Illinois hobby group says their Alaska balloon is ‘missing in action’

A group of balloon hobbyists say one of their small balloons is missing off the coast of Alaska, near where the U.S. military shot down an unknown floating object on Saturday.

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade said the last transmission of balloon K9YO came last Saturday near Hagemeister Island, an uninhabited island off the southwest coast of Alaska. 

The balloon is small, about 32 inches wide, and the group noted that it isn’t uncommon to lose contact with its balloons. While the group is not accusing the government of shooting down its balloon, they are also awaiting news of when the remains of the object are collected by the military.

“As has been widely reported, no part of the object shot down by the U.S. Air Force jet over the Yukon territory has been recovered,” the group said in a statement on their website. “Until that happens and that object is confirmed to be an identifiable pico balloon, any assertions or claims that our balloon was involved in that incident are not supported by facts.”

Balloon K9YO was launched in October of last year and has circumnavigated the globe six times.

The hobbyist group has launched more than two dozen solar-powered balloons since its formation in 2021.

The group has not responded to a request for comment.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said no group has formally come forward to claim ownership of any of the objects shot down by the U.S. military in recent weeks.

“We just can’t confirm those reports or what the remains of that balloon might actually end up being,” he said at a briefing Friday.

President Biden said the objects are “most likely” tied to private research firms.

“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” Biden said in prepared remarks from the White House on Thursday.