The 300-Meter Banana Airship Project That Got Funded And Forgotten

A 300-meter banana was supposed to float over Texas, and government money actually paid for it.

You see, this was never a late-night television sketch or a science fiction screenplay. The whole operation carried the title Geostationary Banana Over Texas project, and it was firmly scheduled for August 2008. I physically cannot wrap my head around the committee meeting where someone finally said yes.

How Did Public Money Fund A Floating Fruit?

The architect behind the scheme was an Argentinian public artist named Sáez, who was residing in Quebec, Canada when the initial proposals surfaced. He originally insisted the entire endeavor would operate on Canadian taxpayer money, which immediately triggered every financial warning sign in the room. My friend, watching public records show government cash flowing toward a floating citrus fruit is deeply surreal.

Wait, wait, wait — the grants actually cleared, bringing at least $148,000 Canadian dollars into his hands, which translates to roughly $140,000 US. That capital came directly from the Canadian Federal Government alongside Quebec Province, sparking immediate controversy across multiple sectors. I don’t understand how bureaucratic approval processes somehow miss a giant piece of produce in their spreadsheets.

Sáez later clarified that he simply loves navigating the thin line between truth and complete fabrication. He openly embraces the ambiguity surrounding whether the venture was a genuine engineering blueprint or a deliberate cultural exposure stunt. Honestly, that philosophical stance just confirms he knew exactly how wild this looked on paper.

Where Did The Plans Go After The Payout?

Fast forward to 2010, and Sáez had fully collected the grant money while completely abandoning Canada. He spent those 2 payment years delivering absolutely nothing tangible to justify the investment. I’m not okay with how smoothly a continent can lose six figures to a phantom agricultural monument.

His online presence stubbornly maintained the floating vessel as an active development until April 21, 2010. Eish, the website no longer exists, leaving us staring at a blank screen instead of blueprints. I genuinely wonder why anyone bothered tracking down plans for something that might have been a joke all along.

Let’s be realistic though, we still owe it to ourselves to imagine what happened if the inflation valves actually worked. That rubbery structure would easily eclipse the legendary LZ 129 Hindenburg, which measured a solid 245 meters. My heart pounds just calculating the aerodynamics of a curved fruit battling jet streams.

If the engineering held, that yellow marvel would officially become the longest airship humanity has ever constructed. Tracking down the original architectural plans feels like chasing a rumor through a dense fog. Every lead points toward a vanished domain and a creator who simply walked away.

Either way, the timeline leaves us with a fascinating puzzle that refuses to solve itself. I will always respect an artist willing to gamble public reputation on a flying dessert. Now I need your thoughts on whether this counts as genius or a glorious waste.

So Chillers, does this read like a brilliantly funded conceptual art masterpiece, or should we demand the grant money back? Tell me your verdict in the comments.

Source: Wikipedia’s article on “Geostationary Banana Over Texas”. The facts are theirs; the words are ours.