Truckers sometimes get to haul unusual freight, but one driver grabbed the attention of all he passed by in Cowley County Kansas. Residents and news media alike were surprised to see what looked like a flying saucer rolling down the road on the back a flatbed trailer driving down the middle of Highway 77.
“There was this funny sphere that went through on this big trailer and my first thought was, ‘That looks like a UFO,’” Kammi Root told ABC-7 News.
The unidentified flatbed object — at about 30 ft. across — was so big that local law enforcement had to remove roadside signs to allow safe passage.
“They told us that it was an aircraft and that they had explored other ways to transport it but this was the best way for them to do it and they asked us not to say a whole lot about it,” Sheriff Don Read said.
Read said he was not allowed to divulge much about the mysterious craft, though he did let slip the detail that it was not recovered at a crash site, but rather had been manufactured by aerospace company Northrop Grumman, according to a MSNBC report.
This “UFO” is actually one of two X-47B drones being shipped from California to the Naval Air Station at Patuxent River in Maryland, according to Brooks McKinney, senior manager of public relations at Northrop Grumman. The X-47B is an unmanned combat drone designed to operate from aircraft carriers.
“We built two for the Navy, they were being tested at Edwards Air Force Base [in California] since March,” McKinney told MSNBC. “One is on its way to Maryland, and the other will remain in California. Clearly people are interested in what's going through town. It’s unusual to see a shrink-wrapped aircraft, especially one with that shape.”
