Last Saturday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) shot down an object over Yukon — one of four mysterious objects which have been shot down over North America this month.
That same day, Feb. 11, a small hobby club — the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) — received its last transmission from one of its pico balloons on its seventh circumnavigation around the world. The balloon was near Hagemeister Island, off the southwest corner of Alaska.
“At that time and as we often do, we used NOAA’s HYSPLIT model to predict where the balloon may go from there,” the club said in a blog post on its website Friday. The prediction? That it would be floating over Yukon.
Now, NIBBB has declared the balloon “missing in action,” drawing speculation it could be the same balloon the RCMP are currently hunting for on the ground in Yukon with the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces. It’s also raising questions whether the mysterious objects in the skies are weather balloons launched by hobbyists.
“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 (SBS), a Silicon Valley company that makes purpose-built pico balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists, told Aviation Week.
NIBBB isn’t pointing fingers yet.
“As has been widely reported, no part of the object shot down by the U.S. Air Force jet over Yukon territory has been recovered. Until that happens and that object is confirmed to be an identifiable pico balloon, any assertions or claims that our balloon was involved in that incident are not supported by facts,” the club said in its blog post.
CBC News has reached out to NIBBB for an interview.
WATCH | Concerns over arctic security:
An unidentified aerial object shot down in Yukon has led community members to have conversations about arctic security — and about how to ensure First Nations are included in discussions with Ottawa.
Recovery mission
Of the four objects shot down over North American skies in the last month, only one has been identified. China says the 60-metre balloon was for monitoring weather conditions, but Washington says it was a surveillance balloon with a massive undercarriage containing electronics.
On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden said the U.S. intelligence community was still trying to learn more about the three unidentified objects: one that was shot down over Alaska, one over Canada and a third that plunged into Lake Huron. The administration has said they were downed because they posed a threat to civil aviation.
“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests they were related to the Chinese spy balloon program or they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” Biden said.
Also on Thursday, RCMP said in a release that they’re suspending the search for debris in Lake Huron due to several factors, “including deteriorating weather and the low probability of recovery.” But they added search and recovery efforts continue in Yukon with the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces.
“The conditions are extremely challenging with a very large search area, spanning 3,000 square kilometres, and consisting of rugged and mountainous terrain with a high level of snowpack and harsh winter conditions,” the RCMP said in the news release.
“This investigation is in its very early stages and will take time. We will share additional information when it becomes available as the recovery efforts and investigation unfold.”