Pentagon Elects Not To Shoot Down Chinese Spy Balloon Traveling Over Montana (washingtonpost.com) 209
"A Chinese spy balloon is floating over the continental United States," writes Slashdot reader q4Fry. "As it headed over Montana, 'civilian flights in the area were halted and U.S. military aircraft, including advanced F-22 fighter jets, were put in the air.'" The Washington Post reports: The balloon's flight path takes it over "a number of sensitive sites," the senior [Pentagon] official said, but it appears it does not have the ability collect information that is "over and above" other tools at China's disposal, like low-orbit satellites. Nevertheless, the Pentagon is taking undisclosed "mitigation steps" to prevent Beijing from gathering additional intelligence.
"We put some things on station in the event that a decision was made to bring this down," the official said. "So we wanted to make sure we were coordinating with civil authorities to empty out the airspace around that potential area. But even with those protective measures taken, it was the judgment of our military commanders that we didn't drive the risk down low enough. So we didn't take the shot." "The US believes Chinese spy satellites in low Earth orbit are capable of offering similar or better intelligence, limiting the value of whatever Beijing can glean from the high-altitude balloon, which is the size of three buses," reports CNN, citing a defense official.
"It does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in low Earth orbit," the senior defense official said. Nevertheless, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for a briefing of the "Gang of Eight" -- the group of lawmakers charged with reviewing the nation's most sensitive intelligence information.
"We put some things on station in the event that a decision was made to bring this down," the official said. "So we wanted to make sure we were coordinating with civil authorities to empty out the airspace around that potential area. But even with those protective measures taken, it was the judgment of our military commanders that we didn't drive the risk down low enough. So we didn't take the shot." "The US believes Chinese spy satellites in low Earth orbit are capable of offering similar or better intelligence, limiting the value of whatever Beijing can glean from the high-altitude balloon, which is the size of three buses," reports CNN, citing a defense official.
"It does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in low Earth orbit," the senior defense official said. Nevertheless, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for a briefing of the "Gang of Eight" -- the group of lawmakers charged with reviewing the nation's most sensitive intelligence information.
It's an intel piñata (Score:3)
It's an intel pin(tilde over, come-on /.)ata. You don't want to risk losing any candy. I bet they're brainstorming ways to bring it back gently, which apparently they don't have otherwise this thing would have been snatched properly. Bonus points to the firm that can whip that up fast, or at the very least plug this loophole.
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Piñta
Pentagon hasn't discovered trolling yet (Score:4, Funny)
There doesn't seem to be an practical purpose to this thing other than have the U.S. expend a few hundred thousand dollars of jet fuel and other operating costs.
So I can only conclude that the Pentagon is being trolled. Whomever launched that balloon must be very much enjoying the moment.
Re:Pentagon hasn't discovered trolling yet (Score:5, Interesting)
Military pilots need a certain minimum number of hours in the air doing certain maneuvers to maintain their skills. The military is burning fuel anyway in maintaining these flight hours. If the cost of the fuel burned is an issue then some accountant can tally up the hours the pilot had in the air on this intercept and count that towards the pilot's training time. Then with that accounting done there is no net impact to the fuel budget.
I can also conclude that those that launched the balloon are enjoying themselves right now. They got a cheap balloon to get the USAF to burn a lot of expensive fuel. Wars are won by finding tactics that destroy billions of dollars of assets while spending only millions of dollars on weapons to destroy them.
In Israel they spend just piles of cash on smart missile interceptors to defend against very simple, very cheap, and very dumb rockets launched over the border. If the rocket hits the ground and explodes then they win. If the rocket is destroyed in flight then they still win, because they forced Israel to burn something like $100,000 on a missile launch. What Israel is working on is a directed energy weapon that can destroy the rockets for a few dollars each time it fires. That changes the value of launching any rockets. If it costs $100 to build and launch a rocket but only $1 to destroy it before it can do any damage then launching rockets into Israel is the path to bankruptcy. Could someone stockpile a bunch of rockets and launch so many at once that it overwhelms the system, allowing rockets to hit their target? Sure, but that means if Israel survives the attack then they will build more directed energy defenses so it can't happen again. That makes the tactic even more expensive for the attacker in the future. The goal isn't necessarily to cause death and destruction, but to wear down the enemy over time so that they expend their ability to fight and would be easier to conquer later. Another goal might be to find weaknesses in the defenses so a future attack can be directed to the weak points to gain an advantage. China launching balloons means the USA has to expend resources and gives them information on possible weak points in defenses. The problem for China is that the USA also learns where the weak points are and so can act to fix them. That is unless China exploits the weak points before the USA has time to fix them.
