A pair of U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets sitting on alert at March Air Reserve Base were scrambled before sunrise Sunday after unidentified flying objects were reported over Nevada and later northern California, triggering a chain of military and civilian air traffic responses that briefly raised questions about what was moving through the early morning skies.
The aircraft, using the call signs SURF 31 and SURF 32, launched at approximately 4:30 a.m. local time after radar contacts and pilot reports indicated an unidentified object over the Reno, Nevada area. The situation quickly expanded as the object—or possibly objects—appeared to move westward into California airspace.
According to officials from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the mystery was ultimately resolved hours later: the objects were determined to be weather balloons. Still, the episode underscores heightened sensitivity to aerial anomalies following past incidents involving high-altitude balloons and unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP.
Air traffic control audio and flight tracking data show that controllers at Oakland Center, the Federal Aviation Administration’s regional air traffic hub for northern California, were alerted to something unusual in the skies near Sacramento.
With limited radar returns and incomplete information, controllers took the unusual step of asking nearby commercial pilots for visual confirmation.
One such aircraft was a Boeing 747-8 cargo jet operating as UPS Flight 32, en route over the region in the pre-dawn darkness.
“UPS Three-Two, if you could do me a favor,” an Oakland Center controller said in recordings obtained by aviation enthusiast Josh Cox. “One to two o’clock in about 60 miles, flight level 2-5-0, I guess we’re looking for something out there that we don’t have any information on.”
The UPS crew responded that they had noticed something in that direction.
“Something we’ve been kind of looking at in that direction,” the pilot replied. “We kind of figured it was just something along the horizon near the dawn. Sometimes you get kind of weird stuff like that, but it’s not really moving.”
The pilot described the object as “glowing and dimming,” an observation that further deepened the mystery. Controllers acknowledged that they were not seeing the object on radar but had been told “something’s out there that they’re looking for.”
Additional aircraft reportedly saw the same phenomenon.
As the reports accumulated, the two F-16s from March Air Reserve Base were vectored northward. To extend their time on station, a KC-135 Stratotanker—call sign GASMAN—also launched to provide aerial refueling support.
The F-16s were directed toward a heading of 260 degrees and told to keep an eye out for “anything unusual,” particularly something exhibiting orange glowing and dimming lights.
At one point, Oakland Center told SURF 31 the object would be roughly 20 miles from the jet’s position, near its nine o’clock.
Whether the first object was ever visually confirmed by the F-16 pilots remains unclear. After roughly two hours, the fighters were ordered back toward base, only to be retasked when reports of a second unidentified object surfaced over northern California.
This time, the intercept produced a more definitive description.
“There were no solar panels that I could see, like a balloon with a line hanging down,” one of the F-16 pilots reported over air traffic control audio. “There was something about halfway down the line. There was another, like tiny object. I can’t tell what it was. Then the line hung down further than that.”
The pilot added that the balloon appeared semi-reflective and that the line beneath it was whitish-gray. No propulsion systems, maneuvering capability, or identifiable payload were observed.
In a statement, NORAD confirmed that on February 15, 2026, it detected and tracked two unidentified balloons over the north-central coast of California.
“The balloons were observed moving northeast, and NORAD assets, including fighter aircraft, were deployed to assess the objects,” the command said.
After evaluation, NORAD concluded that both objects exhibited characteristics consistent with typical weather balloons.
“The balloons do not pose a military threat, present no risk to civil aviation, and have no means of maneuver,” the statement added. “Based on this evaluation, NORAD has assessed that the UIBs pose no threat to North America.”
While the second intercept clearly identified a balloon-like object, there remains no independent confirmation—beyond NORAD’s statement—regarding the first sighting.
Though not officially confirmed, flight tracking data suggests that an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft may have supported the operation.
The Boeing E-3 Sentry is equipped with a powerful rotating radar dome capable of providing persistent, high-fidelity tracking of airborne objects over wide areas. Such aircraft were deployed during the 2023 Chinese balloon incident and subsequent UAP shootdowns, offering enhanced situational awareness for fighter intercepts.
