Posted on 02/17/2023 8:39:18 AM PST by george76
Small pico balloons typically range between $12 and $180 while an F-22 Raptor is estimated to be around $200 million
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Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter Thursday to criticize Joe Biden for ordering an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down what may have been a hobby club’s science project off the coast of Alaska earlier last week.
Cruz, R-Texas, joked that Biden’s decision to authorize the $200 million fighter jet to use a $400,000 missile to shoot down what may have been a $12 balloon serves as a "powerful deterrence" to high school students interested in creating their own at-home science balloons.
The comment came after the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade’s (NIBBB), an Illinois-based hobbyist club, said their pico balloon that was floating off the west coast of Alaska went missing the same day a Lockheed Martin jet shot down an unidentified object matching its description.
"To be fair, Biden is providing is powerful deterrence for any high school science clubs that might try to invade America…." Cruz wrote on Twitter.
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The club’s globe-trotting balloon, which was last reported to be hovering at 38,910 ft. on Feb. 10, may have been one of three unidentified aerial objects the U.S. Air Force shot out of the sky
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The group said that its trajectory put it directly over the central Yukon Territory on Feb. 11, where an object was shot out of the sky.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said the objects shot down Feb. 10-12 may not have been from China or another foreign country but "could just be balloons."
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Small pico balloons typically range between $12 and $180. They often carry an 11-gram tracker, with HF and VHF/UHG antennas to update their positions as they travel around the world, according to Aviation Week.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Judgment is now kicking in and I am just not going to take that bait.
If they were able to get the coordinates of these “objects” by sending F22 and F16s to shoot them down, why couldn’t satellites have zoomed in on what it was and taken some pictures so we can all see these mysterious crafts? Why is nobody asking this question to the officials?
I really, really thought this was going to be Bee…
Dang.
We can read your license plate from space, but we can neither confirm nor deny that national defense is a CF.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AMAdkJMqw-M
No wonder the DOD is being so evasive about the octagonal (really it was hexagonal) "object".
Remember: "Lock your doors tonight!" There could be a hobby lobby balloon in your neighbor hood.
OMG Charlie Kirk has had me laughing so hard I was crying, shooting down a $12.00 balloon with a $400 thousand dollar missal AND the first missal missed so that was another $400 thousand dollars!! You just can’t make this stuff up!!! They are on a rampage shooting EVERYTHING out of the sky, for God’s sake whatever you do don’t buy your kid a kite LOL, LOL!!!
Lol, is he kidding? It serves as a powerful incentive! What high school student wouldn't love to be able to summon an F-22 fighter jet to spectacularly and shoot something down for him and his friends for a measly twelve bucks?
The farmer’s insurance guy was killed by an drone strike. The Biden admin said they had to take those balloons out before he set them free.
What next, shooting down kites with Stealth Bombers?
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