Talk:Judica-Cordiglia brothers

Name of article
Why are they called Judica-Cordiglia brothers, when that is not their name? 2601:241:8D81:BBF0:6011:CD45:CF0C:8AB7 (talk) 19:52, 26 October 2021 (UTC)BeaMyra


 * It's their last name. --50.234.188.27 (talk) 13:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Additional content
The Readers Digest article about:Judica-Cordiglia brothers, may have some validity: My father, a Mathematician, and genuine Rocket Scientist, (Listed in Who's Who in the Southwest, and in Men & Women of Science as the Chief Missile Scientist for Lockheed Missile Space, and Chairman of Math and Statistics at the University of Massachusetts) knew the author of the readers digest article. It was around the time of the first two American manned space shots, which I attended at Cape Canaveral. As a child I visited with the Radcliff family, son of the Radcliff who penned the article. I played with his kids. While we were visiting them Wayman(MY Dad), spent the day with the father and son(Radcliffs)> The son was an Engineer for a large Orange Jiuce Company ( Donald Duck) at the time we visited. This was within a year of him writing the article for Readrs Digest, and from what I picked up as a young boy was that Radcliff senior had personally visited with the Judica-Cordiglia brothers, and had seen some of their radio listening station. NOT included in the article was the part about how the Americans had procured copies of their tapes(perhaps CIA, or some similar US agency). My dad stayed in contact with the son for another 40 years. According to them the US had various recordings not released to the public, and because of their geographical location the Judica-Cordiglia brothers had some material Not recorded by US Listening stations, so they requested copies. It is conceivable that they still exists in some hidden archive somewhere. I was only 10 or 12 years old when we visited, but the senior Radcliff had just written the article, and they all took it very seriously. In the late 50's I lived at the China Lake Missile Test Site, my dad and all of his associates worked with Werner von Braun, all the kids I grew up with, their fathers were also Rocket Scientist and Mathematicians, and some of the mothers were the actual people portrayed in: 'Rise of the Rocket Girls', were the "Computers" as in "Hidden Figures". This stuff was "Close to home" for me. Having a personal involvement with Nike Sidewinder Missiles, the U2,the SR71, and Telstar 2, I suspect that the story by the 2 brothers and the sister may have some degree of accuracy and that it is not a hoax. I'm an Inspector and in my business : "if it's not documented,...it didn't happen". It shouldn't be too difficult to ascertain that all of the claims I've made are true, and I was there. Many of the authors of these articles can not make the same claims. US agencies may have some documentation of their own that was never made public. My dad and one of my uncles both worked for Lockheed's Skunk Works where secrecy was paramount. One worked on the U2 and Nike Sidewinders, the other worked on the SR71. They never ever talked about their work, even though they were brothers. They had both attended special classes on how to avoid talking about what they did and how to steer you off the subject. If you asked them what they did in no time at all the conversation morphed into baseball or fishing, anything but what they did. MLS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:603:E00:CB49:609E:606F:1133:3616 (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2017 (UTC) more stuff in this article! please! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.240.162.169 (talk) 13:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscientists?!
I removed the category "pseudoscientists". Everything they did and recorded is on tape. It would really be hard to fake everything, and to betray in that way the Italian and Russian intelligence, NASA and Swiss national radio (see the movie "Space Hackers"). Moreover, they never said of theirselves been scientist, and on the most controversial recordings they admitted a certain doubt. Instead, they did indeed contact acclaimed scientists for help.

If someone really thinks everything is a huge organizated joke and has some sort of proofs, this page should go under category "counter-intelligence", or something. But I don't think this is the case. --Toobaz (talk) 21:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It rings loudly of fakes... I've heard their "I'm burning" audio (Its in English.. by the way). Also, they won a trip to Florida through a T.V. quiz.   How many credible scientists do you know go onto T.V. game shows to win a trip to a place they love due to their "scientific" study of related topics?  Fake.. Fake.. Faker than fake.  I'll set up a mic and have someone mutter things into it and say its recorded from Mars if it'll get me a free trip to see the world, sure. Cs302b (talk) 11:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not in English, so I don't know what you've heard - it's in very well pronounced Russian (native speaker-level), you can listen it on the webpage. Whehter a fake or not, at least it sounds rather realistic. --193.118.251.61 (talk) 15:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've just the recording of the woman dying. It isn't a fake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fletcherbrian (talk • contribs) 15:07, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * True, it would be very hard to fake it - and in the decades since these events, documented and reliable evidence from both inside and outside the former Soviet Union has never backed up any of the accounts of this duo. In fact, it has shown the opposite. All reliable evidence points to the vast majority of their claims being false. Baldyarmedmen (talk) 21:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This is SO fake
Yes, this is my original research. However I'm extremely surprised that no one else has reviewed the tapes from this point of view and debunked them up until now.

