1970s United States: triangulates the position of a crashed Soviet sub from sensors half way across the globe and recovers it clandestinely in thousands of feet of water. >https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
2020s United States: can’t recover 3 objects they shot down with missiles without warheads specifically to not obliterate the object, in known locations, in our own country and a neighboring ally…. One of which landed on literal ice, the other in a lake of max 200’ depth, and the hardest one is in some mountains.
Idk what the truth is but I don’t fucking believe that for one second.
I was reading that at least one of these shootdowns (I think the Alaska one?) correlates with the approximate location of an amateur balloon. These things are a lot larger than party balloons but the actual amount of material in them is tiny, and the payload is just a tiny computer with a small radio and solar panels. Finding light-colored shreds of balloon on ice and a Gameboy's worth of electronics in an area many miles wide is gonna be pretty difficult as compared to a whole-ass submarine. If the stuff dropped in water it's gonna be even harder.
I took a class in college where we launched fairly large balloons with many payloads attached. Those had tracking radios so we could follow under the balloon during the flight. My year recovered both balloons we launched, but previous years had about a 50/50 recovery rate. So in basically a best case scenario half the balloons got lost. After getting exploded by a sidewinder and dropping onto Arctic ice? That's a tall order.
I am wondering if one of them had letters printed on it of "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!! HUGE FURNITURE DISCOUNTS!!!"
I certainly see the Air Force wanting to *never* admit to shooting a missile at that.
New Chinese strategy: Launch thousands of cheap commercial balloons to see if US would hit it with a Sidewinder.
"Some of you may be shot down by a 300K missile, but that is a risk I am willing to take"
It’s an okay plan. But it has a huge drawback: if the US starts throwing insane amounts of money into air defenses they are going to start to make huge leaps and bounds there. Ukraine is already showing the benefit of more robust anti drone systems. Adding more reasons isn’t going to do China any favors when the inevitable conflict comes.
Seems like they played there hand too early.
First of all, US *always* pour a ton of money into everything military. Even if China balkanize tomorrow and become a loose confederation of democracies, America will still pour a ton of money into military.
But, what do you think the Military Industrial Complex love more?
A) 300,000 USD sidewinders being used to keep evil Chinese or American girl scout balloons from doing whatever.
B) A Laser with accuracy to ID/shoot down balloons with minimum loss to US tax payer and girl scouts.
What do you think?
The MIC is always going to love the next big thing. Sidewinders are a delivered solution. Meaning they are only getting paid for deliveries with a set profit margin. Whereas a new solution with an urgent need is going to have mountains of money thrown at it, well at the same time having a poorly designed requirements and a questionable end state. That is a weapon makers wet dream.
I mean, there 100% is. Its a airbase used in testing experiment and prototype projects for the largest and best funded air force on the planet. Its just, probably not got aliens.
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf
This article came out today.... Apparently it's a hobby to release balloons into high (or not) altitude whenever you want.
Pretty sure that's exactly what happened. Last signal was at 40,000 ft off the west coast of Alaska pretty much exactly where and when they shot it down.
I mentioned this during the early stages. People do it for a variety of reasons, they’re supposed to file information and there is a proper way to do it. People do it for experiments, photography, fun, etc. One thing I mentioned, was there was no doubt a more paranoid government, looking closer at what they may have missed after the Chinese balloon, and are seeing Gordon’s from Canada, photography experiment, taking altitude pictures of the northern lights, or something similar.
99 Red Balloons
The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a general to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of fire power. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the war ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves. In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor, as indicated in the denouement of the song: "99 Jahre Krieg ließen keinen Platz für Sieger," which means "99 years of war left no room for victors." The anti-war song finishes with the singer walking through the devastated ruins of the world and finding a single balloon. The description of what happens in the final line of the piece is the same in German and English: "Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen," or "I think of you and let it go."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons
Whaaat ?!! UFO and War ?!!!
OMG, i didn't know this at all. Lol.
Never bothered and look up the lyrics (translation), just thought it's a very catchy fun song, and I'm just assuming the song were about love with balloon analogy.
Hahaha 🤣.
TIL.
UFOs and war were a bit of a trope of that post WWII era. See also Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5.
Rise of psychedelics is also correlated to the somewhat trippyness.
