A balloon shot down on Feb. 11 over Canada's Yukon Territory is believed to have belonged to an Illinois-based hobbyist club, the Aviation Week Network reported on Thursday.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade declared Wednesday that their silver-coated balloon is "missing in action" after last reporting its position at 38,910 feet on Friday off the west coast of Alaska.
The forecasting tool known as HYSPLIT projected that the cylindrically-shaped "pico balloon" would float over the Yukon Territory on the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 struck the object, the outlet noted.
Pico balloons, Forbes noted, measure things like humidity, pressure, and temperature before relaying the information through VHF/UHF antennas. Hobbyists then use ham radios to obtain weather data.
Although National Security Council spokesman John Kirby floated the possibility Tuesday that the objects were just "balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose," hobbyists say they are having difficulty reaching the government.
"I tried contacting our military and the FBI and just got the runaround," said Scientific Balloon Solutions founder Ron Meadows, adding that he was trying "to enlighten them" about pico balloons and that "they're going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down."
News of the rogue balloon comes after the U.S. government shot down three unidentified flying objects over Alaska, Canada, and Lake Huron near Michigan. So far, the U.S. has reportedly been unable to retrieve the debris.
The decision to down the three objects followed a Chinese balloon entering U.S. airspace in late January. Pentagon officials have attributed its purpose to surveillance, while China maintains that it was off-course and meant to track weather.