If you'd like to test or demonstrate this, you can easily. Spin-launch a cardboard tube, or two paper cups taped base-to-base, with an elastic string to make a toy Magnus Flyer. (Link)

The invention/idea here is simply that any cylindrical rocket body would glide back to Earth if spun properly. The glide ratio would depend on several factors, but should be better than a parachute, although less than a solid airfoil. The weight should be less than either.

The spin could be induced several ways, but the simplest is a drogue chute pulling a cord wrapped around the cylinder. Vanes, shafts and motors are all possible to start and to maintain the spin, and would take too long to describe. (Extending a flex shaft with a controllable propeller from each end, is one way.)

Steering is also possible a variety of ways, related to the spin mechanism. In guidance, a simple video camera could use the spin as part of its scanning function.

A spinning cylinder could be landed in water. A better landing area would be a field of stiffish bristles of a height roughly equal to the diameter of the cylinder--for a model rocket, grass would serve.