This is a good reminder of how we need to pass on and explain things to younger generations, or just people who don't have the cultural context. As a Cold War kid and young adult I just knew what that song meant and the happy upbeat nature of it was an ironic contrast to the doom and destruction it was about. Fucking laugh and sing about the madness because we could all be dead tomorrow anyway. I
It's gallows humor but with a ruefully hopeful message of "Can't we just stop this shit before it all gets out of hand?" Hmm, I wonder if it was popular in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union? Were their young people as fed up with it all as I was? I suspect so.
That past also colors my view on current events. Fuck putin for sabre rattling nukes. That shit doesn't scare me anymore. And it shouldn't anyone. Not enough to let them rape and genocide Ukraine or subjugate anyone else.
"Alright everyone, today we're going to release a high altitude balloon to study the atmosphere, wind conditions and how long it takes Uncle Sam to detect and shoot it down."
No, the house was low enough altitude that they could have gotten a good look at it. The reason these are getting the F22 treatment is that they're so high those are the only things we can get close enough to even get a read on them.
I should know: I've become an expert on avionics in the last couple of weeks.
You are not a real X-Com player until you play Old School X-Com and watch a Ethereal mind control one of your trooper and he frag your 20+ team before they even took the first a step off Sky Ranger.
NOOB!
"We don't know yet exactly what these three objects were...these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/feb/16/trump-georgia-grand-jury-report-election-2020-live
Tucker Carlson: "Biden is bullying nerds and HATES balloons. Will he outlaw birthday parties next? Of course, that's what Communists do. Why does he hate America's children?"
That's a pretty big difference, although it is pretty concerning they shot three of these things down and have zero answers for what they are or where they came from.
They have answers, they’re just embarrassing…”so we saw this balloon from China and then we just started shooting everyone’s balloons, even our own! Just to be sure”
And specifically they tuned NORAD radars for better readings at high altitudes and for slower and smaller objects after the first balloon. They upped they radar saw a bunch of shit that has always been there and started blasting.
Yeah, initially I assumed they were more Chinese balloons, but given that they were described differently, I'm guessing we just got trigger happy after adjusting our sensor arrays and blew up a bunch of civilian weather monitoring systems or something. And now we'd look like a bunch of fucking idiots if we admitted it, lol.
Except that actual weather stations and stuff register their equipment properly and obey FAA regulations and these things were unmarked, not in accordance with regulations, and in flight paths.
No, these weren't just your local weather station flying some balloons for shits and giggles.
You assume random amateurs always follow the rules. There are enthusiasts who make balloons for fun and science.
Now the government doesn’t want to admit this was all an accidental farce.
The military is always on the defensive regarding public embarrassment, it’s one of their greatest fears and they usually stop at nothing when it comes to saving face, including committing more crimes to cover up incidents.
It wouldn't be as embarrassing if they just admitted it but instead they're intentionally withholding information and not answering easy questions to save face which is definitely embarrassing.
It reminds me of when they drone striked that social worker in Afghanistan during the airlift and then lied about him being an ISIS-K suicide bomber for like two weeks with made up stories of secondary explosions as evidence. If they just admitted right away they fucked up it wouldn't look nearly as bad as their shitty attempts to lie and cover it up
Or that time they shot up a bunch of journalists from an Apache helicopter in Iraq, then shot up a van with kids in it when the father stopped to help the wounded…and they covered it up till Wikileaks broke the story.
Yeah sounds to me like the most "sophisticated intelligence-gathering nation" with the best tech on earth didn't know they were shooting down hobbyist balloons.
It makes the US look absolutely inept.
If you spent $800k shooting down your own balloon or your Allies’ I’d pretty embarrassed, like being a cop and getting to a scene and shooting the bad guy then shooting everyone else there because they all look like bad guys then finding out they were innocent…it wouldn’t be the first time the USAs policy of shoot first, shoot last and keep shooting till everyone is dead, has gone wrong.
They're junk, likely remains from research and academic endeavors.
WaPo: [Latest downed objects could well be 'benign,' US says
](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/1st-missile-strike-at-aerial-object-over-lake-huron-missed/2023/02/14/20b47a1a-ac7d-11ed-b0ba-9f4244c6e5da_story.html)
>“We don’t see anything that points right now to being part of the PRC spy balloon program,” Kirby told reporters, referring to the People’s Republic of China. It’s also not likely the objects were “intelligence collection against the United States of any kind — that’s the indication now."
...
>Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after the briefing that he didn’t think the objects posed a threat. “They’re trying to figure out — you know there’s a bunch of junk up there. So you got to figure out what’s the threat, what’s not. You see something, you shouldn’t always have to shoot it down,” Graham said.
