Questo sito in Italiano

Created by Giovanni Abrate (USA) and Mario Abrate (Italy)

Few people realize in these days when satellite dishes are found on every other rooftop that, back in the early sixties
somewhere in the hilltops near the northern italian city of Turin, two young italian brothers were prying into the most guarded
secrets of the mighty Soviet Union. The space race was in full swing, providing the battleground for a vital propaganda
confrontation between East and West, in the midst of the cold war.
The Judica-Cordiglia brothers, sons of one of Europe's foremost pathologists, set up a listening post which probed the cosmos
and successfully tracked all the early american and soviet unmanned satellites.
The geographical location of their station proved particularly suitable for the reception of soviet space vehicles, which regularly
overflew Northern Italy during their approach to the soviet tracking centers in the Caucasus.
Using an array of advanced equipment, the two young italians soon learned which radio frequencies to monitor and how to
predict the overfly times of the various space probes.
One day in early 1961, weeks before Yuri Gagarin's epic space flight, instead of the usual beeping tones which they had become
accustomed to hear, they were startled by a sound which signaled a new chapter in the history of mankind: there, in the listening
center of "Torre Bert", these two young students heard, clearly and unequivocally, the beat of a failing heart and the last gasping
breaths of a dying cosmonaut.

The incredible, disturbing real-life events which are presented on this site are being uncovered for the first time outside the
restricted community of 'insiders' who have, for reasons unknown, decided to protect the secrecy of the Soviet Establishment.
Read on, everything you will find is true.

communiqu about the Judica Cordiglia brothers.

in RealAudio!

A RAI RADIOUNO Radio Broadcast directed by Gianluca Nicoletti

April 6, 1999

An

with Gian Battista Judica Cordiglia

From

of Torre Bert

Contact

Copyright 2004 - All Rights Reserved - September 15, 2004

 Launch date: February 2, 1961
Outcome: Passed out in flight and suffered
heart failure.
Name: Unknown

Launch date: April 7, 1961

Outcome: Crash landed in China. Severely
injured. Survived.
Name: Vladimir Ilyushin

Launch date: April 12, 1961

Outcome: Successful single-orbit flight.
Name: Yuri Gagarin

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

In Florida, the "Mercury 7" astronauts were preparing for the launch of the first
manned capsule, which was shortly due to fly a steep, suborbital path, to prove
the viability of the Mercury space vehicle. Chimpanzees had successfully been
launched and retrieved and the Redstone missile, the brainchild of scientist
Wernher von Braun, was one of the most reliable launchers in the U.S. arsenal.

The Soviet Union had beaten the U.S. in 1957 by launching the first, unmanned
artificial satellite, Sputnik.
In total secrecy, preparations were also underway at the space center in
Baikonur, for an orbital manned flight. The U.S.S.R. had to show the world its
scientific leadership by being first with a man in space.

We now present a document which unequivocally proves that on February 2,

1961, nine weeks before Gagarin, another Russian cosmonaut flew into space.
His mission was not successful and this hero perished during the flight. His
sacrifice was kept secret from the world for reasons of political propaganda.

The attached 'RealAudio' files are actual recordings of the last moments of this
hero's life. His failing heartbeat can be heard, as it was recorded by the Judica-
Cordiglia brothers. A leading cardiologist of the time, Prof. Dogliotti, confirmed
that the heartbeats are those of a dying person. The breathing sounds are,
literally, the last gasps of the cosmonaut, already unconscious.

Heartbeat Breathing

Copyright 1998 - All Rights Reserved

 Vladimir Ilyushin is the son of one of the Soviet Unions best known
aicraft designers, Serghei Ilyushin.
During the 1960s, Serghei Ilyushin was a politically powerful figure,
a deputy leader of the Soviet Supreme and the recipient of three
medals as Hero of the Soviet Union.
His son, Vladimir, was the most distinguished of soviet test pilots.
In 1959 he set the world altitude record, when he reached 30,000
meters in his Sukhoi-9 jet fighter. In 1960 he received the Hero of
the Soviet Union medal for his high-altitude and high-speed test
flights.

Ilyushin did not at first join the Cosmonauts Corps. He was not a
part of the team that was pictured in a 1959 photo-reportage
published in the popular magazine "Ogonyok". At that time, he was
concentrating all his efforts on gaining the world altitude record.
Soon he realized that his record would pale when compared with the achievement of reaching Earth orbit. Perhaps because of his
fathers considerable political clout, Vladimir Ilyushin was allowed to join the original cosmonauts a year after their group was
originally formed. He reportedly went through a special intensive training program and quickly surfaced as the most talented
cosmonaut in the group. In early 1961, some photographs were published in the Soviet Union, that showed Vladimir Ilyushin
undergoing spaceflight training.

One of his colleagues had been launched into space in secret on February 2, 1961. Something went wrong during the early part of
that flight and the pilot became unconscious. Unable to return to Earth before the beginning of the second orbit and forced to
remain in space until the 17th orbit in order to avoid a forced landing on foreign soil, the cosmonaut perished in space.

