Expert Says The Soviets Left An Astronaut In Space After A Disaster—Then Covered It Up For Decades

Gagarin became a role model in the USSR after his epic journey to the stars. But that’s hardly a surprise given the sheer gravity of his achievement. By making it into orbit, this 27-year-old cosmonaut helped the Soviets to gain an edge over America in the so-called Space Race.

Right from the off, though, some people were unconvinced that Gagarin was the first human to orbit our planet. Rumors circulated claiming someone else had achieved the feat mere days before Gagarin. This person had apparently entered orbit and successfully returned to Earth again, although he wasn’t in the best health.

Given the broader paranoia of the Cold War era, it’s no surprise that stories about the Space Race were greeted by suspicion and rumor. After all, the Soviets really did keep certain aspects of their space program under wraps. Given all the secrecy, it’s quite conceivable that a tale like this may have been suppressed.

Over the decades, conspiracies about the Soviet space program have persisted and evolved. Some believe one particular theory where the Soviets sent humans to space — only to never return. But does that frightening theory hold any weight? Could it be possible that men died in space before Gagarin ever made it up there?

Well, given the dramatic twists and turns of the Soviet space program, some seem to think it's possible. It all traces back to the close of WWII, when the USSR was gearing up for the Cold War against the United States. Around this time, both sides had taken rocket technology from the defeated Germans.

With elements of Germany’s old space program now split between them, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union now set out to develop their own capabilities. But this was far from a collaborative effort, as the former allies each vied to gain the upper hand over the other. The Space Race had begun.

Interestingly, animals were central to these initial trips into space. Both America and the USSR experimented with sending creatures up. If we discount bacteria inadvertently covering the earliest rockets, we can say that the first living things purposely fired up were some fruit flies. The Americans were behind that, as they wanted to see how radiation would affect the insects.

Over time, more complex creatures were launched into space. The Americans sent the rhesus macaque Albert II towards the stars in 1949 – making him the first-ever mammal to successfully exit the Earth’s atmosphere. Sadly, even though he’d survived the launch, the poor creature died on the journey home.

Meanwhile, the Soviets had taken to using dogs for their space experiments. Two unfortunate pups named Tsygan and Dezik were forced to space in the summer of 1951, though their craft never made it to orbit. At least they returned to Earth alive.

By 1957 the Space Race had started to intensify, and it was the Soviets who seemed to be pulling ahead. In October of that year, they successfully sent Sputnik 1 up to space. This incredible feat marked the first time that a man-made satellite had ever made it into orbit.

The Soviets quickly built on their achievement with Sputnik 2, which they launched just a month after its predecessor. And this time, the craft carried a living thing along for the ride. Laika the dog was on board, and she became the first-ever creature to make it to orbit. Sadly, though, the pup didn’t survive that mission.

It was always known that Laika’s mission would end with her demise. But as grim as that fact is, another two dogs were sent into orbit in 1960. This time, the creatures were brought back to Earth alive, which was a huge step for the Soviet space program. It also laid the groundwork for sending a human up there.

It was the morning of April 12, 1961, when the Vostok 1 spacecraft took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board was Yuri Gagarin, who was about to go down in history. That day, he became known as the first human being to ever orbit our planet.

Gagarin’s mission went well, but the landing was far more problematic. In fact, it almost finished in outright catastrophe. A malfunction led Gagarin’s spacecraft to rattle with terrible violence as it returned to Earth. The cosmonaut somehow managed to make it by ejecting from his craft and landing with his life still intact.

Naturally, Gagarin was famous following his epic journey. He was awarded a host of honors in the Soviet Union, and his name even made it to the United States. But the Americans were perturbed to learn that the Soviets seemed to be winning the Space Race. A month later, Alan Shepard became the first U.S. citizen to be sent into orbit.

Yet the Soviets continued to pull ahead in many respects. They sent up Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. Then, a couple of years after that, Alexei Leonov became the first person to carry out a spacewalk. It seemed as though the Soviets were going to get a person to the Moon before America, too. Well, until things started to go wrong.

Mechanical issues started to interfere in Soviet efforts to get a man on the Moon. Full-blown tragedies made things even worse. In 1967 cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov lost his life following a terrible malfunction. That left the Soviets with a terrible mark on their record. The first person to die during a space flight had been one of their own.