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It definitely won't cost $1 to shoot down a rocket, even with a laser weapon. Even if the electricity costs that much, it needs operators, a support network of radar systems to spot and track the rockets, and a large number of them operating 24/7 to provide coverage. Plus licencing fees to the company that built the thing and wants an alternative revenue stream if it can't sell precision guided missiles.
They are building it because it might potentially work better than missiles, and because it's a high tech
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Military pilots need a certain minimum number of hours in the air doing certain maneuvers to maintain their skills. The military is burning fuel anyway in maintaining these flight hours. If the cost of the fuel burned is an issue then some accountant can tally up the hours the pilot had in the air on this intercept and count that towards the pilot's training time. Then with that accounting done there is no net impact to the fuel budget.
One of the big reasons Russia never achieved air supremacy over Ukraine is despite having way more planes they didn't give their pilots enough flight hours to be effective [businessinsider.com].
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It's almost certainly a cock-up. The data it can gather is available from spy satellites anyway, there is very little a balloon can add to that. The embarrassment so far is bad enough, but if it bursts and rains debris down on some town, and hands Chinese military equipment to the US, it will be even worse.
You can bet someone in China is getting a demotion over this.
Beyond that, China doesn't have much interest in antagonizing the mainland US. Sure, US aircraft near their airspace are going to be intercepte
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China claims it's a civilian aircraft that got blown off course collecting meteorological data.
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
Notably, it's not the first time this has happened.
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That's credible, balloons like are quite common tools for taking measurements at altitude. Checking the payload will confirm.
I don't know about the US, but they are used widely in Europe, by commercial operators and amateurs. Care needs to be taken to avoid other aircraft, but they are basically in the same category as things like amateur rockets and RC planes. They usually have a radiosonde attached to capture telemetry and help it be found once it comes down.
Impressive it got that far, they don't usually
Nothing about this story makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Why did they reveal to the public this thing exists?
2) Why do they trust it's going to not harm our nation or its interests by letting it continue to fly?
3) Why do they let it continue to fly & gather intelligence on our nation?
4) Why are they afraid of a balloon crash-landing?
-- These aren't incredibly massive;
-- Montana isn't exactly a very populated area;
-- We have computers that can calculate trajectory pretty accurately to make sure it's not brought down over a populated area.
5) Why would China float such a conspicuous object over our nation, knowing our technology & capability to spot it?
Seriously, after all the years China has spent successfully infiltrating our government offices and business and stealing our military and intellectual property secrets, what would they stand to gain floating a balloon through our airspace?
Re: Nothing about this story makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
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Test response time? With a balloon? These things do not move fast, and they've been tracking it for days.
The far better question is: Why is the Pentagon splashing this all over the headline? I question those motives far more than the motive of whoever launched a balloon...
Re: Nothing about this story makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Most obvious explanation:
Because someone else would spot it and it would be embarrassing for them if they hadn't mentioned it first. I assume the reason why they don't just puncture the balloon with a single non-explosive shot is that it's too high for aircraft to reach and so it would have to be an air defence rocket which would have too much chance of causing it to come down at catastrophic speed.
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It's not the first time China has done this:
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
Apparently it's the first time a civilian has noticed.
Re: Nothing about this story makes sense (Score:3)
If the Chinese believe that load of shit, they're going to be in a world of hurt.
America has the biggest swinging dick in the world. What you are witnessing is BDE from the Biden administration, while Russia is showing the world its micro-penis.
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1) Why did they reveal to the public this thing exists? 2) Why do they trust it's going to not harm our nation or its interests by letting it continue to fly? 3) Why do they let it continue to fly & gather intelligence on our nation? 4) Why are they afraid of a balloon crash-landing? -- These aren't incredibly massive; -- Montana isn't exactly a very populated area; -- We have computers that can calculate trajectory pretty accurately to make sure it's not brought down over a populated area. 5) Why would China float such a conspicuous object over our nation, knowing our technology & capability to spot it?
Seriously, after all the years China has spent successfully infiltrating our government offices and business and stealing our military and intellectual property secrets, what would they stand to gain floating a balloon through our airspace?
My guess is this is a humble brag about how good their US satellite images of China are.
