| Phantom Cosmonaut |
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During the lifetime of the Soviet Union the details of their space program were kept completely secret. The real identities of their rocket and spacecraft engineers were never revealed in their lifetimes. The fact that a pilot was training for space flight was kept secret even from his wife until after they had actually been launched into space. The enormous project to land a Russian on the moon was kept utterly secret until after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the absence of hard information the Western media naturally had to rely on the rumour mill and perhaps their own inventiveness. Manned flights were normally claimed to be completely successful, even when it was obvious that the planned objectives were not met. There were exceptions to this. Manned launches were announced after they had achieved orbit, not after they had successfully landed. This meant that the deaths of cosmonauts in space had to be acknowledged and became the subject of national mourning (e.g. Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11). Manned launch aborts were also acknowledged, though with some delay (e.g. Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1). A Bolshevik practice since Lenin's time was to erase from photographs and history persons who had fallen out of favour. In the most infamous example a photograph of Lenin speaking in on May 5, 1920 was slowly depopulated over the years as one trusted comrade after the other turned out to be an enemy of the state. The Soviets helped along the rumours of cosmonaut deaths through imperfect censorship. Since the identities of unflown cosmonauts were secret, they would be airbrushed out of group photos of cosmonauts. Several versions of the same picture might appear, with or without these 'phantoms'. In the earliest years of the space race it was claimed by the Western press that a number of Russian cosmonauts died in space flights that were never announced by the Soviet Union. Coming from a very few original 'unidentified sources' these were embellished and elaborated by other writers over the years. Sensational allegations by the Italian amateur radio intercept analysts added some substance to the allegations (for the claims of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers see Lost Cosmonauts. For the a technical critique of their claims see Sven Grahn's critique at Notes on the space tracking activities and sensational claims made by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers). After the fall of the Soviet Union the curtain of secrecy was lifted. The diaries and memoirs of Soviet managers, cosmonauts, and engineers at the centre of the space program were published. Personal and official documents, diaries, and contemporary notes from the time were sold at auction and purchased by Western museums and institutes. The Soviet Union's greatest secrets - the failed moon landing program, the Nedelin disaster, the horrible radiological and biological warheads developed for their missiles - came spilling out. Several cosmonauts who had died in training accidents were indeed identified. But there was not a shred of confirmation of the original phantom cosmonaut stories in any of this new information. In recent years the Internet has spread further stories of phantom cosmonauts and astronauts. These were derived from modern art projects, garbled versions of books and television programs, and circulation of Muscovite urban legends. Herewith is a list of known Phantom Cosmonauts (and a few astronauts), the origin of their stories, and what truth might lay behind it. In particular the truth behind the alleged first man in space - Vladimir Ilyushin is examined in some detail. And revealed here for the first time - some phantoms actually did fly on Soviet manned spacecraft into earth orbit and around the moon - but they weren't human!
Many thanks to Dietrich Haeseler, Jens Kieffer-Olsen, Dr. Elliott H. Haimoff, Larry Klaes, James Oberg, Sven Grahn, Colin Burgess, and Dwayne Allen Day for their assistance and suggestions.
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Over the years the Western press named a number of cosmonauts that were never acknowledged by the Soviet Union. Most were said to have died in space. One allegedly was the first man in orbit and survived. What is the truth of these stories of 'phantom cosmonauts'?