To make things worse for the Soviets, the Americans were finally making up for their early failings. And on the fateful date of July 20, 1969, they sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon. The U.S. had won this particular contest, which in some ways wiped out the lead the Soviets had initially held.

The Space Race had taken place within the context of the Cold War, so an atmosphere of secrecy prevailed throughout. That meant rumors spread, with some so persuasive that they’re still with us to an extent today. The main one, perhaps, is the idea that the Soviets had sent people to their deaths in space.

Folks started whispering about lost Soviet cosmonauts right from the start of the Space Race. Tales emerged that people had died on their return journeys back to Earth, or even that they’d had mental breakdowns during their expeditions. Some cosmonauts, it was rumored, were abandoned in orbit because their spacecraft couldn’t re-enter the planet’s atmosphere.

Gossip of this kind was already around when Yuri Gagarin was preparing for his pioneering journey to space. And one rumor suggested that Gagarin was not, in fact, the first individual to make it to space. Apparently, another person from the Soviet Union had achieved the feat less than a week beforehand.

A British communist newspaper called the Daily Worker reported on this alleged space mission at the time. Under the headline “The First Man In Space,” the article’s author Dennis Ogden claimed that the cosmonaut in question had been “the test-pilot son of a top-ranking aircraft designer.” Ogden went on to tell readers that the man survived his journey – but that his health had taken a nosedive.

This report caused a bit of a buzz, but the Soviet Union was quick to contradict its claims. And within a matter of days, Gagarin had actually been fired to space. This then became the big, historic story. Even Ogden reported on it, describing a Soviet Union “wild with joy at [the] first trip outside this world.” His first article, it seems, had been forgotten.

To be generous to Ogden, that second article could have been a way to make up for his first. Maybe he’d made a mistake and was now compensating for it by reporting on Gagarin’s journey. But it turns out another journalist from France had also written about the unconfirmed first mission. And this report even gave the name of the supposed cosmonaut: Vladimir Ilyushin.

Ilyushin was a respected test pilot and had actually smashed several flight records. His father, meanwhile, had helped create aircraft for the Soviets during World War II. And the elder Ilyushin later moved into government, which meant his son may well have been seen as a good candidate to send into space.

According to the conspiracy, Ilyushin Jr. was sent into orbit without incident. As he returned to Earth, though, things started to go wrong. His spacecraft traveled off its planned route – leading to an incident that badly injured the cosmonaut. Some say he was even left comatose by what happened.

A publication called The Spokesman-Review reported on this alleged incident on April 12, 1961. The paper claimed, “The space vessel reportedly was recovered where expected, but Ilyushin was mentally unbalanced and is unconscious in a Moscow hospital.” This information came, it was said, from a dependable but anonymous source.

It seems that Ilyushin really was committed to hospital around this time, which lends some credibility to the story. The Soviet Union stated, however, that he was receiving aid following a traffic collision. But could such a secretive regime be trusted to tell the truth about something like this?

It doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility that the Soviet Union would lie about why Ilyushin was in hospital. This was during the Cold War, and secrecy was rife. The question is: why would the Soviets have lied about this? Well, within the context of the Space Race, they would’ve wanted to project an image of success. Seeing as Ilyushin’s mission had failed, the regime may have wished to sweep it under the rug.

That’s a convincing enough reason for why a conspiracy may have existed. So, is there any more evidence to back it up? In truth, we don’t have anything concrete. The journalist Ogden once claimed to see a picture in which Ilyushin was wearing cosmonaut clothes, apparently taken at around the period of the alleged flight. Yet such a photo has never been recovered. And Ilyushin never confirmed the conspiracy before he eventually passed away in 2010.

The conspiracy has persisted, anyway. A filmmaker named Elliott Haimoff has released several documentaries on the subject, and he’s suggested that Ilyushin ended up in China following his failed landing from space. He was reportedly rounded up by the Chinese before they eventually sent him home to the Soviet Union in 1962.

More supposed evidence supporting this conspiracy came from a pair of radio operators from Italy. According to Live Science, these two said that they recorded several segments of audio from space – one of which came around the period Ilyushin was said to be on his mission. They even said that one of their recordings from another time contained the sound of a person suffocating in space.

