Case file · Sighting
The stranded Nigerian astronaut
An advance-fee email asked readers to help bring home 'Major Abacha Tunde', supposedly Nigeria's first astronaut, stranded since a secret Soviet mission and owed millions in back pay. It went viral in 2016.
2016 CE · 6.46, 3.39 · status: hoax
The account
The scam is a space-age version of the '419' letter: a fee is needed to release a large sum. It had circulated for years before global media picked it up.
The sceptical view
Nigeria has never flown an astronaut, and no Soviet station was crewed in the way the email claims.