Fallen Idol: The Yuri Gagarin Conspiracy (2009)

Elliott Gould, Yuri Gagarin, Sergei Khrushchev, Col. Yuri Lyzlov, Dennis Ogen ... see more  , Gordon Feller , Racheal Seymour , Dr. Rick Sturdevant , Elliot Haimoff , Vladimir Iluyshin

Filmmakers Sam Oldham and Denny Hooten uncover evidence that cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was not the first man in space and that the Soviet government covered up the fact that Vladimir Ilyushin beat him in... read more to orbit. Seven years after re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and being celebrated as a hero, Gagarin was said to have perished in a jet crash. But is the truth something far more ominous? In this documentary, directors Hooten and Oldham explore the possibility that the Soviets were willing to resort to murder in order to hide the fact that at the time Gagarin was in orbit, another cosmonaut named Ilyushin was reentering the Earth's atmosphere. According to conspiracy theorists, the CIA and the U.S. Air Force were compliant in a KGB plot to keep Ilyushin's mission a tightly sealed secret. And secret it was, for nearly half a century. Was Gagarin's alcoholism and erratic post-flight behavior evidence that he was aware of Ilyushin's mission and sworn to silence? These questions and many more are addressed in a documentary that may change the way you view the history of the space race. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi