In June 2014, five friends in Arizona planned to send aGoPro, a camcorder, and a phone up in a weather balloon to record some footageof space. Bryan Chan, Ved Chirayath, Ashish Goel, Paul Tarantino, and TylerReid, all college students, built their gadget, calculated its trajectory,registered with the FAA to avoid interfering with pᴀssing planes, and thenlaunched the balloon in the desert a few miles outside of Tuba City.

They intended to use GPS on the attached smartphone totrack the balloon’s movement, but as the device floated out of the cell phonetower range, they lost communication with the locator.

The group had been wondering for months if they would everget their balloon and cameras back. In actuality, they would have to wait twoyears to realize the benefits of their project. They got a call from an unknownnumber after 2 years, saying that a hiker in Arizona had discovered a bizarrebox with their names on it 50 miles from their original launch place.

When the team was reunited with their gear, they were ableto witness the incredible video and pH๏τographs that the cameras hadproduced–including a stunning “money sH๏τ” of the Grand Canyon captured fromthe stratosphere (above).

The group of friends also had the opportunity to analysethe data from their equipment, discovering that the balloon had reached aheight of 98,664 feet and had flown for 1 hour and 38 minutes.

You can watch the recorded video below.