Talk:Lost Cosmonauts/Archive 1

Split
This article was splitted from Yuri Gagarin because it is almost unrelated to him. See previous dicussion of it on Talk:Yuri Gagarin.

Crocodealer 17:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC) Why is this article written with far more sympathy for the allegations than the Apollo landing hoax articles??? Why hasnt anyone discredited any of the claims made here? Or rather why are these discreditations not listed? 123.255.55.45 13:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That's simple. There is no possibility that the Apollo Moon landings were hoaxes.  In an open society (i.e., the United States) a conspiracy of such magnitude could not possibly be contained.  Also, there is no way to fake the low gravity effects easily visible to everyone watching the Apollo XI Moon landing on television.  On the other hand, the Soviet Union was a government with a long history of lies, and had a substantial record of efforts to conceal uncomfortable truths.  They almost never permitted news stories of disasters within the USSR to be reported, and the loss of a cosmonaut would be such a disaster.  In summary, the Apollo Moon Hoax theory is pure rubbish, while the theory that cosmonauts orbited the Earth before Gagarin, died in the attempt, and were never mentioned, is quite believable.  That said, it is obviously possible for there to be hoax claims, but proving one claim to be a hoax does not disprove the theory.  Vegasprof 14:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * While the Apollo Moon landings were certainly real, that's not to say that a conspiracy can't take place in the US. Laos and Cambodia were bombed in the same period without the knowledge of the American people.Ahuitzotl 11:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems odd to cite Mythbusters as scientific proof, but they did an exceptionally good episode in which they clearly and convincingly debunk all of the Apollo hoaxes. They go through each issue cited as hoax "evidence" and perform what the critics tout as the likely "REAL" cause was; in every case, the result is nothing like the actual footage.  For example, it is frequently claimed that the moonwalks look like they are simply being played in slow-motion, but atcual slow-motion footage of a man attempting to walk like an astronaut on the moon looks absolutely nothing like the original footage.  Also, the claim that the flag can be seen waving in a breeze is quickly dismissed by the fact that the flag was framed in thin metal rods (to keep it visible) which moved as the flagpole moved.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.155.50 (talk) 07:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Torre Bert
THE TORRE BERT RECORDINGS PROVIDE STRONG EVIDENCE TO SHOW THAT GAGARIN WAS NOT THE FIRST MAN IN SPACE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.84.43 (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * actually the Torre-Bert recordings dont provide strong evidence at all. Nevermind the fact that there's no hard proof, not even a hint, at these launches, its safe to say that just like any youtube video, these recordings could of been faked or misidentified.  For all we know they made it up for fame.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.119.185.104 (talk) 08:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that too much for a coincedence that Torre Bent is responsible for roughly half of claims in this article?--95.165.39.120 (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The truth is that the Soviets were always very secretive, and for the first 10 years of their space program, they only announced their achievements after they had been accomplished. This led many people to wonder if that meant there had been a number of failures. Case in point, Yuri Gagarin was the first Soviet reported to have successfully launched into space. What that report did not say was that he was not the first Soviet who had made the attempt.  The rumors were that there were up to three others who had tried and not survived.  Is this true?  We may never know, although the now opened KGB vaults may yet reveal the truth.  This, I think, is why these rumors continue to swirl.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.59.90 (talk) 01:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge?
Merge into lost cosmonauts seems like a good idea to me. Bubba73 (talk), 00:11, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I merged the two, and renamed. The incidents need to be rationalized and merged. For great justice. 22:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't especially like the new name. Bubba73 (talk), 23:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I liked Lost Cosmonauts better. Tom Harrison Talk 23:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, change it - I didn't like the old some people believe that Gagarin was not the first man in space or whatever it was. I changed it to be in line with the naming of the Apollo article. I agree that Lost Cosmonauts is more prosaic, but it makes the assumption that they are lost. I'm happy with you changing it, just trying to explain why I did it that way. For great justice. 23:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * No big hurry as far as I'm concerned; I'll at least wait and see what others think. Tom Harrison Talk 23:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * How about "Phantom cosmonauts", as the topic is called in one of the external links? Bubba73 (talk), 00:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Alleged Nazi cosmonauts
I think some info about rumors that Nazi launched somebody (a suicide launch) in suborbital flight should be added.--Nixer 14:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The only known manned rocket launch (sort of) in Nazi Germany was with the Bachem Ba 349 but this was only a rocket-powered interceptor aircraft. 84.190.137.237


