Death of Yuri Gagarin (First Man in Space) -- Disclosed

Hello ATS, I just discovered a really interesting article about what really happened to the first man in space.
I urge you to read on.


Source - *READ*

After over 40 years of secrecy, the real cause of death of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, has been made public. Russia's prominent cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov reveals the truth behind the events of that tragic day. For over 20 years Aleksey Leonov, the first man to conduct a spacewalk in 1965, has been struggling to gain permission to disclose details of what happened to the legendary Yuri Gagarin in March 1968.

Back then a State Commission established to investigate the accident (which Leonov was a part of), concluded that a crew of MiG-15UTI, Yuri Gagarin and experienced instructor Vladimir Seryogin, tried to avoid a foreign object – like geese or a hot air balloon – by carrying out a maneuver that had led to a tailspin and, finally, collision with the ground. Both pilots died in that test flight.

“That conclusion is believable to a civilian – not to a professional,” Leonov told RT. He has always had a firm stance against the secrecy surrounding Gagarin’s death, and wanted at least his family to know the truth. "In fact, everything went down differently,” he says.

According to a declassified report, there is a human factor behind the tragic incident - an unauthorized SU-15 fighter jet was flying dangerously close to Gagarin’s aircraft. “In this case, the pilot didn’t follow the book, descending to an altitude of 450 meters. I know this because I was there; I heard the sound and talked to witnesses.

While afterburning the aircraft reduced its echelon at a distance of 10-15 meters in the clouds, passing close to Gagarin, turning his plane and thus sending it into a tailspin – a deep spiral, to be precise – at a speed of 750 kilometers per hour,” Leonov tells.

So it was a pilot in an identified flying object known as a fighter jet.
Stupid pilots like this are why my cousin was killed in the Air Force.

Conspiracy theories have surrounded the events of that day for years. They included suicide – even a collision with a UFO. But for all intents and purposes, the case is closed, and the newfound truth should provide those affected with closure.

Such is the conclusion of the first woman in space, Russian Valentina Tereshkova. She spoke at a press conference at the UN headquarters in Vienna, where she participated in a conference of the Committee for the Peaceful Use of Outer Space. “The only regret here is that it took so long for the truth to be revealed,” she said. “But we can finally rest easy.”

Of course, they will not disclose the name of the idiot pilot who killed Gagarin --- So conspiracy theorists can rest at ease that this could still be a cover-up, albeit a very late one.

Yuri Gagarins story seems a typical Russian tale...
Full of heartache and truimph...tinged with a bittersweet sadness.............still this leaves me wondering....
I think the death of his colleague in space kind of broke him spiritually....

reply to post by ThinkingCap


Thanks for bringing this to ATS.

I had looked into this for a thread I made last year. There has been much secrecy surrounding the Russian space program, and their cosmonauts. I'm glad some information is finally coming to light.

Don't know what to say about this new "disclosure". Many many years ago, I have read in a Russian popular science and technology magazine that Yuri's plane crashed exactly because there was another fighter jet flying nearby, and Yuri's plane got caught in the turbulent wake. Bad weather reporting, and perhaps other failings, could also have played their role in the tragedy

Looking at the Wikipedia article, it seems the KGB report included the possibility of involvement of another aircraft, and that in 2004 Leonov published his book where he considers the involvement of another aircraft also. So I don't think it's really been a secret, more likely RT is sensationalising.

P.S. I found the article I read, it's from a 1998 issue of "Science and Life" magazine. www.nkj.ru...

As an aside note (from someone who grew up in the Soviet Union), poor planning and failings at various levels was a normal thing in the Soviet Union. Far from being a frightful state with tight control on all levels, many Soviet tragedies happened because of poor planning and ignorant attitude. Chernobyl is a good example.

Wasn't there a story that Yuri was NOT the first man in space but was preceded by another Russian who orbited the earth 3 times before problems with his craft forced it into re-entry. After surviving the re-entry he found that the craft was damaged to the extent that the parachutes failed to oped completely causing him to crash-land in China. He suffered innumerable broken bones but amazingly survived the ordeal. The entire event was kept from Khrushchev (who was on holiday at the time) as it wasn't successful enough to broadcast to the world.
An investigative team found the evidence and were also amazed to find that the original pilot who survived the ordeal was still alive and was interviewed but he would not allow any photographs to be taken.
Does anyone else remember this? I don't believe that it was a hoax.

reply to post by OzTiger


That story doesn't sound plausible at all. It's more likely a re-telling of the real Soyuz 1 crash, also due to the parachute not deploying properly. This kind of thing isn't survivable. en.wikipedia.org...

I seem to remember seeing a documentary where Gargarin was essentially a poster boy for the Soviets, who wasn't allowed to do much of anything useful and was increasingly isolated and fed up with being a celebrity paraded around for propaganda purposes.

He apparently became a drunk and was becoming increasingly critical of the Soviet leadership who had had enough of him treading dangerously close to embarassing them with his antics...and so an 'accident was arranged' to preserve his cult status as a Soviet hero, and shut him up at the same time.

Originally posted by OzTiger
Wasn't there a story that Yuri was NOT the first man in space but was preceded by another Russian who orbited the earth 3 times before problems with his craft forced it into re-entry. After surviving the re-entry he found that the craft was damaged to the extent that the parachutes failed to oped completely causing him to crash-land in China. He suffered innumerable broken bones but amazingly survived the ordeal. The entire event was kept from Khrushchev (who was on holiday at the time) as it wasn't successful enough to broadcast to the world.
An investigative team found the evidence and were also amazed to find that the original pilot who survived the ordeal was still alive and was interviewed but he would not allow any photographs to be taken.
Does anyone else remember this? I don't believe that it was a hoax.

