By Evan Ackerman
Looking for ways to entertain yourself in the evenings? How about flying a fake flying saucer over metropolitan areas? That sounded like fun to Steve Zingali, who built himself a 3 foot wide reinforced foam flying saucer that’s remote controlled and can hit 40 mph thanks to a tiny electric motor. Does it work? I’d say so:
Soon, Orange County motorists were chasing strange lights in the sky. Orange County’s Mutual UFO Network was taking calls about erratic, flying objects. And the Web site UFOinfo.com was posting reports of “glowing orbs” in south Orange County. One 53-year-old man reported a large glowing ball that “appeared to drip fire.” It traveled about five miles in a few seconds, he said, and left an “acrid type odor” in the air.
[Inventor Steve Zingali] is now connecting a 7.4-volt lithium battery to a foam toy with flashing lights that make it appear to spin. He starts the propeller and sends it into the night sky above the Aliso Viejo Town Center. Voices rise as quickly as the UFO: “Oh my God.” … “UFO.” Shoppers gallop up the hill, including Haywood Bagley, who told his wife: “I hope they don’t start shooting. If I go down, you get in the car, Baby.” At 400 feet altitude, the UFO (which weighs about a pound) looks like a mammoth spacecraft miles away, dancing, diving, hovering, now flitting away. “Oh my gosh, did you see it? There was a UFO bigger than my house!”
“We’ve had strange calls – people reporting UFOs and strange sounds in the air,” says Lt. Rich Paddock, police chief for Aliso Viejo. “But they’re not doing anything illegal. There’s no ordinance that says it’s illegal to fly a super-double-secret, gyroscopic UFO in county airspace.”
You know what this really is, of course… The government is paying this guy to fly his fake super-double-secret gyroscopic UFO around to distract attention from the real mega-triple-classified überscopic UFOs. It’s a conspiracy, man, and you can be part of it for about $1000.
[ OC Register Article ]VIA [ Neatorama ]