The Pentagon wasted more than $1.5 million destroying innocuous ‘UFOs,’ one of which was likely a balloon launched by a hobbyist group that cost as little as $12.
The sequence of shootdowns happened when a Chinese high-altitude balloon crossed American airspace in late January, despite Beijing’s claims that it was collecting meteorological data and had wandered off course due to wind.
Before he ordered its destruction, Biden allowed the balloon to fly above the United States, including military bases and other sensitive areas.
Due to Biden’s failure to take down the Chinese spy balloon before it entered the U.S., his administration felt a show of force by the United States military was necessary. This resulted in a mini-UFO scare that held the nation’s attention for days. It seemed that balloons were everywhere.
So where did the money go? Four AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles costing around $400,000 each were deployed to shoot down the ‘UFOs’ above Alaska, Lake Huron, and the Yukon area in Canada.
A second missile fired at an object above one of Michigan’s Great Lakes completely missed its mark. Not to add that the airspace around Montanna was restricted. The U.S. military said the following day that a radar anomaly led to the brief closing of airspace in Montana, and no dangerous objects were found.
The Wall Street Journal found that the $1.5 million cost to monitor the objects was likely substantially greater owing to all the other elements involved. According to the newspaper, the flights needed to locate the balloons and subsequently shoot them down are not included in the cost estimates since the U.S. military considers them part of its pilots’ training and has already budgeted for those flight hours.
This past Monday, during a news conference, Joe Biden confessed that the military had employed sophisticated air-to-air missiles fired from super expensive fighter planes to destroy what were “probably” weather balloons.
As previously stated, the hobbyist club known as the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade was missing a silver-coated, party-style “pico balloon” that was last seen at virtually the same location and height as the “UFO” that crashed in the Yukon Territory. It was presumably destroyed by a rocket costing $400,000, despite the fact that the hobby balloon cost only $12. This a terrific use of tax dollars!
Ron Meadows, the inventor of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), which manufactures balloons for enthusiasts, remarked that he had attempted to contact the military and the FBI to inform them of what many of these objects are likely to be, but he received the runaround. Meadows said the government is going to look stupid by shooting them down.
Meanwhile, there is a belief by several observers that the UFO hoax was only a convenient diversion designed to cover the tale of U.S. participation in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.