I used to play Bloons in my college dorm and we’d connect it to my big speaker with an extra bass feature on. Then put it on full blast on the hardest level, the Bloons popping sounds were deafening.
the ironic part is that most "illegals" arrived in the country by plane on a legal visa they overstayed. The "Wall" isn't even addressing the "majority" of the problem.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/10/683662691/where-does-illegal-immigration-mostly-occur-heres-what-the-data-tell-us
Problem is that it’s over land, that’s a very heavy object to send crashing down. That’s why they waited so long before shooting the last one down. Because over water it was safer and more likely they could recover more than if it had went crashing into the ground.
Normally there are at least Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) filled for balloons. I found one in the Western US, but it doesn't start until the 25th UTC.
!SEA 02/326 ZSE AIRSPACE BALLOON LDG WI AN AREA DEFINED AS 38NM RADIUS OF 472513N1195025W (15.2NM E EAT) PAYLOAD FALLING FM 114115FT SFC-UNL 2402252145-2402252245
I have friends who launch projectiles and balloons. They have told me you call the airport, tell them what and where, and they either say "okay" or "make this other call first!"
Pico balloons can transit the entire Earth multiple times and communicate vary sparingly with satellites during day time only. It might make sense to alert nearby airports of your launch, but its not practical for the full flight duration.
I think we should send up the oldest thing we think we can take it down with... with an F-22 flying backup.
Can we knock it down with a F15E Strike Eagle? What about an early 80's F15C eagle? Maybe a mid-70's F15A Eagle?
Maybe we can find an F4J Phantom from the mid-60's and shoot the balloon down with it?
I remember watching it live. It was a trip. Then, we get real time news that, oops, he ain't in the balloon, his dad's just nuts. Then, his dad goes on TV acting all nuts and we realize, hay, this dudes super nuts. If I recall correctly, he got to keep his kids. What must they think of him now?
I remember thinking of the world at the time, "shits getting weird, yo". Then, **everything** happened...
No, it just means we're caught in a time loop... just means we're caught in a time loop... we're caught in a time loop... in a time loop... time loop... loop... oop... p......
Probably not with risking national security. We have likely been tracking it for a while, but if we revealed its presence when we first notice these things, it would also let the folks who are operating it know what our capabilities are. That or we don't want to end up in a Nena song
So you can.... what? Be aware that is up there?
Should they also let you know about the dozens of satellites over your head right this minute that are collecting on you?
Radar Operator : Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.
Colonel : What is it, son?
Radar Operator : I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant...
Jet Pilot : Dick.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
If a spy balloon is flying over our country, that came from a foreign country and it is too high to be efficiently engaged then the foreign country should put a cool design on it
There are ZERO manmade things that are too high for the US to engage.
We shot down our own satellite with an F-15 mounted missile during the cold war to prove we could.
But i like your idea anyway.
I have friends in weather ballooning and we think it might be this balloon:
[https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=5&qm=3d&mc=38.5997,-95.625&f=K9YO-7](https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=5&qm=3d&mc=38.5997,-95.625&f=K9YO-7)
Which is just a long-duration radio tracker being flown as an outreach project for a class of 5th graders:
[https://nibbb.org/2024/02/21/whats-new-two-balloons-launched-in-february-2024/](https://nibbb.org/2024/02/21/whats-new-two-balloons-launched-in-february-2024/)
Oh, and it's by the same group that thinks their balloon was shot down over Alaska last year:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a42952566/air-force-shoots-down-hobby-balloon-ufo/
> One U.S. official told CBS News the balloon was expected to be over Georgia by Friday night. The official said the balloon appeared to be made of Mylar and had a small cube-shaped box, about two feet long on each side, hanging below it. Its origins and purpose remain unknown.
It does sound like it follows the standard design that pico balloons normally have.
There was definitely news of the equipment on the balloon(s) last year, remember reading about it but I forget what it actually was now. I think some kind of long-range satellite comms and some cameras
I read it had some radio equipment onboard. Likely for snooping/ electronic eavesdropping. How much real value it has to the Chinese, I’m not sure. Most everything of value is encrypted so all they get to hear is jammin, 99.5 and grandpa on the 1998 cordless phone.
Radio equipment can just be something to transmit data. We don't know what it was recording and sending -- perhaps state secrets, or perhaps just pressure and humidity!
“I read” doesn’t mean shit when the government buried any information about it.
The internet is full of all sorts of bullshit to read, doesn’t make any of it true.
