ST. GEORGE — Police received several calls and St. George News heard from readers about some kind of balloon-like object hovering over the area Wednesday afternoon. 

But no, it was not a Chinese spy balloon. And it wasn’t any weather balloon either. 

A company aiming to put “Stratollites” into the stratosphere launched another of its missions from Page, Arizona, Wednesday morning. This is what people in Southern Utah spied in the skies throughout the day.

The Federal Aviation Administration identified the object with the designation N137WV and belonging to the company World View Enterprises, which according to its website is developing stratospheric craft it calls Stratollites for scientific, commercial, tourism and military uses.

The same balloon craft performed a 32-day test flight in 2019 that also sailed over Southern Utah before ultimately landing in Iowa. That flight was also noticed by local residents.

Even so, more eyes have been peering into the skies since a spy balloon from China made news in February when it was spotted over the northern U.S.

Among those eyes were those of Sheri and Steve Lawson and their daughter Kira Shanell on Canyon View Drive in St. George. 

“We’re always looking at the sky and my daughter came running in and said something is up there and it hasn’t moved for 15 to 20 minutes,” Sheri Lawson said, noting that the Chinese spy balloon quickly came to mind, but she was disappointed to find out it was not. “We were kind of hoping they finally arrived and we got to see them.”

Alas, the mission of this Stratollite is not to spy on the people below but for scientists to spy on the stratosphere above. 

“We can confirm that this is our craft. It is carrying several scientific stratospheric payloads as part of one of our remote sensing programs,” Phil Wocken, vice president of marketing for World View, said in an e-mail to St. George News. “The mission was set to fly a minimum of eight hours but could fly up to two weeks.”

The first of the two payloads is a joint NASA-Arizona State University CubeSounder instrument that’s making spectral measurements of the atmosphere. The data potentially improve future weather forecasting.

Also aboard is space weather data company Space Environment Technologies’ Automated Radiation Measurements for Aerospace Safety instrument, or ARMAS for short. It’s measuring radiation levels in the stratosphere to aid aviation safety, according to the company. 

No matter the payload, it was a mysterious sight for people down below. 

“It looked like a double balloon,” Lawson said of what the Stratollite looked like through binoculars. “It was pretty interesting.”

And it is a double balloon. According to World View, the Stratollite consists of three parts: a primary zero-pressure lift balloon, a secondary super-pressure balloon designed to help keep the craft aloft for longer periods and a payload consisting of a solar panel assembly and an instrument unit with payload. The balloons are made of ultraviolet–light-resistant polyethylene and inflated with hydrogen or helium. 

The Stratollite can control its altitude but relies on upper atmosphere winds for lateral movement. World View says it still “steers” by changing its altitude to where the wind is going in a different direction. 

According to World View, the Stratollite is about the size of seven back-to-back school buses from the bottom of the instrument unit to the top of the air envelope. But for most who sighted it locally Wednesday, it wasn’t much more than a small white dot with the double-balloon shape only becoming apparent through binoculars or other high-zoom instruments.

That’s because it was flying at about 73,900 feet – more than 30,000 feet higher than any commercial aircraft can fly. 

The Stratollite was reportedly sighted from LaVerkin to the Arizona border, which correlates to its flight path. 

It took off, according to the FAA, at 7:31 a.m., MDT from Page and initially took a westerly path before moving northwest and into Utah about five miles east of Hildale. After taking a path nearly parallel with state Route 59, it sailed over LaVerkin and Hurricane. After passing over Interstate 15 directly over Harrisburg, it turned southwest over the Red Cliffs National Conservation area and flew over the Ivins-Santa Clara area from Entrada to Santa Clara’s power plant. 

As of 5 p.m., according to FlightAware.com, the Stratollite was directly over Littlefield, Arizona, where it made a turn due west – still at 73,500 feet and moving at 20 mph. 

Wocken didn’t reveal the ultimate destination of the Stratollite; with a two-week mission, it was conceivable it could return over Southern Utah in the coming days for additional sightings.

Alas, it was just a one-day trip as the Stratollite touched down about seven miles northwest of Mesquite, Nevada, at 6:31 p.m. MDT.

While the purpose of this flight is scientific, the last flight of Stratollite N137WV last September wasn’t.

The purpose of that flight – which according to the FAA flew northeast from Page flying over southeast Utah before landing in Colorado 10 days later –  was to test aerial surveillance for the Sierra Nevada Corporation and the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense.

Photo Gallery

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.