Did a Weather Balloon, Not a Mysteryious Space Object, Strike That United Airlines Flight?

Slashdot reader joshuark shares this report from SFGate:

The mystery object that struck a plane at 36,000 feet is likely not space debris, as some speculated, but rather a Silicon Valley test project gone wrong…

WindBorne Systems, a Palo Alto startup that uses atmospheric balloons to collect weather data for AI-based forecast models,has come forward to say that they believe they may be responsible for the object that hit the windshield… “At 6am PT, we sent our…