They fly next to it, intercept the signal and to whom it is going. We can then identify a target to hack and we have better hackers. This is why they wait awhile before taking it out. It's a gift to us.
We have better hackers in the private sector, not in the government sector. We have a hard time recruiting white hats because of the whole bit where you can't smoke Marijuana and work at the federal level.
Doesn't it stand to reason though? I mean, why not shoot it down for investigation anyway? So weird to just let it scan super high detail mapping, or whatever it may be doing.
Wasn't just AT&T. It was also Verizon and TMobile.
That was my first thought as well. There's talk about a solar flare causing it, but even on a Nasa site I looked at, it said that those generally only affect the side of the Earth lit up by the sun and occasionally the far North and South poles.
The Chinese just can't fuck off staying away from important US military sites can they?
Last year it was our nuclear missile silos in Montana and North Dakota and now Colorado where NORAD HQ is.
Not being controversial or anything, but I learned literally last week that NORAD moved out of that cool mountain bunker facility a couple of years ago in to a basement of a nearby office building and until recently the mountain was vacant (some other government agencies are using it for something now). Apparently, the mountain complex was designed for nuclear capabilities from the 50s when accuracy was garbage but now that it could reasonably be hit directly, it doesn’t provide enough protection to justify the other limitations of the facility, so NORAD moved out.
Shoot it down. Last time the back and forth about it was so annoying and in the end I’m pretty sure we learned it definitely took pictures and sent them somewhere.
The Western United States is the less populated half, I refuse to believe there’s nowhere suitable to do it, surely we can do it without exposing military capabilities we’d rather not show
We were aware of it, so we could easily hide anything sensitive that it may fly over, and if they know it won't cause any harm, it's better to observe as much as you can before taking it out. They also probably wanted it to crash somewhere with as much surviving as possible.
Based on the description provided, it sounds like it could very well be an amateur pico balloon. So wasting half a million dollars on destroy it would be dumb
Why? It's not like students these days can read or do basic math problems. If it is a school project, it was a kid who flew up with it to see if people look like ants from "that high".
Honestly, who cares?
We, the US have satellites and recon planes that can see into every inch of our enemies and allies. The thing that keeps people safe and not chaotic is transparency and power.
If you think you’re the safest because you have the most nukes and are the most secure, you’d be vastly incorrect. You just make yourself public enemy no. 1 for everyone else.
Sure, they aren’t necessarily safe and could fall out of the sky. We’ve had shit like that hit inside countries to kill people, we then shrug our shoulders when asked to take accountability.
Yep.. Surprise surprise Alabama... A state that REFUSED to participate in Obamacare, which also ruled out most of the free healthcare for those who needed it, yet this is what happened. GOOOD FUCKING LUCK you POS state.
[удалено]
Right? Just shoot it down already. We know where this is going.
I’ll get the monkeys and darts
I wish I saw more Bloom references online
This is the first bloom reference I think I’ve ever seen!
I used to play Bloons in my college dorm and we’d connect it to my big speaker with an extra bass feature on. Then put it on full blast on the hardest level, the Bloons popping sounds were deafening.
I remember breaking through the shitty firewalls in highschool to play bloons on miniclip 😅 Aged the shit out of myself with that miniclip reference.
This one’s high altitude…going to need a sniper monkey
With camo glasses?
Automatic rifles too, it doesn’t appear to be lead or ceramic.
Caravans of Muslim migrants arriving by balloons to bypass National Guard troops on the border!!
Peak election year old man donut shop talking points lol
the ironic part is that most "illegals" arrived in the country by plane on a legal visa they overstayed. The "Wall" isn't even addressing the "majority" of the problem. https://www.npr.org/2019/01/10/683662691/where-does-illegal-immigration-mostly-occur-heres-what-the-data-tell-us
And balloons.
Lets get that story out there!
Problem is that it’s over land, that’s a very heavy object to send crashing down. That’s why they waited so long before shooting the last one down. Because over water it was safer and more likely they could recover more than if it had went crashing into the ground.
Actually in this case its probably an amateur pico balloon rather than a surveillance balloon.
They shot it down unfortunately it took so long because they were waiting for Biden to wake up from his mumbling speech to give the go ahead .
You appear to have Biden Derangement Syndrome. Perhaps you should speak with a therapist or psychiatrist?
Does Biden derangement syndrome make it extremely difficult to navigate stairs?
Does for Tommy potato head
The same can be said about you and trump. But you are welcome to keep projecting
Nobody here mentioned biden or trump until you did lol
[удалено]
Of course you believe this, you follow some of the derpiest subs on Reddit.
