A woman who lives a few miles north of Los Banos called fire officials around 10 a.m. today to report that a box had fallen from the sky.
The woman thought it had fallen from a plane, but fire officials found that it was instead a weather device that measured humidity, temperature and weather changes at different altitudes — from Missouri.
Officials responded to the call and found the weather surveyor, said Jeremi Roesler, a captain with the Merced County Fire Department, which works in conjunction with Cal Fire. The device had a parachute and a balloon that had popped.
The shoebox-sized instrument had “National Weather Service” written on it and, if found, included directions on how to mail it back, Roesler said.