Notes on the space tracking activities and sensational claims made by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers

• Analysis of the information provided at the "Lost Cosmonauts" web site
  • Pictures
  • The Interview with Gian Battista Judica-Cordiglia
• The publication "Radiospazio" and its description of radio intercepts
• More pictures from Torre Bert
• Conclusions
• Postscript 3 August 2008 
• References

The claims made by the Italian brothers Achille and Gian Battista Judica-Cordiglia of having tracked Soviet spacecraft with cosmonauts onboard that perished are well known and lately described in some details at the "Lost Cosmonauts" web site (discovered to be defunct in October 2013) set up by Giovanni and Mario Abrate. The stories of the Judica-Cordiglias sensational intercepts are part of the mythology of the Space Age. Serious students of space history such as James Oberg have thoroughly debunked (4) these claims. Here I just would add some notes in support of such debunking and also to provide some details about the operation of the Judica-Cordiglias located outside Turin in northern Italy.  Some material comes from the "Lost Cosmonauts" site while other material comes from my own files.
 

Analysis of the information provided at the "Lost Cosmonauts" web site

Pictures

In this picture we see the main tracking antenna at Torre Bert. The "dish" actually seems to be a rather flat reflector, in effect a "ground plane". there are six Yagi antennas mounted over this ground plane and if they are fed in phase they provide a 7.8 dB gain increase over the single Yagi. In other pictures there is a single helix at the center of the ground plane. If one looks carefully it is possible to see that each concentric octagonal frame forming the reflector is mounted a little further our from the supporting booms as one approaches the edge. This may have been a rough approximation of a parabolic dish, but with the Yagis in the picture above, this would have had no, or very little effect on gain. In the configuration above only the number of Yagis and the way they are fed is important. The "dish" in this case works as a (oversized) ground plane! The azimuth steering of this antenna seems to have been done manually and I guess that the wheel seen just above the man's head in the picture on the right is the "steering wheel" for the antenna!

This radio seems to have a loudspeaker on the left side and a tuning knob and dial very similar to that of my Nems-Clarke 2501 A 55-260 MHz telemetry receiver (see below)

The interview with Gian Battista Judica-Cordiglia

• He describes how the signals they received on 28 November 1960 could have come from a space vehicle moving away from earth on an escape trajectory and that it had done so because the retrorockets had fired in the wrong direction. First, retrorockets normally provide a velocity increment in the order of  100 m/s. The retro-rocket of the spaceship that he says they tracked in November 1960 was supposedly to have provided 11.2-8=3.2 km/sec of velocity increment. The rocket equation [dV= w * ln(r), where dV is the velocity increment, w is the exhaust velocity -assumed to be 2.7 km/s and r is the mass ratio] shows that a mass ratio of 3.3 would be needed, i.e. the spacecraft would have had to carry more than twice its dry mass as propellant! If the spaceship that the Judica-Cordiglias say they heard is anywhere near Vostok in dry weight, then the whole vehicle must have weighed more that 13 tons in orbit - clearly outside the capability of the Vostok booster. Also, he says that they heard Doppler shift. This is very hard to detect from a vehicle moving away from earth very far from earth. The radial velocity varies very little, so the signal frequency varies very little. On a low frequency like 20 MHz, where the purported reception was probably made, the shift is indeed small. The arguments put forward by GJC may impress the technically ignorant, but not someone with the most basic knowledge of space technology.
   
• Then follows a really extraordinary series of statements. First GJC mentions the frequencies that the antenna was used for: 108 MHz (OK, used by early U.S. satellites and space probes), 137 MHz (a well-established space radio band), 145.800 MHz (Only used by radio amateur satellites as far as I know) and 405 MHz (never heard about that frequency being used for space vehicles). He then goes on to say that Soviet Kosmos satellites broadcast pictures on 145.800 MHz and that they had been directed towards Baikonur. This is indeed strange - if I hear a signal from space how can I know where the ground stations is? GJC then goes on to say that the pictures showed a U.S. long-range bomber in New Mexico! And that the pictures that Torre Bert received were confiscated by Italian intelligence .... very inconvenient for latter-day analysts .... the proof is gone! We know that early Zenit reconnaissance satellites (Kosmos-4, -7, -9, and -13) carried an imaging system that sent facsimile-type pictures to the ground, but they were of poor quality and were received on 163 MHz (1). In my humble opinion one couldn't possibly see a bomber! The system was discontinued in favour of the film return system. However, I have been in contact  with GJC through Giovanni Abrate and he maintains that the frequency ws 145.8 MHz and that Italian intelligence was involved.

