EAGLE, Idaho — A father and son in Eagle made an unexpected discovery while exploring the Boise River that has turned into a community-wide search for the mysterious owner.
Dan Klinge's son Oliver was near Eagle's Hilton Garden Inn alongside the Green Belt when he spotted something unusual in the water.
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"And then I saw like a little white thing, on the ground, and I thought it was a swimming flipper," Oliver Klinge said.
The waterlogged object turned out to be a drone with a memory card jammed inside, which was severely damaged by sand and water.
WATCH: A father and son are working to reunite the lost drone with its original owner
"So he brought it to me, and he was super excited," said Dan Klinge of his son's discovery.
The recovery process wasn't simple. Oliver said they initially struggled to access the damaged data.
"We tried to recover the data, but it was messed up, so my dad had to spend a lot of time on it," Oliver said.
Using special software, Dan was able to piece together what remained of the corrupted files. What he found were dozens of wedding pictures, including images of a family identified as "The Bakers."
The most revealing discovery was video footage showing exactly how the drone ended up in the river.
"Once I got it, we watched it, and we saw this lovely couple standing up on the bridge, and the drone backing out hit a tree and fell into the water," Dan said.
WATCH: Drone captures idyllic scene before plunging into the Boise River
According to Dan, the bridge shown in the video is about a quarter mile upstream from where Oliver found the drone, indicating it had been swept downstream by the Boise River.
Hoping to reunite the drone with its owners, Dan turned to social media for help.
"What I decided to do was put some of the photos on Facebook and say, 'Hey, does anybody know these people? I'd love to get this back to them,'" Dan said.
The online search has generated some interest and even led to identifying the wedding photographer's first name, but the trail has gone cold when it comes to finding the actual drone owner.
"It's been fun, trying to find them and getting, 'Oh! Our neighbor knows who they are! Oh, this person knows who they are!'" Oliver said.
For the Klinge family, the search has become about more than just returning a lost drone.
"I think it was so great that Oliver brought it to me, and he was so excited, and when I told him, 'Hey, we might be able to find the people who lost this.' That lit him up. Like, what a cool thing to be able to do to get somebody back something that they lost. Because we've all lost something," Dan said.
The drone's owner remains a mystery, but the Klinges haven't given up hope that sharing their story will help connect them with the original owner.