Take this recording on their site for example: http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/wom.htm

The woman speaks in broken Russian with a heavy non-native accent. It doesn't sound like any regional accent from the former USSR, Georgian, Estonian, etc. I've never heard Italian-accented Russian, but I know what Italian-accented English sounds like, and that sounds a whole lot like that. Softened Ls, elongated vowels, general articulation, it all sounds very Italian.

The transcript on the site has some clear translations of phrases that are completely inaudible on the tape. Some of the things listed in the transcript are not heard at all. A very large section ("BREATHING...BREATHING... OXYGEN...OXYGEN... I AM HOT... (THIS)ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?... IT'S ALL... ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?... IT'S ALL...") from the transcript simply cannot be heard on the tape.

The accent is evident from the very first word. However once we get into complete sentences, broken phrases also pop up all over the place. "OUR TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW" from the transcript is "Наша передача будет теперь" on the tape, which is not only completely wrong from the protocol point of view, it's broken Russian. "I CAN SEE A FLAME!" from the transcript is even more telling. She tries to say "я вижу... пламя", which again is broken Russian, but she pronounces "пламя" wrong - pleh-mya instead of plah-mya, (the word she ends up saying is Russian for "tribe"). To me, the long pause and the slight hesitation with which she says "plehmya" sound very consistent with somebody momentarily stumped by an unfamiliar word.

The Russian is so bad, I hardly even need to get into matters of protocol. The speaker has 0 understanding of Soviet Air Force codewords. She even says "come in" wrong, saying "rah rah rah" (whatever that means) instead of the standard "priyom". She also consistently breaks protocol by never identifying herself and identifying the listener. Compare to Gagarin's transcript, where he begins each phrase with "zarya, this is kedr" and ends each sentence with a "priyom", "come in, over".

Further, she says something completely inane for "I will reenter" - "я вернусь" - which doesn't even translate as reenter but simply as "I will return". Not the phrase one would use for unexpected reentry. While I can see how someone trying to translate "reentry" into Russian would come up with "вернусь", not knowing the proper cosmonaut lingo, the reverse is much less believable, that someone would hear "I will return" in Russian and somehow infer that it meant reentry.

The numbers the woman says throughout the transmission are gibberish. Compare to Gagarin's transcript, which has no random numbers like that. Standard air force protocol, to which Gagarin adheres, is to identify each number with what it is for - altitude, temperature, etc. The very first count-down she does, five to one and then up to five, is again wrong. First of all, Russian count-downs are 1 to 10, and in the other direction (1 to 10 then back to 1). Comm check countdowns must also be clearly identified as such, and ended with a "how do you read, over". Compare to Gagarin's transcript.

Her saying "i feel hot" in broken Russian as "мне жарко" is again wrong. Even if that could be expected once from a distressed person, a native Russian speaker with air force training would not have used that verbiage, and ground controllers would have immediately asked for specific details: cabin pressure, cabin humidity, cabin temperature.

All of this should be immediately obvious to anyone with some understanding of Russian, especially to any native speakers. Wall-to-wall breach of protocol should also be clearly evident to anyone who knows anything about aviation, regardless of language.

Based on the fact that the transcript provides a lot of details that cannot be discerned on the tapes, my guess is that the "transcript" was created first, and then translated and recorded by someone with poor command of the Russian language. And the Fortean Times articles speaks of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers' "younger sister" who "was fluent in Russian".

I find it unbelievable that none of this was pointed out before.

Occam's Razor:

1. Soviets launched a foreign woman into space who communicated with ground control in broken Russian with complete disregard for protocol.

2. The Judica-Cordiglia brothers wrote a script in their native Italian, which immediately betrays their complete lack of understanding of Soviet and international communication protocols. They then had their sister, known to have some understanding of Russian, translate and possibly record a short tape of those pseudo-communications, hoping that their intended audience in Italy would not know Russian well enough to realize they've been duped.Flyboy Will (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Native Russian speaker here, a lot of the protocol breaks could be explainable due to being in distress, but "Наша передача будет теперь"? That's not something *any* native or even near-native Russian speaker would ever say. The lack of any identification whatsoever of whom they are and to whom they are speaking to also makes no sense. Finally, the recording is so goddamned staticky that I can barely make anything out, which makes actual voice matching far more difficult, not to mention masks accents quite well, which makes option#2 look even more plausible than it was already when you mentioned it, really. Probably sadly a clever attempt at a hoax. 129.97.250.68 (talk) 07:06, 4 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreeing with the previous commenters. At first it may seem like quite a chilling recording, but even if you explain the heavy departure from protocol, the overall incoherence and the accent as stemming from the rising temperature and distress/panic due to the ostensible imminence of death, a phrase like "наша передача будет теперь" really betrays a non-native speaker. Aardark (talk) 19:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

