GREENSBORO, N.C. — You might have seen what appeared to be a bright dot in the sky Monday night. In fact, you may have seen a few of them. They appeared to be hovering and not moving much, kind of a shiny circular oval, but what was it?
WFMY News 2 Chief Meteorologist Tim Buckley did some digging and found out that it, in fact, was not aliens. Instead, these were was four high altitude balloons drifting slowly over our area at only a few miles per hour.
If you had great binoculars or a telescope you could make out the shape of these balloons, which did resemble some kind of UFO. They were only visible around sunset because of the angle of the sun.
They're part of Loon, which is a project to bring wireless internet to rural areas not served by traditional infrastructure, according to Flightradar24. Apparently, the helium balloons connect to each other, ground relay stations, and the Internet. They also are equipped with ADS-B receiver, which makes it visible to track on Flightradar24.
The balloons are high in the atmosphere floating between 55,000 and 70,000 feet.
You can track the flight balloons, HERE. You can also see a full image of the balloons and find out more about the project.
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