A brief essay on the history of the discovery of cosmic rays. Emphasis is on the strange circumstances as to why D lV Skobeltsyn — who was the first to observe cosmic ray tracks — was not even mentioned in speeches by the winner (V Hess) of and nominator (A Compton) for the Nobel Prize awarded for the discovery of cosmic rays, although he was named first in a speech by C Anderson, who received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the positron.