These tapes would be an amazing way of proving that the Soviet Union was lying about its space program. Yet there’s no evidence to actually suggest this audio is real. Nobody can back up the radio operators’ claims, which were certainly outrageous. There’s no real way of verifying them, and that all seems downright suspect.

The conspiracy of lost Soviet cosmonauts involves other people, too. Mikhail Rudenko, a scientist who once worked for the Soviets, alleged in 2001 that secret space flights had taken place in 1957, 1958, and 1959. According to an article in the Russian newspaper Pravda, Rudenko said, “All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published.”

At a glance, Rudenko’s claim may seem quite reasonable and believable. But the publication where it appeared is a little bit sketchy. Pravda has a history of making ostentatious claims about space, publishing headlines such as “Alien and human skulls found on Mars.” So, it’s maybe best to take its stories with a pinch of salt.

And there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of this conspiracy in its entirety; logic alone calls its authenticity into question. After all, the Soviets announced that Gagarin was in space while his mission was still ongoing. If the Soviet leadership didn’t want bad news to reach the world – something at the heart of the whole lost cosmonauts conspiracy – then why would they have publicly acknowledged Gagarin’s mission before its successful completion?

On top of everything else, official information about the Soviet space program has been declassified over the decades. And many of these revelations did indeed reveal secrecy and chaos at the heart of the Soviet project. Yet nothing specifically backed up the lost cosmonauts conspiracy. In truth, many of its claims just don’t seem realistic.

Still, some of the revelations were just as disturbing as the claims of the conspiracy. It turns out that people really did lose their lives in the Soviet effort to make it to space. In 1960 a launchpad blew up and killed more than 100 people. On another occasion, a person preparing to become a cosmonaut died in a fire.

Dismissing the lost cosmonauts theory doesn’t mean these dark incidents should be ignored. Having said that, though, there’s no evidence to suggest the specific claims of the conspiracy are true. Maybe a neat conclusion to the story will never be found. But we do know that the outcome of the Space Race could have gone either way at one point.

If not for one twist of fate, the Americans may have been beaten to the Moon. Before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took those first steps on the lunar surface, it was the Soviets that set the pace. The USSR launched the first satellite, and it sent men and women into space before any other state. America was always trailing behind, so it seemed pretty likely that the first humans to make it there would be Soviets.

It goes without saying that mankind’s ambitions to explore space throughout the 20th century were tempered by challenges. There were, of course, many practical issues that needed to be solved. How, for instance, could a rocket be powered? How could such a vessel be safe for passengers, given the inhospitable conditions of space?

Issues of this nature were considered by several figures around the world. Just some of the most prominent included the German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth, Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie and an American called Robert Goddard. Yet before the western scientists could begin in earnest, a man from Russia was already pioneering the race into space.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was from Moscow, born into the Russian Empire in 1857 but lived to see it transition into the Soviet Union. Tsiolkovsky was a trailblazer, a man who laid the groundwork for future scientists to build upon. His thinking on the subject of space travel, in fact, influenced people all over the world.

But perhaps Tsiolkovsky’s most important disciple was a fellow Soviet citizen, Sergei Korolev. A man of immense vision, Korolev imagined a future in which mankind was capable of reaching Mars. But Korolev wasn’t merely a dreamer, and his practical innovations were at the heart of the Soviet space program.

Korolev was born in 1907 in Zhitomir, a city in present-day Ukraine. He developed a passion for aircraft and flight, eventually becoming the student of a prominent aircraft engineer named Andrei Tupolev. Noting his talents, Tupolev once praised Korolev as “a man with unlimited devotion to his job and his ideas.”

Korolev successfully trained to become a pilot, and he started designing gliders equipped with rocket engines. By 1933 his engineering talents were apparent, as he was responsible for the Soviet Union’s first-ever liquid-fueled rocket launch. Yet despite his evident value to the USSR., there was trouble ahead.

In the summer of 1938 Korolev was taken into custody and brutally assaulted by Soviet authorities. They tortured him to force a confession of sabotage and treason, before sending him to a Gulag camp for a decade of forced labor. Korolev never even learned what the real reasons for his arrest actually were.

