On November 5, 1975, at 23:23h, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics launched a clandestine space mission. A heavily modified Soyuz spacecraft took off from the Russian Steppes, its contents and purpose heavily classified, its destination… the edge of the solar system, and beyond.
Due to the weakening state of the USSR, leading to its eventual collapse, as well as the deaths of those who knew of the mission first hand, the mission had all but been forgotten. That is until faint signals began to be received by the Arecibo Observatory in the first decade of the 21st Century.
Working together, the various space agencies began to decipher the faint transmissions. Soon they discovered that these signals had been mistaken for other phenomena in years past. Slowly they put together the pieces of the puzzle, and began to figure out the story of the secret mission, first deducing its present course - Destination: Proxima Centauri.
The true mystery remains… Who, or what, travels in the tiny capsule, hurtling forward through the cosmos. What exactly is… the Phantom Cosmonaut.
