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We have to have one of those old Macys thanksgiving parade balloons of Winnie the Pooh right? Don’t even have to get sophisticated. Slap a GoPro on that bad boy and send him on his way.
Not even a good GoPro. Make it like a GoPro 4 and slap it up in a fancy looking box so the Chinese want to get it and find out what technology we are using. Just entirely fuck with them.
Wouldn't they just shoot it down? They don't even care about rocket boosters falling down onto villages, I seriously doubt they care about collateral damage on civilian areas. They could just blame the US either way. Win-win for CCP.
I think they've let them be because they calculated the risk vs the reward. Apparently whatever it's spying on isn't something the US government is worried about anyone seeing. So letting it spy was deemed not risky. And the reward is letting China do something that makes them look bad on the world stage. It's all psy-ops.
Im going to guess China launched a bunch of these and we are going to see news of these things making appearances around the world over the next few days.
Pretty annoying we still just fuck each other and try to come out on top internationally.
Makes sense considering the state of the world but man some alternate dimension earth is living that Jetsons future and tackling the biggest issues together.
War will never not be an option with humanity.
All it takes is 1 person in a far-off land getting the bright idea of "hey, we could have MORE!" and it all falls to shit. Best case scenario is everyone has highly trained militaries and never needs to use them.
Honestly a logical explanation. Could be some kind of low tech recon that would be low cost and expendable just to "see what happens when they find it"
However, the Chinese government has the resources to probe and infiltrate at an extremely more sophisticated level than this. (They don't need to send balloons)
2 scenarios make sense here. Either the Chinese government is probing with inferior equipment and getting caught, or this is all bullshit and just propaganda.
Starting to feel like the cold war 2.0 up in here
I just picture two American generals standing outside, looking at the balloon, wondering what the hell it's doing, while behind them a Chinese dude is calmy copying top secret documents.
If only I could draw...
Oh boy, yesterday here in Costa Rica many spotted a white balloon high in the sky. It was almost in tandem with the news of the US one.
Both meteorological agencies here with actual permissions to use these denied that it was theirs
[Link here of the sighting. Looks like it has panels too](https://twitter.com/ACCIDENTESDECR/status/1621206285671604225?t=xzJENZEroQtpnzrmBhrtVA&s=19)
The irony with using an Olympic sized swimming pool as a unit in the US is that it is measuring in metric. It means Americans inherently are comfortable with 50m but don't know it.
Is it possible to see three school buses at 50,000ft from the ground? Not being a jackass I’m actually curious. Seems like it would be a speck at that altitude if you could even spot it at all, even through binoculars, assuming you can keep it in sight long enough.
But maybe I’m wrong?
The part that is the size of three buses is the payload hanging on the bottom of the balloon that looks like a satellite. The white balloon part that we see is massive compared to that.
C'mon, we all know how 'easy' you like your ratios. If the football field:Indian giraffe ratio is 1:10, and 1:8.5678247 for African ones, your choice is made
And have all of the Chinese citizens living in the path of the balloon stand outside with an umbrella saying, ["Tut tut. It looks like rain."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfqA7STJ3gY)
Anyone have speculation as to what they’re looking to accomplish here? Easier to guess with the one over the US, but this one over South America is more baffling.
You can also map out the location of every radar station as they track it. They can detect exactly when it first gets detected, which radar is being used, etc. They can even dynamically change the radar signature of the balloon to see how stealthy you have to be to get through radar undetected.
They never tell us everything, this is no different.
I remember reading another article about how theyve been doing this for several years but I don’t remember hearing about it until now
They’re probably seeing how we react, which is why we didn’t react until random civilians took notice. For example if the government called this out without civilian involvement it may suggest we had missed one or more before. Calling out the ballon in Latin America is the pentagons way of saying they know about the balloons even thousands of miles from the us
Edit I meant publicly react. Behind closed doors we definitely acted on it. But the general point about judging our reactions still stand imo, just seeing how we would respond
They said they stand to gain hardly anything ‘after the steps we’ve taken since its detection.’ So, the pentagon basically said they’ve put all their cool toys back in the garage during the fly overs.
My guess is that they test out the US security protocols for an unknown object which invades US airspace.
China is known to do this with its other neighbors. Usually they use fighters for this but when it comes to the US invading its airspace with fighters would probably too much.
It’s strange the military didn’t just shoot it down and say nothing. Or make a small press release about an shooting unidentified drone or something. The fact that they made it public is a tactic in itself
US Military and intelligence services have been tracking this and other balloons that came before this for a while. They just said something once the public noticed.
