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BREAKING NEWS: A JLENS blimp that has been tethered at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland has broken free Wednesday and is being tracked by two fighter jets traveling over Pennsylvania at 16,000 feet, a NORAD spokesman said.

An Army blimp broke loose from its mooring at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland around noon and is now being tracked by two U.S. fighter jets, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The untethered device is part of what's known as a JLENS, or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System. It consists of two aerostats that float 10,000 feet in the air and carry powerful radars that detect airborne threats. The system is manufactured by Raytheon.

CARSON – The Goodyear Blimp bobbles a few feet of the ground, awaiting one of its final takeoffs. “We’re coming off the mast,” pilot Bill Bayliss announces, as the 192-foot blimp is freed from its mooring. The Spirit of America will rise above the hustle-and-bustle of I-405 one last time on Monday, and cruise toward Tustin’s aging World War II blimp hangar. Five days later, the blimp will emerge as five tons of museum exhibits, recyclable rubber and spare parts.

Does it make sense to fly a blimp for Ted Cruz?At least one, probably several. Can enough money be raised?No doubt. What else will it take?To do the Ted Cruz Blimp successfully and efficiently we’ll have many teams working together. We put the Ron Paul Blimp teams together in about six weeks in 2007 and, even though we did quite well, we also made a lot of mistakes. Because we have more time now to do better advance planning, we can be even more efficient and more successful with the Ted Cruz Blimp. Teams Before we raise any money or...

U.S. Air Force Col. William Pitts stands in front of an unmanned aerostat that is part of a new U.S. military cruise-missile defense system during a media preview on Dec. 17, 2014, in Middle River, Md. Patrick Semansky/AP************************************ MIDDLE RIVER, Md. -- The Army showed off a blimp-like airship Wednesday that is designed to help the military detect and destroy cruise missiles speeding toward the nation's capital or other major East Coast cities. The radar-toting vehicle will be launched next week as part of a three-year test of the system at Aberdeen Proving Ground, about 25 miles northeast of Baltimore....

ABERDEEN, Md. (WJZ)—Soon, Maryland will be the home to a couple of new landmarks. Actually, sky-marks. As Mike Schuh reports, two large blimps will soon rise over Harford County and stay put. Radar blimps like these have been used on the battlefield to track the enemy, and in the Caribbean to intercept drug runners. Testing in Utah is complete. Now they’re being packed up and sent to Maryland. “There is some equipment already on grounds, yes,” said Kelly Luster, a spokesman for Aberdeen Proving Ground. What will they be looking for? Anti-ship cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft and swarming boats. These...

The aerostats — that is the term for lighter-than-air craft that are tethered to the ground — are to be set aloft on Army-owned land about 45 miles northeast of Washington, near Aberdeen Proving Ground, for a three-year test slated to start in October. From a vantage of 10,000 feet, they will cast a vast radar net from Raleigh, N.C., to Boston and out to Lake Erie, with the goal of detecting cruise missiles or enemy aircraft so they could be intercepted before reaching the capital. Defense contractor Raytheon last year touted an exercise in which it outfitted the aerostats...

The U.S. military is preparing for the maiden flight of a football-field-size airship laden with surveillance gear designed to do the work of a dozen drones—and destined for Afghanistan. The experimental craft, known as the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV, is designed to loiter over combat zones for weeks at a time, outfitted with high-tech sensors that can intercept phone calls, shoot full-motion video or track the movement of insurgents. [Full article available only to subscribers.]

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird… it's a plane… it's a… wind turbine? Altaeros Energies, a Massachusetts-based company formed by MIT and Harvard grads, has aimed high — literally — in its quest to deliver power to remote, off-the-grid locations, creating a blimp that harnesses the power of the wind at 1,000 feet up. The prototype, seen in this video, is a large helium-filled shell that looks almost like a jet engine (or, as we suspect more than a few people thought when it was tested in Maine earlier this year, a UFO). Attached to a trailer on...

