PR100: Drone? Flying Car?

[NoParty]

No love?

It's the only site I've ever been on that had a designated "Kite Guy"!!

(and well-paid, too, is the rumor)

 

[JMartJr]

@JMartJr, PR100 shows something over water. I'm guessing it's not a kite (or something suspended from a kite) that is actually being flown by someone on a boat or rig or whateve

Maybe but I see no sign of it.

Would a "released" kite keep flying, or just tumble and fall? I suppose it could be blown some distance.

Normally if line tension is released the kite falls pretty quickly. In high ei d it can go a long way downwind, but it falls quickly.

An exception is when there is enough weight of line or a failed anchor or something, enough to keep tension on the line... in that case a kite can continue flying indefinitely as it heads off into the distanc. The is especially possible over water, the end of the line dragging through the water makes it more likely there will be enough drag to keep the line under tension

Forgive my ignorance, the last time (IIRC) I flew a kite was as a kid on holiday, I broke my arm. Turns out running backwards down a hillside with rocky outcrops is inadvisable, even if you're trying to get a stunt kite in the air. Memorably had my arm re-set without anaesthetic at a "cottage hospital" as the anaesthetist had just gone home. Things were not always better in the past!

Never run with a sport kite! I mean, you technically can, but you shouldn't need to and it is generally harde to steer while distracted with the running. Plus you might break your arm. If there is not enough wind, then do something else!

 

[jarlrmai]

Not sure if you were asking me, but a slight modification to "It is possibly (or probably) a balloon and the video is too poor to determine what exact type" would seem tome a reasonable reaction to the video as it has been presented.

At the time of filming, I would have expected an effort to be made to get closer and resolve what it is. Of course, such an effort mat have been made, and may have successfully resolved the object... but if so we do not have that video. It may be significant, how few of these videos show the complete incident, and specifically how it ended. One might winder if the part where they fly over and see the string under the balloon is pruned, in order to have a UAP video to send in ..

I was asking @Hwy666

 

[Eburacum]

Looks like a moderate sized bunch of party balloons to me. I released a bunch of similar balloons once, down the Teign river valley; they rose rapidly at first, but reached a kind of stable height at two or three thousand feet before they disappeared into the distance.

 

[Hwy666]

They get mentioned quite frequently on Metabunk, e.g. threads

Just not in this thread. Until I brought it up.

Looks like a moderate sized bunch of party balloons to me. I released a bunch of similar balloons once, down the Teign river valley; they rose rapidly at first, but reached a kind of stable height at two or three thousand feet before they disappeared into the distance.

Wow this site is like a balloonapalooza.

This guy is another example of someone who I think is doing things the right way. He's actually going outside with a FLIR camera and taking footage of a variety of aircraft from different angles. He's going over incidents that are not PR100 but his findings are very relevant.

And yes, he's got some balloons in there too!


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZUGmCQwPf8

 

[John J.]

This guy is another example of someone who I think is doing things the right way. ...He's going over incidents that are not PR100 but his findings are very relevant.

From approx. 3 mins. 39 secs. into the video,

...you have a supposed balloon, which I'm assuming is like a weather balloon made out of latex, which most weather balloons are made out of.

(My emphasis).

(1) Most weather balloons are made out of latex, most does not mean all.

The Jimsphere is a type of metallized weather balloon much used by NASA.

The Jimsphere now being produced is a balloon two meters in diameter, made of lightweight, flexible, radar-reflective materials. Ground radar, navaids or theodolites track position and collect wind data from the balloon at altitudes up to about 10 miles. Jimsphere data was used in the design of the Saturn vehicles, the Space Shuttle and other launch systems. The balloon has supplied pre-launch wind data for all NASA/Air Force ground-based rocket launches from Cape Kennedy, Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base.

From NASA Spinoff/ technology transfer program webpage "Wind Monitor", 1996 https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1996/48.html

From a webpage of its former manufacturer, Meteorological Products Incorporated https://www.jimsphere.com/index.php

(Meteorological Products Incorporated appears to have been taken over by Orbital Sciences Corporation (see the NASA article), itself taken over by Northrop Grumman; Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_Corporation)

NASA has found metallized balloons useful in weather forecasting, other agencies/ nations might have come to the same conclusion.


(2) Why assume it's a weather balloon?

Post #30 gave three examples of US military personnel misperceiving or engaging mylar party balloons (one, Scott Kelly's, only briefly).
Kirkpatrick and Kelly's accounts make it clear the objects in question were party balloons; it looks very likely the USN or USMC WSO's photo is of a party balloon.

We know from Iraq that Mylar party balloons remain popular even in nations where there is conflict.
Groups in Syria and Gaza have used party balloons as improvised air defences (of dubious value) and to carry incendiaries/ explosives.
Yemen has long been a troubled nation and it is probable some of its factions have links to militant groups elsewhere in the Middle East (e.g. the Houthis with Hamas in Gaza), perhaps they might try similar tactics.

There are other types of balloon used for practical purposes, not just weather balloons. Some of these are metallized.
A radar calibration balloon, again from the Meteorological Products Inc. website https://www.jimsphere.com/radarcalibration.php

Pico balloons can be either latex or Mylar.

The payload of a pico balloon is so light (between 12 to 30 grams) that you can use a large Mylar party balloon filled with helium to lift it.

IEEE Spectrum, 31 Jan 2026 https://spectrum.ieee.org/explore-stratosphere-diy-pico-balloon

The subject of DOW-PR071, shot down using a Sidewinder AAM on 12 Feb. 2023, was almost certainly a Pico balloon,
thread DoW R2 - PR071 - (Lake Huron F16 vs UAP),
NPR website "Did an F-22 shoot down an Illinois hobby group's small radio balloon?", 18 Jan. 2023 https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1158048921/pico-balloon-k9yo,

...an intriguing theory quickly emerged in the community of hobbyist balloon enthusiasts: that a high-altitude "pico" balloon, similar to a Mylar party balloon, was shot out of the sky.

The balloon in question (Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade's K9YO-15) might not have been Mylar, but many pico balloons are.


The guy in the YouTube video makes assumptions which seem to be aimed at making his audience conclude that the object in the video he's discussing can't be a balloon.
He assumes that if the object is a balloon, it is a weather balloon. He doesn't explain how he came to this conclusion.
He assumes that a weather balloon must be made out of latex. That isn't always the case.

The video uses faulty premises (a balloon must be a weather balloon, a weather balloon must be latex) and so the conclusion is unreliable.
I don't know what the object is, and I don't know what PR100 is. But this video doesn't rule out either being balloons.