Members of the Walter family were enjoying a quiet Thursday on their farm in West Texas when they saw a massive parachute drifting across the sky.
The balloon-like object caused a stir in their Hale County household, with the family taking video and photographs, the Houston Chronicle reported. Ann Walter sent the footage to her parents; her father told her to alert the Hale County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies told the Walters that NASA was already in the area looking for a missing piece of experimental equipment, according to the Chronicle.
The family eventually found it: a massive payload sitting in an open field off a nearby FM road, the Chronicle reported. The payload was the size of an SUV, Walter told the Chronicle.
A team from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, led by a man identified only as Garrison, quickly arrived at the farm to secure the balloon, the Daily Mail reported.
The balloon had been launched the day before from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, hovering over Clovis and Portales before drifting into West Texas, officials told the Walters.
NASA’s balloon program uses high-altitude, unmanned balloons that can soar up to 120,000 feet, nearly 23 miles into the atmosphere, the Chronicle reported. NASA balloons have various tasks, including studying cosmic rays to test instruments that could be launched into space.
“I’m so glad that we saw this in the sky,” Amy Walter told the Chronicle. “What a cool experience.”
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