On Friday @mikedeliso tweeted us the photo above and asks:
“@PoPville you have any idea what this balloon is? Shot from 20th and q at the DuPont north exit.”
And last night @chatelainedc tweets with an even eerier photo:
“I really want to know what the white circular thing w/ a suspended light floating in the sky over Dupont is. Anyone?”
We first started spotting these balloons back in 2009 and learned they were from Air Photos Live, a “Digital Design & Imaging Service”. Then last May we noticed more balloons over and around the arboretum. At that time we learned from the DC Office of Planning:
PoPville: The balloon was launched by Digital Design and Imaging Inc. to take aerial photos of the District’s skyline as part of the joint Height Master Plan the DC Office of Planning and the National Capital Planning Commission are conducting in response to a Congressional request. The Mayor issued a press release yesterday announcing the consultant teams working with the District on this study. DDIS is one of our consultants for the Height Master Plan modeling analysis. For more information on the study, please visit http://www.ncpc.gov/heightstudy. The Mayor’s press release about the consultants is here: http://mayor.dc.gov/release/mayor-vincent-c-gray-announces-districts-consultant-teams-study-citys-building-heights
–Tanya Stern, Chief of Staff, DC Office of Planning
This morning @chatelainedc updates us with the latest from Digital Design and Imaging Inc.
“email I got from DDI “It was a unmanned aerostat balloon, shooting L’Enfants layout of streets in the crisp wintery air”
So it’s not the aliens, for now…
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