John Kirby defends the possibility Biden had an F-22 shoot down a $10 hobbyist balloon

Doug P. | 3:31 PM on February 17, 2023

It’s looking increasingly like one of the “objects” that the Biden White House ordered to be shot down after allowing the Chinese spy aircraft to float across the entire country might be a $10 to $15 balloon that belonged to a hobby club.

Politico now has the story:

It’s possible that the object shot down by American forces over the Yukon last weekend “could have been our balloon,” a member of an Illinois hobbyist group said Friday.

On Thursday, news surfaced that an amateur group in Illinois said one of its balloons had gone missing near Alaska on Saturday, the same day an F-22 shot down an object over the Yukon in Canada. In a blog post on the group’s website on Tuesday, it said the balloon had gone “missing in action” but avoided making any connection with the military shoot-down.
[…]
Balloons flown by the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade are no different from the $10 to $15 balloons children buy for parties, the person said. They’re not specifically designed for scientific purposes. The Sidewinder missile used by the Air Force to shoot down the object over the Yukon costs roughly $400,000.

John Kirby was asked about that today and danced around the issue:

John Kirby seems skeptical of press reporting that unidentified objects could have belonged to the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade. pic.twitter.com/KMod3MASqb

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 17, 2023

.@JacquiHeinrich: "What can you tell Americans about what they should expect in the future…if they see something in the air, should there be any concern that a missile's going to follow it?"

JOHN KIRBY: "Again, we're not going to rule anything out…" pic.twitter.com/fmGKhwE7bA

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 17, 2023