As a child in the early 1960's I used to spend hours in the public library looking at archived "Life" and "Look" magazines from the 1930-s-1950's. I distinctly remember two stories about Soviet wonder weapons which were alleged to exist. One in Life from the late 1940's or early 50's featured an illustrated article about huge Russian battleship/carrier hybrids displacing over 70,000 Tons and armed with missiles, heavy guns, and 30 some-odd planes. Pictures were really detailed waterline paintings of sinister dark-grey ships sure to impress nerdy 12-year olds like me. Later in life I read the Russians actually produced fake designs and spotting books showing ships like these to mislead western intellegence they really existed. "Janes" never bought any of it but I sure did. The other, possibly from the late 50's or early 60's described and illustrated a huge nuclear powered Soviet bomber looking something like the Myaschev (sp) Bounder (a big delta-winged bomber made public AFTER the article), but much sleeker and more dangerous looking. Oddly, Aurora models in the 60's also made a plastic model kit of this mythical plane. They also made a "Mig-19" before the real one existed which had a high "T" tail and looked more like an experimental WW2 German jet than anyhting else.
I also remember the excitement surrounding all the futuristic flying platforms, flying jeeps,air cushion flying cars, atomic cannons, atomic powered planes/airships, etc which made growing up in the 1950'sand 60's (at least for a suburban white kid) much "funner" than today. Today, it seems to take an eternity to plan, design, and then (often not) produce a single new plane or tank. In the '50's and 60's it seemed like the USA and USSR would turn out odd-ball experimental fighters like hotcakes, some of which looked like they were built just to see if they could fly..