Shiborin, Serenti

Russian phantom cosmonaut. Oberth claimed in 1959 that a pilot was killed on a sub-orbital flight from Kapustin Yar in early 1958. Italian press linked Shiborin name to this flight. No other evidence.

Pioneering space theoretician Hermann Oberth claimed in 1959 that a pilot had been killed on a sub-orbital ballistic flight from Kapustin Yar in early 1958. He never provided a source for the story. In December 1959, the Italian news agency Continentale reported that a series of cosmonaut deaths on suborbital flights had been revealed by a high-ranking Czech communist. Among these were Shiborin, said to have perished in 1958. No other evidence of Soviet suborbital manned flights ever came to light.