Chinese "Spy Balloon" over CONUS.

Truthfully, after my belief that it was photographed behind the ISS, I think my brand of idiocy held more water. What I cannot stand about our media is at first they have these low resolution photographs of things, and then boom, you get the whole picture and it makes people like me look retarded. Short bus retarded.

So when I see people tilting at windmills I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe one day they’ll realize they were in error. I mean, I’m actually a pretty smart guy but without intellectual honesty it makes someone look like a moron. a reply to: McGinty

a reply to: Doxanoxa

The solar panels look like something out of Alibaba.
They will fall at a terminal velocity of about 500mph

a reply to: charlyv

Air to air and surface to air missiles don’t home in on communications signals. The Missile guys have been answering, but people don’t like the answer. It’s going to be a difficult target for any missile.

I don’t take too many things personally. No worries. In my defense, those first grainy images looked like it was behind the ISS. While I feel dumb for not waiting that extra 6 hours before commenting, I honest to God hoped it was aliens. When they said there was a second one of those balloons, my faith in aliens being real was fortified. Imagine how it feels to be not only wrong, but having my hopes crushed that we were being invaded by aliens.

I spent the last 10 years preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse, Robot Invasion from the future, Martial Law, and… Invasion by aliens. I have spent a lot of money and had hoped that I had not wasted my life. Now, I’m going to go down into my cellar, and start drinking because it’s Saturday morning, and my belief that an alien invasion was imminent has been shattered.

Being intellectually honest and saying you were wrong is nothing compared to having your hopes up that aliens were going to fix things, only to realize that it’s just another Friday in a world where dumb people are still in control. Maybe instead of booze, I’ll just go get coffee and donuts and have my hopes shot down that the curvy goddess at the coffee shop I go to, will date me and share my post apocalypse survival bunker with me.

I mean, what else can I do to embarrass myself at this point?a reply to: SgtEsquire

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: Doxanoxa

The solar panels look like something out of Alibaba.
They will fall at a terminal velocity of about 500mph

They look very fake even bin liner like and certainly non uniform, not sure how they are supposed to get any sunlight either in the constant shade of the very wrinkly balloon.

If this is high tech then I'm Bin Laden.

a reply to: Kenzo
citizenfreepress.com...

If that is the one currently over the US-It looks either pretty battered(by its long flight maybe) or a badly made/dummy payload..

Have a look at some of the similar balloons spotted over the last few years, supposedly fom China.
This one is from Reddit,and was photographed over Yemen last year(note the clean edges around the solar panels)-
preview.redd.it...

And here is a comparison with two other round balloons-both have different equipment arrays,but only the one over the US has the battered/bent panels-
twitter.com... eac78626420126ea8f6712bbd21c3c1%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infowars.com%2F%3Fcp%3D1

Seems there a few versions-maybe the payload/equipment is tailored for specific jobs/areas.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse


Yeeh it does look like cheap crap .

The others in your link look`s better .


They say other balloon spotted in Cental America , on way to USA..

a reply to: Kenzo

The South America one can’t get to the US. These are free floating with minimal steering. They go where the wind blows them.

a reply to: Zaphod58


Well that`s good news that it goes to other direction .

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

Shooting down a high altitude balloon isn’t nearly as easy as shooting down a plane. And unlike a plane, it’s likely to take awhile to come down, putting people on the ground at risk. Better to gather all the Intel we can from it, and let it do its thing, while limiting what it can gather.

If that's the case, the Chinese (and anyone else paying attention) have figured out a way to penetrate our airspace that we cannot defend against. Looks like there's work to do to figure something out.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I've read some reports that say balloons like these can find winds to take them wherever they want by adjusting altitude.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

I didn’t say we couldn’t, I said it’s not as easy as people think. But there are two big points to consider. The first is that it’s not going to pop like a party balloon and come straight down. Depending on how it’s damaged, it could take days to come down. And the debris from the weapons used have to land somewhere. So do you risk your own people’s lives on the ground, when you can prevent it from getting good intelligence so easily? Or do you prevent it from getting data and sending it back and deal with it when it’s no longer a threat?

The second, to me more important one, is that while it’s going overhead, we’re getting a treasure trove of intelligence data of our own. We’re getting good reads on frequencies used for long range communications, a look at any on board radar it’s using, any encryption being used, and probably more.

a reply to: watchitburn

They can, to a degree. But there are no upper level winds that go from South America back to North America.

What if there if the balloon is hiding a larger antenna dish or lowdar ?
a reply to: Silcone Synapse

a reply to: Hal0070

With the amount of time Combat Sent spent watching it, it almost certainly has a SAR mounted.

There is now talk that the balloon will be taken down in the coming hours,when it drifts away from land into US waters.

U.S. officials are working on plans to shoot it down so that it also lands in U.S. territorial waters, the official said.
A substantial localized airspace shutdown will likely be required in order to protect civilians while the U.S. tries to down the balloon, which is likely being navigated via Chinese spy satellites, the official said.

abcnews.go.com...

Hopefully this was the plan all along,although I am still not sure the benefit of allowing the balloon a free pass over the US was worth more than the risks.
Also,If they shoot it down easy enough-the whole thing could have been prevented by shooting it down before it entered US territory-We know it was tracked all the way across the ocean so it was possible.

The cynical part of me cannot help thinking it was allowed to happen and be all over the media because someone needed a new story to occupy the masses rather than have them focus on a certain issue regarding classified document misuse..

originally posted by: Zaphod58
The second, to me more important one, is that while it’s going overhead, we’re getting a treasure trove of intelligence data of our own. We’re getting good reads on frequencies used for long range communications, a look at any on board radar it’s using, any encryption being used, and probably more.

I was wondering about that--whether the US was taking advantage of the situation by analyzing the device, frequencies etc, hence they didn't do anything to stop it as it approached CONUS. It does seem to provide a convenient opportunity...

Once over water, it needs to be taken down if for no other reason than to assure people that the military has the means to do so and to justify their lack of action as consideration of safety while it was over the lower 48. Of course, that still leaves why they let it get across the Canadian border. I know part of that is because they wanted the intelligence gathering opportunity but that came with an equal risk.

Anybody monitoring the Navy and noticing if they are headed out in any numbers off the Carolinas coast? I think it's headed that way. Sudden training maybe?

originally posted by: McGinty


Of course i corrected them by saying that there has to be Space, or else what is underneath our flat Earth?

It’s turtles all the way down