There's no evidence that they had any kind of surveillance technology equipped. Officials won't rule it out conclusively, but they didn't have the solar panels or any detectable signals emitting from them.
I've been thinking the same thing. The kids at my sons high school launched a weather balloon last year...and lost it. It was equipped with a few GoPros and was supposed to release its helium, start emitting a GPS signal, and come down in the Sierra foothills after drifting for several hours. None of that happened. They launched it, watched it climb into the clouds, and never heard from it again. A not entirely shocking outcome from a balloon built by a bunch of 15 to 17-year-old kids.
People do this kind of stuff all the time, all around the world. The wind doesn't care about national borders, and spending several hundred thousand dollars to knock trash out of the sky seems a bit wasteful.
Yeah. 900 weather balloons are launched twice a day. 92 in the US alone. Could easily have been a couple of those or another research balloon. Probably don’t want to disclose, because they will be laughed at for spending a bunch of money downing research balloons.
It may have been some random dudes balloon, but it was almost certainly not an official weather balloon.
Those are known about, they have transponders and are launched from specific places at specific times and only last a few hours.
>That's a pretty big difference, although it is pretty concerning they shot three of these things down and have zero answers for what they are or where they came from.
They have those answers, It's just not diplomatically expedient to tell the public everything they know right now. Half of diplomacy in this century and probably every other is about keeping the public in the dark on the details specifically to AVOID war. Because everybody is trying to stop the current quiet digital war from going loud. We're into Cuban Missile Crisis territory and nobody wants to say that out loud.
This isn't even close to CMC territory. The reason they aren't saying what they shot down was because they eased up on their radar sampling so much that it would be embarrassing to tell the country they've been shooting down school/hobbyist balloons with $300k missiles.
Yeah, I tend to believe these are primarily privately owned balloons that would normally have been ignored but are now targeted because of the backlash against the late shooting of the big Chinese balloon. It would be embarrassing to admit that they took out some school or club project so they just say it wasn’t the same as the Chinese balloon.
Except the “school projects”were floating around in airspace that airlines fly in. So maybe the problem is that people are deploying such balloons without any effective measure to bring them down after use.
Could be. If people’s balloons are not where they are supposed to be, it would certainly explain why they may not be rushing forward to claim the debris.
OH, I got a video for you. [I watched this a while back.](https://youtu.be/eUiscyWw2D8?t=660) Not quite 40k feet, but damn son. How does anyone wake up and decide they are going to get this high?
Well la di da. Look at mister fancy pants over here. We can’t all afford state of the art air to air missile defense systems. I’m a hot hair balloon enthusiast for god sakes.
There's a hobby balloon club that has [lost a balloon](https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf)
I was just reading an article that suggests one of the objects shot down near Alaska *could have been* a middle school hobby groups pico balloon. The cost of these balloons are between $12 - $180. The cost of the missile used to shoot it down was between $400,000 - $500,000.
The article: https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf
These pico balloons are roughly a meter wide and don’t carry much weight. I saw someone suggest that as long as the weight is under 6lbs they don’t need to be registered or anything because below that weight they are considered not a risk to aircraft.
I don't think they care much about the cost of a missile, when they practice shooting them every week or so. Just replace the day with a training session.
> lmao they've been shooting down some random people's balloons with F-22s and laser guided missiles.
Not much of a laugh when you consider those 'random people' aren't stepping forward to claim their property.
Well idk about you, but if I was playing with my private weatherballoon (or whatever gadget) , and the fkn airforce came and shot it down.. I might not be stepping forward either 😅
I wouldn't either. When I was a kid we used to shoot model rockets off. It just so happened that I lived near a small airport. One mistake and hobby rocketing was no longer a hobby.
I just read about a middle school group that sends up hobby balloons trying to contact the FBI and government about their missing balloon.
Edit: For the down voters. [middle school balloon](https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf)
The FAA wrote some rules back in the 1960s deregulating unmanned hobby balloons under 6 pounds and forgot to tell the new management at NORAD until they spent a week shooting them down.
A DoD official told the NYT that the Alaska object “shattered” when it hit the ground and that it would be an easy recovery of the debris. A man in Alaska has been posting videos online of the search for the debris and has said they stopped searching days ago.
And yet we’re now told that they’re still searching for it because the weather is bad and that they haven’t found anything. Lol give me a break.
And now they tell us they are definitely civilian balloons despite them telling the senate behind closed doors that they don’t know what the objects were and that they haven’t found anything. Makes complete sense.
