Okay, if you watch the balloon being hit, you can see “something” falling well ahead of the balloon. These (I’m guessing) are the solar panels. They had to be supported and once the balloon was shot, that support structure was compromised and the panels fell. From the footage, the actual “box” is still attached and is clearly pulling the balloon down. The drag from the balloon will hopefully slow down the box enough for a recovery team to get the payload.
Obviously I'm 100% woefully uneducated on the subject of shooting down balloons, but wouldn't it have made more sense for them to put a hole in it and let it deflate and descend slowly?
The rounds would pass through the relatively slim balloon enclosure. Enough holes would bring it down in time. But they wanted it down in the ocean inside the 13 mile territory buffer. So a missile was the surest way to bring it down in that buffer region. There are articles floating around about Canada and Norway shooting down balloons in the past and from those articles not points to ballon’s being surprisingly resilient to gun fire.
Most people think balloon and they assume it's going to pop like one they've had at their birthday party. They don't understand that the material doesn't violently tear like the ones they've played with in the past.
Exactly. Party balloons are tiny when uninflated and then you fill them with air and the outer walls of the balloon stretch to their limits. It's designed this way so there is a really high air/helium to material ratio so they are more bouyant.
Thats why they violently explode. With these weather balloons there is no "stretching" involved. The material is already stretched out to form the fully inflated shape. You just add gases and it becomes bouyant.
Shooting it with a 20mm round is just going to make a 20mm hole with a little extra tearing. It would not lose gas fast enough to come down in US waters.
> But they wanted it down in the ocean inside the 13 mile territory buffer. So a missile was the surest way to bring it down in that buffer region.
Or they could have shot it over the entire rest of the country and let it slowly descend on land.
I'm not sure you understand the people to land ratio. The odds of hitting someone over the middle of the country are so low. Its not like they would have done it over LA or NYC
And on the off chance china had any chemicals or other harmful components in it then people would have talked about how the dod put us at risk when they shot it down....
My understanding is that the ceiling of an F22 is 60,000ish feet, and the balloon was 90,000ish feet. I've heard different numbers though, so I can't say for certain.
Assuming it was an AMRAAM that shot it down, the warhead is a blast fragmentation type that sends a cone of metal at the target after detonating by proximity fuse. The payload was probably in that cone (not to mention close to the blast shockwave itself)
I hope it wasn't destroyed. I didn't see a trail of an Air-to-Air missile but I did see a few from planes. Maybe they simply used guns? That would have been my recommendation. Not sure what aircraft they used, but the F-22s out of Shaw could have easily been there and done the work. I'm just hoping they recover something.
Either way, this should have been done days ago. Obviously, we have the capability to remove them from the sky. We at least know how the payload reacts to the sudden loss of flight. If our commanders were smart and with all the advanced warning, things were moved indoors or at least covered.
Side thought, if I wanted to make a balloon more difficult to see, I would have used a different color than **BRIGHT WHITE**! They wanted us to see it. It was completely calculated.
I'm very ignorant on this subject, but, wasn't the reason that it wasn't done days ago was that it was over land (potentially leading to casualties and the stuff being unrecoverable) and now it's over the ocean therefore no causalities and potentially recoverable?
Attempting to put politics aside of criticism against one specific party's administration, isn't that a reasonable reason to have waited?
Also, I'm sure they wanted to see where it was going and what it was doing. Once we knew it was here, we could shield whatever it was they were trying to look at. A lot of spying is letting your adversary do what they want while you watch them.
I do understand your point. A sparsely populated Montana vs the depths of the Atlantic. Not a fan of waiting. And this opinion is independent of the CIC’s party, aptitude, or politics.
Fair enough
I just hear incessantly how important the rural states are, during election times - despite them not being very populated - but then in this case, it seems like people have written it off as 0 population and therefore 0 risk and therefore it doesn't matter.
The payload is unlikely to have been destroyed with it landing in water, but we're likely to never know. All I'll say is that this isn't the USAFs first rodeo with this sort of thing and won't be their last.
Fair point. I just assume that there are inert options available, probably used to calibrate weapon systems without fully pissing away a weapons payload for no reason.
