In the United States, in 2023, a balloon mistaken for a UFO was shot down with a $500,000 rocket.

In 2023, a balloon was shot down in the United States with a $500,000 rocket, mistaking it for an unidentified flying object (UFO). This was reported on June 6 by the New York Post (NYP) newspaper with reference to the former head of the Office for the Study of Comprehensive Anomalous Phenomena (AARO), Sean Kirkpatrick.

"The Air Force (Air Force. On February 12, 2023, the United States sent an F-16 fighter jet to confront an apparently "invading" object over Lake Huron, smashing it to smithereens, probably with an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile," the text of the message says.

According to the publication, the balloon was launched by Boy Scouts as part of a research project. According to Kirkpatrick, the object managed to "circumnavigate the world eight times" before it was shot down by an expensive missile. The incident occurred a week after the incident with the Chinese spy balloon, which the administration of former American leader Joe Biden did not shoot down for five days.

It is noted that some videos on which UFOs were allegedly seen are published by the administration of the American President Donald Trump. They show how ordinary objects were mistaken for operators of Reaper drones.

According to the text, in another case, an American fighter pilot reported encountering a UFO that had "stealth aircraft capabilities" and received permission to launch a rocket. However, the object also turned out to be an ordinary balloon.

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On May 22, Reuters reported that the Pentagon had released a second batch of previously classified documents about alleged UFO sightings in the United States. The head of the department, Pete Hegseth, said that documents, photographs and videos of what is officially known as "unidentified anomalous phenomena" have long generated speculation.