A college student was "misdelivered" a package by UPS that contained a $350,000 government drone sent from an Air Force base in Tampa, Fla., Yahoo News reported.
The college student, who lives somewhere in northern U.S., discovered the box on his doorstep. He posted the mix-up on Reddit under the name Seventy_Seven.
"I had ordered a weightlifting bench (which I received) and this came with it," he wrote with photos of the item. "Both boxes have UPS labels with my name and address."
Posting a series of pictures to display the box's contents, an index card showed that the drone's return address was listed as the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center and it was tagged as "USA Federal Property."
"Just called UPS. They told me that it was one of the undelivered packages in their office, and asked if I've ever had an undelivered package," the college student posted on Reddit. "I said no, but he insisted that it was mine, and said that it was up to me if I want to keep it or not."
Belonging to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the drone is used for wildlife and environment monitoring, according to Vice.
David Miller, a spokesperson for NOAA, confirmed that the drone was missing, Vice reported.
"We sent one of our Puma unmanned aircraft systems to Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary in Massachusetts," he said. "We sent a set of about eight boxes for this one aircraft system, and one was misdelivered by UPS."
Miller noted that the agency is working with the delivery service to resolve the issue, but the Reddit user took it upon himself to reach out to NOAA.
"After describing what happened, he seemed pretty content about it," the Redditor said in an update on the original thread. "They were happy I reached out to them, and now know where their missing shipment went."
According to Yahoo News, Seventy_Seven said he is now in contact with someone "higher-up" at NOAA to "organize how to get this thing back where it belongs."