• GJC also mentions that the Torre Bert stations received pictures of the Moon from Luna-4. I have an old newspaper clipping from 1963 with a picture of the moon distributed by the Torre Bert station and said to have been received from the Soviet Luna-4 spacecraft. Above right you can see a scanned copy of this clipping (In the scanned image you can also see the back of the thin newspaper page..).

The picture caption is in Swedish, but reads "This picture of the lunar surface is said to have been received by two Italian scientists at a space radio center in Turin when they connected a TV set to a radio telescope. The two Italians, the brothers Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia, say that pictures from the Moon have appeared on the TV screen on two occasions during the past 24 hours."

We know from other intercepts of Luna spacecraft that images were transmitted by very low speed facsimile similar to the type used by the APT transmitter on weather satellites. Such pictures have been reproduced on telephoto machines in the past and nowadays by software running on PCs. When I saw this picture I sincerely doubted that a TV hooked up to receiver tuned to the Luna-4 frequency would produce anything but noise.

To find out more I contacted Giovanni Abrati who relayed the following explanation from GJC : "The Moon pictures were transmitted in slow-scan, recorded on audio tape and re-composed using a TV monitor and a camera set to 'B'." This makes sense technically and I have asked GJC to confirm that the signals were received in the 183 MHz band normally used by Luna probes.

However, the "Moon picture" reproduced in the newspaper clipping looks very much retouched. It would be quite interesting if the "Lost Cosmonauts" web site could also publish the pictures said to have come from Luna-4.  A disturbing fact is that I have nowhere found any evidence that stations like Jodrell Bank or the NRL ground station in Maryland with its 45-m dish picked up these pictures (Check my Jodrell Bank articles). In addition, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there have been no signs of images having been transmitted during the approach to the moon by the E-6 Lunar probes, only after landing.

The publication "Radiospazio" and its description of radio intercepts

The first issue gives a summary of the activities of the Torre Bert operation. Using my limited knowledge of Italian, I have been able to make out the following:

• Sputnik 1 was received on a U.S. war surplus receiver and an antenna "rotativa" (A rotating HF beam?) and then Sputnik 2 and 3 were also picked up from a "cantina" in Via Academia Albertina
• The voice of Gagarin was picked up and recorded! I asked Giobvanni Abrate about this and he explained that "Gagarin's voice was recorded following a message from the Italian state press agency, coming from Moscow and indicating ongoing space activity. For two days, the Judica Cordiglia brothers manned their receivers, waiting for signals in the 19.995-20.005 MHz band." This makes sense.
• The Geloso radio company donated equipment (yes, I recognize their typical tuning dials in some of the pictures from Torre Bert).
• There was a mobile tracking station carried in a car of the type "Leoncino"

• On 28 November 1960 the Morse code message "SOS to the whole world" from a spaceship in trouble was picked up
• Heartbeats and forced breathing from a dying cosmonaut picked up in the 2-4 February 1961 time frame
• Signals from a space vehicle in trouble picked up 16-19 May 1961.
• Female voice picked up picked up on 14 June 1963 at 2104 (CET?). Torre Bert claims that Valentina Tereshkova was launched two days prior to what the Soviet Union stated.
• Torre Bert picked up traffic from what they say were Soviet ground stations related to the space and missile program in the 6 September 1962 and 17-20 November 1962 periods  that they say indicated an "imminent Soviet space launch". (Failed Soviet Venus probe launched on 12 September and a Soviet Mars probe failed on 24 Oct 1962)
• Torre Bert picked up signals that indicated that a Soviet space vehicle was in orbit during the time 8-12 November 1962

As far as I can tell from the "Radiospazio" issues, the "heartbeat" and "heavy breathing" files were recorded at 2255 (Central European Time?) on 2 February 1961. However, even the "Radiospazio" issues contain very sketchy logs of these and other receptions and vague data as to reception frequencies ("around [intorno ai] 20 MHz"). Concerning the "breathing" and "heartbeat" signals I would like to note that heart rate and breathing was never transmitted directly on the Vostok/Voskhod voice link. Instead this data was transmitted in the way described at my Web site ( "Biomedical telemetry" ). (You can hear the heartbeat of Valery Bykovsky as interruptions in the CW signals from Vostok-5). A key question is: Why would the failed flights use a different transmission system compared to the successful ones?

