After the blimp—you know the one—gently came to rest in a quiet corner of the Pennsylvania countryside on Wednesday afternoon, state police swarmed over it and pumped that fucker full of lead.

We lost a hero yesterday. He didn’t talk much, nor did he work very hard. He was criticized from all directions. He was cold. He kept to himself. But before he died in rural Pennsylvania, he tasted freedom. R.I.P. Blimp. Here’s a video of your death.

Here’s a metaphor: a remote-controlled, tremendously expensive, basically useless JLENS aerial surveillance blimp has detached from its tether at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. If you see it, call the authorities. Do NOT try to get it down yourself.

The first golden age of floating dirigibles ended on approximately May 6, 1937. The new golden age of blimpity bleep bloop blimps starts right now!

Lillian Bernhagen, a 94-year-old Ohio woman, was probably surprised when police knocked on her door on Sunday morning. But they weren't after her—just after the 128-foot-blimp in her backyard.

Mercury planet! Rat memories! Gray hair! Cosmic blast! Killer lipids! Mind engagement! Cuban seas! Model blimps! And the real reason that women be squeakin! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—salaciously!

With a parking space at the giant hangar on Moffett Field run by NASA, Airship Ventures plans to buy a blimp and run pleasure cruises from the Googleplex's back yard to Napa Valley's wine country. To that end, the startup has secured $8 million in funding from wealthy sorts, including lead investor Esther Dyson. Airship Ventures can surely count on the legions of local steampunk fetishists to keep the waiting list for seats well padded, not to mention corporate-expensed junkets from Valley tech companies. After the jump, video of a Tokyo flyover in one of the Zeppelin NT airships the startup will use. (Illustration by Martin Luechinger)