Aircraft Downed by US Over Alaska May Be Hobby Club's Lost Cheap Balloon, Media Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The unidentified aerial object downed by the United States over Alaska last week may be, in fact, a missing balloon belonging to a hobby club from the state of Illinois worth between $12 and $180, US media reported on Friday.

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) club said on Wednesday that one of their balloons went missing over uninhabited areas in Alaska on February 10, one day before Washington announced another high-altitude object had been eliminated over US territory.

While the club itself does not argue that it was its flying device that was shot down by the US military, the American media said there are too many coincidences in the case. Given the last reported position of the club’s balloon and a projection made with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration model, according to the media, on February 11, the NIBBB’s device could have been in the same area over the central part of Yukon Territory where a US F-22 fighter destroyed one of the balloons.

Aviation Week specified that, depending on type, balloons usually used by hobby clubs can cost between $12 and $180.

In February, the US military shot down four unidentified aircraft in its airspace. Washington claimed one of them was a Chinese surveillance balloon, while the nature of the other balloons remains unidentified.