Chinese Weather Balloons, and Should You Worry About Them?

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To shoot it down, all you need is a slow-moving biplane with an open cockpit and a pellet gun. And what exactly is china spying on in Montana? Fields of grass and cow manure? Wow, call out the national guard! When the government has a cow concerning a balloon, how freaking upset are they going to be when they find out people like us have our own missiles? Makes me want to send up a balloon right now over NYC. All those drone toys made in China are secretly spying for the communist government. Wowzers! Jinkies! Let's go Scooby Doo!
 
Steve Shannon said:
They were only the first. I don’t blame them strictly, but the whole 24 hour feeding frenzy.
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Yup, so much restatement and over-analyzing things, and the worst part is that they've blurred the line between reporting the news and opinion. The slightest bit of "news" gets the "BREAKING NEWS!" treatment... with six hours of "expert" commentary.
 
techrat said:
To shoot it down, all you need is a slow-moving biplane with an open cockpit and a pellet gun. And what exactly is china spying on in Montana? Fields of grass and cow manure? Wow, call out the national guard! When the government has a cow concerning a balloon, how freaking upset are they going to be when they find out people like us have our own missiles? Makes me want to send up a balloon right now over NYC. All those drone toys made in China are secretly spying for the communist government. Wowzers! Jinkies! Let's go Scooby Doo!
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Pretty sure the whole toy-spying thing started with Furby... and God knows what Alexa is sending to China.
 
techrat said:
To shoot it down, all you need is a slow-moving biplane with an open cockpit and a pellet gun. And what exactly is china spying on in Montana? Fields of grass and cow manure? Wow, call out the national guard! When the government has a cow concerning a balloon, how freaking upset are they going to be when they find out people like us have our own missiles? Makes me want to send up a balloon right now over NYC. All those drone toys made in China are secretly spying for the communist government. Wowzers! Jinkies! Let's go Scooby Doo!
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You'd need a biplane that flies at over 60,000 feet.
 
techrat said:
To shoot it down, all you need is a slow-moving biplane with an open cockpit and a pellet gun. And what exactly is china spying on in Montana? Fields of grass and cow manure? Wow, call out the national guard! When the government has a cow concerning a balloon, how freaking upset are they going to be when they find out people like us have our own missiles? Makes me want to send up a balloon right now over NYC. All those drone toys made in China are secretly spying for the communist government. Wowzers! Jinkies! Let's go Scooby Doo!
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https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-1110-nukes-silos-pictures-photogallery.html
 
rjs1208 said:
Too bad its not (significantly) lower. Seems like it could be a fun game for the local club. Kind of like trying to hit the golf ball picker at the driving range.
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We are the local club and we only have a COA to 52k, and we're a couple hundred miles away from where the balloon was spotted.

A few years ago when I activated our waiver (we usually only activate it to 26k AGL) some conspiracy theorist got on YouTube and "issued an alert" saying that the only reason for a NOTAM that high was if Malmstrom was going to launch nukes. He was quite concerned. Another, from Chicago, actually called me and asked what was going on. At about 2 in the morning. I have "Do Not Disturb" turned on, but I was quite amazed when I heard his voicemail the next morning while driving to the launch. I think I giggled all day, but at the same time these idiots' votes count just as much as yours and mine.
 
Steve Shannon said:
We are the local club and we only have a COA to 52k, and we're a couple hundred miles away from where the balloon was spotted.

A few years ago when I activated our waiver (we usually only activate it to 26k AGL) some conspiracy theorist got on YouTube and "issued an alert" saying that the only reason for a NOTAM that high was if Malmstrom was going to launch nukes. He was quite concerned. Another, from Chicago, actually called me and asked what was going on. At about 2 in the morning. I have "Do Not Disturb" turned on, but I was quite amazed when I heard his voicemail the next morning while driving to the launch. I think I giggled all day, but at the same time these idiots' votes count just as much as yours and mine.
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Ah, the joys of dealing with the "Earth is flat and our government leaders are shapeshifting reptiles" crowd.
 
@K'Tesh could you please find out what the heck is up with these things. Without blowing your "teaching" cover, I mean. 😉

#ourmaninShanghai
 
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During WW2 the Japanese had a balloon bomb project call Fu-Go. They launched little over 9000 of these balloons into the jet stream that crosses the Pacific for more that 6000 miles. Of the 9000 something like 300 made to the United States and Canada. They came across the Pacific and entered our air space over Washington state and Oregon. They continued across the country and at least 2 of them made it all the way to Mich. One landed in Oregon and was discovered by a family it went off and killed 6 members of the family. They were the only ones killed by the balloons and the only civilians killed in the continental United States during WW2 by Japan. The government kept it secret for fears that it would cause panic in the US. The project was suppose to start forest fires and destroy infrastructure but it was more about creating fear than anything else. Those balloons took the same paths as the current one today a lot of the them crossing the same areas as the one today. The only difference is today this balloon is crossing over land where more than 2/3's of our land based minuteman III's are located. From the looks of the array attached to this one it's eavesdropping on line of sight, microwave, cell, and other forms of communication that is normally not carried on satcoms. Once a balloon is captured in the jet steam it's not coming down unless it told to come down or it forced to come down. The military might want to be looking off the east coat of the US/Canada coast for any type of strange shipping that might be waiting out there to capture this thing when it crosses the coast headed out to sea.

Right now there are two things happening, (1) There is a group of analyst sitting in a room somewhere over in China watching every move we make writing reports and looking at data on how we handle this. Remember they don't plan 2 weeks down the road like we do they plan years into the future.

(2) Often the simplest things work the best while we are watching the world wide scope with all kinds of high tech they are sneaking in right on top of us with a balloon.

My 2 cents anyway
 
I hope we have some plans >2+ years down the road. And I'm thinking that thing doesn't make it to the Atlantic.
 
As an individual, my worrying isn't going to make my life better or worse. Great day I had at the coffee shop.
 
And what is this balloon going to show that can't be picked up by the hundreds of satellites they have in orbit? Hell, the Chinese have an entire space station that can spy on the US. A balloon isn't easy to control remotely, it's much to subject to the winds, although I guess at 60k feet the jetstream is moderately consistent. I'm surprised it's up that high -- seems to me you'd get better photos from space.
 
techrat said:
And what is this balloon going to show that can't be picked up by the hundreds of satellites they have in orbit? Hell, the Chinese have an entire space station that can spy on the US. A balloon isn't easy to control remotely, it's much to subject to the winds, although I guess at 60k feet the jetstream is moderately consistent. I'm surprised it's up that high -- seems to me you'd get better photos from space.
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It’s much easier to detect and monitor electronic signals from 12 miles up than from 84 miles or more.
 
Anyone recall the Chinese "Spy Chips" that were found inside all Cisco Routers? If they are capable of monitoring all internet traffic (or a significant margin thereof), I think there's very little left for them to spy on. Meanwhile the NSA spent quadrillions of dollars building a giant datacenter to spy on Americans, yet they couldn't figure out what was going to happen on Jan 6th, so, color me skeptical that *any* relevant data can be gleaned from a balloon.
 

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