Vladimir Ilyushin was scheduled for the following flight. The fault having
apparently being rectified, his capsule, named "Rossiya" was launched in the
morning of April 7th, 1961.

It has been reported that, once again, something in the capsule went wrong.
Before completion of the first orbit, the pilot stopped responding to the radio
calls from mission control. Ilyushin had lost consciousness and a tragic repeat
of the February mission was unfolding. Due to the high profile of the pilot, it
was decided to attempt an emergency landing during the third orbit. As a
consequence, "Rossiya" would touch down in mainland China, a communist
country, but one with strained relations with Moscow at that time.
The normal procedure for the Vostok landings called for ejection of the pilot
from the capsule at about 20,000 feet, with the pilot touching down hanging
from his own parachute. Being unconscious, Vladimir Ilyushin was unable to
eject from "Rossiya" and sustained very serious injuries when the capsule hit
the ground. He was badly hurt, but alive, gaining the honor of being the first
man to return alive from orbit.
The Chinese authorities hospitalized Ilyushin and kept him in China for a year,
as their "honored guest", an euphemism normally reserved to describe foreign
intelligence agents.

By the time of his emergency landing, news had leaked out among foreign communist correspondents in Moscow that a manned
spaceflight was either on-going or imminent. Just one day after Ilyushins failed mission, a hurried decision was made in Moscow to
launch the back-up pilot, Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin's flight almost ended up in tragedy: at the time of de-orbiting, the descent capsule
failed to disconnect from the service module. After several unsuccessful attempts, the landing craft finally separated, for no
apparent reason. The de-orbiting manoeuver had occurred nearly ten minutes after its intended time and Gagarin landed in a
remote area, away from the recovery teams. Regardless of this close-call, the mission was, at last, a success and Gagarins flight
captured the attention of the world and effectively succeeded in covering up Ilyushins aborted mission. Vladimir Ilyushin recovered
from the accident, returned to the Soviet Union in 1962 and eventually became chief test pilot at the Sukhoi Design Bureau. He is
now (1999) a retired Air Force General living in a Moscow suburb.

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

After the successful orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet authorities wanted to
give a further demonstration of their superiority: Alan Shepard had finally entered
space on May 5, 1961, but only for a brief, suborbital flight. The U.S.S.R. would
send into orbit the first woman cosmonaut, before the americans could even
attempt their first orbital flight. And while the americans were planning one
additional suborbital flight before attempting a flight of only three orbits, the
russian woman cosmonaut would fly 17 times around the earth.

The launch took place on the 16th of May, 1961. We don't know what went wrong
during the flight, but re-entry had to be delayed. It is possible that the thermal
shield of the Vostok capsule may have been damaged during launch. A decision
was finally made to attempt re-entry on May 23rd, due to the dwindling air
supplies.

The italian listening post manned by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers had, by now,
learned how to intercept the voice communications between the spacecraft and
mission control, in addition to the physiological data received on the previous
missions.
The document we are presenting is dramatic and unsettling: the cosmonaut can
be heard complaining about the increasing ambient temperature, in a professional
voice which yet betrays the knowledge of a mission gone terribly wrong. In the
end, when flames start engulfing the capsule, the voice becomes heart-rending.

A full english translation is presented, together with the original voice recording.

Three days later, on May 26, 1961, TASS, the soviet press agency
announced the return to earth on the 23rd of a large, unmanned
satellite which burned upon re-entering the atmosphere. The
satellite was the size of a city bus. Its launch had not been
previously disclosed and its purpose was unknown.

Last Transmission Transcript

Copyright 1998 - All Rights Reserved

 May 16 - 23, 1961

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!...

Home
It is a well known fact that, at the beginning of the space race, the Soviet authorities refused to admit failure in their manned
missions. They made great efforts to hide any trace of those pilots or cosmonauts that either perished or were, in some other way,
disgraced.

The first series of pictures presented here are known as the Sochi photographs, because they were taken at the Black Sea
resort of Sochi in May of 1961, shortly after the successful orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin.

Front row: A.G. Nikolayev; Y.A. Gagarin; "Vostok" chief designer S.P. Korolioff; training director Karpov; parachute trainer N.K. Nikitin.
Back row: P.R. Popovich; G.G. Nelyuboff; G.S. Titov; V.F. Bykovsky.

The picture with the six cosmonauts has been released in at least four versions, three of which were notable for the absence of
one of the cosmonauts, airbrushed into oblivion by the state censors. The missing cosmonaut has been identified as Grigory
Grigoryevich Nelyuboff. The current story from Moscow is that Nelyuboff was expelled from the cosmonauts corps for bad
behavior (apparently he got into a fight). He fell into disgrace and committed suicide in 1966.

The other photograph, taken at the same time, shows a group of 22 people; there are sixteen cosmonauts, as well as rocket
designer Serghei Pavlovich Korolioff, his wife, cosmonaut Popovichs daughter, two trainers and a doctor. Of this photograph, too,
various retouched variants are known to exist. Up to six cosmonauts were "deleted" from the picture.

