Chinese "Spy Balloon" over CONUS.

originally posted by: silo13
Wait, someone in Montana hasn't taken a shot at it yet?

Unbelievable.

Oh, my gosh that is the same thing I was thinking when I heard that, or even Texas, I guess the nanoparticles in the covid jabs are working as expected in the brain, people just to numb to care

a reply to: putnam6

So is this a "Make my day", move, or this just a way of trying to trigger the American people to get them on board with an action against China?

I am extremely skeptical. I am not going all 911. Not singing Kumbya. Not rallying for an American offensive and WWIII.

Fool me once........

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

The biden administration is not going to touch China, they got the democrats and senile biden in their pockets, we all know that, this is about China showing how much china owns the politicians in power, US will no dare the shot down the balloon.

Yep this is a show of power for china.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

The Japanese tried this to bomb the US during WWII and they did succeed in killing a couple picnickers.

Watch the magicians other hand!

a reply to: TheGoondockSaint

Sorry to hear that. Sounds nasty.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

The biden administration is not going to touch China, they got the democrats and senile biden in their pockets, we all know that, this is about China showing how much china owns the politicians in power, US will no dare the shot down the balloon.

Yep this is a show of power for china.

Suǒyǐ. Shì shíhòu quèbǎo suǒyǒu de háizi dūhuì shuō zhōngwénle ma?

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: putnam6

So is this a "Make my day", move, or this just a way of trying to trigger the American people to get them on board with an action against China?

I am extremely skeptical. I am not going all 911. Not singing Kumbya. Not rallying for an American offensive and WWIII.

Fool me once........

I do not know one way or the other, just following the reports.

FWIW I was on the shoot-it-down crowd but now if it's over high-density populated areas like St Louis, its probably not an option.

Still with today's tech thay could easily be eavesdropping on communications etc,

besides even if this is just an off-track weather ballon, what's to keep them from sending something less innocuous?

OH well e have competent leaders and they will make the right choices,right.

FWIW

GOP senators are screaming shoot it down, rather vehemently

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

The Japanese tried this to bomb the US during WWII and they did succeed in killing a couple picnickers.

Yep wasn't it an incendiary bomb? IIRC

super close up .. . . . . .... ... . . .. . 😃

reply to: Oldcarpy2
kstp.com...

It might be a 5G super transmitter !!!!😧

a reply to: Fairtrade141

Yes. A close up of the balloon?

Are you seriously still claiming the bloody balloon is behind the ISS?

Jeeeezus. H. Christ. On A . Bike. Man?

OK, now that life has slowed down enough, I mentioned watching the live Pentagon briefing earlier. I learned a few things:

• The balloon is indeed heading for Minnesota. It was in Montana and heading east.
  
• The balloon is indeed ground-controlled. The military has determined it is a surveillance balloon, which means they have been able to see antennas on the structure and have intercepted signals from it. I doubt they know what data is being surveilled, as it is probably encrypted, but they do know that there's a carrier wave sending data.
  
• The balloon is surveilling military installations. The Pentagon will not say where in Montana it is, only that that information is classified. That means it is national-security sensitive, which means it is close enough to military installations to be considered an issue.
  
• The secrecy around the exact location also extends to them defining it at times as over "central North America." That is not the center of the US... it means it is not near the coasts, nor is it in upper Canada or close to Mexico. It's a very vague term, and somewhat suspicious to my ears since they already said earlier it was over Montana.
  
• The DoD was completely silent when asked about dropping it over water. That tells me it was never over water; it originated from somewhere in Canada. That area is quite isolated and a launch platform would be easy to set up, even one large enough to launch this behemoth.
  
• The DoD was also very evasive about why they would not drop it. The reasoning was stated that "we are considering all possible reactions" and "it is large enough to be a debris hazard." A debris hazard? Over Montana? Folks, there's not much there to "hazard"! That's big sky country and outside of the few cities (towns to the rest of the nation) homes are scattered out far and wide. That excuse would only make sense in a more developed area.
  
• That and the evasiveness about why it has not been brought down tells me the military doesn't want it to come down.
  
• Another question concerned why use a balloon instead of low orbit satellites. Again, a very vague response. In actuality, there's a lot of things a satellite cannot do but which a balloon can do. Here's an example:
  
  If it were equipped with a directional antenna array and GPS, both of which are easy to accomplish technologically, it could report its precise location as well as the direction in which it is picking up transmissions. Every nuclear silo has a continuous communication link with NORAD; if that link is broken without explanation, it means time to deploy the nuclear missiles because NORAD has been destroyed. It's a "dead man's switch." So a balloon could float over that area, log the signals being received and their direction along with the precise location, continuing to do so as it floats past, and precisely pinpoint the location the signal is being broadcast from. A balloon would be ideal for this, as it travels relatively slowly and thus has plenty of opportunity to triangulate locations, even if there are multiple carrier waves in that area. It would be impossible to hide the location of a nuclear silo, even underground.

Make no mistake, this is an incursion with military goals. Right now, China has an actual military advantage over the USA in all but two areas: technology and nuclear capability. Technology relies on China; I don't care what anyone wants to believe to get them through the day; China makes the chips, China makes practically all the chips, no one else has the materials to make the chips, and without the chips all that military hardware cannot be built.

That leaves nuclear. They are looking for the location of our nuclear silos and a way to neutralize them. If they figure that out, the USA is a lemonade stand and China is the Italian Mafia wanting them closed down. China wouldn't have to break a sweat.

TheRedneck

a reply to: putnam6

To get to Kansas/Missouri from Montana is not an easterly direction. It is southeasterly.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: JinMI

If that's true, I am getting nervous. Pre-emptive action to eff us over so they can take Taiwan ... more while we are dealing with the stone age?

Perhaps.

What makes me nervous is that by all standards, this is a hostile invasion and our government is allowing it to happen.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Wow. That is some serious doom porn.

But what of other Western nuclear powers potential response?

Did China forget that?

a reply to: TheRedneck

Well time to change the BS about the curriculum. Just make all classes for the children language classes in Chinese.

And that is just for them to have a snowball's chance in hell, because a good number of the Chinese speak English, so they will know what we are saying. Another advantage they will have.

a reply to: TheRedneck

I remember reading about a Boeing 747 that the Air Force had converted into a giant flying laser to intercept airborne ICBMs.

Never mind, looks like it got scrapped

en.wikipedia.org...

But I imagine we have some kind of similar alternative that could be used.

Have you looked at the photos in question? Are you just another braying jackass that cannot see what they are actually looking at? There are a half dozen photos of what is CLEARLY the ISS, and this thing is somewhere behind it.

But do go on about how I am some how utterly daft. a reply to: Oldcarpy2