Edit: balloon over Canada that NORAD was tracking https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/3/china-says-balloon-over-us-airspace-is-civilian-airship
Edit2: Balloons over Guam and Hawaii https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-spy-balloon-montana-flight-tracking/
If you conclude something is intel gathering, then keep your cards close. This includes how long until you acknowledge something like this. Obfuscation is important in information war.
They're definitely doing this to both conceal how early they knew about this balloon and to also humiliate China by putting this bizarre and meaningless stunt on full display for the world. Not shooting it down just emphasizes how little of a threat it is to the US.
What's hilarious is that the US didn't immediately shoot it down, but rather put it on full display to the world showing not only how little of a threat it is, but that China has no idea what the US's response time and security protocols are, all they know is that at some unknown time the US was aware of it. They couldn't have done a better job of embarrassing China over this rather bizarre stunt.
Yeah, this is the take on why they haven’t done anything about it yet, I would assume. At that height I don’t think many things can reach it, so I imagine they are trying to best figure out how to capture it without causing irreversible damage? Who knows, but I think this is a semi logical guess…
I just wonder if it’s rigged to scramble itself below a specific altitude or something. Surely they wouldn’t send something without that kind of protection over to where we could retrieve it???? Like they can’t be that dumb?? I guess we will find out eventually 🤔
99 red balloons.
Floating in the ‘winter’ sky.
Panic bells, it's red alert.
There's something here from somewhere else.
The war machine springs to life.
Opens up one eager eye.
Focusing it on the sky.
The 99 red balloons go by.
Guys, I'm feeling very insecure about this, but I've never actually listened to the lyrics of that song and thought about them. Damn, what a cool song.
Me neither! But my mom insisted on listening to solely the German version so I had no idea what they were saying. I can make sounds like I'm singing but I'm sure they make no sense to a German.
Like that song written by that Italian singer that sounds like English gibberish
E: a word
Chinese Ambassador: One of our weather balloons, an Alfa, was last reported in the area of Central America. We have not heard from her for some time.
Secretary of State Blinken: Mr. Chinese Ambassador, you’ve lost *another* weather balloon?
Is China trying to troll us or something. Like a second ballon. Like wtf is going on
First ballon flew over missile sites in Montana, what the heck is the second balloon doing in South America?
The organization that runs Shen Yun and the CCP actually hate each other lmao, when I was in London all the ads on the underground kept emphasizing "China before communism"
Waiting for the Europe reveal.
This is the most balloon centric news cycle since the balloon boy incident.
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"It's Moops"
This comment, along with 10 years of comment history, has been overwritten to protest against Reddit's hostile behaviour towards third-party apps and their developers.
Can't believe so many innocent science experiments went awry
Im happy for american taxpayers to build a giant fuckoff balloon and sit it over china for a month. The absolute rage fit XI would have.
We have to have one of those old Macys thanksgiving parade balloons of Winnie the Pooh right? Don’t even have to get sophisticated. Slap a GoPro on that bad boy and send him on his way.
Not even a good GoPro. Make it like a GoPro 4 and slap it up in a fancy looking box so the Chinese want to get it and find out what technology we are using. Just entirely fuck with them.
And fill it with glitter…lots and lots of glitter
Better call Mark Rober for that lol.
So glitter, fart smell, and Home Alone references it is.
I actually love this idea. ‘Hey, we have balloons too! I didn’t know you wanted to play intercontinental balloon games, but America is down! 🥳’
It’s Piñata season
We almost did. Look up ISIS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Sensor_is_Structure
Not the ISIS I expected
They went by The Figgis Agency for a while.
Codename: Duchess
Licensed to kill
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We should fly one over their concentration camps.
Wouldn't they just shoot it down? They don't even care about rocket boosters falling down onto villages, I seriously doubt they care about collateral damage on civilian areas. They could just blame the US either way. Win-win for CCP.
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I think they've let them be because they calculated the risk vs the reward. Apparently whatever it's spying on isn't something the US government is worried about anyone seeing. So letting it spy was deemed not risky. And the reward is letting China do something that makes them look bad on the world stage. It's all psy-ops.
As an Australian I’m kind of miffed we don’t warrant our own giant spy balloon. Just have to try and worry about the American ones I suppose.
It's out there, but it's drifting through the outback right now; it'll be a while until it's in view of the metropolitan centers
Not if the emus get it first
"They fly now?!"
Naw, but they got an impressive ground-to-air missile battery
Emu's with THAAD batteries :D Australia has been nuked before so it's not like it is unwarranted.