Much later, at the end of the 70's, electrocardiogram signals were transmitted on the Salyut 6 voice link, but then the signal was easily recognizable as ECG.

The file with the female "cosmonaut's" voice recorded during the period 16-19 May 1961 (dates vary, sometimes the period is given as 16-23 May 1961) is so garbled that it is virtually impossible to make out individual words. Compare this to the sound file with the voice of Vladimir Komarov at my Web site and you shall understand why I think the Torre Bert sound file has no value at all as evidence of anything!
 

More pictures from Torre Bert

Here is another picture of the main tracking antenna with single helix as the driven element and no sign of the six Yagis in the other picture

The wall displays are somewhat confusing. The "USA" display shows an approximately  i=50 deg orbit out of the Cape. Such launches took place in the early days, but were indeed unusual. The "URSS" display shows and  obit at i=60 deg instead of the standard 65 deg inclination. Just sloppy work? There are indicator lights along the orbit closest to Italy that probably could be lit to show the motion of the satellite. I have added an explanation of the display next to the clocks.< /EM>

Another impressive-looking display, this time of a lunar trajectory, seemingly based on the Luna-3 trajectory. Indicator light could show the position of the spacecraft. There is a status display and just below the left ceiling light there is the text "Parcheggio", i.e "Parking", probably to indicate the probe was still in parking orbit. The position display seems also to have the ability to display a parking orbit. The usufelness of this device is highly dubious, but it looks "cool"

An overall view of the building at Torre Bert. The main antenna is visible as well as three antennas on the adjacent building. The antenna on the right corner of the adjacent building has four vertical members (hard to see in the picture above)

Conclusions

Another interesting fact related by Giovanni Abrate (one of the authors of the "Lost Cosmonauts" site) is found in his comment that (3):

"What is difficult to understand for those who did not live through these events in Turin, is that Torre Bert very rapidly became a center of media attention. Many of the relevant intercepts were actually made in the presence of national and international media. Some of Italy's most respected journalists 'lived' at Torre Bert, shared the Judica Cordiglia family's meals, in order to be present when the transmissions were intercepted. The US Vice-Consul in Turin provided intelligence and advance warning of possible impending soviet launches."

So, the presence of journalists may explain some of the claims. Journalists need to deliver stories to their editors. They cannot spend long hours at a "tracking station" and not report anything that sounds substantial......

The psychological mechanism is similar to that displayed by the Bochum observatory in Germany that also regularly over-interpreted the signals they heard in order to grab headlines. The Bochum operation needed support from sponsors and it seems that headlines was a way of getting continued financial support.  However, the Bochum observatory never reached the extreme heights of fantasy that the Judica-Cordiglia brothers (or the reporters that surrounded them) achieved.

In general the Judica-Cordiglias never seemed to understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be believed. They never have produced such extraordinary evidence..details about reception frequencies, log books etc.. The recordings published on the "Lost Cosmonauts" website is an improvement in this respect, but unfortunately these recordings do not impress.... . It is also a pity that details of receptions by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers of more "hum-drum" satellites are not easily available. This could help in evaluating their credibility by cross-checking their reports with those of other satellite trackers.

In summary, the sensational stories that were put our by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers and how they have been propagated through the years are interesting as a social phenomenon - how myths begin and self-perputate themselves..!

Postscript 3 August 2008

References

1. Henry G. Plaster, "Snooping on Space Pictures", Studies in Intelligence, RG 263, Entry 400, "Articles From Studies in Intelligence, 1955-1992", National Archives and Records Administration.
2. RADIOSPAZIO, Mensile del centro radioascolto spaziale Torre Bert de fratelli A. e G.B. Judica-Cordiglia, Issue 1:May 1963 and Issue 2:June 1963.
3. Giovanni Abrate, e-mail to Sven Grahn, 16 January 2000.
4. Oberg, James, "Phantoms of space", Part 1 and Part 2.