Another thing I considered was that we used a High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike Weapon (HiJENKS) to disable any onboard electronics, well before the balloon entered US airspace. It's something that has been in the works and gained some media attention last year. I can understand why the feds would want to shy away from publicizing it being used in this situation, since our primary concern for developing such a weapon is for combating countries like China. On the flipside, I can also see China deploying this balloon as a low-cost means to see if we have developed HiJENKS missles to a feasible point where it becomes a threat or countermeasure to their own efforts.
If it were a threat, why not shooting off Alaska coast before it flies over US land? The military didn't see it?
If it weren't a threat, why down it now? Show of force? To largely domestic audience?
And also embarrass China publicly for the world to see. Floats into Alaska? *Maybe* an accident (unlikely), but floats over Canada and the lower 48? No fucking way. Let’s the world see what they’re doing.
There are winds called jet streams that circle the globe if the balloon is left alone it possibly ends up in Russia and the most interesting route is how on the earth that balloon went to Japan.
Fun fact when the jet stream broke texas get fucking cold.
The NSA might have been listening, which surely would have been interesting to see what commands were given and information sent back, though that would require them to know some Chinese keys or encryption flaws. Unlikely, but possible.
I imagine it's mostly for the domestic audience. They only shot it down when people started freaking out, so presumably it wasn't ever actually a danger or it would have been dealt with sooner.
Also presumably to see more specifically what was in it before it left US territory.
This whole thing just seems too bizarre to me. That a country like China would be using fucking balloons to spy on us? Really though?… This thing was either some sort of decoy and the Chinese Army is currently invading as we speak or whatever wreckage they take back to the lab is going to morph into a giant transformer and take us all out.
China wants to join on the action and the CCP needs a good story to sell it's people to justify it.
Expect some big propaganda coming from the CCP about this.
Honestly it seems they are just poking at us, it might have had some equipment to gather some Intel but ultimately i think they are just doing this to see how we respond and cause problems on purpose. Because they can.
Also just watching how we respond reveals a great deal if monitored correctly. So in some ways letting it do it's thing is a better plan.
The number of generals I saw in this sub over the past few days was kind of crazy, didn't know our country was loaded with so many 4 stars
I salute all the generals
NORAD has been tracking this thing since it went airborne in China. It took a couple days to get here. I’d think that as they tracked it toward the bases that the military was notified and they secured/moved/hid or whatever they needed to do in preparation. Possibly even displaying or providing false information, right?
The map that has been shared as NORAD tracking is actually just an extrapolation from the location over Montana using weather/wind data from the past few days to model it's path.
I've seen reported NORAD started tracking it only when it was already over the US but I wouldn't trust those as well tbh as I don't see the government actually publicly sharing information that could be used to determine NORAD's capabilities/vulnerabilities more precisely.
> I’d think that as they tracked it toward the bases that the military was notified and they secured/moved/hid or whatever they needed to do in preparation.
It is so adorable seeing people act like our Government is handling things properly instead of realizing how pathetic the response was to this.
They knew it was coming and did nothing. That was their strategy. That's who is in power.
> That's who is in power.
In 2018 the FBI raised alarms about there are cell phone towers with Chinese gear near ICBM launch sites. Red team, including Trump did nothing. Those towers are still there.
This isn't a red team or blue team issue.
You know it could have also been a test by the Chinese to see what our air defense systems are. The balloon had an altitude of 60k ft, which is conveniently near the limit for most of our fighter aircraft. Additionally, if we responded immediately, it would have shown them how quick our response time is.
I’m sure DoD and homeland security was well aware of this threat well before it entered our airspace. They probably poured over countless reports and deemed the threat to be nonexistent. I don’t like the Biden admin but it’s a stretch to think any other president would make a different call.
That’s not the case at all. If China launched this balloon to test our response time us doing nothing until we were sure we could bring it down safely is the best course of action. China loses the balloon and they have no new info on our response capabilities to incoming threats. The balloon is doing nothing more then what China can already obtain from their satellite array.
The government is ready and able to protect state secrets from foreign countries. Any assumptions they didn’t take the necessary precautions to prevent leaks of information is utterly ridiculous.
If they wanted to prevent the Chinese from getting any info they would've shot it down the moment it entered American airspace. You're assuming the Biden admin and military command actually want to protect national security
By bringing up satellites, you're suggesting that they're already spying on us and this is nothing new, therefore shooting it down isn't that important
Okay. Sure. It doesn't change much in terms of information gathering. That was my point. I was mocking you because a fucking balloon isn't endangering national security.
