Long after it disappeared, a Portland man’s missing cat has been found in a most unexpected place. Five years after Sasha, a long-haired black cat, went missing, owner Viktor Usov received a call from an animal shelter in Sante Fe, New Mexico, roughly 1,200 miles away, saying that they might have recovered his pet.

“No way,” Usov said. “That can't be my cat. That must be a malfunctioning system.”

The shelter reportedly found the cat wandering in the streets with no collar. They were able to identify the animal and its owner by scanning a microchip that it had its body. Such chips are common for pets: injected beneath the skin, they are roughly the size of a rice grain and contain information about the pet’s owners.

Despite initial hesitance to believe it was his pet, after seeing a photo and hearing that it was a friendly animal that loved belly rubs, Usov knew that it was his cat.

“I want to think he was on a great American adventure,” Usov said.

Sasha was reunited with its owner Tuesday after American Airlines stepped in to help get it back to Portland. As a medical student, Usov lacked the funds to get to Sante Fe and back.

“When we heard Sasha had been found so far from home, after so many years away from his family, we were honored to be in a position to get him back,” American Airlines spokesman Curtis Blessing said in a statement to CNN. “We're glad to have provided a happy ending to Sasha's long journey.”

"I am so excited," Usov said about reuniting with his cat.

Portland, Oregon
One of the two cars in the new aerial tram rises above Portland, Oregon at sunrise on Jan. 31, 2007. Reuters/Richard Clement
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