Sounds like a hoax to me by someone who doesn't understand how the Vostok 1 spacecraft actually worked. The cosmonaut did not land with his spacecraft, a fact the soviets concealed for many years as strictly speaking it would disqualify them according to Fédération Aéronautique Internationale rules for the world record of the first person in space (which stated that the person must land with their spacecraft). The soviets landed on the ground, not in the ocean, and initially they did not have their design refined enough to make the terminal velocity safe even with parachutes. Instead, the spacecraft was designed for the cosmonaut to eject prior to landing. By design they bailed out of their spacecraft before the parachutes even deployed. You can see a Vostok displayed in mid-ejection configuration at the Kansas Cosmosphere.

img827.imageshack.us...

I am still searching for the documentary I saw on this but here is an extract that may jog some people's memory:
GENERAL VLADIMIR ILYUSHIN:
COVER-UP OF THE FIRST MAN IN SPACE

It’s April 12, 1961, the glory days of the Soviet Space Program, and the United States
watches in horror as the world’s premiere communist nation embarrasses the leader of
the free world in an unprecedented technological race to put the first man in space.
Major Yuri Gagarin was reported to have made a single orbit then returned to Earth, and
is immediately hailed as the conquering hero of the communist empire then paraded
around the world as the symbol of the superior Soviet socialist system. But was
Gagarin really the first man to go up in space?

Just days before, buried amongst the headlines, there were independent newspaper
and radio accounts in England, France and Hungary of a top secret launch to space
carrying the son of a famous Soviet aircraft designer -- a world-renowned test pilot by the
name of Vladimir Ilyushin -- the Soviet equivalent of America’s Chuck Yeager. Ilyushin
was one of the first Russians to break the sound barrier, besides being a test pilot flying
virtually all top Soviet jets of the late-1950s and early-1960s, and set dozens of world
altitude and speed records. As a result, Lieutenant-Colonel Ilyushin received the “Hero
Of The Soviet Union” award (which is the Soviet equivalent of America’s Congressional
Medal Of Honor) for his test pilot accomplishments, as well as the “Order of Lenin”
award, and was a member of the prestigious Soviet Parliament. By all Soviet standards,
Ilyushin was clearly the obvious choice to be the first man in space.

At the time, the Soviets had not yet perfected reentry and landing and believed it was not
possible to safely land a space capsule on the Earth’s surface with a human being
inside. The cosmonaut, therefore, was forced to eject at 10,000 feet and parachute to
the ground. But something went very wrong that day. The brave Ilyushin who attempted
this unprecedented flight was unable to eject. He crash-landed in the capsule -- and
miraculously survived, but he crash landed in the Soviet’s bitterest enemy, China. Badly
injured, he was sent to a hospital in China then later released, and vehemently denied
any such flight took place. Later, the Soviets insisted the badly injured cosmonaut was
in a Moscow hospital as the result of an ‘automobile accident,’ then promptly sent him to
a ‘health resort’ in China to recover. Viewed as unfit to represent the triumphant Soviet
Space Program, Soviet leadership refused to acknowledge Ilyushin’s historic flight, and
relegated all such reports to the garbage can of myths and hoaxes propagated by
Western media to demean the later ‘first’ flight of Gagarin.

Hard evidence of Ilyushin’s flight and the ensuing cover-up has been, up to now, top
secret; but with the collapse of communism and the break-up of the former Soviet
Union, formerly unavailable Kremlin archives now confirm these remarkable events.
And finally, at the age of 77, retired Russian Air Force General Vladimir Ilyushin,
reluctantly allowed himself to be filmed at an air museum with a top-quality documentary
production company, Global Science Productions, but is still scared to death to correct
history and reveal what he thought the world cared little about -- the Soviet cover-up, the
military secrecy, and the torturing ordeal that became his life. The documentary which
was produced by Global Science Productions, unearths the truth about the secrecy and
cover-ups that dominated the Soviet Space Program, sets the historical record straight,
and affords a man robbed the opportunity to share his private hell since 1961.

I will continue to search for the documentary.

reply to post by OzTiger


Ok, well that account is completely different from the first one you gave. It is at least aware of how the Vostok spacecraft operated. Our own Jim Oberg has done a great deal of research into this subject and I would be interested to hear him give his take. I would also be interested in seeing the supposed interview with Ilyushin where he claims the story is true, but the truth can be difficult to get to in these matters. Even cosmonauts are known to lie about their own program's history. The famous Aleksey Leonov among them; he lied to try to cover up the real reason for several cosmonauts' removal from the program and the subsequent cover-up by the soviets. There were very real fatalities that were covered up by the Soviets. The Bondarenko disaster makes the Apollo 1 fire look merciful by comparison - at least the astronauts in the latter fire rapidly suffocated and did not linger in pain for hours on end. Oberg has a great article about this history here (Ilyushin's spaceflight is among those listed as not being true - indeed the death of Bondarenko about 3 weeks before Gagarin's flight may have originated some of the communication that caused Ogden to spawn the rumor):

www.jamesoberg.com...

Thanks for the kind words, it really was an adventure digging out the real story behind the secrecy and lies. I've tried to gather a lot of my results on my home page [see signature]. These alternate stories sure DID exist and many aspects of them were tempting, but with help from new colleagues in the post-Soviet Russia, the actual facts now seem pretty well established.

But not all... I'm not done YET!! [grin]