The Mysterious 'Lost Cosmonaut' Recording | Random Thursday

In 1961, two amateur Italian radio engineers recorded what many believe to be the voice of a female cosmonaut burning up on re-entry. If real, this would have been the first woman in space.

Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia, recorded signals of a female voice making a distress call on a Soviet space frequency.

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Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia were two highly regarded radio engineers from Italy who, starting with the launch of Sputnik, made a name for themselves by tracking and recording radio signals from satellites in orbit.

Over time, they bought an old WWII bunker and transformed it into a listening station they named Torre Bert.

From here, the recorded everything from the heartbeat of Laika, the dog on Sputnik 2, to Yuri Gagarin.

But they also recorded some mysterious sounds from missions that were never made public by the highly secretive Soviet Union. One of these was of a woman crying out in distress in May of 1961.

If real, this would have been the first female in space, a full 2 years before the current first, Valentina Tereshkova.

To this day, Russian officials have never named or acknowledged the existence of a mission that this could have been from. Was this a doomed cosmonaut in her final moments? Or a clever hoax?

LINKS LINKS LINKS:

“Space Hackers” documentary about the Italian brothers:

[DivinityOfBLaze]

Her last words which were "[unclear]" then "[unclear]" sound exactly like "Please, please". Which is extremely heartbreaking.
Source: I'm Russian.

[standardcake]

It’s a scary thought. Out of control in space, knowing you’re doomed to die out there, and being forced to spend your last minutes of your life, gasping for air, silence, sense of impending demise. It’s scary.

[-eternal]

While I personally don't believe it, imagine dying in space and your existence being covered up. That's horrifying.

[DEFW]

As a veterinary technician, I can tell you without doubt that a dogs heartbeat is significantly faster than the recording they present as cosmo puppy's heartbeat.

[daxu]

The disappearing 'SOS' signal is the Imagine that!!!

[opheliabawles]

Valentine Teseshkova looks like she could rectify any equipment malfuntion by simply giving the offending instrument a stern stare.

[avragetrinidadian]

Out of all the conspiracies I have heard in my life.... the Lost Cosmonauts is one I REALLY hope is not true.

[yatharthbakshi]

I find the story of the SOS growing fainter and fainter to be even more terrifying than the one about the woman crashing. I’m surprised no one is talking about that here. Crashing into a known earth and dying is still better than just floating endlessly into space, waiting for your food or water or oxygen to run out

[grace-huqw]

Does anybody else get a genuine feeling of terror from that recording of the supposed heartbeat and gasping?

[Werrf]

Also please note - their sister was learning Russian at the time that this was recorded. Honestly, the hoax hypothesis really is pretty convincing.

[bigdaddytrips]

Theres probably been all kinds of missions that we dont know about where astronauts have died in space

[DalCecilRuno]

As much as I'm fascinated by all those mysteries...that recording of the woman speaking Russian has a clear Italian cadence to it. I'm familiar with both languages and this sounds like an Italian speaking Russian.
Also, the whole communication style didn't sound like the interactions between cosmonauts talking back to Earth. They always use the name of the base place, and special code words. This recording sounds like someone wanted to prank them, or they did it themselves to chase some headlines.

[Nurpus]

00:53 - Just imagine being a rural farmer in a remote mountain village in the 60s, and seeing a shiny metal capsule fall from space and a woman emerge from it....

[shookings]

Joe is keeping up with his existential dread series, I see.

[rikuurufu]

I was kinda surprised when I found out that Tereskova is actually still alive at 82. They made her a general in the Soviet Air Force, and relatively recently, she made a public statement that, given the opportunity, she would like to live on Mars.

[anna-ght]

poor Laika. I took an Animal History course in my 4th year of university and one of my classmates wrote his thesis paper on Laika. She was a street dog from Russia, and she died while on Sputnik 2. One of the saddest parts of the whole thing is that the researchers did not learn much from Laika's launch, so she essentially died for nothing. A main theme discussed in the course was how animals are so deeply intwined in the lives of non-human animals, often to their detriment, and evidently space exploration is no exception. RIP Laika <3

[TheRealAb]

the poor dog. all alone just waiting till death comes.

[utbdoug]

Two guys in a shed making audio.. Give them their due, I'm calling them the OGs of creepypasta

[goatwarrior]

8:10. Yeh, could have been a failed mission by the Soviets to send an Italian woman into space with only broken Russian that just happened to be picked up by two Italian brothers with a sister who had studied Russian. IT MUST BE TRUE!!

[keithshaw]

I remember a story my dad told me when I was a teenager. His brother was in the US Navy stationed in Hawaii at a naval listening and radar post in the early 60's. Of course that was in the middle of the Cold War and the Space Race, so they were keeping tabs on the Soviets. Apparently one day they caught an object on the radar and heard a Russian voice. Long story short, the voice was saying something about being out of control and heading out of orbit, which the radar confirmed. I don't remember how long he said they tracked the object, but it was multiple days. He didn't say whether the voice was male or female. Unfortunately I cannot verify the story with my dad or uncle since they've both been gone for the better part of 20 years, but if it's true...

I'm sure there are still some classified Soviet documents that are yet to surface, and we all know that our government still has classified documents, so maybe both governments are covering up something? Still?