warrensburg, missouri. he takes sports history and deeply layered stories that resonate with both young readers and adults. now in the book inaugural ballers, he walks us through journey of women's athletics in the first women's u.s. olympic basketball team. you seems women's basketball coaching legend millie barnes was part that journey as she is credited with layering and laying the foundation for women's athletics. and she is also here with us tonight. we are thrilled tonight interview andrew ridley and can't wait for you to read his new book inaugural ballers. hello, everyone. hello, everyone my name is dillon seckington. i am the opinions editor for the uconn student newspaper, the mule skinner. so to start things off, it's a pleasure to be here. thank you for doing this. and to start off, i was kind of wondering what kind of inspired to become a writer. all right. well, first, let me say before i answer that question, an honor and privilege, it is to be here. this today with millie barnes jones, who i

joining us is matthew smith, a storm chaser who took still photos of it over warrensburg, missouri. matthew, appreciate you joining us. again, we are talking to a storm chaser now chasing a chai inesey balloon. can you walk us through how you saw the balloon? >> yeah, for sure. thank you for welcoming me to your show. just one of the things for the last 24 hours been watching on flight radar 24, last known location where military planes have been flying over and montana, and going over what you guys having talking with jet streams, noticed it's on a southeast trajectory over missouri. decided to go outside about 12:15, 12:30ish and happened to look up at the most beautiful clear blue sky. it wasn't hard to spot, the only white object in the sky. sure enough it was right over warrensburg isn't far from the air force base as well. >> so when you saw it there were actually military planes flying nearby it? >> correct. there was there's one or two. they weren't very far from it kind of keeping surveillance on it. from what i know, at least one of them was a straddle tanker, which is a r

white thing in the sky except for a couple of military planes flying around it, and it was over warrensburg. >> so when you saw it, there were actually military planes flying nearby it? >> correct. there was at least one or two. you know, they weren't very far from it. just kind of keeping surveillance on it. from what i know, a refill plane, but there has been planes currently trying to track it as there is right now down in southeast missouri. >> when you took these photos, how far was the balloon -- do you have a sense of what altitude the balloon was at? >> well, of course you know being an avid photographer of planes, it was much higher than your standard planes, at least 50-60 thousand feet. even the size of it, you could barely make it out to the naked eye. >> the military said about 60,000 feet. so you could see it with the naked eye? >> correct. you could see the actual balloon, and if the sun was shining just bright enough, you could catch the glimpse of the solar panels, whatever it is that's flying on the bottom of the balloon glaring off it. >> and were other people around you?