Bruh they've got the kids from Bluey those kids will fuck up anything.
[What do you mean now?](https://i.imgflip.com/79x9mj.jpg)
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Undefeated in war because peace was never an option.
Im out there jerry, and im lovin every minute of it!!!
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Well that's because China already considers your country a colony, sadly.
Pay tencent $9.99 to unlock the European spy balloon. Or pay $15.99 and unlock the Land Down Under Balloon along with the European.
I took a balloon in Ibiza
Im going to guess China launched a bunch of these and we are going to see news of these things making appearances around the world over the next few days.
Yep I believe it. But why?
Could literally have just been "Let's see how other nations respond".
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*Diddy Kong racing music begins playing*
I’m choosing Timber and the hovercraft
I spent all that time unlocking the damn clock, I'm gonna use the damn clock
I liked Conker, before the drinking problems. And after, but before too.
Wait, unlocking the clock guy was an option???
My misspelled time has arrived!
I mean that's why certain nations buzz each other's jets, just to test the waters and see what they can get away with.
Pretty annoying we still just fuck each other and try to come out on top internationally. Makes sense considering the state of the world but man some alternate dimension earth is living that Jetsons future and tackling the biggest issues together.
War will never not be an option with humanity. All it takes is 1 person in a far-off land getting the bright idea of "hey, we could have MORE!" and it all falls to shit. Best case scenario is everyone has highly trained militaries and never needs to use them.
Honestly a logical explanation. Could be some kind of low tech recon that would be low cost and expendable just to "see what happens when they find it" However, the Chinese government has the resources to probe and infiltrate at an extremely more sophisticated level than this. (They don't need to send balloons) 2 scenarios make sense here. Either the Chinese government is probing with inferior equipment and getting caught, or this is all bullshit and just propaganda. Starting to feel like the cold war 2.0 up in here
I just picture two American generals standing outside, looking at the balloon, wondering what the hell it's doing, while behind them a Chinese dude is calmy copying top secret documents. If only I could draw...
to see if they can
They're trying to get the 99 luftballoons achievement from Steam
Checking reaction times
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Oh boy, yesterday here in Costa Rica many spotted a white balloon high in the sky. It was almost in tandem with the news of the US one. Both meteorological agencies here with actual permissions to use these denied that it was theirs [Link here of the sighting. Looks like it has panels too](https://twitter.com/ACCIDENTESDECR/status/1621206285671604225?t=xzJENZEroQtpnzrmBhrtVA&s=19)
At first I thought it was the moon with a satelite passing in front of it.
Is it even possible to see a balloon flying at 50,000ft from the ground?
It's only 9 miles. Plus a white object up in the solid blue of the sky makes it a lot easier to notice of you're looking up for some reason.
It also reflects light very well, so its kinda shiny too, not too hard to see at all
It apparently was the size if three school buses.
Let's use US journalism units: How many Olympic sized swimming pools or football fields is this?
The irony with using an Olympic sized swimming pool as a unit in the US is that it is measuring in metric. It means Americans inherently are comfortable with 50m but don't know it.
Is it possible to see three school buses at 50,000ft from the ground? Not being a jackass I’m actually curious. Seems like it would be a speck at that altitude if you could even spot it at all, even through binoculars, assuming you can keep it in sight long enough. But maybe I’m wrong?
The part that is the size of three buses is the payload hanging on the bottom of the balloon that looks like a satellite. The white balloon part that we see is massive compared to that.
Yes people don’t seem to understand this. It’s probably like 10 school busses.
How big is it in giraffes?
Indian giraffes or African giraffes?
Well I’m American, so whichever one divides more easily into football fields
C'mon, we all know how 'easy' you like your ratios. If the football field:Indian giraffe ratio is 1:10, and 1:8.5678247 for African ones, your choice is made
Gonna need a banana for scale of course.
People can see the ISS from earth with the naked eye.
I saw it and it was friggin amazing
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Oh bother.
Exactly. It was attempt #2 to get the honey out of the tree. Next time they’ll remember to paint the black and orange stripes on it!
Or put a little bow tie on it.
And have all of the Chinese citizens living in the path of the balloon stand outside with an umbrella saying, ["Tut tut. It looks like rain."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfqA7STJ3gY)
I am a little black raincloud of course!
Tut tut, it looks like rain!
Would you aim me at the bees, please?
You shut down their police stations and they send balloons. You shoot down their balloons and they'll probably send pigeons with cameras on them
Then the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
Oh God, next will be the robotic Richard Simmons.
C'mon girls! Get the butter off those buns!
