THE Daily Express tells us that an 'astronaut' has been discovered 50 days after plummeting back to Earth!

Major William Wilberforce was a teddy bear which was part of a primary school project and was found by Richard Thompson, ironically a former pupil at the Pocklington Prep School, in a barley field in Raywell, west of Hull.

Richard told the paper: “I spotted the little teddy bear and his parachute as I was about to go over it with the combine.

“When I read the labels and realised he was from my old school, it was quite a surprise."

Major William was blasted into space by pupils as a science educational project. He rose 22 miles above Earth beneath a helium weather balloon, before plummeting back down at an initial acceleration of 32 feet per second once the balloon had burst.

But because of a failure in his GPS tracking system, he lay unnoticed in Mr Thompson's field, which was 16 miles away from the launch site.

Major William lost a leg and had the stuffing knocked out of him during his ordeal but has now been patched up.