The military lost an enormous blimp in Maryland and wants to know if you've seen it (UPDATE: Found it)
LatestMissing: one white blimp. 240 feet long, big for its age. Answers to the name JLENS.
CBS reports a military blimp being tested at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland has broken free from its tether and is now on the loose.
UPDATE:
A reporter for a Baltimore-area television station posted on Twitter that the blimp has come down in Pennsylvania and authorities are working to secure the area.
Original story resumes below.
CBS reported that two F-16s were following the blimp, and that it may have crossed the border into Pennsylvania. Local authorities were asking residents to dial 911 if they spotted the inflated installation nearby.
The blimp is part of a $2.7 billion Pentagon research project into using blimps to detect low-flying threats to U.S. cities like cruise missiles, small drones and wayward military blimps.
The Baltimore Sun previously investigated the JLENS program that produced the blimp, writing that it was the result of a 17-year development cycle that had poor reliability, while costing taxpayers billions.
We’ll continue to update with news on the missing blimp as it comes in. In the meantime, keep an eye on the skies and your local Steampunk cosplayers. It couldn’t have gotten very far.
A local TV station posted this viewer photo from the area of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
A Twitter user posted a video appearing to show the blimp hovering low above a building. The user also claimed the blimp had landed nearby, knocking out power to his or her school, Columbia-Montour Area Vocational-Technical School, which Google Maps shows is in the Bloomsburg area.