{"id":203263,"date":"2026-03-24T01:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T01:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203263\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T01:28:07","slug":"sky-high-mystery-balloon-from-arizona-drifts-over-southwest-florida-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203263\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky-high mystery: Balloon from Arizona drifts over Southwest Florida | State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SOUTHWEST FLORIDA, (WINK) \u2014 What was that floating in the sky on Monday afternoon? The WINK Weather Authority is working to get answers.<\/p>\n<p>Many of you have reached out to us wanting to know just what the large object in the sky was. WINK News reached out to Arizona-based World View, which operates the stratospheric high-altitude balloon.<\/p>\n<p>While it is getting a lot of attention in Southwest Florida, this Monday, WINK News learned that the balloon launched last Tuesday and is heading toward the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"high altitude weather balloon\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"1440\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    (Credit: Joseph Waldvogel)<\/p>\n<p>World View is operating the balloon for a customer conducting communications testing over the Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>The balloon is\u00a0flying at altitudes between 55,000 and 75,000 feet, which is above commercial airspace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-xl font-bold\">The company\u00a0has\u00a0full\u00a0remote control of the balloon. Because it navigates using stratospheric winds, the exact direction and timing of its path remain uncertain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-xl font-bold\">The balloon will continue its\u00a0trajectory eastward over Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-xl font-bold\">It may return\u00a0over the area as it makes its way back to Tucson.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"flight aware path\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"1762\" height=\"1044\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    (Credit: Flight Aware)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-xl font-bold\">SOUTHWEST FLORIDA (WINK) \u2014 What was that floating in the sky Monday afternoon? The WINK Weather Authority is working to get answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHWEST FLORIDA, (WINK) \u2014 What was that floating in the sky on Monday afternoon? The WINK Weather Authority&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,1521],"class_list":{"0":"post-203263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-southwest-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}