Yesterday, Abby Perl told us about the spacecraft cemetery, a location in the middle of the

Pacific Ocean that is so remote it's specifically targeted as the crash site for satellites.

Today, we're going to talk about a related place.

What happens when a satellite lands when it's not quite supposed to?

We hope you enjoy the episode.

Manitouac, Wisconsin, is a small city of about 30,000 on the shore of Lake Michigan.

It's a mix of residential streets, industrial plants, churches, and locally owned businesses.

It's a classic midwestern town, and Manitouac's a relatively quiet place.

But if you're walking along North Ace Street, right outside the local art museum,

you'd be walking past a rather loud moment in the town's history.

In fact, if you look down, you'd see a plaque in the sidewalk.

It says Sputnik IV, as in Sputnik IV, and the date of September 1962.

Just a short distance from the plaque in the very center of the street,

there's a small metal ring embedded into the pavement.

This plaque and that metal ring commemorate the day

when this small midwestern city came into contact with history on a grand scale.

A historical moment that went well beyond the planet itself.

Because that ring marks the very spot where a piece of a Soviet Sputnik satellite came crashing back to Earth.

I'm Dylan Therese, and this is Atlas of Skira, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we head to Manitouac, Wisconsin, and to the moment in time,

when this small city in the heartland had a front row seat to the space race.

That's after this.

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