But Korolev didn’t serve his full 10-year sentence in the Gulag, and he was transferred to a prison in Moscow. Yet his five months in the camp had left their mark, he suffered a broken jaw and had lost all his teeth. He was to spend five more years imprisoned in Moscow. From here, though, he started to work on aircraft design once again.

After he was released from prison, Korolev’s standing within Soviet society was completely transformed. As World War II came to an end, he was dispatched to Germany as a colonel in the Red Army. He’d gone from a prisoner to a high-ranking official in no time, but there was a particular reason for this. The Soviets had commandeered V2 rocket technology from the Nazis — and they needed Korolev to work on it.

The Nazi rocket technology was extremely advanced for the time. It had been developed by Werner von Braun, who, in the wake of the end of World War II, offered his services to the United States. With the prospect of the imminent Cold War, this meant that America would have a technological advantage over the Soviets.

Even though the Americans had von Braun, the Soviets had Korolev — and he was an extremely gifted engineer. He worked hard, and in 1957 he was responsible for the first ever intercontinental ballistic missile launch. This feat was achieved over a year before the Americans could manage one.

James Harford is the author of the book Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon. In it, he describes the Soviet scientist, “His ability to inspire large teams, as well as individuals, is proverbial. He had a roaring temper, was prone to shout and use expletives, but was quick to forgive and forget. His consuming passion was work, work, work for space exploration and for the defense of his country.”

Korolev’s work with rocket technology ensured that the Soviet authorities accepted him back into society. So, now that he was a prominent figure, he started to lobby the Communist Party to develop satellite technologies. Though party leaders were initially reluctant, news soon emerged that the United States was planning its own satellites. So, Korolev was given the green light to start work on Sputnik 1.

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957, the first man-made object in space. It was a formidable achievement, laying the groundwork for Sputnik 2 to be launched only weeks later. This spacecraft carried Laika the dog, marking the first time a living creature had made it to space. Sadly, she didn’t survive the ordeal.

Sputnik 3 was launched in May 1958. Equipped with hi-tech appliances, this craft was more advanced than its predecessors, which served to highlight the sophistication of Soviet space technology. But Korolev still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to go further, now aiming to make it all the way to the Moon.

Korolev’s efforts towards a Moon launch were hampered by limited finances and time. Perhaps these factors can account for the failure of his first attempt. The spacecraft Luna 1 was launched on January 2, 1959, but it missed its target. In September that same year, though, Luna 2 made it. The Soviets had sent a spacecraft to the Moon before America.

Shortly after this, Luna 3 was launched. This craft managed to take a picture of the far side of the Moon, claiming yet another victory for the Soviets. The United States had fallen way behind in the Space Race, with Korolev’s expertise proving hard to beat. And he still wasn’t content. Now, he wanted to send humans into space.

Before that could happen, though, a pair of dogs were launched into orbit. Unlike Laika, these canines — Streika and Beika — actually survived and made it back to Earth. This implied that human space travel could be possible, though it was still far from a certainty. Even so, Korolev’s dream of sending mankind to the stars was very much alive.

This incredible milestone was finally reached on April 12, 1961, after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space. With this, Gagarin was immortalized as the first person to ever escape our planet’s atmosphere. But without Korolev’s genius, history may well have turned out differently and we may have never known Gagarin’s name.

Korolev was responsible for Gagarin’s pioneering voyage, controlling the spacecraft from all the way down on Earth. And although the mission was a success, it almost resulted in disaster. Technical faults almost led to Gagarin’s spacecraft losing control, but it ultimately made it back to Earth in one piece.

With the cosmonaut safely back on Earth, news quickly spread of the Soviet triumph. It was now clear just how far behind the United States was in the Space Race. One American headline perfectly encapsulated the mood at this time. It read, “Soviets put man in space. Spokesman says U.S. asleep.”

The United States had actually been working on its own space program, but it wasn’t as successful as the Soviet Union. In fact, the best that America had done was sending a chimp into space. But U.S. president John F. Kennedy sought to change his country’s fortunes.