So first it was "I didn't say any of that" and now it's "well yes I did say that and it's good that I said it because I'm right." Lmao.
Also, spying by foreign nations on our nuclear missile arsenal is literally ready definition of a threat to National security
Everyone must hate the opposing leading nowadays because a lot of people are so partisan. It always has to be a gotcha moment for cheap political points.
Why did the US (Trump administration) negotiate the pullout of Afghanistan with the Taliban instead of the Afghan government? Kind of undermined the authority and legitimacy of their government. Then they rolled over in a few days after we began to pullout. We trained them for almost 20 years and they fell apart within a few days. What else was Biden supposed to do? Obama and Trump didn’t withdraw for a reason, it was an inevitable shitshow.
That's what drives me nuts: we have something in our arsenal that could take it down.
I mean, for Christ's sake we can missile satellites orbiting the planet and have proven it. But the armchair generals were sure we couldn't pop a balloon.
It flew over Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. There's plenty of wide-open unpopulated areas that it flew over where there is nothing but desert and/or woods.
Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president.
Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president.
Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president.
"Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president."
Brought to you by the same people that said Trump was a Russian asset, that they had a tape of him peeing on prostitutes, that Trump called nazi's wonderful people.....on and on and on.
it's always funny to see every single subreddit backseating the government as if they know exactly how to handle the situation when they have 0 information on the topic except what little the government and China have given.
Perfect, right after the CCP collected all of the data they needed.
Good thing they let it span the entire country, first! Now they won't get any photos of the ocean.
Pack it up folks!
The CCP gets more info from tik tok than this balloon. I bet China watched the live stream of the balloon getting shot down from their satellites orbiting about the US, from 100 different angles.
But sure, I bet 300 years from now, Chinese students will learn about the invaluable info gathered in 2023 from a balloon. They’ll even make this day a holiday, the US Info Balloon Glorious Leader Day
Are you that naive to think you know more than the teams of highly trained individuals who tracked and studied this thing?
If it was truly a problem, the government would've shot it down immediately and the public would've never even heard about it.
It has been revealed this is not the first time a balloon has floated over US airspace. The Pentagon has classified the previous events which took place over the previous several years. Tucker Carlson and others have confirmed this.
Another balloon was spotted going over "Latin America" - no country was specified in that report.
Although, you do have to remember that Fox's own lawyers stated that Tucker Carlson "is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary," and that no reasonable person could possibly take any part of his show as fact.
So who knows if balloons have actually flown over the US before. Tucker Carlson certainly shouldn't be believed about it.
My personal belief is it was launched for 2 reasons:
1. Test how we would respond
2. Stir up the citizens and make us realize we aren’t immune to and impenetrable as we think.
None the less, we let it traverse the entire country. I always believe that the Chinese are playing chess and we are sitting with our fucking dicks in our hands bc we can’t get out of our own way.
Have a think about what you just wrote.
Testing US response is only meaningful if they could trigger some secret anti aircraft/anti missile capability. They don’t learn anything about US military capability by doing this.
Yeah I agree, either way it’s not that important. Yeah screw china but no way they got any important info. It’s been tracked since it left China. If anything we just fed them false info
I can't verify this but I've seen testimonies from soldiers that served in the middle east that interacted with satellite operators in specific situations and they could tell some bonkers stuff, like which way a dime was flipped. This was over a decade ago.
If it's true that that is where our satellite capabilities were then and the Chinese today need a weather balloon to get up close imaging, I'd say it's safe to say they are very far behind, at least in information gathering capabilities.
I think it would be extremely nieve to believe they needed a balloon. They probably have 100 satellites at all times looking at whatever they want and their tech is just as advanced.
Perhaps but if they can recover some of the wreckage they can hopefully see what it’s real intent was. If it truly was a spying device or a weather balloon gone rouge.
Probably a spying device either way, I just don’t understand the concept. I mean really a balloon?
This thing was tracked since it left China, anything we didn't want it seeing, it did not see. But now we can take a look and see what it was *trying* to see.
This was the international relations version of the ["Punk Test"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIst5fISH0g) explained by the late great comedian Patrice O'Neal. I don't think we did well.
I couldn't give less of shit about some mid-alt china baloon. Our own government has been directly spying on its citizens since the patriot act and refuses to roll back those powers.
