MILWAUKEE, Wis. — A mysterious white dot floating in the sky over southeast Wisconsin this weekend has been identified as a research balloon from a South Dakota company, not a weather balloon or anything nefarious.
Dozens of people contacted TMJ4 News about the unusual sight, including residents from Pewaukee and Wauwatosa who spotted the high-altitude balloon drifting across the region.
"I stepped up on the deck and I looked over and I could see above the tree there was the bright spot," said Andy Patterson, who spotted the balloon from Pewaukee.
"I didn't think it was anything nefarious because well, who wants to do anything to Pewaukee," Patterson said.
Doug Bomberg observed the same object from Wauwatosa.
"It's not something you see every day, you know, I've been waiting for years to see one fly over and it was just happenstance that I saw it," Bomberg said. "It was too big of a dot, so I knew right away it had to be a high altitude balloon," he added.
After tracking the balloon on FlightRadar24.com, TMJ4 discovered it belonged to Aerostar, a South Dakota company specializing in high-altitude balloons.
Russ Van Der Werff, Aerostar's Vice President of Stratospheric Solutions, confirmed the sighting.
"Communications and observation are the two areas we have the most focus," Van Der Werff said.
According to Van Der Werff, these balloons fly at 50,000 to 60,000 feet in the sky, well above commercial aircraft.
"Last year we did a project with the forest service and NASA where we were monitoring wildfires. So we were flying an infrared camera and also carrying a cellular communication payload so that the firefighters could get real time images of spread of the fire as it progressed," Van Der Werff said.
The balloon spotted over Wisconsin was their "Thunderhead" model, which was being used for testing purposes.
"We were testing some new launch techniques with one of our customers," Van Der Werff said. "We asked if we could keep it flying just to learn and keep driving it and keep improving our systems, our autopilot, our navigations, things like that. So that's what it's doing right now."
When asked directly if this was any kind of surveillance device, Van Der Werff laughed off the suggestion.
"You know I sure hope not, but you always gotta be worried about those Wisconsin people, but you know being from South Dakota I know that. This balloon doesn't have any kind of equipment like that," Van Der Werff said.
Residents who spotted the balloon were relieved to learn its purpose.
"I think it's pretty neat," Bomberg said. "For them to be at that level and steer it it's a fun thing to watch."
Patterson added, "I'm glad you've gotten to me and let me know what it was because it was unusual and I was curious as to what it was and what its purpose was."
This story was reported on-air by Jenna Rae and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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