Rumors and the truth about Gagarin's death

On March 27, 1968, a MiG-15UTI piloted by Yuri Gagarin and instructor Vladimir Seregin crashed near the village of Novoselovo in the Vladimir region.

Everything related to this tragedy was immediately classified. The deaths of Gagarin and Seregin were reported only on March 29. But the official documents of the government commission established to investigate the disaster, as well as correspondence on this issue and the resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU remained in secret storage for a long time. This gave rise to a lot of rumors.

There are many serious accidents in aviation, and in 10% of cases the causes remain unexplained. In addition, for a long time, information about the deaths of Gagarin and Seregin was in a folder labeled secret, which gave rise to numerous versions about the death of astronauts, including completely delusional ones.

Rumors have become widespread that Gagarin and Seregin drank a glass of vodka before the flight. According to the official investigation, this version is refuted by the fact that alcohol was not detected in the pilots' blood.

There is also a version that Gagarin faked his own death, after which he lived for many more years under a false name in the village in Orenburg region, where he died in a hunting accident as a very elderly man.

On that ill-fated morning, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, Major General of Aviation, Hero of the Soviet Union, turned out to be near the crash site by the will of fate. He told about what he managed to find out only on the day of the 35th anniversary of Gagarin's death — in 2003 at a press conference dedicated to the mourning date.