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 that another high-altitude object had been eliminated over US territory.
Estimates suggest that the actual price of the balloon varies from $12 to $180, depending on the type.
While the club itself does not argue that it was indeed its flying device that was shot down by the US military, Aviation Week suggested that there are 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 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 the object.
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.