Astronautica)

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Bibliography

• Wikipedia — “Lost Cosmonauts”
• Encyclopedia Britannica — “Cold War”
• All That’s Interesting — “The Haunting Mystery Of The USSR’s Lost Cosmonauts”
• Wikipedia — “Nedelin catastrophe”
• Wikipedia — “R-16 (missile)”
• Wikipedia — “Yuri Gagarin”
• The New York Times — “Soviet Admits an Astronaut Was Killed in 1961 Accident”
• Wikipedia — “Vladimir Komarov”
• Rare Historical Photos — “The remains of the astronaut Vladimir Komarov, a man who fell from space, 1967”
• Wikipedia — “Valentin Bondarenko”
• Wikipedia — “Judica-Cordiglia brothers”
• YouTube — “Final Words of Soviet Female Cosmonaut Lost in Space”
• Wikipedia — “Glasnost”
• Encyclopedia Astronautica — “Mikoyan, Andrei”
• Wikipedia — “July 1969”
• Wikipedia — “N1 (rocket)”
• Wikipedia — “Soyuz 7K-LOK”
• IMDb — “Tom Nowicki”
• Wikipedia — “Soviet crewed lunar programs”
• Wikipedia — “De facto”