There are many things one might expect to show up suddenly on your doorstep at some point — in-laws, a baby in a basket with a note — but one New York man was definitely not expecting that UPS would drop off pieces of a government drone like it was just another delivery.

The story of the orphan drone begins with a college student posting “I think I just got a drone in the mail” on Reddit, of course, because that is where such oddities are reported.

His photos show a case, what he thinks might be wings and some kind of control mechanism to guide the thing, along with a card that came in the box saying the parts were federal property and should be returned to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office in Tampa, Fla.

He’d ordered a weightlifting bench and at first thought it was parts to put that together, he wrote.

“The label on the exterior was addressed to me. Nothing on the outside of the crate said it was government property,” he said in the post. “Though an odd box, I genuinely thought it was parts for the bench I ordered, since I wasn’t expecting a freaking drone.”

It turns out that seven of eight boxes carrying parts of $350,000 Puma unmanned aerial system were delivered correctly to a government facility in Massachusetts, reports the New York Daily News, while he got the eighth.

The man claims on Reddit that he tried to tell UPS about the mistake, but the company said it was his to do with what he pleased. So now he says he’ll contact the NOAA office and return it. NOAA confirmed to the NYDN that the office was in touch with the man and working with UPS on getting the parts to the right place.

In related news, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, either. Let’s hope UPS doesn’t misdeliver that.

I think I just got a drone in the mail [Reddit]
New York man receives pieces of government drone that UPS delivered by mistake [New York Daily News]

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