Canadian launches engagement ring into stratosphere to ‘enchant’ fiancée

You can safely say Shawn Wright has raised the bar on wedding proposals to new heights… stratospheric heights to be more exact.

The 29-year-old resident of Calgary in Canada’s western province of Alberta launched an engagement ring beyond the stratosphere using a high-altitude weather balloon, all to “enchant” his fiancée Maylynn Stephenson.

Thanks to a camera mounted on the rig that carried the ring, he was able to film its enchanted voyage to near space and upload it to YouTube:

Wright’s romantic aircraft consisted of an on-board flight computer that relayed to him data on wind speed, air pressure, altitude, longitude and latitude.

All that equipment along with the GoPro camera and the ring securely attached to a wooden spatula was mounted on a triangular frame connected to a parachute and a high altitude weather balloon.

Despite meticulous flight planning, the ring almost landed south of the border in the United States.

Luckily, a jet stream caught the payload as it fell back to earth and it landed roughly 300 kilometres from their home in Calgary, putting it just outside of Taber, Alberta, Wright said in an interview with CBC News.

So was she impressed? You bet!

“It was definitely fantastic. Mind blowing. Completely off my radar. I didn’t see it coming at all,” Stephenson told The Calgary Eyeopener.