If involved, the E-3 would have helped track the objects and coordinate with fighters and ground-based radar systems.
Balloons are among the most frequently misidentified aerial objects in recent years. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), established in 2022 to centralize analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena, has consistently found that a majority of resolved cases involve balloons.
According to AARO’s most recent data, covering a 30-year period up to January 15, 2026, balloons accounted for 52.1 percent of all UAP reports that were eventually identified. Satellites were the next most common explanation, including frequent reports of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. Sunlight glinting off Starlink satellites can produce flares that appear as glowing or moving lights along the horizon, sometimes mistaken for maneuvering aircraft.
Despite official explanations, many in the UFO community remain skeptical of balloon attributions, noting that balloons have been cited in unexplained sky incidents dating back to Roswell in 1947.
Still, defense officials emphasize that while many UAP reports resolve into mundane objects, some remain unexplained due to insufficient data.
Sunday’s scramble comes almost exactly three years after a Chinese high-altitude balloon traversed the continental United States before being shot down by an F-22 Raptor off the coast of South Carolina.
That incident ignited a political firestorm and prompted scrutiny of how such a large object could cross U.S. airspace undetected or unchallenged for days. It also revealed that radar filters had been tuned to ignore slow-moving, high-altitude objects—like balloons—to reduce clutter.
In the week following the Chinese balloon shootdown, U.S. fighters downed three additional unidentified objects over Alaska, Canada’s Yukon Territory, and Lake Huron.
The Yukon incident involved another F-22 Raptor under the NORAD agreement with Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force Maj. Gen. Chris McKenna later described the object as a white balloon, possibly research-related or belonging to a state actor, though definitive attribution was never publicly confirmed.
The Lake Huron object was brought down by an F-16 Fighting Falcon and was later assessed to most likely have been a weather balloon launched from a U.S. National Weather Service facility.
Those incidents exposed gaps in sensor processing and intelligence-sharing mechanisms. Since then, NORAD and U.S. Northern Command have reportedly adjusted radar parameters to capture more slow-moving objects, even at the cost of increased data volume and more frequent scrambles.
Defense analysts say the Sunday incident reflects a more cautious posture rather than an extraordinary threat.
By widening radar filters to detect objects that previously would have been ignored, NORAD is now seeing more tracks that require investigation. That inevitably leads to more fighter launches.
While balloons may seem benign, officials stress that high-altitude platforms can carry surveillance equipment, communications relays, or other payloads. The Chinese spy balloon demonstrated that such systems can traverse large distances and potentially gather intelligence.
At the same time, countless legitimate weather balloons are launched daily by meteorological agencies, universities, and private companies. These typically ascend to high altitudes before bursting and descending with parachutes.
Distinguishing between benign research balloons and potentially hostile platforms can be challenging without close inspection.
In the end, Sunday’s event appears to have been a textbook example of layered air defense in action: radar detection, civilian pilot verification, tanker support, fighter intercept, and post-mission assessment.
There were no shootdowns, no debris fields, and no reported disruptions to commercial aviation.
Still, the incident illustrates how even relatively ordinary objects can trigger complex military responses in an era of heightened sensitivity to aerial intrusions.
Much about the first sighting remains unclear. Controllers reported glowing and dimming lights, yet no radar track was visible at Oakland Center. Whether atmospheric effects, satellite flares, or optical illusions played a role remains unknown.
For now, NORAD’s official position is straightforward: both objects were consistent with typical weather balloons and posed no threat.
But as history has shown, from Roswell to the 2023 balloon crisis, explanations involving balloons rarely settle public curiosity.
As investigations continue and more information potentially emerges, Sunday’s dawn scramble over California will likely join a growing list of incidents where the boundary between the mysterious and the mundane blurs—at least for a few tense hours in the skies above North America.