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Because it ultimately contributes to global stability. We know that they know that we know that they know that we know.... just like when we fly satellites over china, or when we flew the b-2 spyplane over them.
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This is spot on. It's just a headscratcher all the way.
"Guys, we have a spy balloon. LAUNCH THE ~__ADVANCED__~ F-22!"
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In international politics, as a default you do reciprocity. So if a Chinese ship shoots at a US ship, you shoot back. Sometimes you can't do the same thing. Like if one side uses chemical weapons, you might hit their airforce with overwhelming force.
Now if the Pentagon shoots down a Chinese balloon, what will the response be? It could be China shooting down a US spy plane or satellite. It's not worth it for the limited gathering a balloon can do and could lead to further escalation.
So why are they letting
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If it's in US airspace, we are well within our rights to do whatever the hell we want with it. We can shoot it down or try some means of capturing it. It's ours.
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Then China will shoot down some craft over the south china sea as they see it as their airspace. Fully in their rights as they see it.
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If China (or someone) blocks the South China Sea, they won't be able to get oil from the middle east.
Predictably a confrontation will arrive in the future, with China trying to push out all non-authorized military ships from the region, but China needs to gain a certain amount of energy independence first.
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There's a huge difference between flying over disputed waters and flying over the middle of a country. If we floated a balloon over Beijing, how do you think they would react?
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https://thediplomat.com/wp-con... [thediplomat.com]
It's a balloon, pentagon says they don't care. Why do you care?
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1) Why did they reveal to the public this thing exists?
Because they want more defense spending, so it is in their interest to promote China as the new boogeyman to justify higher spending.
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Re:Nothing about this story makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
1. Why was it revealed? The balloon was spotted by civilians who posted video and there was a temporary closure of an airport. It's existence became public knowledge (though not the country of origin). This is apparently not the first time this has happened, just the first time it came to public attention.
2+3+4. Why let it continue to fly and gather intelligence? My guess is that we lack the capability to reliably shoot down a balloon at 85,000 feet. There is probably not enough heat signature or radar return for an air-to-air missile and it is probably above the service ceiling for an interceptor to engage it with guns. Rather than try and fail, we say we could but we don't want to.
5. Why would China float such a conspicuous object over our nation? Because they can. We used (and probably continue to use) aerial reconnaissance over the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. because they could not easily shoot down those planes and drones. The aircraft were conspicuous and the targets of the reconnaissance knew we were overflying them. Why wouldn't China do the same?
What benefit does a balloon have for reconnaissance over a satellite? It's closer, so imagery and electronic surveillance can be better. It is loitering over the area at 25 km (much closer than the 35,000 km of a geosynchronous satellite).
In case you are wondering how a balloon can loiter over an area, take a look at the work Google did for Project Loon. They determined that winds at different altitudes had dramatically different directions and speeds, and by ascending and descending they could control the area the balloon stayed in.
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My guess is that we lack the capability to reliably shoot down a balloon at 85,000 feet.
"We" shot down a smaller satellite from the deck of a ship floating in the ocean. What makes you think "we" are incapable of shooting down a balloon the size of 3 school buses floating at a mere 85k feet?
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1) The public had sighted it already.
2) It doesn't appear to be armed, and can't gather any more data than they can get from satellites anyway.
2A) It's clearly a screw up on China's end, there is no way this is a serious attempt to harm the US. It was likely never intended to travel to US airspace at all.
3) See (2), and because it continues to embarrass China and boost the US military's calls for more funding.
4) Because shooting it down isn't trivial, things can go wrong that makes its landing location hard
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1) Why did they reveal to the public this thing exists? 2) Why do they trust it's going to not harm our nation or its interests by letting it continue to fly? 3) Why do they let it continue to fly & gather intelligence on our nation? 4) Why are they afraid of a balloon crash-landing? -- These aren't incredibly massive; -- Montana isn't exactly a very populated area; -- We have computers that can calculate trajectory pretty accurately to make sure it's not brought down over a populated area. 5) Why would China float such a conspicuous object over our nation, knowing our technology & capability to spot it?
Seriously, after all the years China has spent successfully infiltrating our government offices and business and stealing our military and intellectual property secrets, what would they stand to gain floating a balloon through our airspace?
1) because the people have cell phones and have been recording it and putting it on twitter and the press picked it up and asked the pentagon about it.
2) Because they have seen them over other us territories in the past. This is nothing new.
