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kallend

Chinese spy balloon over USA

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4 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

My network of spies, busy bodies, and eavesdroppers informs me that on board is Hunter Biden.

Hope he’s not too bored up there with nothing to pass the time….I heard his laptop is on the fritz. 

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 "On Thursday, a senior defense official said, “Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration.”; CNN

"SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON"; D. Trump, on Truth(sic) Social.

I find it hard to be outraged, considering that the US continues to deploy U2 spy planes to this day and deployed SR-71s from 1966 to 1996. 

Balloons are cheaper than spy planes, too.

 

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30 minutes ago, RonD1120 said:

From what I understand, we are flying circles around it and jaming its signal output. It is as large as three buses and we don't know exactly what is inside.

You have such wonderful sources of intel. It makes me wonder why you couldn’t find the date for the State of the Union Address.

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43 minutes ago, RonD1120 said:

From what I understand, we are flying circles around it and jaming its signal output. It is as large as three buses and we don't know exactly what is inside.

In the bit that’s as large as three buses? Helium, probably.

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9 hours ago, kallend said:

 "On Thursday, a senior defense official said, “Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration.”; CNN

"SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON"; D. Trump, on Truth(sic) Social.

I find it hard to be outraged, considering that the US continues to deploy U2 spy planes to this day and deployed SR-71s from 1966 to 1996. 

Balloons are cheaper than spy planes, too.

 

Hi John,

When I first read about this balloon, I thought, 'What is the big deal.  We've had spy satellites watching the entire Earth for years.'

When Sputnick went up in 1957, Eisenhower's main concern was that they now could look down at us.

I am not saying to play it down to zero, we do need to try find everything that we can about it.

BTW a great book, and subsequent movie, about one U2 is The Bridge of Spies.

Bridge of Spies (book) - Wikipedia

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  When it gets over Mar a Lago is when we should shoot it down.

 

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3 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

..When Sputnik went up in 1957, Eisenhower's main concern was that they now could look down at us...

I thought the big concern was that a rocket that could get a small satellite to orbit was powerful enough to launch a nuke over the north pole to the US.

It was never all that hard to 'look down at us'. 

With few exceptions, the ability to see just about anywhere from cruise altitude is and always has been pretty clear. 

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2 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

I thought the big concern was that a rocket that could get a small satellite to orbit was powerful enough to launch a nuke over the north pole to the US.

It was never all that hard to 'look down at us'. 

With few exceptions, the ability to see just about anywhere from cruise altitude is and always has been pretty clear. 

You're just observing the known and obvious, Joe. We all know the possibilities and limitations. What's cool is that it's happening now. Everyone looks at the next technological advancement as the thing to fret about like hypersonic cruise missiles, 6th generation jet fighters, smarter 12 year old hackers, etc.. But here it is: The United Gun States of America can not even shoot down a damn Chinese spy balloon until blows past South Carolina. Yes, they totally owned us but that doesn't mean it wasn't a cool play.

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39 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

 But here it is: The United Gun States of America can not even shoot down a damn Chinese spy balloon until blows past South Carolina. Yes, they totally owned us but that doesn't mean it wasn't a cool play.

Ylou can probably get a lot more info out of analyzing hardware that has splashed down in the Atlantic, than hardware that has pancaked into the ground.

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Heather Cox Richardson - February 4, 2023

Such intelligence balloons are not unusual—there were at least three during the Trump administration and one before in the Biden administration, but they were not visible to the public—and U.S. defense officials are accustomed to dealing with them.

One of her sources:

Forbes: Yes, Chinese Spy Balloons Flew Over The U.S. When President Trump Was In Office Too

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(edited)
16 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Apparently the instrument payload package is that large, although I am sure it must be much lighter than 3 busses.  I thought the same as you at first.

Really? Sure that’s not just the solar panels?

F or the instruments it’s probably no coincidence there’s a massive multinational fighter combat/tactics exercise going on in central US at the moment. Prob trying to hoover up as much radar / signals data as possible to see how western airforces fight and coordinate. They Chinese have already got the best tech from the F35 in action, now they’re learning how to use it.

Several recently retired western fighter pilots are getting paid ‘set up for rest of life’ amounts of money to teach modern western tactics to the Chinese Air Force too.

Edited by jakee

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8 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

 But here it is: The United Gun States of America can not even shoot down a damn Chinese spy balloon until blows past South Carolina. Yes, they totally owned us but that doesn't mean it wasn't a cool play.

Apparently shooting down a balloon is not as easy as you might think.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/why-shooting-down-chinas-spy-balloon-over-the-u-s-is-more-complicated-than-it-seems

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This political gamesmanship has gone on for ages. We denied recon flights over Russia until Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2. Russia denied missiles in Cuba until Adlai Stevenson brought out the recon photos at the United Nations. (Speaking of Adlai Stevenson, the Russians offered to help him when he ran for President. He said no. That's what Americans do.)

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27 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

Doesn't passive IR also sense movement?

Only if the moving object stands out thermally from the background.  Also the air-to-air missiles are designed to hit fast moving objects and generally filter out slow stuff as background.

 

Could it be there are things that we aren't being told?

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4 hours ago, kallend said:

The article does not mention the idea I had: Buzzing the balloon at high speed to damage the envelope with the aircrafts wake.

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