Did Sputnik Crash In Scotland?

Just came across this article on the BBC News website and thought I would share it here.

In 1962, a shepherd reported finding wreckage from a Sputnik in the hills above Ardgay.

Now a former RAF mountain rescue team member has spoken about his search for evidence behind this story. Team members involved in the original search were told to keep quiet about it. His search for evidence has shown that records have been deliberately suppressed .

In the same year that this is alleged to have happened a chunk of Sputnik IV smashed into a street in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, after the satellite burned up in the atmosphere.

Would be interesting to know if anybody else has heard of this.

Link to story.

Edit - looking at this page, the list of Soviet satellites by 1962 is quite short.

That list also seems to be missing quite a lot.

A better list is here, although maybe Jim could give the definitive list.

The Soviet Union launched the 7 ton Korabl-Sputnik 1 on May 14, 1960, it was dubbed "Sputnik IV" in the West.
Five days after launch when its re-entry rockets were fired, something went wrong and instead of returning to Earth it drifted into a useless orbit until September 5, 1962 when it crashed back to Earth. One piece crashed into the street outside of the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc,Wisconsin.
A copy of this piece is on display in the museum.

This Sputnik was alleged to have been carrying a secret payload including a lifesize human dummy.

Sputnik was pretty small and unless it was specially designed to withstand the re entry i doubt there would be a lot left of it by the time it got to the ground.

reply to post by PhoenixOD

Sputnik IV was about 7 tons and was the largest the Russians sent up.
This contained a life-size dummy, and other equipment, as the Russians were as eager as America to get a man into space.

reply to post by nolabel


Ok thats quite a chunk

It was astonishing even in the early days how many fragments would survive reenetry and reach the ground.

This case does not fit into that pattern, however, for two reasons.

1. Multiple pieces -- implies fragmentation close to the ground or on impact. Reentry tears the satellite sapart 50-60 miles up and the fragments scatter across hundreds ofmiles. they have never been found clustered within a few tens of meters of each other.

2. Instructions in Russian of where to return it -- Never put on Russian satellites. They had no reason to expect any piece would survive the flight.

More likely: a 'Moby Dick' CIA spy balloon destined for Soviet territory overflight. They were launched over many years, after years oftesting in the US. I saw one myself in 1959 over the Hudson River when I was a kid -- I identified it as a balloon at 60,000 feet by calling friends all over Westchester and having them take bearings on the hovering object, then timing when, after sunset, it went rosy and faded out.

Originally posted by JimOberg
I identified it as a balloon at 60,000 feet by calling friends all over Westchester and having them take bearings on the hovering object, then timing when, after sunset, it went rosy and faded out.

Now that's a proper nerd. And I mean that in the nicest possible way!

Originally posted by BagBing

Originally posted by JimOberg
I identified it as a balloon at 60,000 feet by calling friends all over Westchester and having them take bearings on the hovering object, then timing when, after sunset, it went rosy and faded out.

Now that's a proper nerd. And I mean that in the nicest possible way!

The word wasn't even invented yet in 1958, but when it was, it was for me!