UFO Solar Balloon!

It's my first, and the first I've seen....the Solar UFO! Made from only 11 trash bags and less than 2 rolls of masking tape, and a little string to hold its shape. After testing it on a tether, I decided to take it out to the park and release it. The tether pulls on it, letting the wind beat air out of it and giving it a weird shape. So no tether is the best option....and that's how I flew it. I added weight to the bottom because it has a very strong urge to flip over as soon as you let go of it. A few small rocks and a note with my contact information was its payload as I let it up into the sky, where it flew over a busy road and stayed around for about 20 minutes before disappearing. In the sky it looked awesome, and I'm wondering how many people were actually fooled. Watching it fly away was definitely worth all the work it took to build. -- Learn more about solar balloons and how they work at www.solar-balloons.com

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ufo
• solar
• hot
• air
• balloon
• sky
• alien
• trash
• bag
• black
• plastic
• kite
• plane
• fly
• saucer
• space
• sun

[rocflpn08]

at 0:25 did you put holes on the side of the balloon where the tapelines intersected?

[catman529]

@rocflpn08 Nope, it was aluminum foil added for effect.

[tybrady64]

Great design keeping large surface area exposed to noon day sun.

[catman529]

@maglight117 Thanks I appreciate it

[maglight117]

@catman529 you have awesome vids sub'd

[dibbers]

@12Crowns - so basically after watching this video I'm pretty much convinced that all the real UFOs were really just trash bags put into space by regular people. Thanks catman for the mythbusting!!

[catman529]

@sqhschief It's completely solar powered, I have all the stuff I know about solar balloons on my web site. Although I do make some flame-powered balloons (sky lanterns) especially during the winter when they fly really well at night.

[sqhschief]

@catman529 That's cool if someone would have contacted you to see how far it went. So these work by heat from the sun, or is it more of a hot air balloon with a flame at the bottom, I couldn't tell by the video.

[catman529]

@sqhschief Thanks, I put contact info on the tag with a URL to my web site which has a contact form at the very bottom of the homepage for people who have found one of my balloons. I also wrote the date and location of release, plus a special ID for the balloon so I knew exactly which one was found if someone did find it. Unfortunately, nobody found this one.

[sqhschief]

@catman529 Yeah no kidding. I think this was awesome. What did you put on the 'if found' sign?