 * I don't know if Nazi spacemen would be called "cosmonauts". Maybe they'd be called Luftnauts. Anyway, Ted Nomura of Antarctic Press published an issue of Families of Altered Wars World War II 1946 on the subject Nazi spacemen, theorizing or presenting ideas that either the Moon or Mars were their targets. It is a comicbook, though, so how much is fact? Apple8800 (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Isn't the title of this article biased?
Isn't the term 'conspiracy theory' designed to make readers believe that the truthfulness of the allegations is lessened, by virtue of the unreliable nature of the persons making the allegations?

Wouldn't a better title be 'Alleged lost cosmonauts of the Soviet Space Program'? --Cloveoil 18:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, Lost Cosmonauts makes more sense.Ricnun 20:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Its quite a cumbersome title. And it unfairly biases the reader against it before hand. Lost Cosmonauts is more of a neutral title. --Sexycaterpiller167 05:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

'Alleged' would make more sense considering there is no proof.

-G

I am moving the page to "Alleged Lost Cosmonauts" (The " [...] of the Soviet Space Program" seems redundant, seeing how the USSR/Russia is the only nation to refer to them as "cosmonauts". --PeaceFrog70 (talk) 03:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Really, there's no need for anything more than "Lost Cosmonauts", which is by far the best-known name used to refer to these allegations. Per WP:TITLE ("Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize"), an article should be titled with the most widely-used and best-known name. There's no need to judge whether there is or is not proof, etc. In any case you should wait for more discussion before moving the page. --MCB (talk) 22:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This article sucks
Seriously. Half of it isn't cited at all, and the "phantom cosmonauts" supposedly lost in space are entirely fictional; there's absolutely no evidence to suggest they ever existed. Titanium Dragon 20:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Please explain the meaning of the phrase, "There's absolutely no evidence ... " If I take the sentence literally, it means that you are claiming that you have access to a summary of all evidence that exists on this subject, a rather strong claim.  If you don't mean it literally, perhaps you mean something else.  If so, what? Vegasprof 16:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * What I'm saying is that the way it is worded several imply that they were true/verified/accepted, whereas quite the opposite is true; there's no evidence to suggest these people ever flew (and in many cases, existed) and while people accused the USSR of pulling all sorts of shenanigans, there's no more evidence of the USSR having piles of dead cosmonauts as the US having piles of dead astronauts; indeed, there are no records of these at all, and the Russians have tended to be forthcoming about such things since the fall of the Soviet Union. This more or less disproved the "phantom cosmonauts". Having a "proven hoaxes" section implies the rest haven't been proven to be hoaxes, whereas the rest have been proven to be hoaxes and only a small number of people continue to believe in their existance. The fact that the other cosmonauts still alive still deny that these dead cosmonauts ever existed is even more damning to their existance. Titanium Dragon 09:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I just finished reading most of the page containing stuff written by James Oberg in 1988, the one that is linked in the article. He expended a significant amount of effort trying to get to the truth of rumors of deaths of cosmonauts, and debunks some of them, while confirming the horrible death by high-oxygen fire of Valentin Bondarenko in 1961.  But at the end of the page, he admits that he does not know everything.  The page reinforces my previous knowledge that the Soviets generally tried very hard to cover up anything they felt was negative news, even to the point of trying to revise history by erasing faces of former cosmonauts from official photos.  Yes, as we all know, Russia is currently much more open, but news stories (including the one yesterday that news outlets have been ordered to present at least 50% "positive" news about Russia) indicate that this tendency is far from gone.  My conclusion: I have read a book, which seems to be a reliable source, that there were prior cosmonauts in orbit.  Oberg, who spent a lot of effort, knows he didn't learn everything.  Thus, it is impossible for anyone here to be sure that there is no evidence that it happened.  At the present, I would call it a "plausible rumor."  Given the still considerable secrecy of present-day Russia, the truth might not be known to the rest of the world for years, if ever. Vegasprof 11:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

