Any thoughts on the Chinese weather balloon?
Asked by
KRD (
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)
February 3rd, 2023
The Chinese weather balloon is flying other the US in Montana. It is a big white balloon that is suspected to be spying on the US. China is “looking into” the situation. Both US and Chinese departments hope that both countries can calmly and carefully handle the situation without it getting to serious. Anyone have anything to say?
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91 Answers
It’s odd that the balloon wasn’t seen until over the US. I might contend that it is North Korean and not Chinese.
China says its essentially a drifting weather monitoring system that went off course.
The US says the camera’s are taking pics of missile sites and other sensitive areas pertaining to security.
Canada seems to be taking it as a threat.
To me, it’s very interesting as our reps are set to head to China next week and are now delaying that.
Will Biden authorize force or allow it to continue? We shall see.
What would you do @KRD? I’d take it out, myself.
On the news here, they’re referring to it as a Chinese spy balloon.
They said the authorities here decided not to shoot it down because the debris can be dangerous to people and property.
I don’t like it. I wonder if there’s a way we can disable it somehow without endangering people and property.
Being much closer to the ground than observation satellites allows it to get really high resolution pics using commercially available cameras. Also, Google discovered a way to roughly guide balloons by changing altitude to catch winds going in desired directions. China might be combining these ideas to test out a way to get low cost, high res pics of the US. Whether they are doing this now as a prototype for future use or to get current info is unknown.
Off course coincidentally over our ICBM Silo’s.
Chinese are claiming it is their balloon and it is tracking weather patterns. I don’t believe that for a minute.
I do not believe in weather balloons. Must be aliens.
If I recall we had a spy plane over Russia back in the 70s. The U2 and Russia shot it down. We were embarrassed and everyone huffed and puffed for a while but nothing came of it. I don’t see how this is any different. It seems more like china poking us in the eye rather than any real threat. I do wonder why we didn’t shoot it down while it was over the Pacific.
weather balloons. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
With all the satellites and technology.
What a Maroon!
As someone on FB said, haven’t they all heard of Google Earth?
If they didn’t want it to be seen, why didn’t they make it blue??
I think it should be carefully collected and throughly examined.
@kritiper I do kinda hope it is a Korean spy balloon and it might be one because it is still in the air over Kansas and hasn’t fallen down yet. @KNOWITALL I would take it down if I wanted to but I don’t want tensions tightening between the US and China.
I imagine there’s more to this than I have an understanding of, so my thoughts are probably naive. I’m just surprised that we don’t have tech that can capture it and bring it in for study. I know we have some extreme HALO jumpers that are trained for extreme skydiving for example. One might think they could land on the baloon, attach a parachute, and then cut a hole to cause a deliberate leak with a recoverable device for the NSA/CIA to study or something like that… (again, probably naive).
I never heard of this story. Why can’t we just knock it down and check it out? It’s over US soil so it’s US property, right?
@RayaHope. It’s as big as three buses. They don’t want it to fall to earth and hurt or kill anyone.
Oh gosh, wow that is big!
It’s hard to say what that thing is doing other than China admitted it’s theirs. Spying is highly likely. Could be getting ready to release COVID23….
I was just wondering, why would a weather balloon need to be that big?
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The higher you go, the thinner the atmosphere becomes, and the more buoyancy you need for any given payload.
It is an excellent way for them (whoever “they” are) to gather intel on exactly how the US responds to such a thing. Where are the aircraft scrambled from? How many? What is the media response? And so on.
@chyna I didn’t know it was that big because I was about to get out my rocket launcher. @RayaHope I’m studying meteorology and weather balloons need equipment to measure the weather. But a Chinese weather balloon “off course” in America is i bit too far and if it was off course in America then China would probably let us know so we could get it and return it. @canidmajor It may be a Chinese project to see how we would act when a foreign aircraft that is not on the flight list in the US records is spotted. I hope it is not going to get classified information.
