A WOMAN has been left awestruck after watching a massive hunk of metal fall from the sky and land in her neighbor’s yard.
Ann Walter couldn’t believe her eyes when she stumbled upon a missing piece of Texas.
On October 2, Walter recorded what appeared to be a tiny speck being carried through the air by a massive parachute from her home in Edmonson, about five hours west of Dallas.
When she found the landing site in the middle of her neighbor’s farm, she was shocked to find a device about the size of a sports utility vehicle.
“It’s crazy, because when you’re standing on the ground and see something in the air, you don’t realize how big it is,” she told the Associated Press.
“It was probably a 30-foot parachute. It was huge.”
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The massive orange and white parachute covered a huge swath of Texas soil, and the device appeared to still be intact, according to videos taken by Walter.
After taking a closer look, the unsuspecting woman was stunned to see that the so-called space junk was covered with NASA stickers.
Walter called her local sheriff’s office, and they informed her that NASA was looking for a piece of equipment.
Soon after, she got a call from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, which launches unmanned high altitude research balloons that can reach heights of up to 20 miles in the air.
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Officials at the space administration told her that a missing balloon had been launched from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, about 140 miles away from Walter’s home the previous day.
Launch records for the balloon facility match the timeline that Walter was told, according to the AP.
Walter said the balloon uses a telescope to gather information about stars, galaxies, and black holes.
After getting in touch with NASA, she said that researchers came out with a truck and trailer to pick the balloon back up.
Walter, who took plenty of pictures and videos of her discovery, said she was filled with excitement after learning the truth behind the bizarre discovery.
“It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us and that I was part of it,” she said.
“It was a very cool experience.”
SPACE DEBRIS FEARS
This isn’t the first time that space research has left massive metal objects plunging from the skies.
In December, a large glowing circle that’s believed to be a rocket separation ring slammed into a village in Kenya.
The Kenyan Space Agency retrieved the debris and said it would investigate its origin.
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“Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the ocean,” the agency wrote at the time.
Meanwhile, an object believed to be from the massive EP-9 equipment pallet that was jettisoned from the ISS crashed two floors into a Florida man’s home.