Boy’s science project alarms New Hampshire resident


A middle schooler's science project was so alarming to a Manchester, N.H., man that he called police after the contraption landed on his driveway.

Eighth-grader Jack Miron of nearby Walton, N.H., had a grand idea for a science project. The Pine Hill Waldorf student rigged a box that included a video camera, weather recording equipment, flags and a beeping device onto a weather balloon, WMUR reports.

He and his mother launched it from Bedford, N.H., to see what it could record.

"I didn't know how high it was going to go, but I didn't think it was going to go all the way to the edge of the atmosphere," Jack told the TV station. "That was just amazing."

His homemade weather monitor and camera ascended 20 miles into the atmosphere, reaching an altitude high enough to record the edge of the atmosphere and the curvature of the earth.

At 110,000 feet, the weather balloon popped as planned, a parachute deployed and the rest of the payload floated safely to land.

It landed in Sean Toland's driveway, 10 miles from where it had been launched.

The video camera kept recording as a confused Toland found the probe. He said he saw a beeping box, with flags and a parachute.

"I walk out here, and I'm like, 'What is this?'" he told WMUR. "There's a parachute with like a weather balloon-type thing with like these flags on it and everything, and there was a box."

"I called the police because I didn't know what it was," Toland said.

Officials found Jack's contact information inside the contraption, and his science project was safe.

The weather balloon launch and video will be part of Jack's science fair project at his school around Thanksgiving.