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From the "you can't make this stuff up" department:

Illinois hobby club fears its balloon was shot down by the USAF; NORAD responds
https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-hob ... saf-report

On Thursday, a report by Aviation Week offered an intriguing hypothesis about what one of those three objects could be: a "missing in action" globe-trotting balloon belonging to an Illinois-based hobbyist club.

Per the report, the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade’s (NIBBB) silver-coated, party-style "pico balloon" reported its last position on Feb. 10 at nearly 40,000 ft. off the west coast of Alaska.

Projections showed that the object would be floating over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11 – the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object in the general area.

Small pico balloons range between $12 and $180 and are naturally buoyant above 43,000 ft. These objects carry an 11-gram tracker, with HF and VHF/UHG antennas to update their positions around the world, according to Aviation Week.

The outlet noted that the shape, altitudes, and payloads of small pico balloons matched the descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down between Feb. 10 and Feb. 12.

The Bottlecap Balloon Brigade's membership are kids ages 11 and up. The Sidewinder missiles used to shoot down the...objects recently cost taxpayers about $380,000 each. So we may well have let a real Chinese spy balloon take its time over the course of almost a week traversing the entire CONUS, but then have shot down a $180 balloon with a $380,000...not to mention the cost of scrambling the jets and the follow-on debris recovery efforts. Will be very interesting to see if it's confirmed that this was the Illinois kids' hobby club balloon. And if so, Beijing has got to be laughing parts of their anatomies off at this masterful response by the Biden administration.

Fourth...item downed within the past hour over Lake Huron; unclear whether it was over U.S. or Canadian territory at the time. Supposedly it was U.S. F-16 that brought down "an octagonal shaped" object. Also unclear whether the same object is what caused a closure of airspace above northern Michigan earlier today.

The was a fifth scrambling of U.S. jets over northern Montana Saturday, but nothing was found. That was chalked up to being a radar anomaly.

I'm starting to get the impression that this been going on for quite some time, but that NORAD watches for radar blips in the more conventional airspace around 40,000 feet and below. It was after the monster balloon's slow CONUS tour that they started looking above 40,000 feet and, lo and behold, started finding unidentified objects, like, everywhere. As in three in the past three days.

At this rate, Biden will create the U.S. Balloon Force as the middle-atmosphere analog to the Air Force and the Space Force, and the official term for these things will be UNBOBs: Unidentified Balloon or Other Object. Biden will work with Trudeau to create a new cooperative to work with NORAD, this one to called NOBAD: North American Balloon Defense Command.

powerboatr wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:44 am the "weather balloon" guts are now begin sent to the FBI for examination....which means NOTHING to be found or confirmed, guts will get lost or ???

Breaking News

In continuing yet gentle searches for classified materials in Joe Biden's possession prior to his term as president, miscellaneous components and materials including visible light and infrared cameras, telemetry equipment, LIDAR arrays, and heavy, nonporous nylon sheeting have been found in the garage of one of Hunter Biden's homes. The FBI is neither confirming nor denying that this might be associated with a Chinese surveillance balloon brought down over Kansas during the Obama administration, but a spokesperson has told Reuters that the various items will be analyzed by the FBI.

</sarcasm>

Behind the scenes in Beijing after China expressed "strong dissatisfaction and protest" against the decision to shoot down its balloon, accusing the Biden administration of "overreacting" and "seriously violating international practice."

We finally shut that thing down! It went down off the South Carolina coast.

Some very sane discussion on Fox earlier today noted that NORAD would have seen that thing before it ever left the Chinese mainland. It's 10 times the size of a weather balloon (purportedly a diameter equivalent to the length of 3 school buses), and that NORAD can detect ICBMs that are much smaller and moving much, much faster. Bottom line is that we've had it on our radar--literally--for probably a week now, and it was never mentioned in the briefing to Congress last Wednesday. And, yes: something that size can carry a decent-sized payload. This ain't no hot-air balloon; it's huge and sitting between 50,000 and 60,000 feet high.

Do you know how to spell "inaction"? B I D E N

It should have been shot down as soon as it crossed into our territorial waters. What's the administration's response? Cover it up, and the only action taken so far is for reindeer Blinken to cancel his scheduled China visit. Yeah: our country continues to look real strong to the rest of the world under this administration. This must give Taiwan a lot of confidence that we'll act decisively if they're invaded.

As for the Chinese version of, "Oops. Sorry. It's just a weather balloon that went off course. Never happen again"...

Pentagon says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentag ... in-america

The U.S. government says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America.

"We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America," Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told Fox News Friday night. "We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon."