Wayward Army blimp lands in Pa.

THE U.S. government found out that blimpin' ain't easy yesterday, when a pimped-out blimp funded by taxpayer cheese broke loose and, like an airborne Moby Dick, wrecked stuff over parts of Pennsylvania you've never heard of.

Fitted with sensitive defense technology, the bulbous, unmanned airship floated over the state for hours with two fighter jets on its tail, triggering blackouts as it dragged its tether across power lines.

The blimp is part of JLENS, short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, and if reading that puts you to sleep, keep in mind that the program cost $2.7 billion. The JLENS blimp itself is valued at a mere $180 million, and it could have ignited in a ball of fire.

Instead, it ended up shredded and stuck in some trees like a cheap plastic bag near Muncy, a small town about 80 miles north of Harrisburg, ending the glued-to-the-edge-of-your-seat drama that floating, unmanned blimps are known for.

The blimp's tail detached near the end of its 150-mile journey and was found a quarter-mile away in Moreland Township, Lycoming County, according to NORAD.

"The area is secured and a military recovery team is en route," North American Aerospace Defense Command tweeted just before 4:30 p.m.

The 243-foot, helium-filled blimp, according to the Baltimore Sun, detached from its mooring at Aberdeen Proving Ground at 11:54 a.m., trailing about 6,700 feet of cable. Shockingly, blimps are susceptible to windy conditions.

Two F-16 fighter jets that cost just tens of millions were scrambled from the Air National Guard 177th Fighter Wing in Atlantic City to monitor JLENS, according to NORAD. But there was never any intention of shooting it down, said Navy Capt. Scott Miller, a spokesman for the nation's air-defense command.

The blimp was operating at the Aberdeen Proving Ground as part of a test of the systems that defend the nation's capital against airborne attack. The loss of the blimp has not weakened those defenses, Miller said.

He said it was unknown how the blimp broke loose, and an investigation was underway.

About 2 p.m., Twitter had JLENS floating somewhere near Bloomsburg, home to the largest fair in the state. Neither the mayor nor the police chief there returned phone calls for comment, probably because they were outside staring at JLENS or watching its cable tear up power lines up and down Columbia County.

The local electric utility, PPL, reported about 27,000 customers without power in two counties, and Bloomsburg University canceled classes because of the outage. Electricity was restored to most customers within a few hours.

Twitter had all the information you needed, though: serious think pieces on the costs, failures and critiques of the JLENS program and plenty of comedy, memes, comparisons to Chris Christie, Halloween-costume ideas and wayback Wednesday references to the great bubble-boy hoax of Fort Collins, Colo., from 2009.

"Somebody call Tom Brady to #deflatethatblimp," a woman from Las Vegas tweeted just before 4 p.m. Her tweet had no favorites or retweets 10 minutes later.

"JLENS getting some super PR today," tweeted Adam Kredo, a writer with the Washington Free Beacon.

A lengthy article published on the Intercept in December has all you need to know about the JLENS program. According to that article, the JLENS blimps, called "aerostats," were intended to "hover at a height of 10,000 feet just off Interstate 95, about 45 miles northeast of Washington, D.C., and about 20 miles from Baltimore. That means they can watch what's happening from North Carolina to Boston, or an area the size of Texas."

Yesterday, Jason Jarinko, a teacher at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg, said he was alerted to the blimp by a student who was gazing out the window just before class.

"We just kind of scoffed that he had seen a bird or something, and he said, 'No, look!' and it was this blimp coming at us from the east," Jarinko said. He said students gathered in disbelief as it passed over at 200 to 300 feet.

"As it got closer to us, all of a sudden our lights started to flicker and we lost power," he said. "At first, we didn't realize the two events were related."

No one in Pennsylvania - or on Twitter - was injured in yesterday's adventure.

- The Associated Press

contributed to this report.

On Twitter: @JasonNark