The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced on Friday that the search for debris from a “suspected balloon” shot down by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) over the Yukon a week earlier has been suspended. However, Downing noted the simple fact that balloon debris could be covered by snow within minutes of coming down in the winter, which could thwart even the most sophisticated and determined search effort. The RCMP says it has ended its search for an unidentified aerial object shot down over central Yukon last Saturday. According to NIBBB member Cary Willis, the club’s “pico balloon” was a 32-inch silver mylar sphere carrying a tiny radio tracker, a solar panel, and about 33 feet of antenna wire. The electronics package attached to a typical pico balloon weighs less than one ounce, but it can transmit a very low-power, low-bandwidth signal across thousands of miles.

Source: The Guardian February 22, 2023 01:21 UTC