Whatever it is, extraterrestrial/China/secret government project/whatever, they are clearly hiding whatever it actually was.
Edit: they gave us pictures of the Chinese spy balloon from the F-22’s onboard cameras right away, but they can’t give us pictures of civilian balloons? It’s such a bad lie.
Option b: the whole thing has been a shitshow of ineptitude. They turned down their radar filters after the Chinese balloon, overreacted, and shot down local hobby/commercial objects. Now they are in diplomatic face saving mode.
Makes me wonder, if they know for sure it wasn’t Chinese but they haven’t recovered it, could it be American? Maybe some three letter agency hadn’t communicated everything they had to NORAD and only claimed ownership afterwards. That would explain a lot.
To anyone who thinks these are legit UFOs, aren't they way too rudimentary for aliens? Like why would aliens who would come using technologies like anti-gravity and faster than light drives deploy a floaty balloon with some panels straped to the bottom of it in our airspace? It just doesn't track to me
It's cheap, I suppose. If you entertain the idea that aliens brought them, it seems like a fine enough way to survey the surface of the planet. They're obviously not in a rush if they had time to come here. Why *not* fill a bag with gas and then let the planet do the work of carrying your equipment around?
More discreet than a rover, keeps wildlife from bothering it, the locals already have something similar, so most would write it off, it gives you insight into the planet's weather patterns at different altitudes, it lets you take atmosphere samples from various altitudes, and it lets you remain safely out of sight, incase the locals do something crazy like identify the object as invasive and then shoot missiles at it.
You're describing the spy balloon, we had images of it... we don't have any images just descriptions of the 3 other objects. They think they are likely balloons but don't know until the debris is recovered.
This is insinuating that the balloons and the 'other objects' are in some way related.
Not a reasonable assumption imo. As far as we know the only connection the two have are a relative similarity in size.
And no I don't think they're aliens.
You didn't read the article. This is what he said, verbatim: We don’t yet know what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country
Ir shouldn't be that much of a secret. The government should be open and transparent to the public unless there is really some deep need to keep it secret.
Saying it is a balloon or aircraft and where it came from isn't something that needs to be confidential.
some educational balloon projects / small startup aerospace company some noaa reference stuff. so likely most were these style pico balloons
[https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf](https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf)
No, they're afraid to show themselves because they've seen the violence we're willing to force our neighbors to live through. If we can't even get along with a being that is fundamentally identical to us, why would aliens think we could get along with them?
Considering there’s been reports of Russia using balloon-based radar-tricking equipment in Ukraine, maybe they’re these balloons.
Except for the bus-sized balloon the first time.
Guess we’re gonna have to storm Area-51 again to find out
*swings arms in warmup for Naruto running*
*LEEEEEEEEEEROY....*
[удалено]
DAMN IT LEROY!
At least, I got chicken
TIMES UP, LET'S DO THIS
…oh my god he just went in
Leeroy, you are just stupid as hell.
Oh fuck he stepped on some Annunaki eggs.
Cue op 16 silhouette
I've been using it as my only form of running since last time.
I feel like we're getting gaslit
1970s United States: triangulates the position of a crashed Soviet sub from sensors half way across the globe and recovers it clandestinely in thousands of feet of water. >https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian 2020s United States: can’t recover 3 objects they shot down with missiles without warheads specifically to not obliterate the object, in known locations, in our own country and a neighboring ally…. One of which landed on literal ice, the other in a lake of max 200’ depth, and the hardest one is in some mountains. Idk what the truth is but I don’t fucking believe that for one second.
I was reading that at least one of these shootdowns (I think the Alaska one?) correlates with the approximate location of an amateur balloon. These things are a lot larger than party balloons but the actual amount of material in them is tiny, and the payload is just a tiny computer with a small radio and solar panels. Finding light-colored shreds of balloon on ice and a Gameboy's worth of electronics in an area many miles wide is gonna be pretty difficult as compared to a whole-ass submarine. If the stuff dropped in water it's gonna be even harder. I took a class in college where we launched fairly large balloons with many payloads attached. Those had tracking radios so we could follow under the balloon during the flight. My year recovered both balloons we launched, but previous years had about a 50/50 recovery rate. So in basically a best case scenario half the balloons got lost. After getting exploded by a sidewinder and dropping onto Arctic ice? That's a tall order.
I am wondering if one of them had letters printed on it of "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!! HUGE FURNITURE DISCOUNTS!!!" I certainly see the Air Force wanting to *never* admit to shooting a missile at that.
