Aviation Week reported that the club’s balloon had last been spotted on 10 February “off the west coast of Alaska”. “I tried contacting our military and the FBI – and just got the runaround – to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” said Ron Meadows, a Silicon Valley company founder that makes purpose-built balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists. A popular forecasting tool projected that the balloon “would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on February 11. “That is the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same general area.” https://freewestmedia.com/2023/02/17/us-hobby-club-fear-their-missing-weather-balloon-was-shot-down-by-usaf/