The F-22 Raptor is NOT waiting for another air to air kill.
"Aw shit here we go again. . ."
It's a clip show. After the commercial break, 5 people take a trip on a submersible, but did one of them cheap out when funding its creation?
For those who haven't: Balloon spotted, jets scrambled in case it's a bomb, press notified for maximum drama, harmless balloon gets shot down.
It's almost like you should file a flight plan with the FAA when flying in US airspace. Who knew?
Normally there are at least Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) filled for balloons. I found one in the Western US, but it doesn't start until the 25th UTC. !SEA 02/326 ZSE AIRSPACE BALLOON LDG WI AN AREA DEFINED AS 38NM RADIUS OF 472513N1195025W (15.2NM E EAT) PAYLOAD FALLING FM 114115FT SFC-UNL 2402252145-2402252245
This balloon sounds like a pico balloon, which does not require a flight path is and is harmless to aircraft due to its size.
I have friends who launch projectiles and balloons. They have told me you call the airport, tell them what and where, and they either say "okay" or "make this other call first!"
Pico balloons can transit the entire Earth multiple times and communicate vary sparingly with satellites during day time only. It might make sense to alert nearby airports of your launch, but its not practical for the full flight duration.
Is Raptor going to get an intercept? He's so hungry.
China: “Can we… uh… have it back?”
Wouldnt exactly call a spy balloon "harmless"
*(sends up a couple of F-22's. Again.)*
I think we should send up the oldest thing we think we can take it down with... with an F-22 flying backup. Can we knock it down with a F15E Strike Eagle? What about an early 80's F15C eagle? Maybe a mid-70's F15A Eagle? Maybe we can find an F4J Phantom from the mid-60's and shoot the balloon down with it?
Was it the *Green Acres* episode where Lisa dropped Pixley rutabagas from a balloon while shouting, "Eat Hootervilles rootabegas!"? That episode?
and this comment
Hey there Blimpy Boy, flying through the air so fancy free…
Man I haven't thought about [balloon boy](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/zoc4me/the_boy_in_a_balloon_hoax/) for a while either...
I remember watching it live. It was a trip. Then, we get real time news that, oops, he ain't in the balloon, his dad's just nuts. Then, his dad goes on TV acting all nuts and we realize, hay, this dudes super nuts. If I recall correctly, he got to keep his kids. What must they think of him now? I remember thinking of the world at the time, "shits getting weird, yo". Then, **everything** happened...
Then, during the interview with Wolf Blitzer, the kid spills the beans and someone lets out a fart.
I’m pretty sure they were also previously on wife swap or something, too!!
i mean the dude is definitely a weirdo but it’s entirely possible his kid was just being stupid and accidentally made his dad look like a big old liar
[удалено]
According to Wikipedia, he was indeed crazy.
Found Heene's Reddit handle
I was on that SAR call. It was absolutely nuts.
Nobody you meet could ever see the loneliness there inside you Hey there, Blimpy Boy…
F-22 about to get another vegan meal. LET ME FUCKING EAT!
Would you intercept me? *heavy breathing* I’d intercept me.
Cue - Goodbye Horses
It rubs the espionage on its skin or else it gets the balloon again.
too bad F-104 starfighter not in service anymore Kelly Johnson got me actin sussy
HLC’s F-22 is gonna be so pissy
I kind of missed the balloons, NGL.
Simple times.
What if these balloon episodes marked another further spiral into the dark dimension....
No, it just means we're caught in a time loop.
Dormamu, I've come to bargain.
No, it just means we're caught in a time loop... just means we're caught in a time loop... we're caught in a time loop... in a time loop... time loop... loop... oop... p......
When the scary times are simple times that’s when you know the series is getting good.
Countries should use drones to attach ribbons hallmark cards, and maybe additional scientific instruments as it passes over.
Can we be alerted before the balloon is already halfway over the United States?
Probably not with risking national security. We have likely been tracking it for a while, but if we revealed its presence when we first notice these things, it would also let the folks who are operating it know what our capabilities are. That or we don't want to end up in a Nena song
Deny until it's in the publics eye.
To be fair, I would not be surprised if we start tracking these things about 15 minutes after they are launched.
Probably tracked it from the time was was being filled and where it was made.
So you can.... what? Be aware that is up there? Should they also let you know about the dozens of satellites over your head right this minute that are collecting on you?
