Mummy, there's a spaceman at the door!

[hiflier]

I heard recently that one of the earlier cosmonauts re-entered the earth's atmosphere wrongly and fetched up miles away from the designated landing place. He had to make his own way out of the space capsule and walk to the nearest house to make a phone call to base to announce his safe arrival. Is this story true? And if so, when did it happen, and who was the unfortunate spaceman?

[boxtops]

I have never heard this before. Most of the space capsules landed at sea.

[dotty.]

That's from Starman with Jeff Bridges.

[askyourgran]

Good job Yuri didn't land in the Steppes, he would have frozen to death before reaching anywhere hospitable.

[jno]

never happened outside Hollywood. (It may have done in the Soviet Union, who would know.)

[dundurn]

Yuri Gagarin landed short of his target by some distance. He didn't have to get out of the capsule - all Vostok pilots ejected at altitude. He talked to two local people who contacted a nearby farm to arrange a car to take him to the nearest airfield. Before this turned up however, a recovery helicopter turned up to take him there.