Yeah, the government definitely doesn’t have it already. /s

"The search for debris from an object that was shot down over Lake Huron has been suspended, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)."

"A U.S. fighter jet shot down an "unidentified object" over Lake Huron on Sunday on orders from U.S. President Joe Biden, according to the Pentagon."

"The object was first detected Saturday evening over Montana, but was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday, where it was hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, heading over Lake Huron."

"Once the object was shot down, Canadian and American authorities deployed search crews, who scoured the waters for four days before being called down."

"After conducting an extensive search in the Lake Huron area with the assistance of the Canadian Coast Guard and other domestic and international partners, a decision was reached to suspend the search due to several factors including deteriorating weather and the low probability of recovery," said the RCMP in a statement issued Thursday."

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Right, Im sure the recovery team was enroute at the same time as the missle

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The one shot down over Alaska/Canada was, SURPRISE, an amateur radio balloon with a WSPR transmitter. Oops

Edit, autocorrect to swear word

You just know that debris is headed to Groom Lake.

Article, for those interested. It's not yet confirmed, but it's certainly likely: https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf

Heck yeah! Thanks.

Imagine explaining to your boss why you used a 400k$ missile to shoot down an amateur radio balloon.

Wasn’t that search just cruelty to the horses?

The boss told them to.

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Gordon Lightfoot should sing a song about this.

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It's tough finding "smithereens" in the snow.

It's crazy people would float these and not perform the required notifications. Just rando balloons floating around at 8 or 10 miles. I suspect there will be some new laws/fines announced, and communications to local clubs.

https://www.eoss.org/pubs/faqloon.htm

"Unmanned Free Balloons are covered under section 101 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) along with Moored Balloons, Kites and Unmanned Rockets. Call your local control tower and they will mail you a copy of this section. Be prepared to play some telephone tag.

NOTIFYING THE FAA: The FAA wants to know about your flight at least one week in advance. If this is your first flight, call them a month in advance and talk things over with them. You will typically want to call the local "Center". Here in Wisconsin, we call Chicago center. If you can't find their number in the yellow pages, under Department of Transportation, try calling the local airport control tower. Be prepared to play some telephone tag. If other people in your area are flying balloons, ask them who they talk to and get the number from them. (See The Most Important Rule above.)

The FAA center will want to know when you intend to launch, where from (distance and direction from a town on a map), how high you expect to go and what direction you expect it to travel in. This last part can be hard to answer a week in advance, but generally it will follow the prevailing winds in your area. Here in Wisconsin, we always guess that the balloon will travel to the south east. You should also leave your number in case they have questions. If the person you want to speak to isn't in, be sure to leave your name and number so they can get back to you.

24 hours before launch, you have to call your local Flight Service Station (FSS) and file a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) giving the launch site, date and time, expected max altitude, expected rate of climb, expected direction of travel and landing spot. Your local FSS will have an 800 number. These people can also give you the winds aloft if you ask. Most pilots have no use for winds aloft over 30,000 feet, so tell the FSS that you're launching a balloon and ask for wind speed and direction for as high as they have data for. This will typically be about 50-60 thousand feet. Try to get the winds aloft for a reporting station to the west of you because 24 hours later, those winds will have likely moved to your location.

Call FSS the morning of the launch for current winds aloft. You can then get a pretty good idea of where it's going to go so your chase crew can position themselves accordingly.

Call the FSS as soon as you launch and give them your estimated climb speed. They probably won't need to hear anything else from you until the balloon goes above 60,000 feet. Once above 60k, you're in uncontrolled airspace and the FAA doesn't have to worry about you, so tell them when you pass 60k. Call them again when you descend below 60k and when you land."

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Yes, I didn't read all of this because amateur balloons operators are quite well informed of the rules.

To be clear, amateur radio balloonists do this constantly. The w5kub balloon has gone around the world 14 or 15 times.

The fault is not on the operators of the craft, but the owners of billions of dollars of tech equipment and can't find a balloon repeating its own name every 10 minutes.

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