The last two pictures were taken in the mid-sixties. They show the disappearance of a Voskhod back-up cosmonaut. Sources in
western intelligence claim that at least three undisclosed missions failed in the second half of the sixties, including a multiple
launch in 1966.

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

Many names have emerged over the years of Cosmonauts who allegedly perished in space, or disappeared suddenly from the
scene.
These names come from a wide variety of sources, some more reliable than others. They are offered here without comment nor
proof of their true existence.
It is likely, however, that the names of the people whose voice and heartbeat were received by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers may
be found among those on the list.

Presumed lost in Sub-Orbital Flights

Aleksei Ledovsky (Late 1957)

Serenti Shiborin (February 1958)
Andrei Mitkoff (January 1959)

Presumed lost in a Winged Rocket-powered Aircraft

Mirya Gromova (1959?)

Presumed lost in Orbital Flights

Piotr Dolgoff (October 11, 1960)

Gennady Mikhailoff (February, 1961)
Alexis Gracioff (December 1960)
Alexis Belokonioff (May 15, 1962)
Ivan Kachur (September 27, 1960)
V. Zavadowsky
Ludmila ? (1961)

Presumed lost during Cosmonaut Training

Valentin Bondarenko (1961)

N.K. Nikitin
Anatoly Tokoff

Expelled from the Cosmonauts Corps or suddenly disappeared from the scene

Valentin Filatyeff
Grigory Nelyuboff (1966)
Ivan Anikeyeff
Mars Rofikoff
Valentin Varlamoff
Anatoly Kartashoff
Dmitry Zaikin

A FOOTNOTE FROM HAVANA

In September of 1980 a
Cuban "guest cosmonaut",
Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez, was
launched aboard the "Soyuz
38" capsule. After his
successful flight, he
received a hero s welcome
back in Havana.
Fidel Castro gave a moving
speech, in which he
described his visit to the
Cosmonaut Training Center in
Zvezdny Gorodok (Star
City). He had been greatly
impressed by the faithful
reproduction of Yuri
Gagarin s office, where, on
the eve of their space
missions, cosmonauts go to
meditate. In a continuing
tradition, they leave on
Gagarin's desk a letter in
which they pledge to honor
and uphold the great
tradition of valor of the
soviet cosmonauts who have
preceded them. The office is
exactly how it was at the
time of Gagarin s death on
March 27, 1968: his notes
are still on the desk, his
appointment book lies open
on the table, his uniform
hangs from the clothes-
stand, all the clocks are
stopped at the exact hour
of his accident.
Castro went on to describe
another room, that he
called the "room of
martyrs". Access to this
room is strictly controlled.
On the walls of the room
are the photographs of all
the cosmonauts who have
given their lives in the
course of the soviet space
program. Castro was deeply
moved by the display of
heroism presented in this
very special shrine; he
added: "Many are the heroes
who sacrificed their lives
at the beginning of the
space age!"

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

The thick curtain of secrecy and deceipt covering the early soviet space program
has endured for over forty years. The early "Raketoplan" rocket-powered aircraft
flights, the sub-orbital launches and the first manned orbital missions have all
been pushed into forced oblivion by the state censors of a country that no longer
exists.
The new Russia and the countries in the Russian Federation have embraced
freedom and democracy and are struggling to free themselves of the old
shackles, in a new push for "transparency" in state affairs. The first breakthroughs
are finally occurring.

Dr. Serghei Khruschev, the son of former soviet leader Nikita Khruschev has
recently become a citizen of the United States. During the years of the space
race, he worked for Vladimir Chelomei, Chief Rocket Designer in charge of
development of boosters and space vehicles. Khruschev is currently a research
fellow at Brown University.
He has provided evidence that supports the existence of the unofficial missions
of the 1960s. Other former soviet officials who have contributed information about
these early missions include Col. Yuri Lyzlov and Capt. Anatoli Grushenko,
formerly of the SSRF (Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces) and directly involved in the
soviet space program during the 60s and 70s.
They participated directly in the the preparations for Vladimir Ilyushins spaceflight
and they witnessed the launch of the capsule "Rossyia". They have recounted
those events in recent television interviews.

It is interesting to note the reaction of some well-known western "experts" on

soviet space history to the revelations that are coming out of the Russian
Federation.
These "experts" have built their reputation on their interpretation of the soviet
space program and they now blindly refuse to examine this new evidence. In the
internet newsgroup dedicated to space history, these respected writers have
launched personal attacks against the authors of this website; instead of looking
at the evidence with an open mind, they attempted to ridicule our sources,
resorted to name calling and even to anti-italian slurs.
In a public show of their spineless character, some of these "experts" have not
had the courage to use their real names, preferring instead to hide behind a
pseudonym. So much for having the courage of their convictions!
Some of these "experts" were recently invited to debate the issue on television in
the presence of some of the prominent former soviet space program officials who
are now living in the West and who have provided material that sheds light on
those early, secret space missions. The fact that they ignored the invitation comes
as no surprise to the author of the present notes.

We invite debate and welcome constructive comments and contributions. All our
website visitors can contact us personally via email: well reply to every message.