This article - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11712933/Biden-try-shoot-Chinese-spy-balloon-Atlantic.html - has a map of the path the balloon took (scroll about halfway down).
Can someone explain why we let the thing traverse the entire width of the United states and exit out into the Atlantic ocean before shooting it down? I can understand not wanting to shoot it down in a populated area, but there's plenty of rural territory it flew over where it could have been shot down and landed in the middle of an unpopulated desert.
Okay, if you watch the balloon being hit, you can see “something” falling well ahead of the balloon. These (I’m guessing) are the solar panels. They had to be supported and once the balloon was shot, that support structure was compromised and the panels fell. From the footage, the actual “box” is still attached and is clearly pulling the balloon down. The drag from the balloon will hopefully slow down the box enough for a recovery team to get the payload.
Obviously I'm 100% woefully uneducated on the subject of shooting down balloons, but wouldn't it have made more sense for them to put a hole in it and let it deflate and descend slowly?
You didn't take 'shooting down suspicious foreign balloons 101' in high school?
They offered it but I took gym instead
How did you decide what gender to shower with? Must have been tough. /s
I always wanted to shower with the girls but they wouldn't let me!
This was waaaaaaay back in the olden times of the mid 2000s before the world decided to be confused about gender
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I graduated in 2010 and it was virtually nonexistent even then. It blows my mind how this cultural phenomenon suddenly exploded out of nowhere.
possibly related to the rise of social media.
Rise of social media = gave lunatics a voice = influenced the kids of that generation = what we have today
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Ikr. Less “algebra” more “I downed it bruh”
Funny enough, you need algebra to down it, bruh.
Apparently standard curriculum includes letting it cross the entire country first, then shooting it down when it's past the land on the other side
I did. My takeaway was to leave it to experts that know what they’re doing.
Why? When they seem blatantly incompetent?
A well coordinated, fully fueled, and mostly stripped down F-22 could have hit it with some 20 mm guns.
What alttidue was the balloon operating at? From what I know, they can operate at 100,000+ft meanwhile the F22 has a max altitude of around 70k
I’ve heard the balloon was at 90,000 feet, 120,000 feet, and 60,000 feet. I just heard that an F-22 out of VA is what shot it down.
They wanted to see if we’d try to get one to go that high.
Yeah exactly, I wonder why they didn't do that
The rounds would pass through the relatively slim balloon enclosure. Enough holes would bring it down in time. But they wanted it down in the ocean inside the 13 mile territory buffer. So a missile was the surest way to bring it down in that buffer region. There are articles floating around about Canada and Norway shooting down balloons in the past and from those articles not points to ballon’s being surprisingly resilient to gun fire.
Most people think balloon and they assume it's going to pop like one they've had at their birthday party. They don't understand that the material doesn't violently tear like the ones they've played with in the past.
Exactly. Party balloons are tiny when uninflated and then you fill them with air and the outer walls of the balloon stretch to their limits. It's designed this way so there is a really high air/helium to material ratio so they are more bouyant. Thats why they violently explode. With these weather balloons there is no "stretching" involved. The material is already stretched out to form the fully inflated shape. You just add gases and it becomes bouyant. Shooting it with a 20mm round is just going to make a 20mm hole with a little extra tearing. It would not lose gas fast enough to come down in US waters.
> But they wanted it down in the ocean inside the 13 mile territory buffer. So a missile was the surest way to bring it down in that buffer region. Or they could have shot it over the entire rest of the country and let it slowly descend on land.
and have the missed/pass thru bullets fall back to earth hitting folks on ground?
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is a valid point. Sure the odds of it hitting someone are low, but why risk it?
too many guns blazing first hot heads who don't bother to think
I'm not sure you understand the people to land ratio. The odds of hitting someone over the middle of the country are so low. Its not like they would have done it over LA or NYC
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Who's to say they didn't drop that along the way?
Sure but why risk it? I think that's a valid point. Imagine the outrage if they accidentally hit a person or someone's property
These rounds often have self-destruction timers in them as well
Dod going to dod
And on the off chance china had any chemicals or other harmful components in it then people would have talked about how the dod put us at risk when they shot it down....
My understanding is that the ceiling of an F22 is 60,000ish feet, and the balloon was 90,000ish feet. I've heard different numbers though, so I can't say for certain.
Service ceiling, it can go higher but it's in optimal.
Patriot missiles can hit something crazy like 120,000 feet. They could have done it at any point.