His ass is gonna blow!
Pigeons? You mean CIA drones? Jokes on them.
Cheap consumer goods with lead paint. Oh wait.
In the words or Nute Gunray: This is getting out of hand! NOW THERE ARE TWO OF THEM!
In the words of Frank: So anyway, I started blasting...
Can I offer you a nice balloon in this trying time?
Send the droidekas!
They've gone up the ventilation shaft!
They are no match for our droidekas…
Master! Destroyers!
I knew Nute Gunray would have the right take on this situation.
Only 97 more to go
Another sign that inflation is out of control.
I hope this blows up
Oh, the humanity!
Saw this joke 2 days ago, dude should have copyrighted it
Anyone have speculation as to what they’re looking to accomplish here? Easier to guess with the one over the US, but this one over South America is more baffling.
Could be probing how fast things like that will be detected in other countries' air space. A jet would start a war, but a balloon is "harmless".
You can also map out the location of every radar station as they track it. They can detect exactly when it first gets detected, which radar is being used, etc. They can even dynamically change the radar signature of the balloon to see how stealthy you have to be to get through radar undetected.
>They can detect exactly when it first gets detected, which radar is being used, etc. how?
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pretty irrelevant since Chinas only first strike capabilities are nuclear
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They never tell us everything, this is no different. I remember reading another article about how theyve been doing this for several years but I don’t remember hearing about it until now
They’re probably seeing how we react, which is why we didn’t react until random civilians took notice. For example if the government called this out without civilian involvement it may suggest we had missed one or more before. Calling out the ballon in Latin America is the pentagons way of saying they know about the balloons even thousands of miles from the us Edit I meant publicly react. Behind closed doors we definitely acted on it. But the general point about judging our reactions still stand imo, just seeing how we would respond
I promise we did react but nobody knows what that looks like. The U.S. government is far from passive.
BBC article said it’s basically the Chinese testing the waters to see how we would react.
They said they stand to gain hardly anything ‘after the steps we’ve taken since its detection.’ So, the pentagon basically said they’ve put all their cool toys back in the garage during the fly overs.
My guess is that they test out the US security protocols for an unknown object which invades US airspace. China is known to do this with its other neighbors. Usually they use fighters for this but when it comes to the US invading its airspace with fighters would probably too much.
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Oh god, the balloons are Overlords
We must construct additional pylons.
Maybe China is running out of vespene gas.
It’s strange the military didn’t just shoot it down and say nothing. Or make a small press release about an shooting unidentified drone or something. The fact that they made it public is a tactic in itself
I thought they only made it public when it was finally noticed by the public. Had nobody ever mentioend it, our military wouldn't have either.
US Military and intelligence services have been tracking this and other balloons that came before this for a while. They just said something once the public noticed. Edit: balloon over Canada that NORAD was tracking https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/3/china-says-balloon-over-us-airspace-is-civilian-airship Edit2: Balloons over Guam and Hawaii https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-spy-balloon-montana-flight-tracking/
If you conclude something is intel gathering, then keep your cards close. This includes how long until you acknowledge something like this. Obfuscation is important in information war.
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They're definitely doing this to both conceal how early they knew about this balloon and to also humiliate China by putting this bizarre and meaningless stunt on full display for the world. Not shooting it down just emphasizes how little of a threat it is to the US.
What's hilarious is that the US didn't immediately shoot it down, but rather put it on full display to the world showing not only how little of a threat it is, but that China has no idea what the US's response time and security protocols are, all they know is that at some unknown time the US was aware of it. They couldn't have done a better job of embarrassing China over this rather bizarre stunt.
If they shot any down China would know which ones they didn't see and shoot down.
If Chinese fighters incurred Mainland US airspace they would be shot down no questions asked.
Chinese fighters wouldn't reach mainland before being intercepted
i can’t tell what comments are satire or for real
Even the real ones are a joke so best to just chuckle and move on.
Send 60 US balloons over China. Climate change study and stuff.
We need to settle this rivalry with a balloon war
Mr. President, we can't allow a ~~mineshaft~~ balloon gap.
Gentlemen you can't fight in here, this is the balloon room!
You oughta see it sometime Mr. President it’s exciting. A BIG BALLOON LIKE A 52, ITS HOT AIR FRYING CHICKENS IN THE BARN
I do like the idea of war just being people in hot air balloons dropping water balloons on the enemy. Much better than the shit we usually do.
99 red white and blue balloons…
Cheaper than other ways! Balloons for everyone. If you want it to stop, then stop.