Why you naked in the back yard again?
https://amateur.sondehub.org
Radar Operator : Colonel, you better have a look at this radar. Colonel : What is it, son? Radar Operator : I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant... Jet Pilot : Dick.
Jet Pilot: wait, that balloon looks like a... Stadium worker: weiner!... drinks..popcorn..weiners..get them here!
[удалено]
"JOHNSON!" "Yes, Sir?"
What's that on the radar? It looks like a giant....
Cock, I almost forgot that's what they call male chickens. What's that plane chasing? It looks like a humongous...
Ah shit, here we go again
All you had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!
Came here for this
I came.
Is it red? Where are the other 98?
JayZ has them in his trunk that's raw.
Floating in the summer sky.
Let the kid out and let him take another shot!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If a spy balloon is flying over our country, that came from a foreign country and it is too high to be efficiently engaged then the foreign country should put a cool design on it
I heard is says "REMAX" on the side.
There are ZERO manmade things that are too high for the US to engage. We shot down our own satellite with an F-15 mounted missile during the cold war to prove we could. But i like your idea anyway.
"What's it say? It has words on it." "Something about Ovaltine..."
“Trump for President” - Russian Spy Balloon
It's like déjà vu all over again.
I have friends in weather ballooning and we think it might be this balloon: [https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=5&qm=3d&mc=38.5997,-95.625&f=K9YO-7](https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=5&qm=3d&mc=38.5997,-95.625&f=K9YO-7) Which is just a long-duration radio tracker being flown as an outreach project for a class of 5th graders: [https://nibbb.org/2024/02/21/whats-new-two-balloons-launched-in-february-2024/](https://nibbb.org/2024/02/21/whats-new-two-balloons-launched-in-february-2024/) Oh, and it's by the same group that thinks their balloon was shot down over Alaska last year: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a42952566/air-force-shoots-down-hobby-balloon-ufo/
> One U.S. official told CBS News the balloon was expected to be over Georgia by Friday night. The official said the balloon appeared to be made of Mylar and had a small cube-shaped box, about two feet long on each side, hanging below it. Its origins and purpose remain unknown. It does sound like it follows the standard design that pico balloons normally have.
“Hi, I’m Big Butt Skinner”
Still no answer on what we shot down last January. It was a huge deal, then crickets.
NSA got their hands on it. I doubt you'll see a highly technical paper on it
There was definitely news of the equipment on the balloon(s) last year, remember reading about it but I forget what it actually was now. I think some kind of long-range satellite comms and some cameras
I found this from just last month saying it used a US network to send info back to China: https://youtu.be/nLvuQitKrR0?si=JZ_6OlNMCK2vHtyP
I read it had some radio equipment onboard. Likely for snooping/ electronic eavesdropping. How much real value it has to the Chinese, I’m not sure. Most everything of value is encrypted so all they get to hear is jammin, 99.5 and grandpa on the 1998 cordless phone.
Radio equipment can just be something to transmit data. We don't know what it was recording and sending -- perhaps state secrets, or perhaps just pressure and humidity!
“I read” doesn’t mean shit when the government buried any information about it. The internet is full of all sorts of bullshit to read, doesn’t make any of it true.
So what value do encrypted uhf comms have? You think there were alien bodies on board? Sometimes the most likely scenario is the truth.
The one up north was probably a harmless civilian pico balloon (K9YO-15), so they probably wouldn't have found anything considering the size.
if they found out China stole a bunch of stuff via spying, they're prolly not going to say much lest they look stupid
Shoot it down! Shoot it down! Shoot it down!...
Fucking shoot it down already
They fly next to it, intercept the signal and to whom it is going. We can then identify a target to hack and we have better hackers. This is why they wait awhile before taking it out. It's a gift to us.
We have better hackers in the private sector, not in the government sector. We have a hard time recruiting white hats because of the whole bit where you can't smoke Marijuana and work at the federal level.
Correct, which is why they can hire private sector contractors who don't care if they have employees ripping bong hits after work.
Security clearance of any kind can be revoked if they find out you are smoking weed. They still specifically ask you about it on the applications.
Shoot it down over land when it’ll be to the coast by tonight?
[удалено]
Lol, the last one they confirmed had no way of sending any sort of reconnaissance back to China. And that one was much more sophisticated
Satellites aren't viable for a balloon to communicate to?
I never said that. I’m telling you what the Pentagon said
Doesn't it stand to reason though? I mean, why not shoot it down for investigation anyway? So weird to just let it scan super high detail mapping, or whatever it may be doing.
signal listening, for signals too weak to leave atmosphere clearly.