By that same token there's absolutely no evidence to suggest man ever landed on the moon other than a bunch of fake films, photos and common as muck meteorites alleged to have been brought here through human labour and yet this ridiculous Appaller theory gets a chunky wiki article nevertheless. And what a one-sided and totally non-scientific one at that. One that alleges history unfolded as NASA and USSR once claimed it did and brainless enough to regurgitate this idiotic NASA lie about surface temperatures on the moon not melting the cameras and killing the astronuts on account of the lack of oxygen! What a joke. --124.182.119.172 (talk) 12:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyright issues
It seems that some parts of the article are copied verbatim from other sites. For example, the section about Igor Fedrov is copy/pasted from this page.

I'm going to try to hunt and delete all violations in the next few days. --Daggerstab 08:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality
The Torre Bert recordings have been widely criticised for their reliability, and this article makes insufficient mention of this. Brilliantine (talk) 12:05, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Would you be able to please reference that? Any actual citations would be good, thanks. --Oblivionboy (talk) 02:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't reference it as there are very few reliable sources on the subject at all, and I don't have time to dig up all of the ones that do exist. Most of the sources referenced in the article do not meet WP:RS. The accusations do not have a great deal of credibility among historians especially. I'm worried that this article could be seen give undue weight to what is essentially a fringe theory. There is no doubt that Torre Bert did track some of the actual flights - what is in doubt is their recordings of these alleged unreported incidents - heartbeat sent via audio? You have got to be kidding. Brilliantine (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, the Oberg book that is already referenced has quite a bit, not so much on Torre Bert, but on the veracity of the allegations in general. Brilliantine (talk) 17:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Lost astronauts?
Isn't there a similar conspiracy theory about NASA? The alleged later Apollo missions, which took place after the Moon was supposedly abandoned. This should be noted.--MacRusgail (talk) 12:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No, three planned Apollo landing missions were canceled in 1970: Apollos 18, 19, and 20. NASA's budget was cut in January and September 1970 because of waning public/political interest in Apollo and increasing focus on projects such as Skylab, ASTP, and the Space Shuttle.  (In fact, two of three leftover Saturn V rockets became museum pieces, while the third was used to launch the Skylab space station.) Apollo 17 was the last manned mission to the Moon in December, 1972. All well-documented.216.254.157.98 (talk) 08:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

If you don’t mind, I will remove the mentioning of V. Bondarenko. On contrary to this “Miryas”, he was a real person. Among with Gagarin, Titov, Nikolaev and others, he was a member of training squad. Bondarenko died in terrible fire accident, on the ground, not space. Dunno, why he even mentioned in this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.73.65.51 (talk) 11:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Being a jerk here, we lost an astronaut when J.T. Kirk was sucked into a nexus. We lost another astronaut when J.L. Picard was sucked into that same nexus. See here. Apple8800 (talk) 12:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation
"On the 24th, there were some garbled verbal transmissions about something the couple could see outside their ship, and had to urgently communicate to Earth. What happened is unclear, but communication was lost. Around the same time the listening station at Torre Bert apparently picked up an SOS signal from a craft in space. As the signal got weaker, it was assumed whatever craft it was disappeared into deep space."

