Identified Flying Object!

Good old Arizona and its mysterious objects floating in the sky! Took Joe for a walk on Monday evening around 7pm. The sun was setting, and it was still about 100 degrees but much more tolerable than it was at 5:30pm when I got home. I saw something in the sky that looked like a planet -- only much, much larger. It didn't twinkle like a star, it was a constant glow like a planet.

I hurried our walk a bit and we rushed home so I could grab some binoculars. Chuck and I went outside and focused in on the object, which was not moving at all, and was still glowing. We looked closer and saw something like a clear bubble that wasn't perfectly round, but was reflecting the sun around its edges. WHAT on Earth *is* that thing? The picture below is much closer than what the general public saw. What we saw looked like a clear plastic bubble, almost like transportation for "Glinda the Good Witch of Oz". :)



We went back inside the house and started our Google-Fu and found that we weren't the only ones seeing the strange object in the sky... here are a few links:

Mysterious Object in Sky Identified
UFO Chronicles - Mysterious Object No Mystery

It was a weather balloon belonging to NASA! It was the first time either of us had seen a high atmosphere weather balloon, which was estimated to be around 400 feet in diameter and can go as high as 120,000 feet into the atmosphere. Exciting!

Here's where you can track where the balloons land even! This one landed somewhere in Kingman, Arizona.

Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility

Yet another fine Arizona adventure!