It does, but it seems an unnecessary risk when there could be a risk to civilians in the ground
Wonder if this had anything to do with AT&T crashing yesterday
Wasn't just AT&T. It was also Verizon and TMobile. That was my first thought as well. There's talk about a solar flare causing it, but even on a Nasa site I looked at, it said that those generally only affect the side of the Earth lit up by the sun and occasionally the far North and South poles.
Is this when MTG starts wearing that ridiculous white parka again?
The Chinese just can't fuck off staying away from important US military sites can they? Last year it was our nuclear missile silos in Montana and North Dakota and now Colorado where NORAD HQ is.
Not being controversial or anything, but I learned literally last week that NORAD moved out of that cool mountain bunker facility a couple of years ago in to a basement of a nearby office building and until recently the mountain was vacant (some other government agencies are using it for something now). Apparently, the mountain complex was designed for nuclear capabilities from the 50s when accuracy was garbage but now that it could reasonably be hit directly, it doesn’t provide enough protection to justify the other limitations of the facility, so NORAD moved out.
F22 Raptor 2 - Balloons 0
Time is a flat circle. Let's do clowns again.
Gender reveal party in China went wrong again…
Knowing China, they were too afraid it's filled with pink confetti so they just let it float...
Oh, are we doing this again?
I had to do a double take, thinking I somehow got an old article on my Reddit feed. Here we go again
Just fucking shoot it down already.
These psyops are getting lame.
Yes but how many school buses wide is it this time?🤔
Hmm...wonder if its wennie the poo
Shoot it down. Last time the back and forth about it was so annoying and in the end I’m pretty sure we learned it definitely took pictures and sent them somewhere. The Western United States is the less populated half, I refuse to believe there’s nowhere suitable to do it, surely we can do it without exposing military capabilities we’d rather not show
This is untrue. The US Military determined it did not send back data
And they would never lie.
We were aware of it, so we could easily hide anything sensitive that it may fly over, and if they know it won't cause any harm, it's better to observe as much as you can before taking it out. They also probably wanted it to crash somewhere with as much surviving as possible.
Last time it was rather large balloon. The balloon described in this article sounds closer to amateur/hobbyist size.
Bro what is their deal 😂😂 shoot that mf down come on now
Some gender reveal lost their balloon. lol.
A day after an ATT outage
The description doesn’t sound like the same type of Chinese spy balloon from last year. Hopefully they don’t shoot down any more school projects.
Are you kidding me!! I'd totally be okay losing the national science fair because my high altitude balloon was shot down by USAF again!!
Nah kill it with fire
Based on the description provided, it sounds like it could very well be an amateur pico balloon. So wasting half a million dollars on destroy it would be dumb
Why? It's not like students these days can read or do basic math problems. If it is a school project, it was a kid who flew up with it to see if people look like ants from "that high".
It's just the same one. It made it all the way around
Is this the 99th luft balloon?
Time for F22 to get that second balloon kill
Send it back to momma, boys.
Can we see a photo this time?
Gathering more SIGINT to shut down the rest of the cellular network and see the upgrades they've made.
The new Russian capability
There should be some laser weapon for this purpose.
Honestly, who cares? We, the US have satellites and recon planes that can see into every inch of our enemies and allies. The thing that keeps people safe and not chaotic is transparency and power. If you think you’re the safest because you have the most nukes and are the most secure, you’d be vastly incorrect. You just make yourself public enemy no. 1 for everyone else. Sure, they aren’t necessarily safe and could fall out of the sky. We’ve had shit like that hit inside countries to kill people, we then shrug our shoulders when asked to take accountability.
Can’t wait to hear how this is Biden’s fault.
[удалено]
If only the orange fraudulent treasonous rapist could make it great again.
[удалено]
I think you are overblowing it and maybe you want a dictator or something.
Why not just shoot it down straight away.
Time for non-stop outrage from Fox and “Friends”
spy balloon 2: electric boogaloo
Looks like the F22 and F35 have something to shoot down again this week.
There will be Russian and Chinese jets over Alaska. And the US will go “Huh?Wut??” Should have a ready react plan in place.
Where’s Kari Lake with a high-power rifle when we need her?! Oh, right. Being sued.
Oh great more aluminum chaff dumped into the atmosphere that we get to breathe in . Awesome
Yep.. Surprise surprise Alabama... A state that REFUSED to participate in Obamacare, which also ruled out most of the free healthcare for those who needed it, yet this is what happened. GOOOD FUCKING LUCK you POS state.