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Post by supermeerkat on Oct 11, 2010 15:51:21 GMT -4
A Fortean Times article: www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.htmldiscusses the Italian brothers Achille and Gian Judica-Cordiglia who supposedly listened in on Soviet Union communications with dying and doomed astronauts before Gagarin made his flight. Nothing I have read on the subject indicates that there where pre Gagarin "lost cosmonauts", not to mention the info coming out of post communist Russia doesn't support any of this conjecture. But it keeps coming up again and again - could there be anything to it, or is it just a case of an urban myth / myths? |
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Post by PeterB on Oct 12, 2010 8:05:52 GMT -4
I thought Jim Oberg did a good job of debunking those stories. They even quoted Oberg in the article, yet went on to endorse all the other things the Italian guys did.
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Post by Data Cable on Oct 12, 2010 11:37:52 GMT -4
Skeptoid did an episode on this very topic a little over 2 years ago. |
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Post by gwiz on Oct 12, 2010 12:05:52 GMT -4
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Post by PhantomWolf on Oct 12, 2010 19:31:22 GMT -4
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Post by laurel on Oct 13, 2010 15:58:11 GMT -4
I can understand why people would find this theory believable at first. It's the "no smoke without fire" thing again. The Soviets were very secretive about their space program, and they were willing to cover up deaths like that of Valentin Bondarenko. I'm not saying that I believe in the lost cosmonauts, just that the story didn't seem terribly far-fetched when I first heard it.
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Post by randombloke on Oct 13, 2010 16:57:11 GMT -4
Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't more conspiracy theories about the Soviet space programme; it's such an easy target, since not only was it very secretive in practice (even on occasion between different branches of the same govt.), it was conducted entirely by "the enemy" so you could get away with all sorts of rubbish and people would believe it almost without question.
These days though, it seems the most controversial thing the Russians ever did in space was to congratulate the Americans on getting a man to the Moon...
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 13, 2010 17:38:38 GMT -4
Conspiracy thoerists generally see the US Government as the bad guys, not the Soviets.
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Post by echnaton on Oct 13, 2010 19:28:33 GMT -4
Conspiracy thoerists generally see the US Government as the bad guys, not the Soviets. The Russians had good intentions.  |
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Post by Halcyon Dayz, FCD on Oct 14, 2010 9:54:47 GMT -4
Soviets.
The bad guys never think of themselves as evil.
They were in part ideologically motivated.
They believed in that ideology and thought it was right.
They believed their intentions were good.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 14, 2010 11:23:29 GMT -4
Soviets. The bad guys never think of themselves as evil. They were in part ideologically motivated. They believed in that ideology and thought it was right. They believed their intentions were good. Maybe many or even most of the Soviets believed this. However some, I think, really did know they were the bad guys. I think Stalin, for instance, knew quite well that he wasn't one of the good guys - he just didn't care. |
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Post by gillianren on Oct 14, 2010 13:26:15 GMT -4
Soviets. The bad guys never think of themselves as evil. They were in part ideologically motivated. They believed in that ideology and thought it was right. They believed their intentions were good. The lack of awareness of this fact has always bothered me. It's true that some people know they're only doing things for their own benefit. It's true that some people know that what their superiors are doing is wrong. But Stalin and Hitler and Mao (oh, my!) all thought that what they were doing was the best for their country and their people. And the Communists who came after Stalin and Mao just thought that Stalin and Mao had twisted the true ideology--which is actually true--and that they were now themselves doing what was right. In fact, I stopped watching a movie once because the villain was trying to swing the balance of the universe to "evil." It's okay with Doctor Horrible, because that's ironic. In the real world, it doesn't happen that way. |
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Post by PhantomWolf on Oct 14, 2010 15:57:46 GMT -4
Soviets. The bad guys never think of themselves as evil. They were in part ideologically motivated. They believed in that ideology and thought it was right. They believed their intentions were good. The lack of awareness of this fact has always bothered me. It's true that some people know they're only doing things for their own benefit. It's true that some people know that what their superiors are doing is wrong. But Stalin and Hitler and Mao (oh, my!) all thought that what they were doing was the best for their country and their people. And the Communists who came after Stalin and Mao just thought that Stalin and Mao had twisted the true ideology--which is actually true--and that they were now themselves doing what was right. In fact, I stopped watching a movie once because the villain was trying to swing the balance of the universe to "evil." It's okay with Doctor Horrible, because that's ironic. In the real world, it doesn't happen that way. So, so, so true. I like to take Star Wars as an example. If you take the Extended Universe stories it paints a totally new picture of the Empire, not a ruthless evil machine bent on domination, but rather a machine welded together and toughed in fire to fight against and defeat the biggest threat to the Galaxy, the Yuuzhan Vong. It turns the Emperor from an evil dictator to an attempted saviour of the Galaxy who was willing to pay any price and take any step required to achieve victory, even if that meant destroying a planet full of people. Even when RPing an Imperial in a game it was so much easier to play as a "good guy" justifying your actions as being for the greater good. So what if you blew up a sizable chunk of a planet, it was full of rebels terrorists, that a few civilians died at the same time is irrelevant because they were harbouring the rebel scum anyway. Similarly it was fine to throw a stormtrooper out an airlock or shoot them to maintain discipline in the ranks, or inject another Imperial Officer with poison carrying nanobots to force them to act as a double agent and provide you with information you feel is being with-held from you, so that you can do your job more effectively. When you believe that what you do is for the greater benefit of all people, that the sacrifice of a few balances out the saving of millions, and that the ends justifies the means, you can get away with the most atrocious actions and still believe you are on the side of good. |
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Oct 15, 2010 0:01:35 GMT -4
I still have a hard time believing Stalin ever thought he was really doing what was best for his country.
Mao - maybe. I haven't studied him as much as I have the other two.
Though Hitler seems to have begun believing he was doing what was best, by the end of the war he seemed to feel that Germany had failed him rather than the other way around, and that if he was going out he was taking the country with him.
But look at others like Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein. Did either of them really think they were doing what was best for their country, or were they simply after everything they could squeeze out of it?
I don't generally like cartoonish one-dimensional villains in fiction, but sometimes there are people out there who really don't care what anyone else thinks of them, and couldn't care less about the welfare of others. Thank goodness they are rare.
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