Finally, we are providing a link to an open letter sent by Dr. E.H. Haimoff,
producer of a program recently shown on the PBS network in the U.S. entitled
"The Cosmonaut Cover-up".
We have no connection with Dr. Haimoff nor with the program he has produced.
However, we share the views expounded in his program and we support the
response he gave the "experts" who hurriedly criticized his account.

Letter by Dr. E.H. Haimoff

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

Letter by Dr. E.H. Haimoff of "Global Science Productions" to the "My Hero" website where an
account of Ilyushins space mission by Mr Paul Tsarinsky was recently posted.
The publication on-line of the account triggered a barrage of criticism by the usual "space experts".
This is Dr. Haimoffs reply to the critics.

Dear Sir/Madam:

We are a PBS-TV production company, and Paul Tsarinsky worked for us as an intern on our TV documentary project dealing with
Ilyushin, which is how he got a hold of this story and was able to present it in such a detailed manner that few or no other people
could have had any knowledge of. We have just recently finished a one-hour documentary for a new TV series that dealt with this
whole issue.

We have spent five years working on this story, collecting evidence, interviewing Western reporters who were in Russia at the time
and originally covered this story, tracking down Russian individuals who were involved in this event, and we have gone to Russia
and interviewed Ilyushin himself. Ilyushin is still alive and well and living in Moscow, but he was very difficult to locate and get a hold
of. He turned out to be a very unassuming, quiet, shy man, who lives a quiet life as a retired general but still dabbles in fighter jet
designs. The story IS TRUE, and Ilyushin told us his story even though he's still scared to death to tell it on camera, but let us film
him anyways. We had even interviewed a western journalist who recently had access to the Kremlin archives and saw internal
memos and documents (never intended to be seen by Westerners at the time they were written in 1961) confirming the fact that
Ilyushin went up into space first.

I am just disgusted with all of your doubters and "James Oberg"-type clones who have just been duped for the last 40 years, and are
just expressing their 'sour grapes' over not being able to root out this story first, or hold up books and articles of 40 years of Russian
propaganda and tell the world that this is the truth beyond any shadow of a doubt. Most people don't seem to understand that the
whole nature of the Soviet empire was to be top secret, so it was relatively easy to cover-up such an event. In addition, our
documentary also covered all of the circumstantial evidence that backed up Ilyushin's story, that looking at them in the cold light of
hindsight, makes this story absolutely believable and credible, which doubters and so-called Russian space experts failed to piece
together.

I would be most happy to send you or anyone else a copy of our TV documentary program to put to rest the issue of who went into
space first, or we would be eager to argue this issue with anyone who may claim to know about this subject more than this
production company (there obviously is no one who can even hope to claim to be anywhere near as versed in this whole matter as
we are). Any person who just pooh-poohs this as a myth or a fraud, is in reality a fraud themselves who can only be considered a
puppet to Russian propaganda. I am fully aware that we are having to break the image of almost 40 years of history, and every
history book encyclopedia, etc. will ultimately have to be changed. However, we are confident that it will be noted in the history
books that the other so-called Russian space experts will be remembered as having perpetuated the myth and fraud of Gagarin
themselves, and Paul Tsarinsky will be remembered as being one of the first to turn on the lights to the truth.

We encourage the light of scrutiny and investigation into this matter and the opportunity to bring out our findings out into the open,
and we will let the history books of the future decide who scurries for cover like roaches and holds up 40 year old Russian
propaganda as their way of thinking that they know the truth about this issue and not being called an ignorant idiot. I very much look
forward to any input you or your colleagues or so-called Russian space experts may wish to offer.

All the best,

Dr. Elliott H. Haimoff
Senior Producer
Global Science Productions
globalsi@ix.netcom.com
There is still no rational explanation, nearly ten years after the fall of the
communist regimes of eastern Europe, for the permanence of a curtain of silence
over the loss of a number of soviet cosmonauts, at the beginning of the space
program.

It is puzzling how, in the midst of 'Glasnost', the unknown heroes who gave their
life to take mankind into space have not yet been given the recognition in the
history of planet Earth which they earned with their very lives.
The Judica-Cordiglia brothers showed beyond doubt decades ago, that the soviet
authorities of the time conducted, for reasons of propaganda, experiments
doomed to almost certain failure, sacrificing their best pilots to the cause of
communism.
The callousness of the soviet mission controllers went as far as actually
cautioning their crews against saying things which "the people in Turin" may pick
up and record!
But we know now that these heroes, men and women, are not the only victims of
man's quest for space. In both the american and soviet space programs many
lives have been lost. Many are the heroes who gave their lives for the supreme
ideal of the advancement of science.
Yet those first cosmonauts, those "voices" heard in Turin, have to suffer the
shame of being nameless, of being ignored by history. Their lives have been
erased, their contribution may never be known.

Many are the nameless heroes of our times. Few are the heroes whose
heartbeats, whose very last words we are allowed to hear, extreme farewells
dedicated to the advancement of science and the progress of this planet Earth.

Let us not forget them.

"...in full view of the world..." - (John F. Kennedy, 1961)

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

Radio Moscows communiqu about the
Judica Cordiglia brothers.

