  In this paper we propose that bubbles of AdS within Minkowski spacetime,
stabilized at a finite radius by stiff matter and an electromagnetic gas, can
be an alternative endpoint of gravitational collapse. The bubbles are
horizonless with a size up to 12.5% larger than their Schwarzschild radius
depending on their charge. We argue that they are stable against small
perturbations, and have thermodynamical properties similar to those of real
black holes. We provide a realization of the bubbles within string theory that
relies on a specific brane intersection giving rise to a shell carrying
dissolved charges from lower dimensional D-branes as well as a gas of open
strings. We also note that our construction provides a new way of understanding
the entropy of Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes in the extremal limit.
