Scrawled note in parachute with message for Trump sets off scare

A mysterious package with a message for President Donald Trump set off alarm last week after falling from the sky into a field of solar panels south of Bedminster, N.J., where the president was vacationing.

The package, a square white box attached to a red parachute, landed in the field in Kendall Park on Tuesday just before noon — about 20 miles as the crow flies away from the president’s golf course.

If that weren’t strange enough, the package had a handwritten message scrawled on the side: “NASA Atmospheric Research Instrument NOT A BOMB! If this lands near the President, we at NASA wish him a great round of golf.”

And it was making a hissing sound, police said.

Employees at the solar panel field told officers that they were concerned.

“We just had a package — I’m not making this up — parachute onto my site,” one of the callers said in a recording published by NBC 4. “There’s a note on the side that I find disturbing. It references something about the president.”

The site was quickly evacuated as a bomb squad was sent to the area, according to NBC. The Secret Service also investigated.

But the inquiry revealed a curious fact: The box had been sent into the sky by NASA. It was a weathermonitoring device, police said, one of six that scientists released in the area Sunday. Photographs show that it had red and black wires inside.

“The weather researchers were apologetic for any concerns they had raised by the handwritten note on the device,” the South Brunswick Police Department said in a statement.

In a statement, NASA spokeswoman J.D. Harrington explained the mishap.

The box contained a weather balloon instrument for measuring ozone and had been launched as part of an air-quality study from a site owned by Rutgers University, which was not involved with the research.

“Because the instruments are often found after they float back to Earth, they include notes informing the public of their research purpose,” Harrington said. “In this instance, a summer student employee, not affiliated with Rutgers, added extra text, in a misguided attempt to be lighthearted.” Only 1 of 6 other weather instruments has been recovered, NBC reported.

The student was removed from the project, Harrington said, as the agency worked to standardize the labeling process for such instruments.