3. Hundreds Of Dead Animals (And Potentially Deceased Humans...)
Laika the dog, various monkeys named Albert and Hector the rat - these are just some of the animals who have been launched into space down the years. And, in the majority of cases, many of these animals died while there and then drifted aimlessly for days, months and sometimes even years upon end before falling out of orbit and burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. Other animals types to be sent to space - and who subsequently floated around - include guinea pigs, newts, fruit flies, crickets, jellyfish, garden orb spiders and Japanese killifish (to name just a few). Most worryingly, there is a conspiracy theory named the "Lost (or Phantom) Cosmonauts" which claims that Soviet astronauts entered space before Yuri Gagarin and died while there but were just left to drift around aimlessly. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, no hard evidence has surfaced to support this theory - but it has yet to be disproved either...
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
Laika the dog, various monkeys named Albert and Hector the rat - these are just some of the animals who have been launched into space down the years. And, in the majority of cases, many of these animals died while there and then drifted aimlessly for days, months and sometimes even years upon end before falling out of orbit and burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. Other animals types to be sent to space - and who subsequently floated around - include guinea pigs, newts, fruit flies, crickets, jellyfish, garden orb spiders and Japanese killifish (to name just a few). Most worryingly, there is a conspiracy theory named the "Lost (or Phantom) Cosmonauts" which claims that Soviet astronauts entered space before Yuri Gagarin and died while there but were just left to drift around aimlessly. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, no hard evidence has surfaced to support this theory - but it has yet to be disproved either...