In RealAudio!

April 7, 1965

This is Radio Moscow,

In March of the present year the Milan daily "Corriere della Sera" published an
article about "soviet cosmonauts who perished in space".
The article is based upon statements made by the Judica Cordiglia brothers, who
allegedly received signals and recorded conversations in space by a number of
soviet cosmonauts who did not return from their flights... two years ago the same
nonsense could be found in the pages of the "Washington Post"...a few organs of
the burgeois press, in an attempt to give their cosmic lies an appearance of
truthfulness, mention data provided by the american information services. These
services would have provided in confidence to the journalists information about
these dead cosmonauts. However, such data do not reflect the truth. And with this
statement we could close the whole matter.
But we want to add a few words about the Judica Cordiglia brothers.
This is not the first time that they get involved in the reception of these signals...
No one can doubt the safety of our space vehicles anymore.
In the list of names reported by the "Corriere della Sera", only one is known to
me: "Dolgov"on that day the aerostatreach the altitude of 25,458 meters...
We have read a few portions of the article written by Lieutenant General Nikolai
Kamanin and published in the "Red Star".

Comunicato di Radio Mosca sui fratelli

Judica Cordiglia

In RealAudio!

7 aprile 1965

Qui e' Radio Mosca

Nel marzo di quest'anno il quotidiano milanese "Corriere della sera" ha pubblicato

un articolo su "I cosmonauti sovietici periti nel cosmo".
L'articolo si basa sulle affermazioni dei fratelli Judica Cordiglia, i quali avrebbero
captato segnali e avrebbero registrato conversazioni nel cosmo di una serie di
cosmonauti sovietici non rientrati dal volo... tre anni fa la medesima sciocchezza
fu letta sulle pagine del "Washington Post.." ...alcuni organi della stampa
borghese, allo scopo di dare alle loro frottole spaziali qualche parvenza di
veridicita', si richiamano ai dati dei servizi di informazione americani, che
avrebbero comunicato confidenzialmente ai giornalisti le notizie sui cosmonauti
russi periti, ma questi dati non suffragano la versione dei fatti. Qui si potrebbe fare
punto e chiudere.
Ma desidero aggiungere ancora alcune parole sui fratelli Judica Cordiglia.
Non e' la prima volta che essi si occupano dell'ascolto dei segnali.... Nessuno
ormai mette dubbi sulla sicurezza dei nostri mezzi spaziali. Nell'elenco dei nomi
riportati dal "Corriere della Sera" ne conosco solo uno: "Dolgov" ...quel giorno
l'aerostato... raggiungere la quota di 25.458 metri...
Vi abbiamo letto alcuni stralci dell'articolo del tenente generale Nikolai Kamanin
pubblicato dalla "Stella Rossa".

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

Home
Transcript of Dr Achille Judica Cordiglias
interview on Italian national radio

In RealAudio!

"Golem" is a popular radio program which airs four times a week on RAI UNO,
Italys most important national radio station. The program deals primarily with the
"media" at large; in particular with the relationship between media-generated
information and reality.

It compares reality as it is presented by todays mass media and the same reality
as seen by the people, who, for better or for worse, have to live through it.

The "Golem" broadcast that we have included in our web site begins with a
commentary on the current NATO military action in Kosovo. For the last few days,
"Golem" has been relaying information received via short-wave radio or via the
Internet from "unofficial" Serbian radio stations.

These are voices of the people, voices that do not belong to any official news
agency nor to a state-run information service. Recent broadcasts have also
mentioned web sites where it is possible to hear live radio conversations among
NATO pilots involved in the war.

In the same spirit, Mario Abrate, webmaster of the "Lost Cosmonauts" web site,
contacted the "Golem" staff to make them aware of the intercepts made by the
Judica Cordiglia brothers in the 1960s and to create a sort of ideal link between
those voices that came from space and these voices that are engaged in battle
here on Earth.

Gianluca Nicoletti, the creator and presenter of "Golem" found a connection

between the present situation in Europe and the early sixties, highlighting the role
played by radio, then and now, in exposing the truth that lies hidden behind the
curtain of officialdom laid by the mass media.

You can hear, obviously in Italian, the entire broadcast; it starts with some voices
from the war zone: the announcement that the "B92" free radio had been shut
down by the Yugoslav government. The topic then shifts to the "Lost
Cosmonauts", starting in the fifth minute of the broadcast.

We are providing a transcription of the telephone interview between Gianluca

Nicoletti and Achille Judica Cordiglia that was broadcast during the program.

Nicoletti (5:45): Doctor Judica Cordiglia, what do you think about this need
that we feel to pick-up via radio and make known to our listeners these fleeting
fragments of reality?

AJC: When you can spend entire days and nights at your radio listening station,
the way we used to do with our receivers, it is possible to receive a more
complete view of what is really happening

Nicoletti: Have you ever been tempted, during the more recent and
sophisticated conflicts to try and eavesdrop on what was going on?

AJC: Yes, indeed! At home, during the war with Iraq, I was able to receive two
"unauthorized" radio stations.

