UPDATE 2/2/23:

Multiple sources are now confirming the object is a Chinese spy satellite and officials are continuing to track it.

Reportedly, the US military considered shooting it down over Montana!

(Original story) Skygazers around the Billings area are wondering what the heck was clearly visible in the skies above Yellowstone County Wednesday afternoon. Including this author. I'm a total amateur, but I do spend a lot of time looking up and can identify most of the celestial bodies, comets, space rocket launches, etc. As for what I saw today, well... I'm not sure exactly what we were looking at. Below is a video I shot from my deck around 4 pm on 2/1/23.

Sorry for the somewhat shaky footage. It was windy and cold and I didn't have a tripod for my phone or a telescope. When I looked at the orb-shaped object with my fairly low-powered binoculars, I couldn't discern much more detail than the images below. I first spotted the object around 4 pm and it didn't appear to move much (if at all) for well over an hour. It eventually disappeared into cloud cover. Or something.

Photos by Michael Foth & Josh Rash, TSM
Photos by Michael Foth & Josh Rash, TSM
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Probably just a weather balloon, right?

That's always the official explanation. I suppose that's probably the case in this situation as well. According to the National Weather Service, 900 weather balloons are released twice a day, every day around the globe. 92 of those are launched in the US or from US territories. The agency says,

The balloon flights last for around 2 hours, can drift as far as 125 miles away, and rise up to over 100,000 ft. (about 20 miles) in the atmosphere!

Yeah, it was probably just a balloon. 🙄

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Screenshot from Flight Radar 24
Screenshot from Flight Radar 24
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Two interesting coincidences.

While this object was doing whatever it was doing in the sky above Big Sky Country, Billings Logan International Airport grounded all flights and rerouted others. No official reason was given as of Wednesday afternoon, per the Billings Gazette article.

Another interesting tidbit for you... I just happened to open Flight Radar 24 (a flight tracking app that I love) around 3 pm this afternoon, well before I saw the weird thing in the sky. And I watched a USAF KC-10A plane make at least six circles in basically the exact same area along the MT/WY border south of Red Lodge. The plane (typically used for refueling according to Uncle Sam) left Travis AFB in California at noon today, flew to Salt Lake then headed north of Stanford, MT before it came back to the south and did whatever it was doing over the Beartooth Pass area. Surely, it was just training. Right? Of course.

LOOK: The states with the most UFO sightings

For each state, we’ve also included details of famous UFO sightings in that state. Of note is that almost three-quarters of all UFO sighting reports in the United States occur between 4 p.m. and midnight, and tend to peak between 9 and 10 p.m. Food for thought next time you're out scoping for alien life. Keep reading to see which states have had the most UFO sightings.

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