Maybe it’s just a ploy to see what kind of “Chicken Little” response they can get out of our populace.
If it were ours sailing over them, would they hesitate to shoot it down?
They said the authorities here decided not to shoot it down because the debris can be dangerous to people and property.
Hey, it’s Montana. Nothing but but cows and ranches.
@canidmajor That is exactly what I think this really is. It’s a dry run on our defenses. How we respond will tell them where the next chess move should go. If we shoot it down, it forces us to show some cards.
There is still such things as weather balloons, countries still use them.
I don’t believe it’s simply an innocent weather balloon, but at the same time, I assume we are eventually going to know what it’s equipped with. We aren’t going to let it just float over us and continue on without interfering with it, are we?
My money is on it being a spy balloon. I assume we spy on China too.
I just read that another Chinese balloon was supposedly spotted over Latin America.
Reminds me of the West Wing episode when a US spy plane is forced down over Russia. Something like that. I don’t remember exactly what we were spying on. At first the president tries to deny it’s a spy plane, but then admits it, because we are actually doing something that will help Russia too. Some sort of twist. We should be so lucky. I don’t think China is trying to help us.
Another interesting place it’s floating over: Offutt AFB is 25 miles from where I live in NE. It’s the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), the 557th Weather Wing, and the 55th Wing (55 WG) of the Air Combat Command (ACC), the latter serving as the host unit.
Approx 8,000 people live on Offutt. I’m not familiar with all of those terms, but I get the gist.
Maybe it’s just passing through on the way to get the weather on the east coast.
I don’t know which explanation sounds less plausible.
It’s just a weather balloon that’s crazy off course and just so happens to be over USSC.
Or that spies would think a giant ass white balloon is the way to be sneaky.
This is the Chinese saying they don’t need any rockets to deliver and drop nuclear weapons over the US. All they needed to do is fly a balloon.
@KRD Alot of people online are also saying a regular American will shoot it down. Some of the memes are quite funny. I’ll post in our Tidepool FB page for you.
On the news, they said it’s possible the balloon is sending down sensors that will be hard to detect on land.
Anthony Blinken had a planned trip to Beijing this weekend and he’s cancelling it.
^^He canceled this weekend and opted to arrive there within the next 40 days…landing in Beijing on a hot air balloon.
I do wonder from where it launched and where the very first report of a sighting was.
Hey, Biden said “They’re taking care of it”. I guess he means that once China gets all the intel they want they will do something about it.
It’s been shot down. So, yeah, he did take care of it. He didn’t want to take it down over civilization not knowing what it contained.
@chyna Why not shoot it down over Montana? That’s a long way from civilization…
Horses, cows, armadillos and Buffalo’s.
Shot down over Carolina. Thank you Biden team!
Collecting debris off the coast of Myrtle Beach SC.
The Republican lie brigade (e.g. MTG) have tried to criticize Biden for the balloon not having been shot down immediately. Even claiming that Trump would’ve done so.
BUT MTG, who is on the Homeland Security Committee, should know that the same thing DID happen at least three times during the Trump regime, and he didn’t do diddly squat about it.
The difference (other than the Republican lies), is that previous balloons didn’t get spotted by the public and become a media circus. The US military knew about them, of course.
^^ Ohellno! I didn’t know MTG is on the Homeland Security Comm?! Ironic? Humorous? Scary? Embarrassing? All of the above and more? sheesh
I’m also seeing articles that Chinese spy balloons crossed over America during the Trump years. So, did the Democrats miss making that an issue, or is it so common in every presidency it was ignored? Why was nothing said back then?
@JLeslie those were not sighted by the general public and media. Trump knew but ignored them. I wonder if it was Trump’s adoration of dictators like Xi Jinping ???
Ya I heard they delivered 2 Belly Buster orders of General Tso’s Chicken by balloon to Trump while he was in the WHITE HOUSE. ; > 0 )
@chyna Just an FYI: There are no armadillos in Montana. Too cold. You have to go to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and points further south where it’s warmer and more desert like.