Nicoletti: Are you still involved in this type of activity?

AJC: These days I have a different occupation; I am a cardiologist. In my home,

however, I still have a room that I use for this. I still have all the equipment from
the old days; all the receivers, one of them still works. In my garden I still have the
antenna that was the key to our achievements. It is an eight-sided dish antenna,
with a diameter of eight meters and it can be rotated in elevation and in azimuth.
Back then it was the largest in Italy. It allowed us to receive those signals and it
still works. I have it here by the house.

Nicoletti (9:00): What motivated you and your brother to listen for those
sounds?

AJC: It was mainly a great passion for Radio communications. We were already
Ham radio operators, but what really interested us was listening to transmissions
from space. When Sputnik 1 was launched, on October 4, 1957, we set up our
listening post and we were able to receive its signals. Thats when our passion for
space radio really began.
Thirty or forty years ago we bought some surplus american airborne receivers; we
adapted them and we began to listen to satellite broadcasts on that equipment.
Then our activity really took off; from a backyard operation it grew into a real
tracking station, located in the hills around the city of Turin. Later, for political
reasons, given the type of signals we were receiving a fact that was not
appreciated by the Russians we found a number of red flags we were in the
sixties, remember, the middle of the cold war and we then decided to move our
operation to San Maurizio Canavese, near Caselle airport, where we set up an
efficient satellite tracking station, where most of these signals were eventually
received and recorded.

Nicoletti: What would you consider the most remarkable and most tragic of all
your intercepts?

AJC: In our opinion, there were 14 soviet astronauts who perished in space. It
started in 1960 and went on until the early 70s. Fourteen astronauts, men and
women. I think the most interesting (I am not sure this is the right word) signals
were the heartbeat and gasping breathing that we received on Februuary 2, 1961.
These were clearly the heartbeat and breathing of a human being. We even
recorded a systolic skip, that confirmed what we were witnessing.

AJC (12:52): We were quite sure of all the fourteen missions because, in
addition to the direction in which the antenna was pointing and to the periodicity of
the signals, which matched the orbiting period of an Earth satellite, we also
detected the "Doppler" shift in the frequency of the received signals. This effect is
typical of radio signals transmitted or received by a moving vehicle. The reception
would last over twenty minutes, so we knew that it coulnt come from an airplane.
The orientation of the antenna, the frequencies being used and, most of all, the
character of the conversations left us in no doubt. In those days, we used the
Berlitz School to translate the messages.
These events were later confirmed by NASA and, much later, some were even
acknowledged from within the Soviet Union, after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Nicoletti: Did the Russians ever admit that there were missions that preceded
Yuri Gagarins flight?

AJC: Some preceded Gagarins mission, some came later. It was typical of the
cold war; mainly the race for the Moon.

Nicoletti: Did you ever receive anything more telling than a heartbeat?

AJC: Yes, we received voices, in Russian, both male and female. The
transmission is from May 1961; two men and a woman. Together with several
journalists who were with us at the time, we witnessed, in real time, the death of
the soviet cosmonaut. Her name was Ludmila and we recorded her voice, her last
messages while they happened.

Nicoletti: Was this ever aknowledged by the soviet authorities?

AJC: Absolutely not! They denied the whole thing and in April of 1965, TASS
released a long communiqu directed against us, in very personal terms. They
specifically mentioned our names; they said these things were totally untrue and
that the names (we had provided names of the victims) belonged to people who
had never existed.
At that point we responded through ANSA (the Italian national Press Agency, n.d.
t.) saying that we didnt just have their names, but also their pictures. We had
seen their pictures in the magazine "Ogoniok", in an article published five years
earlier that showed the rookie cosmonauts undergoing training. So, the voices
between the capsules and ground control, the fact that the cosmonauts were
addressed by their first name and the pictures with the names of the trainees
allowed us to identify the victims.

At this point in the program, the voice of the female cosmonaut is

broadcast.

Nicoletti: The female voice is reading back some technical data. Now she is
saying that she feels hot. Later she will announce that her capsule is burning:
"Visciu Flama!"- I can see flames!

Nicoletti: Now, forty years later, to hear the voices of people facing the flames
of destruction we still have to rely on that old and venerable medium: the radio

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

An interview with
Gian Battista Judica Cordiglia

By Giovanni Abrate

Turin, Italy
March 31, 1999

Note: Reference is made throughout the interview to the April 1965 Readers Digest article by J.D. Ratcliff
that can be found elsewhere in this website.

G.A. Dear Gian, thank you for kindly agreeing to this interview. As you know, we
have recently published in the "Lost Cosmonauts" website a reprint of the artcle
"Italys Amazing Amateur Space Watchers" that originally appeared in the
April,1965 issue of the Readers Digest. This article opened with the rather
startling and controversial statement that a dead cosmonaut may be traveling
through space. Now, thirty-odd years later, such stories are almost universally
dismissed as "space folklore". But you actually had some corroborating data for
this event. What was the reason for Mr Ratcliffs statement?

