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where the ghostflier broadcasts had been received in 1934-6. A group of young radio enthusiasts had built tracking equipment and receivers that could pick up the high frequencies employed by the American and Soviet space programmes. As soon as they had their equipment in operation, they picked up an extended (it lasted seven days and nights) series of broadcasts, apparently from orbiting manned space vehicles. These were in Russian and were taped and translated. A hapless pair of cosmonauts was presumably lost in space. They discussed the critical situation they were in and wearily concluded, The world will never know about it anyway... They were wrong. Other amateur tracking stations in Italy and Alaska were also tuned in. according to Edwards. Edwards' conclusion was that the Russians had secretly sent two cosmonauts into space, and they had been killed. There is one problem. The Soviet space programme was nowhere nearly advanced enough for such an effort in 1961. Yuri Gagarin bad made his historic orbital flight - the world's first - only one month before the signals were received. The next manned flight would require months of preparation. The Soviets could not and would not have Attempted a two-man mission at that point in their programme. It is much more probable that the radio transmissions were the work of out mysterious radio hoaxsters. We can offer many other examples of complicated and seemingly pointless radio hoaxes. A frantic distress signal swept the Pacific early in 1968 and was received by marine radio stations and ships at sea. The signals were triangulated and the exact position of a purportedly distressed freighter was determined. Following the law of the sea, several ships in the vicinity changed their courses and rushed to the aid of the sinking vessel. There was one slight hitch. The freighter in question was safely docked in the harbour at Calcutta, India, and the would-be rescuers found nothing but empty ocean. A few months later the atomic submarine Scorpion vanished in the Atlantic in the section popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle. Once again mysterious radio signals were received by several ships and naval stations and were triangulated, pin-pointing the exact position. These signals were broadcast on the VLF frequency reserved for atomic submarines and used the secret code names employed by the Navy. Planes and rescue vessels rushed to the spot and found nothings In December, 1968, the Navy issued a statement announcing that the Scorpion had finally been located hundreds of miles away from the spot where the signals had presumably orig’ inared. The signals were denounced as a hoax. What kind of hoax? Did some practical Joker load some rare VUF equipment into a small boat after somehow stealing a copy of the Navy's secret code book? Did he then sail out into the middle of the Atlantic, broadcast his false signals, and then somehow sail back, managing to elude the planes and rescue ships on the way? Anomalous radio broadcasts also played a baffling role in the assassinations. Four minutes after President Kennedy was shot in Dallas. Texas, in 1963, someone was broadcasting on the police hands in Dallas, offering a description of Lee Harvey Oswald. This was long before the police