- The Lost Cosmonaut
Lost Cosmonauts, or Phantom Cosmonauts, is a conspiracy theory alleging that cosmonauts entered outer space, but without their existence having been acknowledged by either the Soviet or Russian space authorities.
Proponents of the Lost Cosmonauts theory concede that Yuri Gagarin was the first man to survive space travel, but claim that the Soviet Union attempted to launch two or more manned space flights prior to Gagarin's, and that at least two cosmonauts died in the attempts. Another cosmonaut, Vladimir Ilyushin, is believed to have landed off-course and been held by the Chinese government. The Government of the Soviet Union supposedly suppressed this information, to prevent bad publicity during the height of the Cold War.
The evidence cited to support Lost Cosmonaut theories is generally not regarded as conclusive, and several cases have been confirmed as hoaxes. In the 1980s, American journalist James Oberg researched space-related disasters in the Soviet Union, but found no evidence of these Lost Cosmonauts.[1] Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, much previously restricted information is now available. Even with the availability of published Soviet archival material and memoirs of Russian space pioneers, no hard evidence has emerged to support the Lost Cosmonaut stories.
Confirmed hoaxes
A number of claims have been confirmed as hoaxes:
Ivan Istochnikov
Officially Soyuz 2 was an unmanned spacecraft that was the docking target for Soyuz 3. However, Mike Arena, an American journalist, found in 1993 that Ivan Istochnikov and his dog Kloka were manning Soyuz 2, and disappeared on October 26, 1968, with signs of having been hit by a meteorite. They had been "erased" from history by the Soviet authorities, who could not tolerate such a failure.[20]
The entire story was found to be a hoax perpetrated by Joan Fontcuberta,[21] as a 'modern art exercise' that included falsified mission artifacts, various digitally manipulated images, and immensely detailed feature-length biographies that turned out to be riddled with hundreds of historical as well as technical errors. The exhibit was shown in Madrid in 1997 and the National Museum of Catalan Art in 1998. Brown University later purchased several articles, and put them on display themselves.
Mexico's Luna Cornea magazine however, failed to notice this, and ran issue number 14 (January/April 1998) with photos, and a story explaining the tragic and as-yet-untold truth.[22]
The name Ivan Istochnikov is a Russian translation of Joan Fontcuberta's name; translated to English from Russian reads "John of the Source".[23]
On June 11, 2006, Cuarto Milenio,[24] a mysteries program led by Iker Jiménez on the Spanish TV channel Cuatro, presented the story as possibly true.[25]
Japanese singer Akino Arai wrote a song about Istochnikov and Kloka, titled "Sputnik" on her Furu Platinum album. - The Growing Earth Theory
Expanding Earth/Growing Earth is a hypothesis asserting that the position and relative movement of continents is due to the volume of the Earth increasing.
While suggested historically, since the recognition of plate tectonics in the 1970s, the scientific consensus has rejected any expansion of the Earth.
There is no evidence supporting expansion of the Earth :
* Measurements with modern high-precision geodetic techniques show that the Earth is not currently increasing in size, and there is no source of energy to power expansion. This is in contrast to plate tectonics, which is supported by a large range of geological and geophysical measurements, including direct measurements of plate motions by geodesy and of subduction at plate boundaries.[13][14][15]
* Mass accretion on a scale required to change the Earth's radius is contradicted by the current accretion rate of the Earth, and by the Earth's average internal temperature: any accretion releases a lot of energy, which would warm the planet's interior. Expanding Earth models based on thermal expansion contradict most modern principles from rheology, and fail to provide an acceptable explanation for the proposed melting and phase transitions.
* Paleomagnetic data has been used to calculate that the radius of the Earth 400 million years ago was 102 ± 2.8% of today's radius.[16][17] Furthermore, examinations of earth's moment of inertia suggest that there has been no significant change of earth's radius in the last 620 million years.[18]
Present day advocates
One prominent present day advocate of an expanding Earth is comics artist Neal Adams, who calls his ideas "Growing Earth Theory".[19] Adams has made video animations that graphically illustrate his hypothesis, in which new mass is created by a hypothesized electron/positron pair production process within the core of the Earth. - The Cardiff Giant
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous hoaxes in United States history. It was a 10-foot (3.0 m) tall purported "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869 by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P.T. Barnum are still on displ
Creation and discovery
The giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument at a Methodist revival meeting about the passage in Genesis 6:4 stating that there were giants who once lived on Earth.[1]
The idea of a petrified man did not originate with Hull, however. In 1858 the newspaper Alta California had published a bogus letter claiming that a prospector had been petrified when he had drunk a liquid within a geode. Some other newspapers also had published stories of supposedly petrified people.[2]
Hull hired men to carve out a 10-foot (3.0 m) long, 4.5-inch block of gypsum in Fort Dodge, Iowa, telling them it was intended for a monument to Abraham Lincoln in New York. He shipped the block to Chicago, where he hired a German stonecutter to carve it into the likeness of a man and swore him to secrecy.
Various stains and acids were used to make the giant appear to be old and weathered, and the giant's surface was beaten with steel knitting needles embedded in a board to simulate pores. In November 1868 then Hull transported the giant by rail to the farm of William Newell, his cousin. By then, he had spent US$2,600 on the hoax.
Nearly a year later, Newell hired Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols, ostensibly to dig a well, and on October 16, 1869 they found the giant. One of the men reportedly exclaimed, "I declare, some old Indian has been buried here!"
Exhibition and exposure as fraud
Newell set up a tent over the giant and charged 25 cents for people who wanted to see it. Two days later he increased the price to 50 cents.[2] People came by the wagon load.
Archaeological scholars pronounced the giant a fake, and some geologists even noticed that there was no good reason to try to dig a well in the exact spot the giant had been found. Yale palaeontologist Othniel C. Marsh called it "a most decided humbug". Some Christian fundamentalists and preachers, however, defended its authenticity.[3]
Eventually, Hull sold his part-interest for $23,000 to a syndicate of five men headed by David Hannum. They moved it to Syracuse, New York for exhibition. The giant drew such crowds that showman P. T. Barnum offered $50,000 for the giant. When the syndicate turned him down he hired a man to model the giant's shape covertly in wax and create a plaster replica. He put his giant on display in New York, claiming that his was the real giant and the Cardiff Giant was a fake.[2]
As the newspapers reported Barnum's version of the story, David Hannum was quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute" in reference to spectators paying to see Barnum's giant. Over time, the quotation has been misattributed to Barnum himself.
Hannum sued Barnum for calling his giant a fake, but the judge told him to get his giant to swear on his own genuineness in court if he wanted a favorable injunction.[2]
On December 10, Hull confessed to the press. On February 2, 1870 both giants were revealed as fakes in court. The judge ruled that Barnum could not be sued for calling a fake giant a fake.
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