(NewsNation) — Speculation is rampart that an Illinois hobby group’s weather balloon may have been shot down by the U.S. military over the weekend. The U.S. heightened surveillance of the skies following a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon being shot down in early February.
On any given day, there are all kinds of objects and balloons in the sky — many sent up by researchers, private companies and hobbyists aiming to learn more about the atmosphere, science and engineering.
“It’s just the science community doing research,” said Ron Meadows of the California Near Space Project.
Fearing that innocent objects would be targeted following the U.S.’s takedown of the surveillance balloon, Meadows said he tried “to get the message to our military, letting them know that these things were flying.” He said the balloons sent up by researchers “pose no threat to any country,” and “only send down latitude, longitude, altitude, course and speed.”
In three consecutive days, the military shot down an object over the frozen coast of Alaska, a balloon over Canada and an object over Lake Huron. Friday, the White House defended that decision, despite acknowledging that they knew little about what had been shot down earlier in the week.
Now, theories are popping up on the internet that the object shot down over Canadian airspace may have belonged to hobbyists with the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, which formed in 2021 and describes itself as a group of 10 people, “aged 11 years old and up, kids, their parents and friends, some licensed in Amateur Radio some having an interest in science and engineering.”
While the group is declining interviews, a statement posted on its website said they had lost contact with one of their balloons the day before an object was shot down over Canada.
“There has been particular interest in one of our pico balloons, one that transmits call sign K9YO,” the group wrote on its website. “As noted on our ‘Locate and Track’ page and blog, the last transmission from that balloon received and reported to the WSPR system was on February 11, 2023, and indicated that balloon was near Hagemeister Island, off the southwest corner of Alaska. Since we have not found a transmission from that balloon since that time, we have declared it ‘Missing In Action,’ as we have with previous flights.”
The balloon in question had circumnavigated the globe six times and was nearing its seventh lap when the group lost contact with it last week, they wrote. They noted that it was not unusual for them to lose contact with balloons for long periods of time before reconnecting, and they were using weather modeling from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to try and predict where the balloon might go if it’s still in the air.
Aviation Week reports “other prominent members of the small, pico-ballooning enthusiasts’ community,” suspect the military may have shot down harmless objects.
As of Friday, neither the Illinois hobby group nor the U.S. military or government has confirmed what objects were shot down last weekend.