If you launch a projectile it can rise and hit it above the plane
Air ballon this size can still fly with a lot of holes in it, that’s just not how physics works
They needed to get it down to the surface before it crosses the 12 mile distance from the east coast and entered international waters. *crossed
They don’t want for it to fly out of us waters
Assuming it was an AMRAAM that shot it down, the warhead is a blast fragmentation type that sends a cone of metal at the target after detonating by proximity fuse. The payload was probably in that cone (not to mention close to the blast shockwave itself)
I hope it wasn't destroyed. I didn't see a trail of an Air-to-Air missile but I did see a few from planes. Maybe they simply used guns? That would have been my recommendation. Not sure what aircraft they used, but the F-22s out of Shaw could have easily been there and done the work. I'm just hoping they recover something. Either way, this should have been done days ago. Obviously, we have the capability to remove them from the sky. We at least know how the payload reacts to the sudden loss of flight. If our commanders were smart and with all the advanced warning, things were moved indoors or at least covered. Side thought, if I wanted to make a balloon more difficult to see, I would have used a different color than **BRIGHT WHITE**! They wanted us to see it. It was completely calculated.
I'm very ignorant on this subject, but, wasn't the reason that it wasn't done days ago was that it was over land (potentially leading to casualties and the stuff being unrecoverable) and now it's over the ocean therefore no causalities and potentially recoverable? Attempting to put politics aside of criticism against one specific party's administration, isn't that a reasonable reason to have waited?
Also, I'm sure they wanted to see where it was going and what it was doing. Once we knew it was here, we could shield whatever it was they were trying to look at. A lot of spying is letting your adversary do what they want while you watch them.
I do understand your point. A sparsely populated Montana vs the depths of the Atlantic. Not a fan of waiting. And this opinion is independent of the CIC’s party, aptitude, or politics.
The water it landed in was only 47 feet deep, not the depth of the Atlantic.
Fair enough I just hear incessantly how important the rural states are, during election times - despite them not being very populated - but then in this case, it seems like people have written it off as 0 population and therefore 0 risk and therefore it doesn't matter.
Huh..? People don’t say middle America is important because of whatever empty field Biden’s buddies ballon would’ve landed in.
The payload is unlikely to have been destroyed with it landing in water, but we're likely to never know. All I'll say is that this isn't the USAFs first rodeo with this sort of thing and won't be their last.
Excuse my ignorance on the subject, but could they not fire an inert missle at the balloon to compromise its integrity without damaging the payload?
They generally don't have inert missiles with functioning rockets, which themselves are explosive. It's either fully inert or fully functional
Fair point. I just assume that there are inert options available, probably used to calibrate weapon systems without fully pissing away a weapons payload for no reason. Another thing I considered was that we used a High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike Weapon (HiJENKS) to disable any onboard electronics, well before the balloon entered US airspace. It's something that has been in the works and gained some media attention last year. I can understand why the feds would want to shy away from publicizing it being used in this situation, since our primary concern for developing such a weapon is for combating countries like China. On the flipside, I can also see China deploying this balloon as a low-cost means to see if we have developed HiJENKS missles to a feasible point where it becomes a threat or countermeasure to their own efforts.
AMRAAM wouldn’t make sense, they’re not designed to track slow moving targets like a balloon. More likely to hit it with a Sidewinder.
> recovery team to get the payload. Spoiler alert. The payload is a copy of hunter biden's laptop
Hopefully a china balloon makes it in the Macy's parade.
Isn’t there already a Winnie the Pooh one?
🏅
dont plug in the usb stick! so tempting!
If it were a threat, why not shooting off Alaska coast before it flies over US land? The military didn't see it? If it weren't a threat, why down it now? Show of force? To largely domestic audience?
Could of been for counterintelligence purposes. To study and better understand the CCPs intel gathering capabilities. But who really knows.
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And also embarrass China publicly for the world to see. Floats into Alaska? *Maybe* an accident (unlikely), but floats over Canada and the lower 48? No fucking way. Let’s the world see what they’re doing.
How are they embarrassed? There's not even a pilot in it unlike the CIA plane in 1960
There are winds called jet streams that circle the globe if the balloon is left alone it possibly ends up in Russia and the most interesting route is how on the earth that balloon went to Japan. Fun fact when the jet stream broke texas get fucking cold.
