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What is it? 'Something' crash lands in Navajo Nation

Something that appears to be a payload of a weather balloon crash-landed in the Navajo Nation Wednesday.

KAYENTA, Ariz. — People on the Navajo Nation were trying to find out what crash-landed in a remote area near the town of Kayenta on Wednesday.

Tulley Begaye, who lives in the area, said a mass of solar panels and electronic equipment floated down on a parachute and landed about 1,000 feet from his house.

"People are calling me, they're asking me what's going on at the house?" Begaye said. "An orange parachute came down with it."

Navajo Nation Council Delegate Nathaniel Brown shared the photo along with a caption joking that the aliens were welcome, as long as they brought a COVID-19 vaccine with them. 

Brown said officials were still looking into what it was.

But some on Twitter may have pinned it down to a project run by the parent company of Google.

A company called Loon, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., launches weather balloons with miniature cell towers attached to the bottom. The company hopes to provide Internet service to remote areas without Internet Service Providers. 

According to Loon's press kit, the hardware attached to the balloons looks very much like what landed behind Begaye's house. 

And tracking data for one of the balloons launched from Nevada in October shows it crossing the country and heading to the Caribbean. it then circled back across Mexico before floating off the coast of California and heading inland. The data shows it losing altitude in the vicinity of Kayenta, about four hours north of Phoenix. 

Loon did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. 

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