
The dummy, sadly, did not survive re-entry and become a Roswell-like urban legend.

Sputnik IV was a test run for several human spaceflight technologies, including communications relays and a life support system with a dummy inside, according to NASA. The Soviets lost control of it not long after its May 1960 launch, and the craft’s low orbit meant it would eventually be dragged down to Earth. What fell in Manitowoc all of those years ago was a piece of Sputnik IV, a Russian satellite* that had spent two years in orbit. Okay, well, it was only kind of from out of this world. “Thought it came from a garbage wagon.”īut as the pieces of the mysterious hunk of metal came to light, the town of Manitowoc realized they were dealing with something that was not of this world. “There was a cop that came along and kicked it off the street,” he says. In September 1962, something fell from aloft in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, cracking the asphalt on North 8th Street in front of what’s now the Rahr-West Art Museum.ĭennis Gintner, a Manitowoc-area resident, was a pre-teen at the time. Gagarin flew on a Vostok spacecraft, of which Sputnik IV was the first.

A composite image showing Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, against a Hubble telescope capture.