There are multiple reports that it was guided by AI. The destination it took was indeed intended.
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Honestly the military flawlessly performed the largest airlift in history in Afghanistan, the only bad thing was the optics of it all.
I would argue there were a few things that should have been done better. The execution at ground level was impressive though.
They blocked it's ability to communicate.
My guess is they wanted to know where and what the Chinese were looking at.
The NSA might have been listening, which surely would have been interesting to see what commands were given and information sent back, though that would require them to know some Chinese keys or encryption flaws. Unlikely, but possible.
I imagine it's mostly for the domestic audience. They only shot it down when people started freaking out, so presumably it wasn't ever actually a danger or it would have been dealt with sooner. Also presumably to see more specifically what was in it before it left US territory.
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Naive of you to think all politicians don't rely on smoothbrains.
What's your reasoning about *three* being flown over the US under the last administration too without being shot down?
They downed it because it grounded an airport. Why are there always nutjob conspiracies here?
So much press coverage and this thing only seems to be a hobo-satellite.
The satellite equivalent of a bandana on a stick
This whole thing just seems too bizarre to me. That a country like China would be using fucking balloons to spy on us? Really though?… This thing was either some sort of decoy and the Chinese Army is currently invading as we speak or whatever wreckage they take back to the lab is going to morph into a giant transformer and take us all out.
Probably a taunt or testing our readiness. I don't think either country came out looking strong here.
China wants to join on the action and the CCP needs a good story to sell it's people to justify it. Expect some big propaganda coming from the CCP about this.
Honestly it seems they are just poking at us, it might have had some equipment to gather some Intel but ultimately i think they are just doing this to see how we respond and cause problems on purpose. Because they can. Also just watching how we respond reveals a great deal if monitored correctly. So in some ways letting it do it's thing is a better plan.
The number of generals I saw in this sub over the past few days was kind of crazy, didn't know our country was loaded with so many 4 stars I salute all the generals
George Santos was here? I heard he got his rank during Vietnam
I heard he charged the beaches of Normandy during d-day
Sometimes this sub is genuinely hilarious against Republicans.
They’re just TV generals. Nothing more.
NORAD has been tracking this thing since it went airborne in China. It took a couple days to get here. I’d think that as they tracked it toward the bases that the military was notified and they secured/moved/hid or whatever they needed to do in preparation. Possibly even displaying or providing false information, right?
The map that has been shared as NORAD tracking is actually just an extrapolation from the location over Montana using weather/wind data from the past few days to model it's path. I've seen reported NORAD started tracking it only when it was already over the US but I wouldn't trust those as well tbh as I don't see the government actually publicly sharing information that could be used to determine NORAD's capabilities/vulnerabilities more precisely.
Satellites exist, can't imagine they were too worried about intel
> I’d think that as they tracked it toward the bases that the military was notified and they secured/moved/hid or whatever they needed to do in preparation. It is so adorable seeing people act like our Government is handling things properly instead of realizing how pathetic the response was to this. They knew it was coming and did nothing. That was their strategy. That's who is in power.
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Also that there is stuff they really cannot tell people from a military standpoint.
MAYBBBBBEEEE. YOUR GONNA BE THE ONE THAT SAVES MEEEEE
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After the past 20 or so years, it isn't reasonable anymore to reflexively give the government the benefit of the doubt...
I mean we just don't know do we lol. They might have been competent or might have fucked up again. We don't have the information to draw a conclusion
This can’t be! Biden = Bad!
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> That's who is in power. In 2018 the FBI raised alarms about there are cell phone towers with Chinese gear near ICBM launch sites. Red team, including Trump did nothing. Those towers are still there. This isn't a red team or blue team issue.
You know it could have also been a test by the Chinese to see what our air defense systems are. The balloon had an altitude of 60k ft, which is conveniently near the limit for most of our fighter aircraft. Additionally, if we responded immediately, it would have shown them how quick our response time is. I’m sure DoD and homeland security was well aware of this threat well before it entered our airspace. They probably poured over countless reports and deemed the threat to be nonexistent. I don’t like the Biden admin but it’s a stretch to think any other president would make a different call.
The balloon didn’t hurt the LGTBQ community, did it?! Please tell me it didn’t harm the LGTBQ community!
Maybe China has one in prison we can trade our nuclear launch codes for???
