【Lily LaBeau Archives】

Here is Lily LaBeau Archivesa fun thing that happened: On Jan. 31, the military sent a 450-pound mostly autonomous machine into the sky, and— according to a Stars and Stripesreport on Thursday—lost it.

The army sent a drone above the Arizona desert as part of a training mission, but lost touch with it soon after it left the earth.

The drone normally has a range of 77 miles, so maybe the army thought: 'couldn't get very far. Nope.

They looked around for a bit, and then figured the drone much have smashed itself to pieces somewhere around the barren parts of southern Arizona.

Turns out this was not true!

This drone, with its 20-foot wingspan and cost of $1.5 million, soared 632 miles into Colorado, where it smashed into a tree, only to be discovered by a hiker on Feb. 9.

So to recap: The military lost a 450-pound autonomous flying machine somewhere above the sky in Arizona, and while they were busy concluding this wasn't such a big deal, it was hurtling through above the earth totally unattended.

Maybe we should feel for the drone. Maybe the drone saw this as its chance to escape its ground-based rulers. Maybe the drone wanted to race its way to Canada. Maybe we should be happy it made it as far as Colorado. Maybe this whole thing is just very odd.

At any rate, the army has not explained how they lost control of this drone, nor how the drone traveled 555 miles farther than it's supposed to. We've reached out to ask.

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