NOAA’s National Service launches weather balloons from 102 sites throughout the United States, Caribbean and the Pacific to help with weather forecasting. One landed on the property of Gary and Anna Mary Walsh. Gary found it while walking through the woods. Thinking it was trash, he approached it and noticed that it said “harmless weather instrument.”

It was dated June 2010. The radiosonde sensors measure and transmit profiles of air pressure, temperature and relative humidity from the Earth’s surface to about 20 miles high in the sky, as well as obtain data for wind direction and speed. It came with a postage-paid return mailbag, which Gary mailed to the destination of Kansas City, Mo.

The National Weather Service recovers less than 200 percent of the 75,000 radiosondes released each year. Hopefully, more people will begin to return them.