PHOENIX – NASA officials say it wasn't an alien spacecraft people in Arizona and New Mexico spotted floating far above them in the clear blue sky, just a giant research balloon.

A paranoid woman who runs a UFO-theme Store in Arizona says it "looked like the gigantic bubble from the Wizard of Oz."

Federal Aviation Administration spokesmen said there was no cause for alarm, “Even if it was a Wizard of Oz bubble, we must stringently remind you that both Bad Witches are dead, so it has to be a Good Witch.”

Sam Sham of NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, says the mysterious flying orb was a 4,000-pound NASA research balloon used to measure gamma ray emissions coming from unknown sources throughout the universe.

A 4,000-pound balloon? We seem to have gotten to the point where they think they can tell us ANYTHING and we’ll believe it.

NASA sources did say that aliens have been considering balloon flights as alternatives for traveling throughout our atmosphere due to rising fuel costs on their home planets.

By George