Unidentified Objects/Balloons Intercepted by US aircraft

[Arthur 33]

Canadian authorities have released an image of an unidentified object that was shot down over the country's Yukon Territory by a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter in February 2023. This is the first image of any of a trio of still-unidentified objects that were downed over the United States and Canada that month, details about which remain scant. The new disclosure continues to raise more questions about those incidents given that the picture appears to have been declassified within days of the shootdown, but was then withheld from release until now.

Source: https://www.twz.com/air/first-look-at-mystery-object-shot-down-over-canada-by-f-22-raptor-last-year

My initial thoughts are about time. Now we have the first photo of what is assuredly many more photos and videos.

Some people are saying this "packman" object was taken by a aircraft looking directly up at it. But that is just a rumor that has not been verified. Also surveillance pods/planes don't typically take photo/video looking directly up. Far more likely to be a side view from miles away.

 

[deirdre]

View attachment 71818

Canadian authorities have released an image of an unidentified object that was shot down over the country's Yukon Territory by a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter in February 2023. This is the first image of any of a trio of still-unidentified objects that were downed over the United States and Canada that month, details about which remain scant. The new disclosure continues to raise more questions about those incidents given that the picture appears to have been declassified within days of the shootdown, but was then withheld from release until now.

Source: https://www.twz.com/air/first-look-at-mystery-object-shot-down-over-canada-by-f-22-raptor-last-year

My initial thoughts are about time. Now we have the first photo of what is assuredly many more photos and videos.

Some people are saying this "packman" object was taken by a aircraft looking directly up at it. But that is just a rumor that has not been verified. Also surveillance pods/planes don't typically take photo/video looking directly up. Far more likely to be a side view from miles away.

Discussion of that release is discussed inthis thread:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/im...us-object-shot-down-over-yukon-in-2023.13668/

 

[Arthur 33]

So we got a new update from Sean Kirkpatrick on this event. Just adding this for the record.

0:00 – 0:12
"And we all saw the result of what happens when you turn those filters off. When we turned those filters off after the Chinese high-altitude balloon… what did we do? We scrambled jets…
"0:12 – 0:22
"…and shot down a bunch of things. Do you know what we shot down? Balloons."
0:22 – 0:44
"And the worst one — absolute worst one — was they shot down a balloon that had a tethered package on the bottom. It had a transponder on it that was built, flown, and operated by a Boy Scout group. It had circumnavigated the globe eight times before we shot it down…"
0:44 – 1:06
"…with a half-million-dollar missile. Awesome. Fantastic. You can imagine the response on the Hill when I briefed that. On top of other balloons would be seen. And this is my point…"
1:06 – 1:30
"These weapons systems aren't meant to characterize [or] understand things. There was another balloon that was shot down, and the pilot described it as having potential stealth-like capabilities that they couldn't get a good lock on it. And the reason you can do that is because it was star-shaped Mylar balloons from Walmart…"
1:30 – 1:39
"…that said 'Happy Birthday' on the side. We got a real nice close-up in the AIM missile before it blew up."

Source:
Source: https://x.com/MickWest/status/2048810276720640376


I don't find this explanation satisfying personally. I would like to see the video he claims was captured by a AIM missile.

 

[John J.]

[Quoting Sean Kirkpatrick] "...they shot down a balloon that had a tethered package on the bottom. It had a transponder on it that was built, flown, and operated by a Boy Scout group. It had circumnavigated the globe eight times before we shot it down..."

Is there any other evidence for a balloon circumnavigating the globe eight times?

In 1973 the Boomerang project, funded by NASA and managed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, used a large experimental balloon to "circumnavigate" the world twice, although at southerly latitudes, not equatorially/ in a plane intersecting with the Earth's centre.

Science News 103 (14), 07 April 1973 "Twice Round the World by Boomerang Balloon", https://www.sciencenews.org/archive/twice-round-world-boomerang-balloon

I expect things have moved on a lot since 1973, but an amateur balloon circumnavigating the world eight times?

I've had a very quick look online at long endurance balloon flights e.g. "Aerostar Thunderhead Balloon System Breaks World Record for Stratospheric Flight Duration", Aerostar website, 26 March 2025 https://aerostar.com/news/aerostar-...orld-record-for-stratospheric-flight-duration, and
"GUSTO Breaks NASA Scientific Balloon Record for Days in Flight" NASA, 26 Feb 2024, Olivia F. Littleton https://www.nasa.gov/missions/scien...scientific-balloon-record-for-days-in-flight/.
The Aerostar balloon "travelled more than 80,500 nautical miles", 149086 km. The Earth's equatorial diameter is 40,075 km, 21,639 nautical miles. The balloon didn't follow a circumnavigation route, but in distance terms it's equivalent to approx. 3.72 times around the equator.

I would be surprised if a Scout troop's balloon project had come close to this, even if we allow "circumnavigation" to be at a high latitude (and therefore much shorter than e.g. an equatorial flight).

 

[Mendel]

I would be surprised if a Scout troop's balloon project had come close to this, even if we allow "circumnavigation" to be at a high latitude (and therefore much shorter than e.g. an equatorial flight).

I wouldn't. Possibly Kirkpatrick is talking about these guys:

Possible source for the "cylindrical" object.

Hobby Club's Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF

A small, globe-trotting balloon declared "missing in action" by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on Feb. 15 has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by U.S. Air Force fighters since Feb. 10.

The club—the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB)—is not pointing fingers yet.

But the circumstantial evidence is at least intriguing. The club's silver-coated, party-style, "pico balloon" reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and a popular forecasting tool—the HYSPLIT model provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—projected the cylindrically shaped object would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11. That is the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same general area.

From their homepage:
https://nibbb.org/highlights-of-the-nibbb/

February 14th 2023, Pico Balloon K9YO Missing in Action and 7th Circumnavigation of Pico Balloon KD9UQB launched from Antarctica
After 123 days of flight, Pico Balloon K9YO goes Missing in Action over Yukon Territory, Canada on February 14th 2023. Pico Balloon KD9UQB launched from Antarctica, flying 7 times around the world in 82 days will become missing in action near Peru after 100 days of flight due to high storms.

These pico balloons can do a lot nowadays.