 In what he refers to as a "Strange but True [incident]...in the history of cosmonautics," while the spacecraft was originally thought to have re-entered over the Pacific Ocean, it was subsequently (in 1963) found to have re-entered over Siberia, when this medal made its way back to Chertok by way of his boss, Chief Rocket Designer Sergei Korolev.He relates that, "while swimming in a river – a tributary of the Biryusa River in eastern Siberia – a local boy hurt his foot on some sort of piece of iron.When he retrieved it from the water, rather than throw it into deeper water, he brought it home and showed it to his father.