It looks like fake, but a clever one (at least, for sixties). But what if the tape itself is not fake? Could it be some kind of intended misinformation (from Soviet Air/Space Force or KGB, and even CIA). It's very possible, in case of "space race". So my guess is the real records from unknown place has been used to product a hoax. Creepy to think it's recorded in some mental asylum or from patients of some medical or physical experiments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.140.113.102 (talk) 10:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

I would have to agree with autosigned: that would be a reasonable alternate theory to consider because of clandestine activities in the cold war that among others would be an additional explanation. Particularly in the case of the purported female cosmonaut(perhaps shes in a different program altogether or a test of some kind for a different nation.) who burned up, I wonder what they claim convinced them that they were at that point monitoring a transmission from the Vostok program? I admit I have done no thorough research on these claims.SoNetMedia&#39;s Alfred O. Mega (talk) 22:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

A little NPOV work certainly might be nice here...
This article, short as it is (and not delving into most of the extraordinary claims of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers) is far from NPOV, citing the claims made by them as fact when they have been thoroughly debunked by many sources. (The external link to Sven Grahn's website provides one of the best such sources.) But you wouldn't know that from reading the article. I note in the history that someone made an attempt to add in a few "allegedly's" and "claimed's," which were soon removed by an anonymous editor. I haven't the time to attempt to expand and clarify this article, but someone needs to, so I am adding a NPOV tag to it. StanislavJ (talk) 22:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Elaborate fakes?
In the link [1]lost in space I can't find any debunking critics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.39.63.94 (talk) 09:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The only thing I can find in the passage which corroborates the citation is this paragraph:
 * Many sceptics have argued that it was impossible for the brothers to have listened into so many Russian space missions. It may be, as some have claimed, that the brothers sometimes felt under press­ure to produce results and were tempted to satisfy the insatiable popular demand for space stories by fabricating sensational new recordings. It’s unlikely, for example, that the soft beating sounds they once recorded were really a cosmonaut’s heartbeat as they claimed; heartbeats were broadcast from the capsules, but as electrical signals which sounded like static.
 * I am going to soften that line of the article. Scoundr3l (talk) 09:30, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

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Explorer 1 claims
The article mentions that the brothers also claimed to monitor a US space launch Explorer 1 as I quote below: Working with scavenged and improvised equipment, they claimed to have successfully monitored transmissions from the Soviet Sputnik program and Explorer 1, the first American satellite, using equipment that recorded flight information such as telemetry, voice recordings and visual data. The article does not in any way elaborate on that claim and the list of recordings that follow do not include a description of it. Since the article does not give any details its seems like that claim should have a footnote tag on it referencing the source. IS there any more information about that claim? Did they also have any recorded transmissions or any other data eg telemetry reports etc, related to that launch? If so should that not lend some much needed credibility to their other claims? Particularly if the claim is or is not known to be verifiable it seems that the source that attributes that claim to the brothers should be specifically referenced in the article especially since no other details are offered for that account.SoNetMedia&#39;s Alfred O. Mega (talk) 22:10, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

strange syntax

 * (e.g. the meaningless "..аша передача будет теперь", Nov 1963)←(″аша передача будет теперь″ Translation: "...[o]ur transmission will now...")

Why is the phrase shown twice? What is the arrow? If it's meaningless, how is it translated?

Is the second parenthesis a comment on the first, denying that it is meaningless? —Tamfang (talk) 10:39, 20 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Ah here it is: the arrow and what follows were added 2014 August 23, citing Google Translate; it was modified 2014 October 10, removing the link. — It would be good to say how “наша передача будет теперь” is bad, or what would be the normal expression. —Tamfang (talk) 16:49, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Soviets Couldn't Leave Earth Orbit?
"Though some of the transcripts record cosmonauts saying they are leaving Earth's orbit (i.e. heading into interplanetary or "deep" space), the manned Vostok 3KAs could not reach escape velocity because their designs never contained secondary-burn propulsion units."
 * It is a straw-man argument to base this on the known Vostok programme, and the brothers would have no idea which system it was that launched the (claimed) cosmonauts spaceward. It would not invalidate their claim(s) even if they said so.
 * The Soviets had the launch system for their famously buggy Luna series of Moon probes, and attempted or succeeded in launches of over half a dozen of them before even 1960. Even the earliest of them weighed the better part of a half-ton. So it is a small stretch of the imagination to think that they couldn't have attempted a one-man tin-can circumlunar mission and back. It could have crashed or missed the target altogether and kept right on going. JohndanR (talk) 04:08, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The entire thing is fraud from start to finish, debunked for decades now, so why quibble over trivia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:6480:B640:1405:B6DD:7E94:E74C (talk) 00:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)