" " Image courtesy NASA History books say that Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, but was he?

If the venerable television series "Star Trek" has taught us one thing, it's that the holodeck will never work properly and you should never go in there. If it's taught us two things, the second must be that space is the final frontier. Even when we've managed to learn everything there is to know about Earth, there will still be mysteries to explore in space. We're only in the earliest stages of exploration. The Voyager 1, a spacecraft designed to study the outer planets in our solar system, entered interstellar space in September 2013. Who knows what questions it will answer as it continues its journey between the stars?

We do know that we have plenty of questions we want answered. Are there intelligent species living far beyond our solar system? Could wormholes hold the secret to faster-than-light travel?



The answers to these questions -- and others that we haven't thought of yet -- await us in space. But some people believe that groups of powerful individuals already know secrets about space that the rest of us don't. Here we enter the realm of conspiracy theories. These theories range from educated guesses to wild speculation. Some also feature a cast of colorful characters, including secret governments and hyperintelligent alien species.

Keeping in mind that the truth is out there -- the guiding principle of another science-fiction television series -- we'll explore 10 of these space conspiracy theories. Prepare yourself, for once you learn, you can't unlearn. Let's begin.