Border Protection won’t let me ride in their blimp. Hovering dreamily above the desert’s horizon, it’s as alien to the landscape as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float—Snoopy-like in proportion—that broke loose from its tethers on Sixth Avenue and rode an arid breeze all the way to West Texas.
It turns out no one can ride in the blimp, because it isn’t a blimp at all. According to Bill Brooks, the CBP spokesperson for the Big Bend sector, it’s a Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS), an unmanned aircraft with a constitution considerably less cheery than Snoopy’s.
Moored somewhere between the tiny Far West Texas towns of Marfa and Valentine, the TARS is equipped with a 2,200-pound radar that can detect any low-flying aircraft within a 200-mile range. One of eight of the CBP’s “eyes in the sky” spanning the southern border of the U.S.—three of which reside in Texas—its purpose is to catch any narcotics that might be traveling across that dividing line.