Look Up Montana, Another Balloon Over the Western US

Heads up Montanans. Looks like there is another high altitude balloon hovering over the US.

Remember the China spy balloon that was hovering over Billings, Montana?

Here's a story from KPAX-TV in Missoula:

The U.S. is tracking a high-altitude balloon flying over the Western part of the country, U.S. officials told CBS News. https://bit.ly/3IctbeY

CBS News says "Military aircraft have spotted the balloon and determined it is not a threat, but its origin and purpose are still unknown."

Montana's US Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) is already raising questions via X.com:

Sen. Daines: We still don’t have answers from the Chinese spy balloon and now we have another balloon floating across the country. @JoeBiden admin owes the country complete accountability.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), led by Daines, is also calling out Democrat Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) who downplayed the China spy balloon that flew over Montana.

NRSC: Wasn’t @JonTester supposed to be leading an investigation into the Chinese Spy Balloon? Any update there?

Here's part of what Larry had to say back in February of 2023:

Aaron Flint: There were a lot of things that weren't really adding up when these sightings first started happening, and then they they grounded flights at the Billings airport.

Larry Mayer: Yeah, right. And so that was the first call that I got. I've been flying in Montana for over 40 years now, and so I know a lot of people around the state- pilots and people involved in aviation. And so I got a call from somebody that said, why did they close the Billings airport? So I called the Billings airport and they said, 'No, the airport's not closed.' Then they call back five minutes later and said, 'Well, yeah, it is closed.' And I said, 'Well, who closed it?' And they said they didn't know- to contact the FAA. So this all happened on Wednesday. And so then I contacted the FAA, and they said, 'It's military and it's not our deal. Basically, everybody was passing the buck. And so I went on FlightAware, and you could see that there were air tankers out of Travis Air Force Base running a racetrack pattern over the Beartooth Mountains. And, you know, well I didn't know about the balloon at that time, we just knew that there was something going on. And then there were fighters that landed in Bozeman, and people were calling me from around asking me what was going on and heck, I didn't know. But I started toput all of those things together. And I know that tankers don't run a race track pattern. Typically, when they're doing a race track pattern, that's because they have some sort of tactical operation going on. I think that everybody everybody should know that they were very clearly going to shoot that thing down over the Beartooth Mountains. And because I also heard that they were preparing to put up a temporary flight restriction that would have encompassed an area from around Cooke City out to almost Billings.

Click here for that full story and audio from 2023.