That UFO above China isn’t alien – it’s a power plant

A giant airship launched in the Sichuan province of China has started trending heavily on social media, with many initially believing that it could have been a UFO.

But actually it was a wind farm, measuring 60 metres long by 40 metres wide, on a test flight lasting half an hour and climbing to an impressive 2000 metres. During the test, the airship generated enough power to run a standard city house for a month.

And it’s really quiet, to boot. The sound frequency is approximately 60 decibels, which is a similar kind of churn you get from the dishwasher completing its cycle in the next room.

When gargantuan objects take to the skies, it provides a fitting speculation-ground for comparisons with alien spaceships that you’d see in movies like Ghostbusters or Big Hero 6.

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The wider charge

China leads the world in wind power, with large-scale grid installations taking place in 2025. However, wind speed on land can prove to be inconsistent, hence the S2000 being launched. It is reportedly the largest capacity flying wind farm in the world.

The brains behind the project are Beijing-based startup Sawes Energy Technology. “Sawes” functions as an acronym here, as it stands for stratospheric airborne wind energy systems.

Sawes has already achieved a respectable degree of success, successfully testing its previous model, the S1500, capable of 1 megawatt of power, under the harsh conditions of the Gobi desert.

And with the current S2000, Sawes is undergoing an exclusive rollout, with contracts mooted for multiple port cities and highland zones.

The electricity generated isn't stored on board, however, with a cable about as thick as a human arm sending the current back down to the ground.

Next on the agenda are the follow-up models, the S4000 and S6000, which will soar even higher and therefore exploit even windier environments.

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