She saw a car-sized object above a Texas farm and found a wayward hunk of NASA equipment

When Ann Walter looked outside her rural West Texas home, she didn’t know what to make of the large object floating slowly across the sky.

He was even more surprised when he saw what had actually landed in his neighbor’s wheat field: a boxy piece of scientific equipment the size of a sport utility vehicle, adorned with NASA stickers, attached to a giant parachute. He called the local sheriff’s office and learned that NASA was indeed looking for lost equipment.

“It’s crazy because when you stand on the ground and see something in the air, you don’t realize how big it is,” he said. “It was probably a 100-foot parachute. It was huge.”

Walter said he soon received a call from NASA. Columbia Scientific Balloon FacilityLaunching large unmanned, high-altitude research balloons more than 20 miles into the atmosphere to conduct scientific experiments.

NASA officials affected by the crisis ongoing government shutdownHe did not return messages Thursday. A message left at the balloon facility was not immediately responded to.

A. launch program The balloon facility’s website shows a series of launches from Fort Sumner in New Mexico, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of where the equipment landed.

Hale County Sheriff David Cochran confirmed that NASA officials called his office last week looking for the equipment.

Walter said he eventually spoke to someone at the balloon facility, who told him that the balloon had been launched the day before from Fort Sumner and that it used telescopes to collect information about stars, galaxies and black holes.

“The investigators arrived with a truck and trailer that they used to pick him up,” he said.

But that wasn’t possible until Walter and his family, who live in Edmonson, Texas, managed to take some photos and videos.

“It’s a little surreal that this happened to us and I got to be a part of it,” he said. “It was such a great experience.”