Pilots flying near Hawaii have reportedly been warned of a large white balloon in the sky above the US Pacific state.
There were multiple reports on Monday afternoon (Australian time) of commercial flights reporting through ACARS of seeing a large white Balloon at between 40,000-50,000 feet about 800 kilometres east of Honolulu.
ACARS is a digital system that allows short messages to be sent beteen aircraft and ground stations.
The crew aboard Delta Airlines Flight 837, bound for Honolulu from Atlanta, used the system to request information about sightings as it neared the Pacific island state.
Air controllers in Honolulu have also reportedly warned of the mystery object.
Monday’s warning came after numerous sightings of unidentified airborne objects in the skies above the US after it shot down a China owned balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
US authorities said at the weekend they had successfully concluded recovery efforts in the Atlantic Ocean to collect sensors and other debris from the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a fighter jet on February 4, and investigators were analysing its “guts”.
US and Canadian authorities also said they had called off searches for three unidentified objects shot down in the days after the spy balloon was detected.
President Joe Biden said last week the US intelligence community believed the other three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions – not China’s spy program.
Early on Saturday (AEDT), Friday, Northern Command said search operations for the two objects shot down in US airspace – one over Alaska and the other over Lake Huron – had concluded, having “discovered no debris”.
The third object was shot down over Canada’s Yukon. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it had also decided to end search efforts due to the snowfall that had occurred, decreasing the chances the object would be found.
The Chinese balloon incident prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a planned visit to Beijing and has further strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
-with AAP
