Amazingly, this story went unnoticed (or covered up) for 32 years.
"In the summer of 1970 the Royal Navy was practising recovery of an Apollo boilerplate capsule as part of their assigned mission of recovering Apollo capsules in the case of emergency aborts or returns to earth. The capsule disappeared at sea. It showed up at the Soviet naval base in Murmansk a short time later. The US Coast Guard sent the icebreaker Southwind to pick up the capsule at a hand- over ceremony on 8 September, 1970. The story remained obscure for 32 years until a Hungarian space archivist came across a picture of the event in his archives. Many mysteries remain... "
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpsule.htm
"In the summer of 1970 the Royal Navy was practising recovery of an Apollo boilerplate capsule as part of their assigned mission of recovering Apollo capsules in the case of emergency aborts or returns to earth. The capsule disappeared at sea. It showed up at the Soviet naval base in Murmansk a short time later. The US Coast Guard sent the icebreaker Southwind to pick up the capsule at a hand- over ceremony on 8 September, 1970. The story remained obscure for 32 years until a Hungarian space archivist came across a picture of the event in his archives. Many mysteries remain... "
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpsule.htm