Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
One September night In 2025, the luminous face of the Child Jesus appeared in the Vatican sky, clearly and verifiably witnessed by tens of thousands. It was nearly two thousand years after the Book of Revelation predicted, in John’s apocalyptic vision, that he would “come with clouds and every eye will see him.” The image quickly turned into the late Pope Francis. In a scene at once sacred and cyberpunk, the papal face glowering across the Roman sky was speckled – composed not of divine light, but of drones.
Accompanying the apparition was not a seraphic choir, but two humans on the ground, hundreds of feet below, singing.Amazing blessing“: Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, studded with gold chains and crossed pendants, and tattooed American Teddy Swims. Later appearing above the cathedral was a pointillist rendering of the massive Pietà, which was quickly reassembled into the two outstretched fingers of Michelangelo’s famous fresco. Some members of the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square for “Blessing to the World” – the first concert ever held in this sacred ground – wept.
The drone show in the skies over the Vatican was produced by Nova Sky Stories, a company owned by Kimbal Musk, Elon’s younger brother (who, to some extent, owns the rest of the sky with his partners). Rockets and satellites). One recent afternoon in San Francisco, Kimball recounted that night to me. “In a world where all religious people are fighting each other, this was a really powerful message,” he said. Kimball is the most popular musk, with his signature cowboy hat and small-town sheriff persona. He found it surreal to be in a WhatsApp thread where Vatican officials and Farrell’s representatives discussed artistic direction.
You could say that the unlikely intersection between drones and the papacy has its origins These things doin Burning Man. In 2021, when the event was canceled due to the pandemic, Kimball convinced longtime attendees to join him in the Black Rock Desert for an informal gathering that became known as Free Burn. Normally, Burning Man ends with a giant human-shaped effigy being set on fire — the man who bears his name — but that year, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management prohibited desert pioneers from setting fire to anything.
Present at Free Burn was Ralf Nauta, a Dutch artist who works with light and technology. Kimball asked if he could do a scene without fire on the final night, and Naota obliged. A crowd gathered on the playa as Nota A A swarm of drones Which floated above the ground for a few minutes before settling in the man’s dotted surroundings. The crowd gasped, then roared. The figure slowly raised its arms, turned fiery red, and disappeared. “Everyone, including me, was in tears, big tears,” Kimball said. “It was one of the most powerful emotional moments of my life.”
A year later, Kimball founded Nova Sky Stories; Investors in the company’s latest $50 million round included Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, who joined the board after witnessing a drone demonstration in 2022 in — where else? – Burning Man. Kimball said the drone show has transformative properties: “The cynicism inside you disappears. It’s like a main line to the spiritual center.” He told me that Pope Leo, who watched the Vatican show from a nearby apartment, passed him a message afterward. “His words are, ‘I made Michelangelo proud,'” Kimball said.