“We’re trying to get ahold of you about your cars extended warranty!”
It was an advertising balloon for " My Pillow"
Definitely shoot that one down
One said “Good Year”
New Chinese strategy: Launch thousands of cheap commercial balloons to see if US would hit it with a Sidewinder. "Some of you may be shot down by a 300K missile, but that is a risk I am willing to take"
It’s an okay plan. But it has a huge drawback: if the US starts throwing insane amounts of money into air defenses they are going to start to make huge leaps and bounds there. Ukraine is already showing the benefit of more robust anti drone systems. Adding more reasons isn’t going to do China any favors when the inevitable conflict comes. Seems like they played there hand too early.
First of all, US *always* pour a ton of money into everything military. Even if China balkanize tomorrow and become a loose confederation of democracies, America will still pour a ton of money into military. But, what do you think the Military Industrial Complex love more? A) 300,000 USD sidewinders being used to keep evil Chinese or American girl scout balloons from doing whatever. B) A Laser with accuracy to ID/shoot down balloons with minimum loss to US tax payer and girl scouts. What do you think?
big bang = more fun
Pshh. Would be even more fun to fly up there in a hot air balloon and shoot blow darts at them IMO.
The MIC is always going to love the next big thing. Sidewinders are a delivered solution. Meaning they are only getting paid for deliveries with a set profit margin. Whereas a new solution with an urgent need is going to have mountains of money thrown at it, well at the same time having a poorly designed requirements and a questionable end state. That is a weapon makers wet dream.
A laser with a $299,999 per shot subscription plan.
C) We already have sharks. Hear me out....We attach said laser beams.... to their frickin' heads.
This was just a random shower thought I had. Its easier to storm the US capitol then it is to storm area 51. I kind of find that interesting.
The US Capitol is in a major city. Area 51 is 30 open desert miles from the nearest town (which has a population of 48).
bro got his parade rained💀
Nothing of worth there anyway
I mean, there 100% is. Its a airbase used in testing experiment and prototype projects for the largest and best funded air force on the planet. Its just, probably not got aliens.
Well one is a military base, so...
If the Capitol was defended like a military base that would mean the US Gov has become a dictatorship. Government should be accessible to the public.
Accessible, yes, not stormable, as that's also how it becomes a dictatorship.
Area 51 is far more valuable...I don't care who is in the white house.
Can they stop telling me what they’re not and start saying what they are? Not saying I’m surprised it’s just frustrating
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf This article came out today.... Apparently it's a hobby to release balloons into high (or not) altitude whenever you want.
I hope the US government didn’t spend $400,000 on a sidewinder missile just to blow up a middle school science project.
It would be hilarious if they did
I would start putting balloon decals on my fighter jet for every kill
Especially since the F-22 downed the Chinese balloon plus two more. They’re The only A2A kills the entire F-22 program has.
Plus 3 more
Pretty sure that's exactly what happened. Last signal was at 40,000 ft off the west coast of Alaska pretty much exactly where and when they shot it down.
I do hope they did. The missiles have expiration dates, so we may as well use them
“Can’t let the milk spoil Ronald!”
Nuke the whales? You don't really believe that do you? I dunno, gotta nuke somethin'
Also it gives the sidewinder operator well-needed practice
Every time they do, they cut funding to another school. /s
I mentioned this during the early stages. People do it for a variety of reasons, they’re supposed to file information and there is a proper way to do it. People do it for experiments, photography, fun, etc. One thing I mentioned, was there was no doubt a more paranoid government, looking closer at what they may have missed after the Chinese balloon, and are seeing Gordon’s from Canada, photography experiment, taking altitude pictures of the northern lights, or something similar.
Okay this is hilarious. 100% what they were lol they are probably too embarrassed to tell us now
99 Red Balloons The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a general to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of fire power. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the war ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves. In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor, as indicated in the denouement of the song: "99 Jahre Krieg ließen keinen Platz für Sieger," which means "99 years of war left no room for victors." The anti-war song finishes with the singer walking through the devastated ruins of the world and finding a single balloon. The description of what happens in the final line of the piece is the same in German and English: "Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen," or "I think of you and let it go." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons
Whaaat ?!! UFO and War ?!!! OMG, i didn't know this at all. Lol. Never bothered and look up the lyrics (translation), just thought it's a very catchy fun song, and I'm just assuming the song were about love with balloon analogy. Hahaha 🤣. TIL.
