AN action figure which flew 12 miles into space before plummeting back to Earth was stolen when he landed, his owners say.

Major Tom was sent on a mission to space by owner Rob Wisdom alongside a £100 Go Pro camera and a number of golden dog tags.

But after soaring above the English countryside for 45 minutes, Mr Wisdom believes Tom’s parachute either did not deploy or did not deploy correctly and he landed in grassland near to a playground between Leicester and Northampton.

But by the time the team arrived at the scene, his parachute and two trackers had landed 12-feet apart but Tom - dressed in a silver space and strapped into a space capsule - was nowhere to be seen.

Mr Wisdom, who lives in Tiptree, has now launched a national campaign to #FindMajorTom.

The 51-year-old, who runs Feering company Wisdom Design, said: “We know he is alive and well, we just don’t know exactly where.

“It came down near to a child’s playground and it’s a well-known dog walking spot.

“I wouldn’t blame a child picking it up because it’s a pretty cool toy and had a lot of kit with him.

“So if he was taken as a toy, I would imagine it was a child but if he was taken for the Go Pro camera, it’s probably more likely to be an adult.

“What we want to do is raise awareness and make it very difficult for anybody to sell it on.”

Tom costs about £60 and is part of Mr Wisdom’s personal collection of about 60 Action Men.

The 40cm figurine was launched on Sunday from a field near to the former Palitoy factory, in Leicestershire, which first made Action Man in the UK in 1966.

His trackers show he travelled about 12 miles into space between 4.30pm and 5.15pm after being propelled by a weather balloon, which expanded as it got higher, before bursting.

Mr Wisdom added he did not want to get the police involved until Tom had been missing for a week as it could be that an unsuspecting child has picked up the figurine.