An Illinois-based hobby group which uses $12 balloons with ham radios for a cheap high-altitude hobby says the object shot down over Yukon Territory on Feb. 11 likely belongs to them, Zero Hedge pointed out.

AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles,valued at around $400,000 each, were used in the 3 balloon shootdowns.

This is a pico balloon, and it may be what your government shot down with heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, which are worth over $400,000 each pic.twitter.com/c0Lb5EE2zE

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) February 16, 2023

please tell me the white house did not spend the month of february scrambling jets to fire $400,000 missiles at the local hobby club’s TWELVE DOLLAR BALLOON

lord have mercyhttps://t.co/4D7DaTncvT

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 16, 2023

A report in Aviation Week profiles the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) to learn that the hobby club’s silver-coated “pico balloon” was last picked up via radio signal on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and that it was projected to float over central Yukon territory the following day. It disappeared around the time and in the general location of the Feb.11 F-22 shootdown of an ‘unidentified object’ ordered by the White House, which grabbed media headlines.

Aviation Week Reported

A small, globe-trotting balloon declared “missing in action” by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on Feb. 15 has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by U.S. Air Force fighters since Feb. 10. 

According to a further description of the team of hobbyists’ balloon that went missing:

The descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down Feb. 10-12 match the shapes, altitudes and payloads of the small pico balloons, which can usually be purchased for $12-180 each, depending on the type.

“I’m guessing probably they were pico balloons,” said Tom Medlin, a retired FedEx engineer and co-host of the Amateur Radio Roundtable show. Medlin has three pico balloons in flight in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.