around the same time, some western people claimed that gagarin, during his space flight, had made the comment, ""i don't see any god up here"." however, no such words appear in the direct record of gagarin's talk with the earth during the spaceflight. in a 2006 interview a close friend of gagarin, colonel valentin petrov, said that gagarin never said such words, and that the phrase came from nikita khrushchev's speech at the fullness of the central committee of the cpsu, where the anti-religious propaganda was talked about. in a certain context khrushchev said, ""gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there"."