Local Hackerspace Loses Solar Balloon, Creating Another UFO In New Mexico

bugnuts writes: Local Albuquerque, New Mexico Hackerspace Quelab created and unintentionally launched a solar-powered tetroon over the city, prompting several calls to the FAA, Kirtland Air Force Base, and news organizations, describing it as a "floating tortilla chip." The tetroon allows sunlight to pass through the top layer, heating the inner black layers, creating a hot-air balloon as the interior gas expands. Besides the well-known "Roswell" incident, New Mexico often has many UFO sightings due to the prevalence of technology and military groups, good weather, and clear skies.

Seriously?

[hermitdev]

Not a UFO, already determined that even in the summary. We know what it is, thus "identified". Not "unidentified". Thus no UFO. Why is this a story? That a few people called in and didn't recognize a few lights in the sky?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a UFO before it was identified. Would you also complain about the headline "Scientists create element 119" if the summary mentions that the atom has since disintegrated?

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[jones_supa]

Not a UFO, already determined that even in the summary. We know what it is, thus "identified". Not "unidentified".

The summary meant that it was unidentified for the observers when they perceived it for the first time.

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[show me altoids]

It was a mid-air collision. More specifically, it was a Seven Thirty-Seven Down Over ABQ.

Re:Yes seriously people *wanted to believe*

[aarontcowan]

I'm a member of the QueLab makerspace and I was there when the solar balloon got away from us in a sudden gust of wind. If you didn't know what it was, it did look pretty weird. A giant black triangle hanging in the sky. We *tried* to tell people it was a balloon, but some people *refused to believe us*. They told us we didnt' know what we were talking about, that we were lying, part of a cover up, etc. Fortunately we had plenty of pictures of it on the ground, as well as a smaller prototype version, an

Re:

[aarontcowan]

I prefer the quadrilateral commission myself...since the balloon was tetrahedral.

In Albuquerque?

[Hartree]

With all the weird aircraft that fly into Kirtland, and the yearly Balloon Fiesta with hundreds of hot air balloons, I'm surprised it would have drawn much in the way of UFO calls in ABQ.

They regularly have weirder things in the air.

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[rHBa]

The strangest thing I've ever seen flying (although not at Kirtland) is a Citroen 2CV [linternaute.com].

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[Todd Palin]

I'm sure a stooge for Quelab called in the UFO report to get the publicity. It is a time tested strategy for getting attention. UFOs always make the news. Some guys fooling around with plastic bags might not.

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[aarontcowan]

Plenty of people were more than happy to call it in without any of our members having to hype anything.

Re:In Albuquerque? Yep

[aarontcowan]

We at QueLab were a little surprised too, given the amount of hot air balloons that are flown around here. But this one did look a bit different than the typical balloon. Kirtland usually doesn't fly too many odd looking aircraft either. Mainly we see Ospreys, MH53s, etc.

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[Hartree]

I was in ABQ in the 90s, and they had things like the Airborne Laser 747 come through, an Antonov AN 124 delivering a Topaz space reactor (had to close Gibson Ave when it departed for worry about the jet wash being over the barriers), etc.

A lot of the interesting things didn't look all that odd unless you knew what to look for, like extra sensor ports added to them and such (Aviation Week was sometimes a good guide to those). The trestle was already closed, so they weren't getting them for EMP testing so mu

Bad Summary

[Rhyas]

It would be much neater if the summary actually focused on the story, rather than the lame news coverage about UFO's. The fact that they figured out the right size/weight balance on a balloon to have it self sustaining from solar heating the air is pretty cool. Add to this that it created enough lift to actually allow it to pull away and be lost, carrying weight, and you get a nifty geek story about some makers and their incubator in NM. Way to go Quelab/Gonner, keep it up!

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[drinkypoo]

The fact that they figured out the right size/weight balance on a balloon to have it self sustaining from solar heating the air is pretty cool.

It's cool, but it's not difficult or unusual. You don't really have to do any engineering, just heat seal together some big sheets of plastic.If you really want to do it intelligently, though, and plan for a payload, you'll want to peruse something like this [stevegriff...prises.com] first.

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[aarontcowan]

People have made different kinds of solar balloons. But this one I think was elegant in its design simplicity and cost less than $100. Reasonable lift capacity and flight times too.

New Mexico often has many UFO sightings

[Chas]

due to the prevalence of technology and military groups, good weather, and clear skies.

And the largest contributing factor? A bunch of UFO loonies calling in every gnat, housefly, thermal mirage, and assorted hallucination brought about by acid and peyote trips.

CIA says half of UFO sightings were them

[billstewart]

UPI Story on CIA and UFOs [upi.com] says half the UFO reports in the 50s and 60s were really sightings of their U2 aircraft, which were secret because they still hadn't found what they were looking for, and which flew enough higher and faster than normal airplanes that people didn't recognize them. (Remember that propeller planes were still common, though jets were starting to be common.)

Even in the late 80s / early 90s, supersonic planes weren't common - the Concorde only went that fast over the ocean, mainly due t

Re:

[sjames]

Very funny! :-)

Re: where the streets have no name

[billstewart]

Friend of mine got to name streets in a lot of towns around Alaska. He was working for the Alascom phone company, and they got funded to put satellite dish phone access to a couple hundred small towns in remote parts of the state. Phone company offices need to have street addresses, and many of the towns hadn't bothered to name their streets (why, if you've only got one or two?)

Years earlier, I did some training at South Central Bell in Alabama. They were still converting their databases from paper card

The Flying Tortilla

[anorlunda]

Yo quiero Earth.

We were worried people would say it was a UFO

[aarontcowan]

From the moment the balloon got away we were afraid that people would say it was a UFO. We tried to tell people, but some folks want to believe anything weird-looking in the sky is a UFO. There is a whole sub-genre in the UFO literature specifically devoted to "triangular UFOs". I think the rationale we had for a tetrahedral design was that it was fairly simple to make, regular, and has sloped edges so it can catch light through the clear top. It makes me wonder if many of these other triangular UFOs are

How do they know it was a Dorrito?

[aarontcowan]

Many people declared this a Dorrito or a blue corn tortilla chip. But I'm not sure how they knew what brand of chip it was. It could have been a Tostito or many other brand covered in bean dip. Next time we will have to be sure to put a green patch on it to represent the green chile salsa. Yum. yum. yum.