A $150million U.S. Army airship crash landed in woods today after it could only reach half of its expected altitude on a test flight. The unmanned solar-powered airship was only in the air for less than three hours after it launched in Akron, Ohio, on Wednesday morning. It ascended as planned up to 32,000ft but the Lockheed Martin airship then encountered problems and was not able to get up to 60,000ft. A decision was made to end the flight and make what the company called a ‘controlled descent’ into a remote area in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

As I've noted, the 2012 Republican presidential primary will be vastly different from the 2008 race. Back then Ron paul was roundly derided for endorsing the traditional conservative approach toward foreign policy. This time around, a lot of the others are going to have to make a choice between conservatism and the liberal internationalism of the so-called "neo" conservatives. This piece on Haley Barbour from The Hill shows that the debate has begun: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) may have set the tone for the foreign policy debate in the Republican presidential nominating contest when he questioned the war in...

Dick Morris Calls Ron Paul "Horrific", Hangs Up On Peter Schiff (Audio at YouTube)

(Reuters) - A proposed unmanned floating airship surveillance system is being hailed by city officials in Ogden, Utah as one way to fight crime in its neighborhoods. "We believe it will be a deterrent to crime when it is out and about and will help us solve crimes more quickly when they do occur," Ogden City Mayor Matthew Godfrey told Reuters. The airship entails military technology now available to local law enforcement, he said. Godfrey floated the idea of a dirigible in the skies above Ogden for his city council members last week. The council is expected to vote on...

Long before the tea party movement grabbed half a dozen Senate seats, before its early proponents ever even dreamed of wearing Colonial-era garb in public, there was longtime Texas Republican Ron Paul, the one guy in Congress trying to abolish the Federal Reserve and shrink the government into near nonexistence. Paul won a devoted-bordering-on-cultish following during his 2008 presidential run, one which, obviously, didn't work out. But now Paul is telling the Times that "it’s at least 50-50" that he'll try again in 2012, and this time, with the movement built largely on his libertarian philosophy now a real force...

Freedom's Phoenix is reporting great interest in the TSA Opt-Out Bags they are handing out at Sky Harbor Airport - one of the first airports to "test" strip-search machines. The bags contain a clean pair of gloves for those inclined to a feel-up, so that the TSA agent won't give them whatever cooties are on the used gloves, but also a DVD of Rep. Dr. RON PAUL, the gentleman who introduced the Traveler Dignity Act in Congress, and the number of Marc Victor, esq., who will be happy to represent them in any false arrest or litigation stemming from the...

“Who’s the fat man in the cap?” - this delightful question was put to me this afternoon by a younger cousin looking over my shoulder, who is just about to start at university. The fat man in the cap, as it happens, is Michael Moore. And how wonderfully satisfying it is to hear that the liberal film-maker is not as well-known as once he was. It’s telling, too, that I found myself explaining him using Al Gore as a comparison - the green crusader has utterly eclipsed Moore with An Inconvenient Truth. Interested to see if my cousin represented a...

FOB WARRIOR — Pre-deployment training prepares Soldiers for a wide range of missions they may encounter. Flying a blimp is typically not one of them. Or at least it wasn't for Soldiers here, until a new surveillance blimp took its place in the skies above FOB Warrior. The blimp began operating June 28, and is part of a growing number of these blimps currently being used across Iraq. This equipment takes a special group of Soldiers operating day and night to keep it in the air and out of harm's way. "If the blimp starts losing helium, or if it...

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2009 – A giant, unmanned airship capable of hovering at about 70,000 feet promises to give future warfighters an unprecedented eye on the battlefield. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Integrated Sensor is Structure program, ISIS for short, will provide a detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield. Defense DoD graphic courtesy of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Integrated Sensor is Structure program, ISIS for short, will provide a detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield, explained...

The giant dirigible would use radar to closely and constantly monitor activity on the ground from 65,000 feet. The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below. "It is absolutely revolutionary," Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship -- describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane. The 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a...

Clark native Tim Lichardus hasn't had a place to call home for the last 12 years -- no apartment, no house, no timeshare. His job as a blimp crewman requires him to live out of a suitcase 11 months of the year. But the job is not without perks. There's no mortgage, no rent and no lawn. In addition, he's traveled to Jerusalem, Rio de Janeiro and China. But he isn't the one waving to worshippers, tourists and sports fans from a thousand feet in the air. He's on terra firma -- come rain, snow or heavy winds -- directing...