GJC The statement is related to the signals that were received on November 28,
1960. On that occasion we received the words "SOS to the whole world", in
Morse code. We confirmed the presence of the Doppler effect in amounts very
similar to what we later detected during reception of signals from such moon
probes as the Luniks.
Tracking measurements showed the vehicles elevation to be in an almost
stationary position in the sky: clearly the signal was not coming from an orbiting
satellite, but rather from something that was moving away from the Earth. The
signal was very weak; the Morse code message, which may have been a
recording, was heard by several witnesses.
We developed a theory that perhaps at the time of re-entry to Earth, the retro-
rockets, which are normally activated after the capsule has made a half revolution
along its vertical axis, may have ignited improperly. We surmised that the capsule
may not have executed the attitude reversal at the time of retro-rocket ignition,
gaining speed in the process. Starting at a speed of about 8Km/sec, the
spacecraft may have been pushed into a higher orbit, even reaching sufficient
velocity to escape the Earths gravitational pull. If my recollection is accurate, the
escape velocity required to reach the Moon is about 11.2Km/sec.
The Morse code message was broadcast in English. We believed it was a
desperate plea for help, addressed perhaps to the Americans. After a while, the
signals stopped. I remember that on December 2, the soviet authorities
announced the launch of Sputnik VI and almost immediately announced that it
had been lost.

G.A. One of the key elements of Torre Bert and a reason for your remarkable
radio intercepts was the 40-foot antenna that you and your brother designed and
built. Tell us more about it.

GJC I have a picture of the antenna. (click here to see image) We were having
difficulty receiving signals on 108MHz, 137MHz, 145.800MHz and 405MHz using
dipole arrays. The signals were too weak. We designed an antenna based on our
experience and we actually built it ourselves in the courtyard next to a machine
shop (we had to disassemble the whole thing again to get it out of the courtyard!!!).
The antenna was even shown at the 12th Technology Expo in Turin, and it won a
prize, a gold medal. The receiving equipment inside the octagonal reflector could
be easily replaced with another covering a different frequency. The antenna
weighed 1.5 metric Tonnes. The main structure was made of steel amd mesh; the
external portion, which outlined the octagon, was made of aviation-grade
aluminum tubing. The total length of the tubing was, if my recollections are right,
about 80-100 meters.
The antenna was controlled manually: the Azimuth drive pivoted around an end-
bearing. The Elevation drive was operated through a worm drive held between
two custom-made clamps. The antenna survives to this day and can be found
standing as a "gate guardian" in my brother's garden. It still gets some use,
operating now in the 137MHz band.
For over ten years, it was the largest in Italy. The next largest was the one in
Arcetri (Florence), with a diameter of only 5 meters. (I am referring, of course, to
antennas that can be driven in Az and El, not to those that use the Earth's
motion). With our antenna we received some extraordinary transmissions: images
from Soviet Moon probes, images from the Kosmos satellites on the 145.800MHz
frequency, pictures from Lunik 4 (a probe that the soviet authorities claimed had
failed its mission) and even the pictures of an american long-range bomber while
it was being flight tested over New Mexico! These pictures were taken by a soviet
Kosmos satellite and relayed to a ground station in the USSR (I believe this was
in Baikonur). We received about a dozen photographs, that were promptly
confiscated by Italian military intelligence, both negatives and copies.
Two months later, the U.S. unveiled to the world details of their latest strategic
bomber

G.A. In order to ascertain that a signal was coming from a moving object in
space and not from a ground-based transmitter, you had to verify the presence of
the Doppler effect in the received signal.
How did you achieve that in the early sixties?

GJC The detection of the Doppler effect was done in a very simple way, through
the use of the well-known "Lissajous" patterns. We used a single-trace
oscilloscope. We connected the horizontal input to the signal from the satellite.
We then used a low frequency signal generator to send a signal of the same
frequency to the vertical axis. As you know, when the two signals were of the
same frequency, an ellipse would appear on the screen of the oscilloscope.
In the event of a signal coming from a stationary (earth-bound) source, the ellipse
would remain stable. A signal from a satellite caused the ellipse to change
continuously according to the frequency variation caused by the Doppler effect.
We used the same technique to determine the exact time of overflight of the
satellite: when at the zenith, the frequency of the signal remained momentarily
stable. After passing the zenith, the frequency would start to decrease.
We plotted the frequency variation over time on graph paper and were thus able
to accurately determine the amount of Doppler drift. In addition to this test (which
would have been, in itself, sufficient) we also located, using the antenna "null"
characteristics, the position of the satellite in the sky, the change in its point of
entry at the horizon caused by the Earth's rotation between overflights and we
were, therefore, able to calculate the period of revolution around the planet.
On the basis of just two overflights, we could determine all the parameters
needed to track the satellite over a period of several days, obviously with some
small degree of error.

G.A. Tell us more about the "Zeus" network of amateur tracking stations.

GJC The Zeus network was a good idea that lasted only one year. My fiance
(now wife) Laura was in charge of the organization. The network was hampered
by slow communications which made it difficult to operate in synch. There was
one station in Germany, one in Argentina, one in the Lebanon.