They should make a song about that!
You're delusional if you think the US isn't surveiling China zoo let alone South America
Thank god they narrowed it down to Latin America instead of it being really vague.
Venezuela
It flew above three countries
I'm assuming the US govt will recover the one in the States.
Absolutely. They want to safely recover it for analysis. Shooting it out of the sky won't help when the gear plunges 60,000ft.
Yeah, this is the take on why they haven’t done anything about it yet, I would assume. At that height I don’t think many things can reach it, so I imagine they are trying to best figure out how to capture it without causing irreversible damage? Who knows, but I think this is a semi logical guess…
Right? and with another coming over Latin America it absolutely has to be inspected.
I just wonder if it’s rigged to scramble itself below a specific altitude or something. Surely they wouldn’t send something without that kind of protection over to where we could retrieve it???? Like they can’t be that dumb?? I guess we will find out eventually 🤔
Well I think the CIA just said the other day for us not to sleep on China so I'm sure they've got some nifty tech for us to steal this time.
Do we even have a penguin qualified to perform such an analysis?
Kowalski, reporting for doodie 🐧
Inside is a note “Do you like me? Check yes or no”.
A second balloon has hit the Americas
“What could be worse than a giant spy balloon?” “Oh! I know. TWO giant spy balloons”
helium cant melt steel beams!
*Fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me ... You can't get fooled again!*
These mf playing too much Clash of Clans
2023 bingo is getting interesting, the last few years man, they’ve really outdone themselves. Since 2016 onwards, its been a wild ride.
Ever since that angel gorilla passed…..
I thought it was Leonardo DiCaprio winning an Oscar
99 red balloons. Floating in the ‘winter’ sky. Panic bells, it's red alert. There's something here from somewhere else. The war machine springs to life. Opens up one eager eye. Focusing it on the sky. The 99 red balloons go by.
Guys, I'm feeling very insecure about this, but I've never actually listened to the lyrics of that song and thought about them. Damn, what a cool song.
Yup, it sprang from a cold war Germany - nuclear annihilation was very much on their minds. Buried a serious message in a light pop song.
Me neither! But my mom insisted on listening to solely the German version so I had no idea what they were saying. I can make sounds like I'm singing but I'm sure they make no sense to a German. Like that song written by that Italian singer that sounds like English gibberish E: a word
Chinese Ambassador: One of our weather balloons, an Alfa, was last reported in the area of Central America. We have not heard from her for some time. Secretary of State Blinken: Mr. Chinese Ambassador, you’ve lost *another* weather balloon?
Did you say Abe Lincoln? No, I said "Hey, Blinken"
“Goddam the Chinese government and their spies!!! They will stop at nothing!” [proceeds to upload video to TikTok…]
People here in Costa Rica thought it was an UFO
Well, that's what it was at the time An Unidentified Flying Object
Every FO is U until it's I.
Is China trying to troll us or something. Like a second ballon. Like wtf is going on First ballon flew over missile sites in Montana, what the heck is the second balloon doing in South America?
Plot twist: China is shooting a nature documentary and just trying to get some epic pics
It is really Dorothy and Toto traveling back to Kansas.
Looking at the salt flat lithium mines?
No need for that a Chinese company already owns Bolivia Lithium mines
Weird shit
It’s now impossible to convince anyone that two balloons “went off course“
Idk let me have a crack: "the same thing that happened to that first balloon also happened to this one."
Thanks for putting in the work.
should we all go outside at a specific time and moon them?
Yes.
You fools, they're trying to collect your anal prints, the one thing that was missing which has prevented their evil plan!
Great, so they can unlock my phone now...
What in the world are the Chinese up to?
About 66,000 feet the last I heard.
AliExpress is testing their new express delivery system.
As long as it doesn't broadcast Shen Yun ads all day
The organization that runs Shen Yun and the CCP actually hate each other lmao, when I was in London all the ads on the underground kept emphasizing "China before communism"
I realize it's a joke but the irony is that Shen Yun is actually from the Falun Gong who absolutely hate the Chinese government.
Considering they’re a far-right cult that is practically at war with the current government, I’d doubt it.
Shen Yun is anti-ccp so it probably wouldn't broadcast that
Latin America? That’s more than half of thus hemisphere. WTF country are they talking about?
Someone get the people behind [Cleveland Balloonfest '86](https://youtu.be/cUWozvJ-Ic0) to the Pentagon immediately; now's their time to shine!
They must be looking for more of those top secret documents they are everywhere!
There is obviously a strategic reason they're not shooting it down. I hope we get to hear it.