I’m surprised that they shot it down with a A-9X (“Sidewinder” radar guided air-to-air missile, I think) instead of machine gun (20mm cannon, I think) fire. It would have come down slower and debris would not have been spread over a 7 mile area. It might have been easier to find, I reckon…
@kritiper I saw a discussion on the news about why they didn’t use the machine gun. Apparently they have done that in the past and the balloon doesn’t come down as quickly and can actually continue on its way for quite a while. They didn’t want it getting out of our territorial waters
@seawulf575 I considered that. But that Sidewinder sure blew the hell out of the thing!
The video posted by @ragingloli explains things pretty well.
@jca2 I loved the pic of the balloon on the side of the… plane? jet? whatever it was.
@NoMore They already did. Yesterday.
I know, just being a wiseacre.
They finally shot it down they should’ve done it in Montana.
@KRD As empty as Montana seems to be, confining the wreckage of such a thing is virtually impossible, and risky to human life if it is not contained. That’s why they waited until it was over water.
@canidmajor – and they wanted to collect the pieces for analysis. Falling into water is less damaging than falling onto the ground.
I just love it when everyone on the internet knows what should be done better than the council of military advisers and the President.
@ragingloli Well, I know the raptor is a bird, but the F-22 Raptor is an aircraft. I just didn’t know whether to call it an airplane, or a fighter jet, or simply a jet, or whatever. At any rate, it’s impressive and spectacular-looking!
I see the worry about it being hard to contain the wreckage but if they wanted to shoot it over water then why didn’t they shoot it over the Pacific ocean and not the Atlantic so the Chinese wouldn’t be able to see any part of our country?
I think Maverick shot it down with help from Lady Gaga!
@KRD It wasn’t over the Pacific, it drifted over to the Atlantic. The US wasn’t in charge of which direction it drifted, the Chinese were since it was their balloon.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/chinese-spy-balloon-aleutian-islands-canada
A suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and then through Canada before hovering above sensitive locations in the United States, the Pentagon announced.
So it was over the Pacific at some point, but…
The flight path of the object was revealed by the Department of Defense to the BBC and the New York Times. Details about when the balloon was first identified and how long it took the object to reach the mainland United States were not revealed.
So the DoD may have not known about it until it was over land in Canada.
Apparently we flew U2 planes around it, taking pictures and gathering signal information. Rumor has it that the balloon payload had antennas for gathering signal intelligence and propellers to (more or less) control its course. I wonder when confirmation of that will come out?
I have seen a few articles where China is still claiming it was a weather balloon. I wonder what they will say, when or if it is proven to be a spy balloon as the US thought it was. Or, what will the US say if it’s proven to actually be a weather balloon?
A story that I’ll continue to follow.
@chyna China will probably say that it is still a weather balloon and that we have shot down civilian aircraft. I hope that the balloon does not have the ability to transmit so we can erase it’s memory and China will never know what the sky target saw.
Intelligence would have been transmitted up to satellites in real time. Whether we jammed the signal is unknown at this time.
I agree it is transmitted in real time, unless jamming the signal worked? It only takes a few minutes to transmit from the moon, for sure they are transmitting in real time or with just a few seconds delay.
If it’s a weather balloon, why didn’t it know which way the wind was blowing?
@flutherother It couldn’t decide whether to veer north or south.
Nyuk.
Just wish it had been shot down sooner.
Falling into shallow water means they can pick up the pieces and reverse engineer the whole thing, figure out who the parts suppliers are, then track them down.
I heard today that Lake Huron is 750 feet deep.
That’s no fun. :( The first one fell in 70 deep water. At least that one had a whole bunch of electronics to pick through.
I heard that the latest balloon shot down might be a UFO. I say it is a CFB (Chinese flying balloon).
The Chinese are one thing, Martians something else.
@NoMore Do you think the martians are friendly?
Craving Chinese Food delivery from Balloon dash service.
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