A Montana coyote hunter, Dan Wild (fitting last name for this story!), might’ve captured more than just wildlife on his thermal imaging device this past December in Bozeman. The video below, filmed around 3-4 AM, shows critters scurrying across the field and a strange, very cold object gliding through the frame—something invisible through his rifle scope. Here are a few of the comments on the YouTube video:
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Viewer: Drone… Pure and simple. Steady consistent movement as it climbs and descends and consistent forward motion. The yotes were afraid of the noise when it was close to them but as soon as it got high enough and they couldn’t hear it they were fine.
Dan Wild: to windy to be a drone and it was 4am in a pretty secluded area
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Viewer: My thought is that it is floating trash, like a plastic grocery bag.
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Viewer: Looks like a balloon to me
Dan Wild: I guess I’ve never seen a helium balloon flying low across a field , keeping pace with a coyote , then take flight. Then dive back down, they usually just disappear straight up. But idk I thought of all possible answers
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Viewer: i feel like the helium was getting cold and wanting to sink and the wind or thermals were pushing it around the angle made it look like that anyway there was zero heat signature in it so that’s my best guess and the tinfoil like shell of a balloon would make that look black in your scope. I sight scopes in with tinfoil all the time instead of handwarmers
Dan Wild: I use foil as well, I saw it for a good 15 seconds prior to recording. And it was just odd behavior for a balloon
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So, was it balloons, foil, trash or something unexplainable…or just Montana doing Montana things? Hmmm….
