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U.F.O Mystery Debunked By Alexander High School Teacher

By KGNS News

Story Created: Oct 27, 2011 at 10:12 PM CDT

Story Updated: Oct 27, 2011

We received many phone calls into our news room reporting an unidentified flying object last week and for those who saw this object hovering in the sky and hoped it was something from another planet, think again.
"Well it's no longer a U.F.O. What it is a pretty common heat convection experiment. It's a 50 foot solar bag."
Once the story aired, our KGNS facebook page was flooded with people speculating what they thought it was. A.P Physics teacher, MarkGarcia, from Alexander High School further explains the mystery for those who were curious about what they saw. He says it's a pretty common experiment done in schools across the country.
"It's pretty much a 50 foot long trash bag that they tie off at both ends and the air inside becomes heated by the sun's radiation and it rises so they get to watch it."
Garcia says after doing this experiment for almost five years, his students always ask the same question.
"One of the things they always ask is where does it end up or where does it burst."
So to try and answer that question for the students, they attach their contact info to the solar bags.
"We put in little index cards saying that if anybody finds this please contact us."
We asked Garcia in the five years he has conducted this experiment, has anyone found the solar bags?
"No one's called or emailed yet. This is the first time people noticed it in the air."

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Anonymous said on Saturday, Oct 29 at 7:53 AM

Well if the plastic bag is not recovered, this guy and his classes are littering. The bag eventually falls on someone's property. The first objective in every science Texas TEKS states Proper disposal of all materials.

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comments said on Friday, Oct 28 at 11:41 AM

I bet some dumb parent is going to blame this teacher and the school district of wrong doing and file a law suit. I bet you!! LOL

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