West Texas UFO Turns Out to Be Stratospheric Balloon

If something enormous drops out of the sky in West Texas, people are going to assume one thing: aliens! And there has been some strange activities in the West Texas skies.

Just last month, a massive object roughly the size of a school bus landed in a remote stretch of West Texas, and yes, the UFO jokes started immediately.

But before anyone dusted off their Area 51 theories, the truth came floating in. It wasn’t extraterrestrial, it was aerospace.

Massive Stratospheric Balloon Lands in West Texas

The object was a stratospheric balloon launched by Colorado-based aerospace company Urban Sky.

The balloon lifted off near San Luis, Colorado, and flew for about 9.5 hours at nearly 49,000 feet before drifting roughly 600 miles and landing about 10 miles south of Sanderson. Once fully expanded at high altitude, it measured about 9 feet in diameter and nearly 40 feet long.

READ MORE: El Paso Airspace Closure Sparks Online Reactions

This one isn't the one that was found in Texas but it was almost like it.

This wasn’t a secret mission or mystery craft. Urban Sky said the balloon was testing a new avionics suite, updated command and control systems, along with minor design modifications. The total payload weighed less than four pounds.

READ MORE: Possum Kingdom is a Real Place in Texas

The company’s balloons can fly between 45,000 and 75,000 feet and are often used for defense communications, weather modeling, wildfire detection, and remote sensing. This particular flight? Strictly a systems test.

West Texas Sheriff Jokes About “Catching Aliens”

The balloon was tracked by GPS and quickly recovered with help from the Terrell County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland couldn’t resist the extraterrestrial punchline.

Balloon certainly seem to be making a buzz in West Texas skies, looking at you El Paso airspace!

From West Texas ranch land to the Borderland skies, balloons have a way of sending the internet into full sci-fi mode before reality floats back in.

So no aliens. No secret invasion. Just high-altitude engineering doing its thing. But the truth could still be out there for all we know!