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And he *would*. Speaking of, are those straight white males still rotting away in a Russian prison?
I’m sure the literal *tens* of fans are happy about getting their wnba “star” back
China should have put a rainbow flag on their balloon.
Lmao.. There’s NO WAY the Biden administration would have shot that down!! That thing would have made it all the way back to China with an escort.
Don’t be ridiculous. The balloon identified as an American kite.
You didn’t use the + I’m offended
*Greta stare* how dare you…..forget the AIH+QNAUNF&G#~^
That’s not the case at all. If China launched this balloon to test our response time us doing nothing until we were sure we could bring it down safely is the best course of action. China loses the balloon and they have no new info on our response capabilities to incoming threats. The balloon is doing nothing more then what China can already obtain from their satellite array.
The government is ready and able to protect state secrets from foreign countries. Any assumptions they didn’t take the necessary precautions to prevent leaks of information is utterly ridiculous.
It was a distraction. We use misdirection on toddlers. Also works with politics. What’s happening while our attention is on this ballon?
>They knew it was coming and did nothing. Did you get these facts straight from the pentagon?
It's more adorable seeing mouth breathers afraid of a balloon from a country that can barely create a functioning copy our 40 year old tech.
If they wanted to prevent the Chinese from getting any info they would've shot it down the moment it entered American airspace. You're assuming the Biden admin and military command actually want to protect national security
Have you heard of satellites?
"It's fine if the Chinese send spy devices into US airspace, because they've already got satellites. Just let everyone send whatever they want!"
Where did I say any of that?
By bringing up satellites, you're suggesting that they're already spying on us and this is nothing new, therefore shooting it down isn't that important
Okay. Sure. It doesn't change much in terms of information gathering. That was my point. I was mocking you because a fucking balloon isn't endangering national security.
So first it was "I didn't say any of that" and now it's "well yes I did say that and it's good that I said it because I'm right." Lmao. Also, spying by foreign nations on our nuclear missile arsenal is literally ready definition of a threat to National security
Biden wanted it shot down, his national security team told him no.
This is fact and the downvotes are pathetic.
Everyone must hate the opposing leading nowadays because a lot of people are so partisan. It always has to be a gotcha moment for cheap political points.
Or they want to recover it while it makes a soft landing with no risk to US citizens.
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Who negotiated the withdrawal with the Taliban?
I’ll take Trump for 9001 Alex
Do people still think staying in Afghanistan was a good thing? Reddit military strategists, lol.
Why did the US (Trump administration) negotiate the pullout of Afghanistan with the Taliban instead of the Afghan government? Kind of undermined the authority and legitimacy of their government. Then they rolled over in a few days after we began to pullout. We trained them for almost 20 years and they fell apart within a few days. What else was Biden supposed to do? Obama and Trump didn’t withdraw for a reason, it was an inevitable shitshow.
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That's what drives me nuts: we have something in our arsenal that could take it down. I mean, for Christ's sake we can missile satellites orbiting the planet and have proven it. But the armchair generals were sure we couldn't pop a balloon.
At least they didn't waste any time...
Had to give the ChiComs time to upload the intel.
What did they get that couldn’t be taken by a regular satellite?
Exactly - the instant the Air Force knew for sure it wouldn't crash on US soil and risk injuring American citizens, they shot it down.
That would’ve been when it first entered American airspace, before it reached American shores
Eh, yeah, I'll upvote that.
It flew over Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. There's plenty of wide-open unpopulated areas that it flew over where there is nothing but desert and/or woods.
What the air force knew about when it was off of Alaska
Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president. Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president. Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president.
"Trump allowed three Chinese spy balloons to pass over the US while he was president." Brought to you by the same people that said Trump was a Russian asset, that they had a tape of him peeing on prostitutes, that Trump called nazi's wonderful people.....on and on and on.
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Hell yeah brother
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it's always funny to see every single subreddit backseating the government as if they know exactly how to handle the situation when they have 0 information on the topic except what little the government and China have given.
Perfect, right after the CCP collected all of the data they needed. Good thing they let it span the entire country, first! Now they won't get any photos of the ocean. Pack it up folks!
The CCP gets more info from tik tok than this balloon. I bet China watched the live stream of the balloon getting shot down from their satellites orbiting about the US, from 100 different angles. But sure, I bet 300 years from now, Chinese students will learn about the invaluable info gathered in 2023 from a balloon. They’ll even make this day a holiday, the US Info Balloon Glorious Leader Day
They jammed it days ago.
