A mysterious Department of Defense blimp spotted hovering over D.C. may or may not be related to a creepy-sounding DARPA spy project. The blimp is seen here in one photo posted to DC Indymedia

A Wired article from last March describes a DARPA project to design a large blimp three times the size of the Goodyear blimp called ISIS that would use a flexible radar antenna to monitor movement over an entire city:

‘We will apply this technology to track people emerging from buildings of interest and follow them as they move to new locations,’ said Darpa’s Paul Benda. ‘Imagine the impact it will have if ISIS tracks the movement of individuals for months. Hidden webs of connections between people and facilities will be revealed.’

Meanwhile, this Post story from last Saturday assures us they’re just pointing their antennae at “government buildings and military bases,” which D.C. certainly doesn’t have a shortage of.

UPDATE: Do you have photos of the spyblimp? Pass them along to us here at DCist – we’ll happily post them with attribution. Email them to staff (at) DCist.com.