On a clear early September night, flashes and streaks lit the northeastern Wisconsin sky as the Soviet Sputnik IV spaceship disintegrated while hurtling through the earth's atmosphere. Around four o'clock in the morning, residents throughout the state called to report what they saw overhead. As dawn reached Manitowoc, the city briefly became an unlikely focal point of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Sputnik IV crashed to earth on September 5, 1962. The largest recovered piece was found in the early hours of that morning by Manitowoc Police Officers Ronald Rusboldt and Marvin Bausch in the center of North 8th Street.