The U.S. Air Force shot down an object in Canadian airspace using a US$400,000 missile last weekend, and it turns out that object might have been a $12 balloon released by a balloon hobby group.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade told Aviation Week that one of its pico balloons — balloons that measure things like temperature, pressure and humidity — has gone missing. They said there’s strong circumstantial evidence that it might be the object shot down by NORAD.
The Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (named as an homage to the Disney movie Up!) reported Pico Balloon K9YO “missing in action” on Feb. 15, but its last position was recorded on Feb. 10 off the coast of Alaska at an altitude close to 40,000 feet. A popular forecasting tool projected that the silver balloon would have been in the same approximate area and altitude of the unidentified object shot down over Yukon by a Lockheed Martin F-22 on Feb. 11.
According to the group’s website, the hydrogen-filled balloons have GPS tracking and antennas and can soar to heights of 47,000 feet. Some are able to circle Earth several times before they finally fail. In their blog post, they confirmed the missing balloon was a silver mylar, 32-inch sphere — very similar to a party balloon — and the balloons cost about $12.
Saturday’s takedown was just one of several that have happened this month after a Chinese balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4. Last Friday, a UFO was taken down by a missile over Alaska and another was destroyed over Lake Huron in Michigan two days later.
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As a result of the spy balloon’s discovery, NORAD has adjusted its radar to find similar, slow-moving objects. This could potentially explain why so many new objects are being detected.
And while the U.S. claims that the first discovered balloon was being used for espionage, President Joe Biden said there’s no evidence that the other objects shot down had been deployed for nefarious purposes.
“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions,” Biden said Thursday.
China has claimed responsibility for the initial balloon but said it was a weather aircraft, not one tied to surveillance or espionage.
Meanwhile, balloon enthusiasts are reminding others in the community to pause launching any more pico balloons for now.
Earlier this week, stratospheric engineer Dan Bowen tweeted, “let’s not add to the tensions that the existing picos may yet make.”
David Akerman, a member of the U.K. High Altitude Society who has launched nearly 100 larger latex balloons, told The Washington Post that the amateur balloon community is now concerned “there will be a knee-jerk reaction to what’s happened.”
He said he hopes that the hobby community can team up with authorities to establish guidelines or rules in an effort to keep balloons in the air while sparing the government expensive missile spending.
“It’s also in the interests of authorities not to be shooting down party balloons with missiles,” he said.
Meanwhile, RCMP continue their search for the remnants of the object shot down in Canadian airspace, after the Pentagon said it was “absolutely important” to recover what remains; the search efforts are being hampered by harsh weather and the Yukon’s rough mountain terrain.
“Our focus right now is on recovering it. Obviously, there is much analysis going on at the highest levels of NORAD in both Canada and the United States to try and understand more, to facilitate in the location of the object and to understand better and be able to answer the questions that Canadians have,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters earlier this week.
“Obviously there is some sort of pattern in there. The fact that we are seeing this in a significant degree over the past week is a cause for interest and close attention, which is exactly what we’re doing.”