Chinese Spy Balloon Flying Over the U.S.

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wanttaja said:
Again, though: Why do it with a balloon, when they have spacecraft already performing the same missions?

Ron Wanttaja
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I look at it as a fishing expedition. Eff around and find out.
 
Matthew said:
There’s also the possibility this wasn’t a
“real” spy balloon. They maybe just wanted to see what we would do. Sure, maybe it was also capturing signals from whatever radar was being bounced off it, including the missile aiming system. But maybe the bigger point was simply to see how we would react.
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That's exactly what a couple of retired generals have said, in news reports. There's not much info the balloon can gather that can't be obtained another way. The only reasonable purpose of the flight was to see how we would react, or not react. (Sounds plausible to me, but other retired talking heads of course have other takes on this.)

Here's one of those interviews:
 
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FastEddieB said:
Forbes is reporting that such balloons have traversed our airspace several times prior to this administration and went unreported.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattno...dent-trump-was-in-office-too/?sh=3ca320663ea3
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I heard that on the news this morning. IF true, are those being critical of this episode willing to be equally critical of past ones, regardless of administration? For me, I’m willing to say the military did the right thing regardless of who was POTUS, from the limited info we have.
 
Just saw this on Twitter:

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woodchucker said:
I was a sub nuke in the navy. I won’t share details but plenty of people know those details. You people having their boxers in a bunch over intel “captured” by a meandering balloon have lost their marbles.

Like seriously. Calm down. There’s a reason it wasn’t shot down until it was safely out to the Atlantic. Mostly false intel being fed in my opinion.

The DOD wasn’t broadcasting signals of national importance to the balloon. Some of you seriously need to evaluate your life choices on how you broadcast your own intel to the world.
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Excited? I’m not excited about anything. Sounds like you’re the one that’s excited. I do, however, realize that it is a POSIBILITY that the intention of the balloon was sinister. I would hope that those responsible for our defense realize the same possibility.

I did maintenance and electronic repair on two different ADA systems. One of them, the one for which I was intensively trained to understand every circuit, had a significant size nuclear warhead. Due to the accuracy limit of the primitive system, a nuclear warhead was necessary to take out bomber fleets. Sort of like a hand grenade versus a rifle. You don’t have to be accurate, just close. The system is no longer in use and I expect has been declassified since then, but I won’t give detail. That said, the proper signal transmitted to the missile would hav defeated it. Since the system was never used in anger, we will never know if enemies figured this out. Our operators never knew anything about that subsystem, were you an operator? If so, or even a commanding officer, there were a LOT of things happening under the hood or which you had no idea.

I expect that your knowledge of electronics is limited. Evidence of that is your saying “The DOD wasn’t broadcasting signals of national importance to the balloon.” Signals do not have to be specifically “transmitted.” Signals of all types are being transmitted constantly, hanging out there to be monitored.

So,… don’t get excited. Take a blood pressure pill and chill out.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
I heard that on the news this morning. IF true, are those being critical of this episode willing to be equally critical of past ones, regardless of administration? For me, I’m willing to say the military did the right thing regardless of who was POTUS, from the limited info we have.
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Absolutely not. Logic goes out the window when politics walks in the door.
 
MBDiagMan said:
Sure. The balloon may have possibly been carrying signal gathering equipment relaying information before its demise. I have no idea what it was carrying. Maybe fried rice, but it is certainly possible. I expect that the military had a pretty good idea.
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Hector Parra said:
What if they actually wanted us to shoot it down over a populated area?
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well it would have been pretty stupid of us to do that.
 
Salty said:
well it would have been pretty stupid of us to do that.
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Well, if it were DC I'd have been okay with that.

Or possibly Chicago. Or maybe Detroit. I guess NY would be okay, too. And Newark. Come to think of it, Boston wouldn't upset me too much, either.

There could have been lots of options.
 
Half Fast said:
Well, if it were DC I'd have been okay with that.

