(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A suburban ham radio club is missing one of its transcontinental balloons. It disappeared as the U.S. began shooting down unknown objects.
Balloon K9-YO had been aloft for more than 120 days and traversed the globe five times before it was deemed “missing in action” by members of the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB).
The club — inspired by the movie “Up” — launched the small Pico balloon back in October from a Libertyville forest preserve.
It wrote on its webpage it was last tracked over an uninhabited island off the Alaskan coast. The balloon could reach heights of about 50,000 feet and followed federal regulations for launching balloons.
The post on NIBBB’s website made no mention that the club’s balloon was shot down. The site Aviation Week Network, though, suggested that based on the balloon’s trajectory, the NIBBB balloon might have been what an Air Force jet shot down over Canada’s Yukon Territory.
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