Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF

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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 15th February 2023 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 10th February 2023.

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 10th February 2023 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.

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Massive X2-Class Solar Flare During Geomagnetic Storm Watch

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A massive solar flare erupted from the sun on Friday 17th February 2023 as the Earth was under a geomagnetic storm watch from flares earlier in the week.

The huge solar flare, which registered as a powerful X2.2 sun storm, occurred began at 2:38 p.m. EST (1938 GMT) and reached its peak strength 48 minutes later. From start to finish, the intense solar storm lasted one hour and 12 minutes, and created temporary radio blackouts on the sunlit side of Earth, according to an alert(opens in new tab) from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Group operated by NOAA. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of the new flare.

The X2.2 solar flare followed a series of strong flares and a coronal mass ejection from the sun in recent days, including a strong X1.1 flare on Feb. 11. Those sun storms prompted space weather experts to issue a geomagnetic storm warning for northern latitudes from Feb. 16 to Feb. 18 that could make auroras visible as far south as Idaho and New York, as well as affect communications and other systems, according to the alert.

See the video - https://videos.space.com/m/8QcCX13G/sun-blasts-powerful-x2-class-solar-flare-spacecraft-sees-it?list=9wzCTV4g