Mystery object falls from sky, area sealed off by military | Hacker News Reader

Mystery object falls from sky, area sealed off by military

theregister.co.uk

50 pointscdvonstinkpot31 comments

Spoiler alert: Was a balloon, and it was sealed off by the bomb squad to see what is was (they happened to be from a near by military base).

Events like these will likely continue to rise as the barrier to get to near space lowers. There have been several stories in recent years about students who have used these High-altitude balloons [1, 2] and there are even sites which teach you [3].

UPDATED: bomb squad from bomb squid ;)

[1] http://www.space.com/14397-teens-lego-man-space-stratosphere...

[2] http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-...

[3] http://android.hibal.org/

bomb squid: best typo I've seen in a long time. the story provokes the imagination as-is, but gets a lot better with the addition of a bomb squid.

The Bomb Squid is one member of the Suicide Squid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squiddy_Awards

http://knowyourmeme.com/forums/meme-research/topics/9343-sui...

http://everything2.com/title/Suicide+Squid

They say it is a weatherballoon, but how do we know it was made on this planet?

It could be a weather balloon from another planet containing aliens.

This at the end of the article made me chuckle

> The truth is out there here and here. ®

Linking to http://www.wvec.com/news/local/Package-discovered-neighborho... and http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/suspicious-p...

As soon as I saw the picture of it on their linked sites (see rangibaby's comment) I was like "that looks like every homemade space camera I've seen on youtube."

May have been a "weather monitoring device" rather than a homemade space camera, same difference. Definitely human-made (polystyrene, circuit boards, string.)

While I love me a good conspiracy theory, in this case, sometimes a weather balloon is just a weather balloon.

We don't actually know that though, considering how quickly government forces swept it away. The information came from the government.

I'm not trying to say anything, I'm not a believer and I really don't care about this stuff.

All I want to point out is that there is no way for anyone here on HN to know what it was for sure. There is only trust in the media, who trust in a press release, from the government.

> We don't actually know that though, considering how quickly government forces swept it away.

> All I want to point out is that there is no way for anyone here on HN to know what it was for sure

Take another look at the last sentence. :P

I'm afraid I don't follow. Perhaps my english is not the best.

"We don't know, therefore aliens" is, perhaps, not the most solid of logical chains.

Neither is "the government said so, therefore it is known."

Except we have no evidence to cast doubt on them, so Occam's Razor says we shouldn't.

Seems like it's time to dig up this old joke:

http://imgur.com/UMawOF5

http://www.wvec.com/news/local/Package-discovered-neighborho...

is the register a legitimate news source? The copy makes me feel like I'm reading a conspiracy theory rag.

EDIT: It also doesn't help that their site is utter trash.

They're "legitimate" in that they don't tend to outright lie or write stuff they should know is wrong, but their overall style and tone is always halfway between serious newspaper and The Onion. E.g. they for years ended "everything" in all articles about Yahoo! with exclamation marks to mock Yahoo's use of exclamation marks in their name. Unless you appreciate British humour in general and sarcasm in particular, you might find them.. odd.

While I wouldn't rank el Reg as one of the most respectable of online publications, they're usually better than this. I suspect this article was written partly as a joke (to be ironic or just "tongue in cheek").

Weather balloons, bomb squad. Reminded me of World War II:

Japanese Balloon Bomb attack on the US http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/balloon.html

Also MeFi: http://www.metafilter.com/60948/WWII-Japanese-Balloon-Bombs

How strange should the item be in order me to call for "authorities"?

If something non-human comes out of it, that may be a good reason to call :)

Well, if it's a turkey, I wouldn't bother[1]. Otherwise, all bets are off.

[1]: http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/turkeys-awa...

Maybe this explains it...

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/happy-fun-ball/...

Is it Thor's hammer?

I guess it could be some spy satellite or drone they had.

No because they put it in a truck and drove it away, therefore it is not Thor's hammer.

While the nerd in me wants it to be a crashed alien probe, the most plausible scenario is that it's a crashed military satellite, drone or similar.

It's best not to check out a meteorite that hit the ground near here, Han, old buddy.

Always let the professionals take care of things.

I always just assume these things are pieces of space junk that lost orbit. Is that even viable? Or is the junk all small enough to completely burn up on re-entry?

Almost all of it is small enough. And orbiting junk is monitored really closely (so we can time rocket launches to avoid it), so when anything large enough to reach the ground comes down (most prominently Mir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deorbit_of_Mir), people know in advance.

Hey, there's even a schedule: http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-predictions/upcoming-...

Space junk mostly burns up on reentry.

I haven't read anything more than the title or any comments and I trust the reputable sources at the register completely.

So i gotta say: Yup, aliens.

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