1. When my mother was in the maternity house (it was in 1971), in the same chamber there was Tamara Pitzhalauri - a relative of a famous soviet test-pilot. She officially was the test-engineer, however all in hospital named her
 "cosmonaut woman". She rejected her participation in the space program, but told about her personal acquaintance with J.Gagarin and C.Korolyov (main constructor of Soviet military and space rockets - the Russian Verner von Braun). Some years back we have read about her in an  newspaper. There was informed, that Tamara entered into female team of cosmonauts , but she hasn't had a chance to be in space. So, the team of cosmonauts was much bigger than was informed officially. It is possible that some of them were lost under circumstances which were officially named "as unsuccessful tests of engineering".

2. If the death of Komarov (1967) and Dobrobol'sky-Volkov-Patzaev is more or clear, the  circumstances of  Gagarin's and test-pilot Seryogin's death (they were lost in air flight in 1968) still remains a secret. There are some versions of this crash.

a) It is known that Gagarin used to drink a last years of life. Just the alcoholic intoxication has become the reason of airaccident. However by military rules the pilot can't be admitted to flight, if he's drunk.
b) There were rumours, that on official reception Gagarin splashed champaign in the Brezhnev's face, in order to demonstrate his disgrace to Soviet leader. After that Gagarin was placed in mental house, where he's still present, but it was an officially announce about his death.
c) Gagarin was not lost in accident, but has become the complete invalid. For the propagandistic reasons this was not announced.
d) The official version says: Gagarin and Seryogin were going to make a complicatred bend and were mistaken in accounting. The plane was lowered below, than followed, and was crashed. Very unpersuasively...

It's imposiible to check versions b and c. It's only rumours. However it is interesting, that all clairvoyants approve, that Gagarin  now is still alive. One clairvoyant (Vanga from Bulgaria) has told: "Gagarin is alive, but his mind is dead ".

According to some evidences, Gagarin  foresaw his death. Despite of the simple background, he was a man of strong principles and sober mind. Shortly before death he told: " I still can't understand, who I am: «the first man» or «the last dog» (in Russian slang "last dog" means "rightless creature").
Many people hated Gagarin - first of all other cosmonauts because he was the first and for his strong principles.
There is an opinion among intellectuals, that Gagarin  was killed because of carrier reasons.

3. The major-general Vladimir Iliushin (born in 1927), a son of the very famous soviet aviation constructor S.Iliushin, in 1960 has got in mysterious accident. In the 1970s he was telling, that is was "the tests of space engineering ". As a result of these "tests" he spent  a lot of time in China to cure. It is interesting, that in the same 1960 he was awarded a rank of a Hero of Soviet Union - the highest award of the USSR. For what?

4. The colonel Sergey Anokhin (1910-1986) tested space rockets and this fact was officially proved.

5. On the 3 of November 1957 a dog Laika was launched in the Sputnik-2. Victor Malkin, a doctor-physyologist, participant of the space program: " This flight was programmed as obviously irreversible — Laika had to die on 7th day of the flight. But the program was not fullfilled, and it was carefully hidden. In opinion of the participants of the program, the dog stayed alive on orbit no more than 13 hours".

copyright Alexey Penzensky 1997