Spy Blimps

On the Coast to Coast site tonight there are a couple of pictures of a blimp taken while on vacation in Puerto Rico, and this is what the contributor says about it:

"3/29/08-- While vacationing in San German, Puerto Rico (southwest part of island) I observed this zeppelin –like object in the air. I asked a police office about it and he told me that he has been told it was a balloon used by the US Government to track drug smugglers and undocumented aliens in the waters off Lajas, PR, where the balloon is anchored to a government facility.
He says that they listen to transmissions and take pictures from the balloon. I was told it was one mile up. While I am no judge of altitude, this sounded right to me. I took the picture with a Nikon D200 with a 200 mm lens. The officer told me that he does not know of any drug smugglers or illegal aliens caught with the balloon. --Henry H."



A couple of months ago I flew to Florida to see my parents and drove back home across country. One national park I had never been to was Big Bend in Texas so I detuored down and checked it out. Instead of backtracking up to I 10 I instead took a drive west along the border through Big Bend State Park and up. Outside of Marfa along the highway I came up on a small installation with a blimp hovering in the desert. Now I know what it was there for. Looks like they use them on the mainland too.
Wonder how much success they've had nabbing smugglers or illegals here, or if they're used for some other purpose. After all, there are those Marfa Lights.