Photo: NBC Los Angeles
2020 was an insane year, in more ways than one. One of the craziest stories to come out last summer was about how a “guy in a jetpack” was casually flying around Los Angeles, right into LAX flight paths.
Sightings of Jetpack Guy were several, dating from July to September, and they helped create the impression that this was really a person so determined to have their fun they had no concern for other people’s safety – or federal laws. On three separate occasions, pilots of commercial flights approaching LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world, called in to report seeing a guy in a jetpack flying at very high altitudes, and proper warnings were sent out to all the other pilots in the area.
The FBI and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) worked with the Los Angeles Police Department to track him down, but they had little to go on except for the words of the pilots who had reported the sightings.
Not anymore. NBC Los Angeles reports that at least one of those sightings was not of a guy in a jetpack, but of a human-sized balloon, probably a Jack Skellington (from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie) that got torn from a Halloween display. An LAPD helicopter spotted the balloon flying over the Hollywood hills after one of the reported sightings, and the working theory is now that the pilots never saw an actual person, but a person-shaped something. A balloon, to be more precise.
“One working theory is that pilots might have seen balloons,” Rick Breitenfeldt, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, says in a statement. “The FAA has worked closely with the FBI to investigate every reported jetpack sighting. So far, none of these sightings have been verified.”
Neither the LAPD nor the FBI would comment on the newly-surfaced footage, as the investigation is still ongoing. Citing sources close to the investigation, NBC reports that theories that this was a man with a homemade jetpack, that a company was testing jetpacks in federal airspace, and that this was a drone, have been ruled out.
The FBI and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) worked with the Los Angeles Police Department to track him down, but they had little to go on except for the words of the pilots who had reported the sightings.
Not anymore. NBC Los Angeles reports that at least one of those sightings was not of a guy in a jetpack, but of a human-sized balloon, probably a Jack Skellington (from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie) that got torn from a Halloween display. An LAPD helicopter spotted the balloon flying over the Hollywood hills after one of the reported sightings, and the working theory is now that the pilots never saw an actual person, but a person-shaped something. A balloon, to be more precise.
“One working theory is that pilots might have seen balloons,” Rick Breitenfeldt, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, says in a statement. “The FAA has worked closely with the FBI to investigate every reported jetpack sighting. So far, none of these sightings have been verified.”
Neither the LAPD nor the FBI would comment on the newly-surfaced footage, as the investigation is still ongoing. Citing sources close to the investigation, NBC reports that theories that this was a man with a homemade jetpack, that a company was testing jetpacks in federal airspace, and that this was a drone, have been ruled out.
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