This sounds like an interesting topic. Is there any way someone could find the source for this? I'd like to use this in a research project. Chris (talk) 02:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Look here. --190.44.102.109 (talk) 00:07, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Organization of page
The article's summary at the beginning of the page should be just that, a a summary. What we have here is one detailed story in the summary section and several other smaller stories. Cs302b (talk) 11:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Proponents of the Lost Cosmonauts theory
"Proponents of the Lost Cosmonauts theory concede that Yuri Gagarin was the first man to survive space travel.." I think this is an unfair generalisation. I am a proponent of the said theory but also firmly convinced that the Gagarin flight - or anything else that occured on this planet by means of manned space travel up until the Space shuttle era - were nothing but disgusting cabinet illusions. The only video record of this Gagarin launch and landing pretty much constitutes proof to the informed reader that it was an even more crudely perpetrated hoax than the American retaliations. --124.182.119.172 (talk) 12:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Bondarenko!
And again – why Bondarenko is still here? I already raised this question – Bondarenko didn’t even get to space, he burned alive in oxygen room! In his place could be any other teammate even Gagarin or Titov. His death is not a mystery, he was still alive when medics arrived, it’s all well documented. Once again I “erase” Bondarenko’s name from list of all this “miryas”.--80.73.65.51 (talk) 04:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The article isn't about actually-killed astronauts, per se; it's about rumors of such deaths. Bondarenko belongs in the article because Oberg makes clear that the Soviets' coverup for more than 20 years of his death, altering photographs, etc. contributed to "lost astronaut" rumors. The case seems straightforward to me. YLee (talk) 04:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Judica-Cordiglia brothers - Obvious Hoax
I want to crosspost what I posted in Talk:Judica-Cordiglia_brothers here as well.

Since the two brothers are the primary sources for many claims in here, it could perhaps give a new venue of research for people seriously investigating their claims. I'm frankly amazed that the woman's tape has never been challenged from this direction in nearly 50 years of existence. The woman speaking on the May 5 1961 is clearly not a native Russian speaker. She speaks with a heavy accents that sounds very Italian to me. She speaks in comically broken Russian. It's as bad as "all your base are belong to us". The speaker has 0 understanding of Soviet communications protocols. Half the tape is complete gibberish, which should be obvious even if you don't speak any Russian. Why doesn't she identify herself? What are all those random numbers? Why doesn't she act professionally and give specific status reports, cabin pressure and temperature, systems status, and so on? Why can't she even say "come in" or "reentry" using proper Soviet lingo? Compare her transcript to that of Gagarin's flight, which took place a month after this tape was recorded. Differences in professionalism are jarring. (Google translation)

I posted much more details in the Judica-Cordiglia's talk. Flyboy Will (talk) 00:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Articles
The related articles should have pointers to this article (ie. Soyuz 4, etc) since they don't currently have any information about the conspiracy theories revolving around them. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

KGB Dwarf
I'm not sure if the "KGB Dwarf" should be mentioned in this article. It would have been a kind of conspiracy (KGB conspiring the space programme) after all, but it doesn't quite fit with the rest of the article.--ospalh (talk) 08:25, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Cultural References
"The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater characters of The Boss and The Fury were fictional but noteworthy lost astronaut/cosmonauts"

Noteworthy in what way?

...and no mention of the lost spacemen in the original two Planet of the Apes films? 62.6.161.131 (talk) 11:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Copyediting
Performed grammar copyediting per tag. The last 1/3 of the page was difficult to edit and I may have inadvertently changed some of the meaning. Please check this portion carefully. Canuck100 (talk) 03:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?
Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 04:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅--Oneiros (talk) 13:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Theory" vs. "Story" ???
Rather than titling these events, reports, hoaxes, etc. as "theories", shouldn't they be labeled more correctly as "stories"? "Theory", while vague, lends creditability to them. I propose changing. Comments are welcome.--S. Rich 20:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Main source: an Italian newspaper?
This article currently reads as if the main source of the lost cosmonaut stories is an American newspaper article in 1961; but this source indicates actually the stories originated in the Italian news agency Continentale in December 1959 (which apparently also cites a "high-ranking Czech communist" as a source). Can anyone give a more specific citation for the Continentale news story (which is probably in Italian)? Is it cited by the 1961 American newspaper article? Mlm42 (talk) 05:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)