Wind hurls dozens of mattresses through Stapleton

People bought tickets to watch a movie outdoors Saturday night while in bed, but they weren’t prepared for a flying mattress show in addition to the movie they were watching.

By Saturday afternoon, dozens of air mattresses set up for the night began flying through Stapleton, thanks to some signature Colorado wind, creating what one man called the “great mattress migration of 2019.”

They flew through a field, and several bounced over a gate and into a pool where people were trying to figure out what was happening.

One Denver resident caught some of it on a video that went viral overnight.

Robb Manes said he was at a pool in Stapleton with two others near the field where the four-night Bed Cinema event was set to take place at Runway 35 on Yosemite Street.

“We were just sitting in the pool and all of a sudden, two mattresses flew in,” Manes said. “At first, it was confusing.”

Then more started coming, and one landed in the pool. Manes remembered they had seen rows of mattresses set up for the event.

They left the pool to see what was going on as a big gust of wind caught what Manes said looked like 50 to 100 mattresses.

“There was a woman trying to a catch a mattress,” Manes said of an event organizer. “She looked at us and said, ‘This is a disaster.’ ”

Manes said he and others tried to help her catch some of the mattresses, which were probably flying for about 30 minutes.

“Although we felt really bad for the event people, we thought it was absolutely hilarious,” he said.