3) They could also be using the opportunity to gather intelligence about the make up of the equipment on board and therefore shooting it down would negate that opportunity. Also because shooting it down can harm people on the ground so it would have to be properly co
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Possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
SIGINT
See how we'd respond
Generate fear
https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
Has the DOD said the actual altitude?
Re: Possibilities (Score:2)
Option 4: Whatever the Mandarin is for "gotta spend my money this year on something, otherwise I won't get any next year!"
Unless (Score:2)
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Yeah, they should have detected and shot this thing down before it even entered our airspace. Now that it's here, it's not safe to do so, but it's also not safe to not do so — assuming it's not carrying a payload is irresponsible.
How the hell do we know it is Chinese? (Score:2)
Is it a big red balloon with a yellow star on it? Does it have a big picture of chairman Mao painted on it? Does it blast propaganda? Wtf?
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We can safely assume that it is Chinese, because they're the only country that is still manufacturing balloons these days. :-D
Re:How the hell do we know it is Chinese? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they spotted a little white sticker on the underside that reads "Made in China"
Why bother shooting it down. (Score:2)
HOW DARE THEY? (Score:4, Funny)
Looks larger than the Roswell Balloon (Score:2)
Just sayin
Well this is entertaining. (Score:2)
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Maybe Nena [wikipedia.org] was before your time?
Biden document return (Score:2, Troll)
The US response is the intelligence gathered. (Score:2)
Why is this a threat? (Score:2)
It's strange, reading all the knee-jerk comments and articles about how this is a threat, a violation of sovereignty, etc, etc.. It's a fricking balloon. They aren't particularly steerable, they can't carry large payloads, they can't hide. They just float, maybe changing their altitude to catch wind currents.
So it's flying over Montana, where there are some missile silos. Wow. What's it going to see that isn't already perfectly visible to satellites?
On top of that, what evidence is there that this isn't a
Re: Why is this a threat? (Score:2)
Yup, this article is anti china FUD. Trying to get Americans all angry and fired up over nothing so we can create a narrative to promote more animosity. Woo hoo.
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China acknowledged the ownership of the balloon. I suggest reading the article if you have a lot of questions.
Shit journalism (Score:2)
âoe Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement.
Ryder declined to say where the balloon came from, but a senior Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks, said the Pentagon has âoevery high confidenceâ it belongs to China.âoe
So all this blaming China for the balloon comes from a senior defense official under condition of anonymity saying that the Pentagon has âoehigh confidenceâ?
Can journalists just make sh
red dawn? (Score:2)
Could it be about the payload? (Score:2)
The natural reaction is to shoot it down right a
Responding to provocation is not provocation. (Score:2)
Floating this balloon over our bases is the provocation. Taking action in response is the opposite of a provocation.
Kurt Russell (Score:2)
Why do they use terms like 'Gang of Eight' () ?
From wikipedia:
It wasn't worth wasting the bullet (Score:2)
disable it? (Score:2)
Can they use a directed EMP to disable the electronics on it? let it float around all it wants but cancel out any benefit it might produce.
I am terrified (Score:2)
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Re:Incoming Conspiracy Theories (Score:5, Interesting)
A Chinese army officer can walk into any flight school, present a faa student pilot medical, fly and take overhead images of 97% of the united states, and slant images of 99% of the united states from 3,500 to 9,500 feet, set a grid pattern on the autopilot, and nobody would care. The instructor as long as there is not a flight safty issue or airspace issue is there for $20/hr and flight hours twords ATP goals. The instructor will snap just as many pictures as the army officer and share them on facebook.
Taking a tour of the Tucson Bone yard is a habbit of a ton of foreign officers. It is easy to figure 1 year to 5 year force levels through public means by counting the spares sitting in storage in neat rows. The US airspaces are widely open and we have very few things that are valuable to locate outside of submarine locations that are worthy of hiding. Want to know where US troops are located, buy the info from META.
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What are the likely consequences for China (either as the instigator or scapegoat? I don't see any. Hell, China crashed a fighter into one of our sigint planes and I don't remember anything happening to them.
My completely made-up rationale is that China is trying to map our missile silos via signals or gas traces.
Re:False flag? (Score:5, Informative)
Hell, China crashed a fighter into one of our sigint planes and I don't remember anything happening to them.
Well, the Chinese pilot was killed. He was a reckless idiot, but the crash was an accident.
So what should we do to retaliate? Kill one of our pilots to get even?
My completely made-up rationale is that China is trying to map our missile silos via signals or gas traces.