G.A. The signal received on May 17, 1961 is moving and dramatic. According to
some sources, in addition to the voice of the female cosmonaut, two male voices
were also received. Some sources say that the flights nay have been an early
attempt at orbital rendez-vous. Can you confirm this?

GJC We also picked up two male voices. The most tragic transmissions are
those involving the female cosmonaut.

G.A. The author of the Reader's Digest article mentions "accumulated evidence"
pointing to as many as ten soviet space casualties by the year 1965. Your
comments?

GJC The statement was made by the writer of the article, J.D. Ratcliffe, based
on evidence that did not come from us. I believe he may have had some
information from U.S. sources. There was another article at the time, published by
Fate magazine, that made similar claims.

G.A. Now let's talk about your trip to the U.S. in 1964. It must have been a very
exciting event for you and your brother. I understand that you financed your trip
with the winnings from a TV show. Tell us more about it.

GJC Actually the matter was a bit more complicated. The RAI national TV
network hosted the show and we won enough money to pay for the air fare. The
U.S. Embassy in Rome, through their Scientific Attach Mr Walter Ramberg,
organized our meetings with N.A.S.A.
N.A.S.A. actually sent the official invitation for us to go to Washington, D.C. We
were hosted by one of the administrators, a Mr Hausmann (I can't recall his first
name) and we met with the person in charge of Earth-Space-Earth
communications, a Mr Morrison (again, I can't recall his first name). We went to
Huntsville, Cape Canaveral, Houston and Beltsville, Md.

G.A. We want to thank once again Mr GianBattista Judica Cordiglia for giving us
this interview and for sharing so many fascinating details with us.

Copyright 1999 - All Rights Reserved

Home
 Click on the photographs to see an enlarged view.

The Tracking Room at Torre Bert. At the

peak of its activity in the 1960s, there was
a volunteer staff of 20.
Achille (sitting) and Gian Battista Judica Cordiglia at Torre
Bert

Gian Battista Judica Cordiglia (sitting) and

his brother Achille at Torre Bert. In the
The Audio Processing System designed and built by the background can be seen the track charts
Judica Cordiglia brothers to improve the quality of the for U.S. and soviet satellites.
audio transmissions received from space.
 Gian Battista Judica Cordiglia interviewed recently on Italian national
television reminisces about the early days at Torre Bert. At the end of
the video, we can see some of the audio tapes that make up part of the
archives of Torre Bert.

Views of the early days at Torre Bert. This video shows some of the
antennas designed and built by the Torre Bert team at the beginning of
their activities.

The audio of Laika's heartbeat received at Torre Bert from Sputnik II on

the 3rd of November, 1957.

Italian and international Press in attendance at Torre Bert during the

live reception of space signals. All the Torre Bert activities were openly
conducted in the presence of the Press and of international observers.
The video also shows the tracking equipment developed by the Judica
Cordiglia brothers and their team.

The antenna tracking and orbital calculations activity and the custom-
built display panels can be seen in this video. Also, Moon probe
tracking equipment and the images received at Torre Bert on the 7th of
April of 1963 from the soviet Lunik 4 probe.

Images from the trip taken by the Judica Cordiglia brothers to the
United States in 1964. The brothers, seen together with one of their
team-members who acted as an interpreter, were invited to a number
of de-briefings at various N.A.S.A. facilities and also at the U.S. State
Department.

A view of the antenna park of Torre Bert. At the time of maximum

activity, the Torre Bert Station had 21 antennas in operation, including
phased-array designs.

The Mobile Tracking Unit. This mobile station was equipped with dual
listening consoles. This unit was used to determine, through
triangulation, the location of several Soviet ground tracking stations.
This was one of the subjects discussed in the de-briefings held in 1964
at the State Dept. in Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2001 - All Rights Reserved

 Judica Cordiglia Tecniche Applicate
The Straight Dope: Were there really "Lost Cosmonauts" stranded in space?
Aulis online
Pietro.org
Dr Sky
For those who are interested in a diametrically opposed opinion to the one expressed in the present web site, we offer a link to James Oberg's article
"Phantoms of Space"
James Oberg returned to the issue of 'Lost Cosmonauts' in his book "Uncovering Soviet Disasters"
Vladimir Ilyushin's Spaceflight, by Paul Tsarinsky
Cosmonauts number Zero
Grechko's encounter
THE TRUTH REVEALER: this was the nickname given by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers to a piece of test
equipment they developed and built in 1960.

The unit was a sophisticated (for its day) notch filter, used to "clean up" the audio signals received from space
probes and manned capsules. The unit used a series of capacitors and several self-built copper-wire chokes. The
unit could be used both as a band-pass or a band-stop filter and operated in the low and high frequency ranges. A
"Geloso" tape recorder was used as the source, with another similar unit being used as the destination device.
The audio signals were monitored using a "Chinaglia" brand oscilloscope and could be played back through
speakers or headphones. Most of the units used in this device still survive! Apparently, noise-shaping in 1960
required a lot of hard work: but it gave the desired results!

Copyright 1998 - All Rights Reserved

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