WATCH: See the Odd Object in the Sky Over West Hartford

Meteorologists tend to always look to the sky. So do their dogs.

Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan said he heard his dog Doppler barking loudly outside, looking up at the sky a little before noon on Friday, July 24.

“It took me a minute but then I saw this odd looking black tube floating in the sky,” he said. “Other people in West Hartford saw it too. Any idea what it was?”

Patch wrote an article about Hanrahan’s experience and asked if anyone had seen the object too.

Gary Mendal responded and sent along the above video and photo.

“I was on South Main and watched it float away,” he told Patch.

Natalee Martin saw the object too.

“Got some pictures of it from the playground at the corner of Trout Brook and Asylum,” she said. It was so weird!”

Thanks to Hanrahan’s dogged perseverance, he figured out what the object was.

“We have solved the puzzle — it was totally this creepy toy,” Hanrahan wrote on Facebook.

The “creepy toy” he spoke of is a solar bag.

“The thin, black plastic bag holds over 60 cubic meters (200 cubic ft) of air,” according to Spangler Science Stuff. “Simply fill with air by running, tie off the ends, and let the solar energy of the sun heat the air inside the bag. Within minutes, the bag rises to the sky and floats like a giant science tube.”

Photos:

• Gary Mendal (Photo No. One)
• Natalee Martin (Photos No. Two Through Four)