Or possibly Chicago. Or maybe Detroit. I guess NY would be okay, too. And Newark. Come to think of it, Boston wouldn't upset me too much, either.

There could have been lots of options.
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Sorry - those are all fellow Americans. I can’t say stuff like that even in jest and even for people who view things differently than I
 
Half Fast said:
Well, if it were DC I'd have been okay with that.

Or possibly Chicago. Or maybe Detroit. I guess NY would be okay, too. And Newark. Come to think of it, Boston wouldn't upset me too much, either.

There could have been lots of options.
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It should have been taken care of as soon as it entered the ADIZ....prior to reaching Alaska. ;)
 
I'm curious if this is the first time China has ever sent a balloon over US territory. Has this happened under any previous presidents? If so the media didn't have much to say about it not being shot down at the time. Biden seems to be taking a great deal of heat for not shooting it down sooner. Methinks there might be politics afoot! :dunno:
 
Half Fast said:
Well, if it were DC I'd have been okay with that.

Or possibly Chicago. Or maybe Detroit. I guess NY would be okay, too. And Newark. Come to think of it, Boston wouldn't upset me too much, either.

There could have been lots of options.
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Why those places?
 
I don't think any of this is worth getting wound up over. I do think it's cool that they used F-15's out of Barnes as part of the operation. That's a nice little mixed use airport.

I don't think it's a coincidence that they used the humorous call sign for the pilot, that they had F-15's along, or that they used an aim-9 to bring it down. It reads to me like we see what you're doing here, it's not a big deal, and not having any idea how intercepts work I'd bet that the F-15s were the only planes actively searching with radar, and the operation was conducted visually by the F-22. That the last thing the balloon "saw" was technology that was 30+ years old aimed at it.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking (pun intended) you don't get to be an air force general without being smarter than the average idiot. Something that's obviously not true of the average news person or our wonderful elected representatives. So it was a bit of a comedy show.

During the cold war we routinely played little and large games with the Russians. Sometimes just for the fun of it. How did we not know this carrier was in this location?" was one of them. So maybe the Chinese are just having fun. Maybe they're hoping we'll waste a half a billion dollars on "balloon defense". Maybe it was a Chinese real-estate developer that wants more info than satellite photos to plan their next development here. Maybe it really was a weather balloon, and they're trying to develop optimum profiles for an aircraft to provide supersonic service between Bejing and NYC 25 years from now.

Only thing I know for sure about the the Chinese is that they play the long game. Probably more than any adversary we've ever had.
 
Half Fast said:
What's abnormal about hate? It seems to occur naturally, pretty much everyone has it for one thing or another, and it's been around since Cain stoned Able. Seems pretty normal to me.
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So because it is "normal" that makes it a good thing?
Half Fast said:
They hold lots of politicians or damnyankees.
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I understand the politicians, but what's wrong with "damnyankees"? And why are they damned?
 
MBDiagMan said:
So,… don’t get excited. Take a blood pressure pill and chill out.
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Trust me. Woodchuck was a submariner. The only things likely to get him excited are the words “fire”, “flooding”, or EAM. Hopefully not all at the same time.
 
hindsight2020 said:
the winnie the pooh F-22 patch is already making the rounds at the squadron's discord/whatsapp/et al channels. Solid gold. Love me some Sunday morning good ol' CCP mocking. Trolling for a good cause.
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This?

2023-02-05_13-49-40.jpg
 
MBDiagMan said:
I expect that your knowledge of electronics is limited. Evidence of that is your saying “The DOD wasn’t broadcasting signals of national importance to the balloon.” Signals do not have to be specifically “transmitted.” Signals of all types are being transmitted constantly, hanging out there to be monitored.
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Why do you think that our military were broadcasting anything of importance? The apparently knew the balloon was up there before it flew over Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48. Do you think they would continue to broadcast anything of importance when they knew there was a potential adversarial listener? Or alternately, why wouldn't they create spoof broadcasts?
 
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