American ICBMs are solid-fueled, so no gas traces.
I believe that Russia and China use liquid fuel, but everyone else uses solid fuel, even North Korea.
Re:False flag? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the Chinese pilot was killed. He was a reckless idiot, but the crash was an accident.
Tell us you don't know how aviation or military people think without telling us that you've never had a single discussion with one.
There are elaborate rules, procedures and training requirements to maintain large amounts of separation between planes precisely so that human error and mechanical malfunction, even combined with each other and with bad environmental conditions, do not lead to commissions. And militaries -- especially the PLA -- have very rigid chains of command when it comes to dispatching and controlling expensive assets like airplanes.
That Chinese pilot got close to the US plane because the Chinese military wanted him to. It was part of a continuing pattern of in-air harassment and brinkmanship, in violation of international law and safety rules. That pilot wasn't a "reckless idiot" at all, and the commission was not an accident -- it was a case of statistics winning after the pilot followed orders to approach dangerously close to a foreign aircraft and then fly aggressively around it.
Re:False flag? (Score:4, Insightful)
it was a case of statistics winning after the pilot followed orders to approach dangerously close
So, an accident. lol oh my.
The fact that the airplanes were close was not an accident, as you said; however, the fact that they actually collided was an accident.
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It continues to happen [youtube.com], part of an ongoing pattern.
There is some speculation that it happens as a local initiative, not as direct orders from the top.
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...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Anyone and everyone knows exactly where they are if they want to know.
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My completely made-up rationale is that China is trying to map our missile silos via signals or gas traces.
The locations are very well known - they've pretty much been there for over half a century.
The purpose of using a balloon, which is both lower altitude than a satellite, and slower-moving, is primarily for signal acquisition. It's probably capturing all RF data at various bandwidths for later study by the Chinese.
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I'm thinking its possible they could be collecting GPS location data from the balloon, and using photometry to get more accurate coordinates to the nuke silos. But its still more likely its just a climate data collection balloon they lost control of. At least one retired general thought the Chinese would need to physically collect the balloon to obtain data from the balloon sensors.
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To send the mesage "We are so confident that in our intelligence that we know all the tech on it and don't need to take a look and see at it".
Which tends to cause bouts of paranoia in counter intelligence services and that causes purges which do more harm to your opposition than the benefit from downing it.
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CIA Director's son signed off on the counterintel op.
Superfluous detail. Someone from the CIA was going to have involvement with the surveillance plane regardless if it was a disinfo ploy or a standard data collection flight.
Now that Biden sold* China all that modern gear in Afghanistan there's no longer a secret to be kept.
What modern gear??? Don't you grasp that its been 20 years between the Hainan flight incident and when the Taliban rolled into Kabul? What are the Chinese going to steal? Advanced night vision goggles and helicopter tech? You're an embarrassment to conspiracy theorists; they're more discerning than that. Plus, you're talking about a
Re:False flag? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes China does things just to let the US know it can be trouble if it wants to be.
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Sometimes China does things just to let the US know it can be trouble if it wants to be.
I agree with this. I laugh when I see people talking about fighter jets and such. It's a freaking balloon. The proper response is to get a couple of guys in a cessna with a shotgun to fly up and put a hole in it. It'll come down slowly and likely not be damaged substantially by the landing. Then we can see what it is. If the Chinese are watching they'll realize that the US isn't like China. Win win.
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Sometimes China does things just to let the US know it can be trouble if it wants to be.
I agree with this. I laugh when I see people talking about fighter jets and such. It's a freaking balloon. The proper response is to get a couple of guys in a cessna with a shotgun to fly up and put a hole in it. It'll come down slowly and likely not be damaged substantially by the landing. Then we can see what it is. If the Chinese are watching they'll realize that the US isn't like China. Win win.
High altitude balloons tend to fly at 60,000 to 100,000 feet. Cessna's have a max altitude of 13,000 to 15,000 feet.
Re:False flag? (Score:4, Insightful)
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You honestly think they haven't been tracking this thing since it reached cloud level? They know where it launched from.
You are way overestimating America's intelligence capabilities if you believe they are aware of every balloon floated in Eurasia.
Re: False flag? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:False flag? (Score:5, Funny)
As usual, the most convincing evidence I'm right is that I was inappropriately modded down for saying it.
So your theory is that foreign intelligence services monitor Slashdot while stealthily accumulating mod points, just to suppress people who post conjectures that might match their actual plan?
