VHS Tape Copy of 'Sputniks, Bleeps and Mr Perry'

VHS Tape Copy of 'Sputniks, Bleeps and Mr Perry'

VHS video tape of the TV movie and documentary drama ‘Sputniks, Bleeps and Mr Perry’, also referred to as ‘Behind the Bleep’. Produced by John Gau Productions and distributed through Channel Four Television Corporation, the programme tells the story of Geoffrey Perry and the Kettering Grammar School Group - which went on to become known as the Kettering Satellite Tracking Group.

Perry had worked with Derek Slater tracking Soviet space activity with basic equipment whilst teaching at the Kettering Grammar School, using students to assist them. They used borrowed and inexpensive equipment to teach their students how to track satellites and in the process of doing so, the Kettering Satellite Tracking Group was born. The Group went on to discover and announce the location of a secret Soviet launch site at Plesetsk, securing the Group worldwide media attention.

During the course of tracking Cosmos 112 and Cosmos 129, Perry discovered that these two satellites must have been launched somewhere other than the previously used Baikonur Cosmodrome. He managed to pinpoint the location to the south of Archangel at Plesetsk and revealed this information through two letters he sent to the UK magazine Flight International in 1966. Despite this fact, when the CIA vetted a U.S. Government report by Dr Charles Sheldon in 1967 they asked him to remove references to Plesetsk due to its classification as ‘Secret’. In response to this, and so that he could include the information in his report, Sheldon tipped off the Washington Post about the existence of Perry’s letters to Flight International. This in turn led to Perry and the Kettering Grammar School’s discovery becoming a global news story.

In 1987 Channel Four broadcast the docudrama telling the story of Perry and the Kettering Group’s discoveries, with Ian McNeice playing the lead role of Geoffrey Perry and James Hazeldine playing Derek Slater.