Four friends sent a weather balloon up into the stratosphere to capture footage of the Grand Canyon and two years later they finally saw the footage they recorded.
The group spent a handful of months planning how they would budget the project, and almost canceled the project due to helium costs, but finally launched the balloon on June 2013.
The balloon had a GoPro, Sony camcorder and Samsung Galaxy attached to it.
The balloon reached an altitude of 98,664 feet.
The video recovered showed stunning images of the Grand Canyon from the above.
The video of the footage was uploaded on YouTube by Bryan Chan who also linked the story of their plans and outcomes onReddit.
The group was able to track the balloon with GPS as it logged the location on the memory card. However, the map they were relying on to tell them where the phone would land was incorrect, and the phone lost signal before it landed roughly 50 miles from the launch point.
Two years later, in a twist of fate, a woman who works with AT&T found the phone, turned it into the store and identified the SIM card belonging to one in the group.
“We were all moping around, making bets on when, if ever, it would be found for a while when just a couple months ago, a woman contacts us about finding a weird box with our name on it,” Chan said in a Reddit post.
The friends got the video and data a few weeks later and posted it online.
The balloon’s total travel time was 1 hour and 38 minutes. The footage shows breathtaking shots of the balloon's journey over the Grand Canyon.