Re:False flag? (Score:5, Funny)
No no no - Foreign Intelligence services are the only ones who can pass the rigorous selection criteria to become editors. It's the local intelligence that provides the comments.
Do try to keep up, 007 ;-)
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I, uh, actually thought that was a known fact? Like - the UK spies actually got caught using slashdot spoof pages and targeting slashdot users specifically? https://www.computerworld.com/... [computerworld.com]
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I've been amazed over the years at how much obviously foreign activity takes place here, and it's clear that China takes this site somewhat seriously although clearly less so than in prior years.
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they fucking meddle; thats all they ever do.
That is why I'm proud to be an American.
We never meddle in other countries' affairs.
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Re:False flag? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The US believes Chinese spy satellites in low Earth orbit are capable of offering similar or better intelligence, limiting the value of whatever Beijing can glean from the high-altitude balloon, which is the size of three buses," reports CNN, citing a defense official.
The obvious difference that is possible by a low-level balloon is radio surveillance. There is a reason that Russia sends "fishing" trawlers along our coasts with sophisticated antenna arrays. A high altitude capsule the size of three buses and with large solar arrays can continuously transmit large amounts of collected data back to its creators.
Perhaps instead of just shooting it down, they are experimenting with bombarding the capsule with huge amounts of RF interference to limit what it can gather. There might also be other reasons that the military isn't releasing that warrant letting the balloon continue to travel without directly forcing it down.
I'm guessing that if we force it down, the owners will claim it is just a lost atmospheric monitoring experiment and blame the US for overreacting.
RE "Fishing Trawler" (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing that if we force it down, the owners will claim it is just a lost atmospheric monitoring experiment and blame the US for overreacting.
They are doing exactly that. [washingtonpost.com]
“It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” read the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
Never mind the obvious flaw where if it was an atmospheric monitoring experiment, they would have freaked out and told someone when it "deviated far from its planned course," emphasis mine:
Laurence Pfeiffer, a former White House official and CIA chief of staff ... voiced skepticism about the Chinese claim it was a meteorological airship. “Weather balloon? Sure- just what you’d expect the Chinese to claim,” he said. “Why no alert until after it was spotted?”
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Nope. Intelligence photos pretty much show equipment that is not going to be carried by an "enthusiast"; the balloon and payload is *much* too large for that. The Chinese gov't has already admitted that it was their climate data collection balloon that they lost control of. Of course, the balloon "coincidentally" floats in camera distance of Malmstrom Air Force Base, where our nuke silos are located.
US satellites can do photographic intel over foreign nuke silos, but this flyby seems to indicate Chinese
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Every one a Captain Kirk?
Re: False flag? (Score:5, Funny)
Remember when the USSR shot down a U2 plane.
I don't think they found what they were looking for.
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refusing to shoot it down
I recommend you read the news before you go about shouting out your conspiracies. Biden authorized shooting it down some time ago; the DoD vetoed that move. Exactly what the rationale is for not shooting it down is not completely clear, but if it was completely up to the POTUS it would have been down a while ago.
Remember this is a target in the air, this is not a nuclear strike. The POTUS can individually call for the latter but not the former.
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Because a politician that leaves the ultimate decision to the subject-matter experts is rare and valuable.
President: "You -- the people running defense -- have authorization if you -- along with your detailed intelligence -- decide that is the correct action."
Generals: "In our opinions this balloon does not pose a threat of any significance and we can benefit more from closely watching it and learning than shooting it down. If that changes, it is good to know we can then shoot it down without dealing with t
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Remember when the USSR shot down a U2 plane. It made very little sense to do this for the US as well as the potential ramifications were huge.
That sentence makes no sense. US intelligence was obtaining valuable photo-intel from those U2 planes. The managers just erroneously thought that the Russians were incapable of shooting down the U2 airplane at the time. The U2 (TR1) is still in use by the USAF; it does a lot of classified flights over North Korea and possibly nations as advanced as China.
Are you suggesting it made no sense for the US to shoot down the rogue balloon? There are no huge potential ramifications for the US to do it. As wel
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The fact Xiden is refusing to shoot it down tells you more about our current admin than about what China is willing to do.
Idiot, "Xiden" is in the process of crippling Chinese semiconductor advancement. No one is going to want to buy Chinese electronic products 2 years from now, because its going to be four years behind the products the West will offer. The decision is being made by the US joint chiefs of staff (with some input from the State department); Biden is good either way.