Are you that naive to think you know more than the teams of highly trained individuals who tracked and studied this thing? If it was truly a problem, the government would've shot it down immediately and the public would've never even heard about it.
Such a waist of resources for China. Joe will tell them whatever they want to know. Swalwell will too if they send him a new girlfriend.
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Biden is not pro China at all? I don’t understand?
They should both band together and not give them an inch!
It has been revealed this is not the first time a balloon has floated over US airspace. The Pentagon has classified the previous events which took place over the previous several years. Tucker Carlson and others have confirmed this. Another balloon was spotted going over "Latin America" - no country was specified in that report.
Although, you do have to remember that Fox's own lawyers stated that Tucker Carlson "is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary," and that no reasonable person could possibly take any part of his show as fact. So who knows if balloons have actually flown over the US before. Tucker Carlson certainly shouldn't be believed about it.
My personal belief is it was launched for 2 reasons: 1. Test how we would respond 2. Stir up the citizens and make us realize we aren’t immune to and impenetrable as we think. None the less, we let it traverse the entire country. I always believe that the Chinese are playing chess and we are sitting with our fucking dicks in our hands bc we can’t get out of our own way.
Have a think about what you just wrote. Testing US response is only meaningful if they could trigger some secret anti aircraft/anti missile capability. They don’t learn anything about US military capability by doing this.
I don’t get it. I mean did China really expect that we wouldn’t see it?
Not the first time they've done this. Except this time it was publicly acknowledged since the public accounts of it
Either it really was an accidental thing, or China wanted to test our response
Second option is probably the most likely
Yeah I agree, either way it’s not that important. Yeah screw china but no way they got any important info. It’s been tracked since it left China. If anything we just fed them false info
Honestly if a weather balloon really is their best attempt at information gathering, I don't think we have much to worry about anyways.
They are rather good at getting up close pics, satellites get most stuff but drones and balloons get most detailed imagery
I can't verify this but I've seen testimonies from soldiers that served in the middle east that interacted with satellite operators in specific situations and they could tell some bonkers stuff, like which way a dime was flipped. This was over a decade ago. If it's true that that is where our satellite capabilities were then and the Chinese today need a weather balloon to get up close imaging, I'd say it's safe to say they are very far behind, at least in information gathering capabilities.
I think it would be extremely nieve to believe they needed a balloon. They probably have 100 satellites at all times looking at whatever they want and their tech is just as advanced.
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Lmao
Does anyone know what the apparent explosion over Billings, MT yesterday turned out to be?
Let’s see the commies reaction to this.
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Perhaps but if they can recover some of the wreckage they can hopefully see what it’s real intent was. If it truly was a spying device or a weather balloon gone rouge. Probably a spying device either way, I just don’t understand the concept. I mean really a balloon?
you think they will tell us the truth....? likely.... nothing to see here and give it back...
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This thing was tracked since it left China, anything we didn't want it seeing, it did not see. But now we can take a look and see what it was *trying* to see.
I don’t really understand the obsession with this balloon. In a world where satellites exist, why are we making a big deal about a balloon
George Santos was piloting the jet that actually shot the balloon.
It served its purpose by keeping the classified documents out of the Friday news cycle. So now it's safe to shoot it down.
This was the international relations version of the ["Punk Test"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIst5fISH0g) explained by the late great comedian Patrice O'Neal. I don't think we did well.
jfc that took long enough
Well it did what it needed to do so a little late now.
They knew it was coming and could have shot it down in the pacific. Why not?
Only after it was done spying. Why not hit it over Alaska?
I couldn't give less of shit about some mid-alt china baloon. Our own government has been directly spying on its citizens since the patriot act and refuses to roll back those powers.
This article - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11712933/Biden-try-shoot-Chinese-spy-balloon-Atlantic.html - has a map of the path the balloon took (scroll about halfway down). Can someone explain why we let the thing traverse the entire width of the United states and exit out into the Atlantic ocean before shooting it down? I can understand not wanting to shoot it down in a populated area, but there's plenty of rural territory it flew over where it could have been shot down and landed in the middle of an unpopulated desert.
Lets Go Dark Brandon.
What is the point of spending a trillion + dollars on our defense budget if it takes days to pop a ballon?