Officials think they’ve cracked the LA ‘jetpack man’ mystery

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… Jack Skellington?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is officially here to rain on our parade after at least four sightings of what appeared to be a man flying a jetpack in the skies near Los Angeles International Airport. According to NBC Los Angeles, “jetpack man” was likely just a balloon styled after the main character of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

“One working theory is that pilots might have seen balloons,” the FBI and Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement reported by NBC Los Angeles.

Photos taken from a LAPD helicopter in November of 2020 and obtained by investigative reporter Eric Leonard seem to confirm this buzzkill. We reached out to the LAPD’s media relations division to confirm NBC Los Angeles’ reporting, but received no immediate response.

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Even so, it’s hard to argue with the photo. Especially when one takes a peek at the 84-inch Jack Skellington “AirWalker Balloon” on sale for $18 from Instaballoons.

Notably, Instaballoons lists the “maximum elevation” of the Skellington as “7000,” whatever that means.

Fly high.
Credit: INSTABALLOONS

This latest evidence should put to rest an ongoing debate as to what, exactly, pilots repeatedly saw over LAX and the greater LA area. Public interest in the flying fellow last spiked in July when officials once again were confronted with something they couldn’t quite explain.

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“A Boeing 747 pilot reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jetpack 15 miles east of LAX at 5,000 feet altitude,” CBS News reported the Federal Aviation Administration as saying at the time. “Out of an abundance of caution, air traffic controllers alerted other pilots in the vicinity.”

As so the great mystery of LA’s jetpack man, much like a Jack Skellington balloon post Halloween, has finally been deflated. That is, until someone starts selling Lightyear balloons.