By AZ Mirror
The U.S. Army and a private company are flying high-altitude surveillance balloons over the Tucson area, raising concerns among privacy advocates.
Multiple high-altitude balloons have been spotted over the Tucson and Sierra Vista area for more than a week, with one balloon in particular staying over the area longer than any of the others. That balloon, with the registration number N257TH, has made headlines in the past.
The balloon is owned by South Dakota aerospace company Aerostar, and in 2023 was mistaken for a Chinese spy balloon. The balloon is actually part of Aerostar’s “Thunderhead” balloon system, which has been doing multiple tests with the military and other contractors across the nation and around the globe.
“It is a technology that should not and constitutionally cannot be applied to the American people,” Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Arizona Mirror. “Even testing for eventual overseas use in legitimate combat theaters raises a lot of questions about what kind of data is being collected.”
Aerostar would not answer specific questions about what type of testing was being done. The company referred additional questions to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Army, neither of which responded to multiple requests for comment.
