Shoutout to one of my best friends, Kim, for sending me the info for this post. I had never heard about lost or phantom cosmonauts until her email, but after I did the readings and research, it's clear this is definitely a Wednesday Weird post.
So. Phantom Cosmonauts.
There's a theory that Soviet cosmonauts entered space in secret, without their existence acknowledged by Soviet authorities.
First off, even proponents of the Phantom Cosmonauts theory agree that Yuri Gagarin was the first man to survive space travel (4/12/61) but there are claims that the Soviet Union attempted to launch two or more manned space flights before that, and that at least two cosmonauts died in the attempts.
Another cosmonaut, Vadimir Ilyushin is rumored to have landed and been held by the Chinese government. The Soviets supposedly hid this information, to prevent bad publicity during the the Cold War. Ilyushin died in 2010 and he never confirmed nor denied anything.
One of the main issues is, though, that the evidence supporting the Phantom Cosmonaut theory is generally not regarded as conclusive, and several cases have been confirmed as hoaxes. But what is known as fact is that the Soviet Union spent A LOT of time covering up a lot of stuff during the Cold War to make themselves look better. That's a proven fact, so really, covering up failed, manned spaceflights isn't at all outside the realm of possibility.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, tons of previously restricted info became available, including on Valentin Bondarenko, an early cosmonaut whose death on Earth the Soviet government covereup.
In 1960, Heinlein wrote in his article Pravda means 'Truth' that on May 15, 1960, while traveling in the Soviet Union, he was told by Red Army cadets that the Soviet Union had launched a man into orbit that day, but that later the same day it was denied by officials. Apparently, no issues of Pravda could be found Soviet cities for that date. Heinlein wrote that there was an orbital launch, later said to be unmanned, on that day, but that the retro-rockets had fired at the wrong altitude, making recovery efforts unsuccessful.
Now onto some of the more creepier evidence. Because you know what? Space is effing terrifying, even without aliens or other creepy stuff.
On May 19, 1961, the Torre Bert listening station in northern Italy said they picked up a transmission of a woman's voice, sounding confused and frightened as her craft began to break up upon reentry. Theorists state this may be the voice of Slavic Cosmonaut Ludmila Tokov who would have been the first woman in space (beating Valentina Tereshkova by 2 years and Sally Ride by more than 20).
I'm not going to lie, this recording creeped me the hell out. I don't know why, but it did. And usually I'm a rock about this kind of stuff. You have been warned (translation below the video)
Translation: five...four...three ...two...one...one two...three...four...five...come in... come in... come in... LISTEN...LISTEN! ...COME IN! COME IN... COME IN... TALK TO ME! TALK TO ME!... I AM HOT!... I AM HOT! WHAT?... FORTYFIVE?... WHAT?... FORTYFIVE?... FIFTY?... YES...YES...YES... BREATHING...BREATHING... OXYGEN... OXYGEN... I AM HOT... (THIS) ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?... IT'S ALL... ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?... IT'S ALL... YES...YES...YES... HOW IS THIS? WHAT?... TALK TO ME!...
HOW SHOULD I TRANSMIT? YES...YES...YES... WHAT? OUR TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW... FORTYONE... THIS WAY... OUR TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW... FORTYONE... THIS WAY... OUR TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW... FORTYONE... YES... I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT... IT'S ALL... IT'S HOT... I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT... ... I CAN SEE A FLAME!... WHAT?... I CAN SEE A FLAME!... I CAN SEE A FLAME!... I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT... THIRTYTWO... THIRTYTWO... FORTYONE... FORTYONE
AM I GOING TO CRASH?... YES...YES... I FEEL HOT!... I FEEL HOT!... I WILL REENTER!... I WILL REENTER... I AM LISTENING!... I FEEL HOT!...
Another recording from Torre Bert purports to be the sounds of labored breathing and a failing heartbeat. This combined with reports in the French and Italian press, claiming that Sputnik 7 was a manned mission, gave rise to claims that a cosmonaut named Gennady Mikhailov was the first man in orbit and died there due to heart failure.
The third Torre Bert recording claims to have heard a couple launched on February 17, 1961, aboard a spacecraft orbiting the earth, reporting "Everything is satisfactory, we are orbiting the earth" at regular intervals.
On February 24th, there were some garbled transmissions about something the couple could see outside their ship, that they urgently had to communicate to Earth. Apparently the communication was lost. Around the same time Torre Bert reportedly picked up an SOS signal from a craft in space. As the signal got weaker, it was assumed the craft disappeared into space.
Alexey Beokonev is supposedly one of three (two men and a woman) cosmonauts aboard a November 1962 flight. The Torre Bert tower allegedly picked up a frantic set of messages from the occupants. "Conditions growing worse why don't you answer? . . . we are going slower . . . the world will never know about us. . . "
So. That's the Phantom Cosmonaut theory in a nutshell. What are your thoughts?
