Looks like the US Air Force might have used a US$400,000 missile to down a balloon worth $12..The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) speaking to Aviation Week, says the circumstantial evidence is strong it was their balloon shot down by NORAD, a partnership between the US and Canada to monitor the skies that’s more famous for tracking Santa Claus..Neither NORAD nor the FBI confirmed to the balloon club whether it was one of their balloons that caused an international incident, said Aviation Week..NIBBB told the publication one of its hobby craft went “missing in action” over Alaska on Feb.11, the same day a US F-22 jet downed an unidentified airborne object above the Yukon..The US had itchy trigger fingers after a Chinese spy balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4..Three more flying objects were shot down over Alaska, the Yukon and over Lake Huron. .It’s the balloon shot down over the Yukon that NIBBB believes was theirs, based on its last reported location..Known as Pico balloons, they could easily be mistaken for party balloons, but measure things such as humidity, pressure and temperature, while sending the information back to the hobbyists through a global network. .The balloons are fitted with VHF/UHF antennas that can give information about its coordinates to ham radio operators and as Aviation Week points out, they can circle the globe several times before they finally fail..“I tried contacting our military and the FBI and just got the runaround, to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions told Aviation Week..Meadows said due to their light weight, Pico balloons are largely exempt from FAA regulations, so the agency may not have known what was being targetted..The US military began picking up a huge number of mysterious flying objects after it widened its radar aperture, which would spot an increased number of objects in the air, explaining the discovery and the shooting down of the three objects in such a short span of time..The balloons were always there, circling the globe, they just didn’t get noticed very much due to their small size and benign activity..In a speech Thursday, President Joe Biden didn’t reveal any new information about the objects, refused to answer follow-up questions, but stressed the three most recently shot down objects were probably weather balloons..Balloon hobbyists are still worried about balloons still up in the air as they approach US airspace..“I hope that in the next few days when that happens, we’re not real trigger-happy and start shooting down everything,” Tom Medlin, a hobbyist who currently has three balloons up in the air told Aviation Week..The Pico Balloon, a silver-coated, cylindrically shaped object, reported its last position at 38,910 feet off the west coast of Alaska on Friday, NIBBB told the New York Post..By Saturday, based on the balloon’s projected path, it would have been over the central part of the Yukon around the same time a military Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same area of Canada, said NIBBB..The group declared its balloon, known as K9YO, “missing in action” Feb. 11..NIBB told The Post K9YO had circumnavigated the globe six times during a 123-day span before its tracking device went dark Friday..The Air Force used Sidewinder missiles in their targeted attacks against suspected Chinese spy balloons and mystery UFOs, Fortune reported. Each missile comes at a price tag of roughly US$400,000..Pico Balloons, however, are typically priced between $12 and $180 each depending on the type, Aviation Week reported..White House officials admitted this week that “hundreds, if not thousands” of objects in the sky, including the UFOs it shot down last week, could be as innocuous as “used car lot balloons.”.NORAD told Fox News the FBI reached out to theNIBBB and “expects the National Security Council to have more on potentially identifying the objects.”
