A LaPorte county family has been wondering all week who launched a bunch of balloons with a camera that mysteriously landed on their Rolling Prairie farm.
There was no name or contact information with the camera, but on Friday, someone came forward.
Whatever it was that drifted over the community of Rolling Prairie, settling in the Tibbs’ pasture in the middle of the night late Sunday, had caused quite a stir.
The horses were clearly upset.
“They did not like it all,” said Helen Tibbs.
The big white balloons looked so out of place. At first, Helen Tibbs thought it was a fake plastic snowman, the kind you put up in your yard around Christmastime.
Her husband, Robert Tibbs, thought maybe they shouldn’t mess with it.
“’Don't take that tape off, it could be a bomb!’” recalled Helen.
The snowman turned out to be a stack of big white balloons with a small camera hanging from them.
Robert and Helen called the LaPorte County Sheriff, who took the camera and started downloading the images -- all 9,999 of them.
Everyone wondered about who launched it and where it came from?
Surely, they must want to see the images their balloon captured during its journey to Northern Indiana.
The first few shots offer some clues; the Chicago lakefront, and a guy launching the setup.
He remained a mystery until Friday, when he saw his balloons and pictures in an online news story and called the sheriff.
Benn Jordan, a Chicago artist, plans to visit LaPorte County next week to pick up his camera and thank the Tibbs family for finding it.
“10,000 pictures from here to Chicago -- ain’t that amazing?” said Helen, thinking about the distance it travelled.
