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The downing of the three mysterious objects came after the Air Force shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the coast of South Carolina

In the days since the U.S. Air Force shot down three unidentified objects out of the sky, questions linger about just what these objects actually were.

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.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and NIBBB for comment.

The downing of the three objects came after the Air Force shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the coast of South Carolina after it had traversed the U.S.

President Joe Biden said Thursday that the U.S. is developing "sharper rules" to track, monitor and potentially shoot down unknown aerial objects.

The president has directed national security adviser Jake Sullivan to lead an "interagency team" to review U.S. procedures after the U.S. shot down the Chinese balloon, as well as the three other objects the U.S. now believes are most likely "benign" objects launched by private companies or research institutions.

While not expressing regret for downing the three still-unidentified objects, Biden said he hoped the new rules would help "distinguish between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not."

"Make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people I will take it down," he added, repeating the legal justification cited for the downings — that the objects, flying between 20,000 and 40,000 feet posed a remote risk to civilian planes.

The downing of the Chinese surveillance craft was the first known peacetime shootdown of an unauthorized object in U.S. airspace.

During a briefing with governors on Monday, a White House adviser said the objects shot down could be any number of things, including used car lot balloons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Good thing the adults are running the country

Top. Men.

Yikes!

@BRCA2

Sounds like their countermeasures made the first missile miss.  I'd call that a win.

At least the F-22 is finally getting some kills.

I guess the first rule in shooting,”know your target “ doesn’t apply anymore?

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$12 targets.  That are apparently really hard to shoot down.

Ok that club owes us $400k for the ordinance used. We'll eat the fuel and labor costs this time.

JFC!

So are we all able to float craft wherever with whatever lens and comm capabilities?

LOL!!!  $400,000 missile to shoot down a $180 balloon. Top men!!!

So Biden's administration has shown that it's willing to use military force against American citizen assets.

Can you imagine if Trump was in office and did this?

The MSM would fap themselves unconscious.

This country is in serious trouble if we had to fight here or abroad.

hows that work exactly??

objects detected, alert was sent, briefings were given, jets scrambled, pilots acquired target, clearance was given and missiles launched...and not one person in that chain paused briefly to question or confirm the target was or was not a commonly purchased balloon...

sounds to me like the gov owes the club a harmless balloon and perhaps needs to ratchet back the panic attacks.

Fuck that, Uncle Sam owes them a new balloon.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11760443/Did-Joe-Biden-shoot-hobbyists-12-balloon-380-000-missile.html

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Illinois you say? Communist

Go ahead and read through this, and tell me where it says the government gets to say we can’t.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

IIRC, during WWII amateur radio operators were prohibited from transmitting. Of course, the US government does a lot of things during war that violate all kinds of human rights.

Sidebar tinfoil theory: What if privately-owned weather monitoring apparatus like these balloons were providing scientific data that refuted the whole “climate change narrative” and they just needed an excuse to get rid of them, and then regulate them out of existence?

This…

I'm making my own mylar hobby balloon something like this for them to shoot down.

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I sure feel safe now, maybe I can come out of the house.

ROFL. What a fucking joke we are. In before those hobbyists are labeled terrorists and insurrectionists.

How long before some plane kit owner is blasted out of the sky?

Lol .... it's just a question, slow your roll and don't get your panties in a bunch when  you are impeding air traffic all in the same week China pulled this shit too

'hobby' baroon ?
RAF-OUT-ROUD

They said it was a alien spaceship

We should all launch 12 buck balloons

At the time I was wondering if the other balloons were even "spy balloons". I think this kind of confirms 1. We don't seem to be able to tell if a balloon is a foreign spy balloon or a domestic "other than spy" balloon of some kind.

Fucking awesome! AirPower Bitches

"I missed"..."Fire another one"...How about knowing your back stop?

The white house was still claiming today that the UFOs "Belonged to one or more of our adversaries...we just aren't sure of which adversaries"...

We owe them $12 for mistaking their $12 balloon for an instrument of war.

At least a couple of potential enemy trains were stopped this past week.

if the pilot approached from the other side the effect would be lost.

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Would it take 3 Sidewinders?

So they just need Russian spies, terrorist attacks, and never ending wars to take away all our rights. Imagine if they used those as excuses for secret courts and 4th amendment violatons. Just imagine.

An 11-gram tracker, with HF and VHF/UHG antennas on a hobby balloon “interfered with sensors" on a fighter?

They better not find a "Betsy Ross" style wall flag in their homes...

And now we know.

Illinois Nazis.
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The FAA has rules for free balloons that basically say if the payloads is under a certain weight and square footage,
they don't care about them as they're not a threat to navigation. Pico balloons are way under those limits.

Once you get big enough then you get red tape.

That's actually pretty cool. A lot more interesting thing that what we did in high school science class.

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I have been waiting for something like this...

They were not wrong. It belonged to average Americans.