A number of weeks after Gagarin had returned to Earth, President Kennedy delivered a famous speech to the American people. In it, he laid out the United States’ ambition to send an American to the Moon and to bring them back again safely. At the time, however, it didn’t seem likely that the U.S. would be able to achieve this before the Soviets.

Under Korolev’s leadership, the Soviet space program achieved several more victories after Gagarin’s journey. This included sending the first ever woman into space, with Valentina Tereshkova’s voyage in 1963. So, with all these accomplishments under his belt, Korolev next turned his attention to launching a space mission with several people onboard.

This goal was reached on October 12, 1964, when Boris Yegorov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Vladimir Komarov escaped the Earth aboard the Voskhod 1. Five months later, Voskhod 2 was launched. During this mission, Alexei Leonov became the first person to undertake a spacewalk. It was yet another Soviet triumph, but now came the objective of sending a man to the Moon.

Korolev began work on the spacecraft that would permit this mission, aiming to launch in October 1967. At the time, the scientist also nurtured ambitions of sending robots to Mars and Venus. And after all his successes so far, who would’ve bet against him achieving these goals?

Beyond robotic missions, Korolev even dreamed of one day sending human beings to Mars. He also envisioned incredibly advanced technologies such as rocket engines that ran on electricity. But as things turned out, Korolev wasn’t able to see all of his ambitions realized. Instead, fate intervened.

On January 5, 1966, Korolev was sent to hospital for what was initially expected to be a straightforward procedure. But within nine days, the scientist had succumbed to complications related to colon cancer. With Korlev’s death, the Soviet space program swiftly began to falter. The course of the Space Race had been irrevocably altered.

The people of the Soviet Union had never been aware of Korolev’s contributions to the space program in his own lifetime. But with his death, his name was publicized and thousands of people showed up for his funeral. Yuri Gagarin delivered a eulogy, a fitting tribute for the man that had sent him into space.

In the aftermath of his death, Korolev’s true value to the Soviet space program was immediately apparent. Now that he was gone, a battle for control of the program began. Vasily Mishin eventually won out, but his leadership would turn out to be nothing short of disastrous.

The Soyuz 1 spacecraft was due to be launched into space on April 23, 1967. On board was Vladimir Komarov, who was one of the three cosmonauts aboard Voskhod 1 in 1964. This time, however, things went horribly wrong. The spacecraft was faulty and Komarov lost his life, marking the first time someone had been killed during a space mission.

And things were only to get worse. In 1968 Yuri Gagarin — the first man in space — lost his life during a test flight. So, within the space of two years, the Soviet space program had lost its hero in Gagarin and its brains in Korolev. Soviet space supremacy in space was waning.

The KGB investigated the incident that claimed Gagarin’s life, positing that his aircraft had nearly collided with a jet and consequently lost control. It’s not entirely clear, however, if this description of events is totally accurate. In any case, Gagarin was killed and his ashes were laid to rest on Cosmonauts' Avenue outside the Kremlin Wall in Moscow near Korolev’s own remains.

The Soviet space program struggled on, but it had undoubtedly become a mere shadow of its former self. Scientists attempted to complete the N1 rocket that Korolev had been working on before his death, but they were unsuccessful. Perhaps if Korolev were still alive, then maybe this project would’ve been yet another triumph.

In reality, though, everything went wrong. In 1969 the Soviets conducted a couple of tests of the N1 rockets. The first one blew up, and the second was unable to even get off the ground. Meanwhile, NASA was working on its Apollo program. And as we all know, it successfully sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon.

Despite all the previous triumphs under Korolev, the Soviet Union had lost its way in the Space Race. America had sent men to the Moon, a feat that the Soviets would never achieve. It managed to complete a number of other space missions to space, but ultimately they had fallen behind the United States.

Who can say what might have happened had Korolev lived for a few more years? His sudden death totally derailed the Soviet space program, which until then had been leading the way. Maybe under Korolev’s leadership history would be very different and the Soviet Union would have won the Space Race.

Korolev’s legacy lives on today through a town in Russia named after him — and craters on the Moon and Mars — although he’s still largely a hidden figure. But Korolev was one of the most important pioneers of space exploration, a man responsible for taking mankind beyond the Earth. Perhaps now, all these decades later, his achievements should be properly recognized.