Chinese Weather Balloons, and Should You Worry About Them?

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Blast it Tom! said:
My understanding is that NORAD has known about it since it crossed into Alaskan air space. I think that's what my wife said. Juneau, I think Alaska!

/serious about the first sentence, at least.

Are you serious? So where's all the hoopla on them? Do we know their origin?
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From China. Presumably no hoopla being people either didn’t notice them or hand waved them away as our own weather balloons instead of getting on Nextdoor and kicking up a fuss.
 
Titan II said:
Actually, the response most people have is extremely humorous. Much like your post. Use some common sense. We do it to them every day. Us doing it to them is okay, and it is not okay for them to do it to us? BTW....what is the "one reason."
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See above post.
 
Tyeeking said:
Have to say, some of the memes are pretty darn funny. 🤣🤣
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Just found this thread - the meme's are the BEST of any thread I ever read on this forum!

COSTransplant said:
I don’t think there is anything at all humorous about an enemy conducting recon / surveillance over our territory. There is only one reason to conduct this kind of operation, and it has nothing to do with checking on the weather!
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That's the stupidest thing about this whole thing - I haven't heard any suggestions that there is ANYTHING a balloon-based surveillance can accomplish that could not have been gathered better, quicker, and with greater precision by a satellite. Of which China has plenty.

When was the last time the US used balloons for surveillance?
WWI ??!?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_military_ballooning
Marc_G said:
I still think this was a stunt and any actual intelligence gathered from the balloon itself is secondary. The odd thing is the timing. This just screwed up a long-planned summit with Blinken.
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COSTransplant said:
For China to risk an operation like this -- considering the already heightened tensions between our two countries -- suggests to me that "hostilities" of some sort are for more imminent than most of the US would like to believe.
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I recall recently reading a few articles on China, and how different cliques within CCP are jousting for power by claiming the mantle of being most "hawkish" or "Chinese nationalist" in front of Xi.
With Blinken's trip announced well in advance, sending a stupid balloon over US mainland to scupper the meeting might have crossed the mind of some Chinese hawks ...

Somehow I doubt it was Xi's idea.
There are simpler methods of cancelling a meeting.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...lloon-is-down-the-question-is-what-was-it-for
 
The US should start sending all kinds of crazy balloons over China. Not spy balloons—we have better ways of gathering intelligence. Start sending giant versions of the Thanksgiving Parade inflatables. A humongous Snoopy. Baby Yoda. Ronald McDonald. Bart Simpson. They’d like that.
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
The US should start sending all kinds of crazy balloons over China. Not spy balloons—we have better ways of gathering intelligence. Start sending giant versions of the Thanksgiving Parade inflatables. A humongous Snoopy. Baby Yoda. Ronald McDonald. Bart Simpson. They’d like that.
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Just don't go anywhere near a Winnie the Pooh character... vellly bad...

TP
 
Atp2piz.jpg
 
stealth6 said:
Furthering this...........

The Defense Department put out a statement yesterday about shooting this balloon down. In that statement they also happened to mention that at least three times during "the previous administration", Chinese weather/surveillance balloons were discovered over the U.S.
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That was fake news and was debunked by several people in the USG. What did happen not too long ago was a Chinese Spy Balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii. But, according to Gen Ryder we don't need to know about those things.
 
Bravo52 said:
That was fake news and was debunked by several people in the USG. What did happen not too long ago was a Chinese Spy Balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii. But, according to Gen Ryder we don't need to know about those things.
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I got the info direct from the Dept. of Defense official website. How is that fake news? Just because "several people in the USG" said so?
They (official DoD) also said there was another during the early days of the present administration....was that also fake news?

s6
 
If it was some kind of “spy balloon” we civilians wont know the full story for decades.

If it was psychological warfare, then they got exactly what they wanted.

China says: lets float a balloon with solar panels and fake electronics over USA. See how many we can send. How many get found. And what the American people think. We will sit back and watch the rumor war, innuendo war and the political in fighting. Confusion say: China got what it wanted.
 
afadeev said:
I haven't heard any suggestions that there is ANYTHING a balloon-based surveillance can accomplish that could not have been gathered better, quicker, and with greater precision by a satellite.
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Some kinds of RF, local comms, etc. Doesn't have to be optical data.

We'll see when the payload is recovered.
 

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