So if you're friends with me on FB and as the title says, my family are now proud owners of our very own cabin!
A quick explanation. In MN, pretty much everything is referred to as a cabin unless it's your house. Have a camper on a plot of land? Cabin. Doublewide on a lake? Cabin. Lakehome? Mansion on acreage? Cabins all.
In this case, ours falls directly into the Lakehome category. The people who owned it before my parents bought it, lived there year round.
We've named it Bout Time, since we've been talking about owning pretty much our whole lives.
It's about 3 hours away from the cities, in Longville MN (which, fun fact, is the Turtle Race Capital of the World. They have turtle races in the summer. And just to prove that they didn't make that title up, I actually heard that as a question on Cash Cab once (and of course I got it right, because I've been there))
My uncle owns a cabin on the same lake, so we're familiar with the area. And I have to say, it's much nicer using your own cabin than using someone elses. We've been up twice now, which isn't bad since my parents only closed on it two weeks ago.
In the future: Writing Retreats.
Now for some pics!
Driveway, with the garage ahead
Cabin! (also pictured, George and Yvie)
View from the dining room
Back yard and Upper Trellipe Lake
So there you have it!
How about you? Does your family have a getaway place?
Do you have a couple blogger buddies who aren’t posting as often? Those who’ve pulled back and seem absent from the blogging world? Do you have blogger buddies you are grateful they are still around and would miss if they vanished? Now is your chance to show your appreciation and spotlight them!
List one to three bloggers you really miss and one to three bloggers you would miss if they stopped blogging. Then go leave a comment on those blogs.
Our blogger friends are special – time to let them know!
If you look over to my sidebar, you will see a little blog called THINGS I YELL AT YOU (which, to this day, I still think is one of the best blog titles ever)
This blog is run by a lovely lady called Joan Crawford. And she is AWESOME.
Seriously. Everything that comes out of her mouth (figuratively, of course, since any interaction I've had with her is via the interwebs) is comedy gold.
But as you can see, Joan updates rarely. When she does, it's a splash of sunshine, a rainbow on a drizzly day! But most of the time, we sit here and wait. and wait. and wait. For months. Or maybe close to a year. And it's sad.
So Joan, if you're reading this, WE MISS YOU!
Alright, so now onto a blogger I'd miss if they stopped. This is a harder one, because truthfully I'd miss pretty much all the blogger I frequent with any sort of regularity.
But since I have to pick someone, I'm going to go with my pal TL Conway. I mean, I actually eat lunch with Tricia once a month or so, so we stay pretty caught up, but there's something about her blog posts that just make me happy and if she were to close shop permanently, well I'd frown a sad little frown.
So we're halfway into November and I have yet to do a NaNoWriMo post yet.
Mildly Pathetic, Sarah. *Shakes head at self*
To be fair, though, I had some Halloween posts I wanted to get to, and then it just snuck up so fast. Startling really.
Just so startled!
So anyway, I'm participating. Natch. You can see my little wordcount score keeper widegety thingamabob over there somewhere ----->
Once again, my user name is Falen1 so friend me if you're NaNoing and we've missed each other.
The first NaNo weekend, Hannah, Tricia and I attended a Twin Cities NaNo getaway weekend. It involved driving 2.5 hours to a cabin on a lake with other Twin Cities NaNoers and writing until our backs gave out.
So because of that, I'm ahead by like 5 days, which is awesome. Also because I'll be out of town this coming weekend and for thanksgiving so I needed to get ahead and need to stay ahead.
I'm also being a NaNo Rebel this year. Instead of starting something new (because I need another unfinished MS like I need another hole in the head) I decided to use NaNo to put the final 50K on my WIP All That Remains (I had already put about 45K into it before NaNo started)
That MS was giving me tons of grief around this time last year, but I'm happy to say I got past that and now I've reached that manic part in the MS, where things are ramping up towards the climax and I want to be writing on it ALL THE TIME mostly because I can't wait to finish it and dive into revisions.
Well, it's the first Wednesday of the month. Which means it's time for ISWSG.
And I have to say... I got nothing. When I'm writing this, it's yesterday evening, and I'm just so worried and filled with anxiety over the election that the idea of being worried about being a writer is just Phoosh - right over my head. We have 2 very important amendments we're voting on in MN, besides the very important POTUS elecetion and now that I'm done with the day job for the day, it's even harder to concentrate on writer worries.
I guess I do have this. Yesterday (today for me) after I had voted and when I first started to feel that anxiety, I turned to the one thing I knew could fully distract me: my WIP.
I've reached the point where I absolutely love it, and where, from where I'm at until the end, pretty much only bad stuff happens, which means I'm constantly itching to get back to it because I CAN'T WAIT to get to the end.
So I guess that's something. Sometimes when the insecurity comes from other things in life and not writing, it's the writing that can make those things go away. Even if just for a little bit.
