Posted on 02/25/2024 2:02:07 AM PST by Libloather
The mysterious high-altitude balloon spotted soaring the Western US Friday was simply a hobbyist device and has already left American airspace, according to a report.
Federal investigators tracked the small balloon, flying at an altitude between 43,000 and 45,000 feet, until it traversed beyond US lines sometime during the night, the North American Aerospace Defense Command told CBS News.
Fighter jets for NORAD, the nation’s airspace watchdog, intercepted the balloon shortly as it hovered over Utah Friday.
Although officials were unsure of the balloon’s origin, they immediately determined that the balloon, which was not maneuverable, “posed no hazard to flight safety.”
One official told CBS News that it appeared to be made of Mylar and had a small cube-shaped box, about two feet long on each side, hanging below it.
NORAD was first alerted to the balloon’s presence as it flew over Colorado, noticeably drifting in an easterly direction and following the path of the jetstream.
An official with the Department of Defense told CBS News that the object was actually a hobbyist balloon, but did not provide further details.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Sure Jan if you say it was a hobbyist ballon.
Chinese spies can’t have hobbies?
Pretty sure it did on the way up.
Somebody had the picture of an F-15 cockpit as it was rolling in on Santa
They were too close for missiles so I guess they were switching to gins
They must have got him as I saw a 12-1& foot tall Rudolph in the front yard of a house about 4 days ago (no joke)
His nose was blinking
🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌
Oops 😬
12-15 foot tall Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer
Gigantic it was
It was just nosing around, lost.
🔴🦌
NORAD was first alerted to the balloon’s presence as it flew over Colorado...
Prayers up for Santa!
This should be a heads to conspiracy theorists (look back yesterday to see the wild theories). Here’s what it looks like when the truth finally drops.🎈
What was in the box? It didn’t occur to them that a hostile country would try to make it look non-professional? Why didn’t they confiscate balloon, then release it if it turns out to be harmless?
Eerily similar to the first explains of the Chinese spy balloon. Hobby-Lobby origin (oh, that was shot down over the Great Lakes), un navigable, no transmitters, etc.
If you launch a hobbyist balloon you are required to file a flight plan with the FAA. And the typical hobbyist balloon doesn’t traverse the globe. All this means is the ChiComs have likely deployed a new cheaper version.
I’m pretty sure you don’t have to file a flight plan with the FAA, given wind currents it would be nearly impossible to know how fast or direction the balloon would be traveling.
It’s also not atypical for a hobbyist balloon to circumnavigate the globe and do so multiple times.
Typically, the hobbyist balloons are transmitting a radio signal that is monitored by a local ham radio club or operator mainly for educational and recreational purposes.
Back over a year ago when the Chinese Balloon was flying over the USA, we had a lengthy discussion on FR about this very topic and it was determined then that no FAA flight plan is required and quite frequently these hobbyist balloon due circle the globe multiple times.
Here’s a couple of articles you might find interesting from last year during the Chinese balloon fiasco.
Pretty sure it did on the way up.
Probably will on the way down too, but some aircraft do fly at that altitude. 😀 I wonder if it’s an expensive hobby, to build a balloon capable of going that high. Maybe the hobbyist is in China. 🤗
‘Weather barroon’ I mean balloon.
Did they consider at that altitude......maybe the hobbyist is in China?
Oh wait......it’s Biden’s call.......”can’t be China, China’s our friend.”
Here’s an interesting website that tracks some probably not all hobbyist balloons around the world.
Here’s a link to a Ham Radio Operator that has detailed step by step instructions including pictures of how to build a Pico Balloon capable of circling the globe that can be tracked.
The cost of building a fairly sophisticated Pico Balloon that’s trackable is probably less than $500 dollars and often times much less than that.
maybe we Americans need more hobbies like the chinese. wonder what the chicoms do when “obviously a hobby balloon” floats over or maybe a hobby drone with cams “accidentally” crosses their border? the easy way to stop all speculation would be to print HOBBY BALLOON on the balloons in large letters. in English for them and in Chinese for us. call it “hobbiest truth in advertising” and everyone will believe it. I guarantee it.
Here’s the tracking website I left off by mistake.
https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=5&qm=12h&mc=44.41809,-95.40527
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