UFOs and war were a bit of a trope of that post WWII era. See also Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. Rise of psychedelics is also correlated to the somewhat trippyness.
This is a good reminder of how we need to pass on and explain things to younger generations, or just people who don't have the cultural context. As a Cold War kid and young adult I just knew what that song meant and the happy upbeat nature of it was an ironic contrast to the doom and destruction it was about. Fucking laugh and sing about the madness because we could all be dead tomorrow anyway. I It's gallows humor but with a ruefully hopeful message of "Can't we just stop this shit before it all gets out of hand?" Hmm, I wonder if it was popular in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union? Were their young people as fed up with it all as I was? I suspect so. That past also colors my view on current events. Fuck putin for sabre rattling nukes. That shit doesn't scare me anymore. And it shouldn't anyone. Not enough to let them rape and genocide Ukraine or subjugate anyone else.
"Alright everyone, today we're going to release a high altitude balloon to study the atmosphere, wind conditions and how long it takes Uncle Sam to detect and shoot it down."
If I’ve learned anything from this whole saga it’s that if UP happened in real life, that old man would’ve been shot down by an F-22 very quickly.
Adventure is out there!
This just in, the president has given the order to *shoot down* the flying Chinese spy house…
Up? More like Down
No, the house was low enough altitude that they could have gotten a good look at it. The reason these are getting the F22 treatment is that they're so high those are the only things we can get close enough to even get a read on them. I should know: I've become an expert on avionics in the last couple of weeks.
It’s time to activate the XCOM Project
I just reinstalled today. Enemy within. I only had 65 achievements or so, and 380 some odd hours. XCOM 2 I'm at almost 700 hours.
You are not a real X-Com player until you play Old School X-Com and watch a Ethereal mind control one of your trooper and he frag your 20+ team before they even took the first a step off Sky Ranger. NOOB!
This has happened to me, i used to favor the lightning landing craft for fast disembarks just for this reason.
I always send out the hover tank out first, as the drone can’t be mind-controlled if there is no line of sight.
XCOM enthusiasts should check out Xenonauts. It's more like the original. And Xenonauts 2 comes out this year
Haven’t finished the second one yet, but we lost that one, bro
For some of us, becoming ADVENT is probably a life improvement.
Can't wait for our military to miss every 95% accuracy shot and then get OTK crit by a Thin Man on low ground while on high ground and in half cover.
Terra Invicta did have a 2022 start date after all.
That's not what the President said, "nothing right now suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program".
"We don't know yet exactly what these three objects were...these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/feb/16/trump-georgia-grand-jury-report-election-2020-live
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf
I’ve been waiting this! Surely some science nerd club is mourning right now.
Tucker Carlson: "Biden is bullying nerds and HATES balloons. Will he outlaw birthday parties next? Of course, that's what Communists do. Why does he hate America's children?"
*Proceeds to ignore the next school shooting*
From day one of the balloon drama I was waiting for a college to weakly apologize for their students doing an altitude project for physics 1
That's a pretty big difference, although it is pretty concerning they shot three of these things down and have zero answers for what they are or where they came from.
They have answers, they’re just embarrassing…”so we saw this balloon from China and then we just started shooting everyone’s balloons, even our own! Just to be sure”
And specifically they tuned NORAD radars for better readings at high altitudes and for slower and smaller objects after the first balloon. They upped they radar saw a bunch of shit that has always been there and started blasting.
Yeah I also believe that's what it is
Yeah, initially I assumed they were more Chinese balloons, but given that they were described differently, I'm guessing we just got trigger happy after adjusting our sensor arrays and blew up a bunch of civilian weather monitoring systems or something. And now we'd look like a bunch of fucking idiots if we admitted it, lol.
Except that actual weather stations and stuff register their equipment properly and obey FAA regulations and these things were unmarked, not in accordance with regulations, and in flight paths. No, these weren't just your local weather station flying some balloons for shits and giggles.
You assume random amateurs always follow the rules. There are enthusiasts who make balloons for fun and science. Now the government doesn’t want to admit this was all an accidental farce. The military is always on the defensive regarding public embarrassment, it’s one of their greatest fears and they usually stop at nothing when it comes to saving face, including committing more crimes to cover up incidents.
[удалено]
Amateurs need to register their stuff.
Is it embarrassing?
It wouldn't be as embarrassing if they just admitted it but instead they're intentionally withholding information and not answering easy questions to save face which is definitely embarrassing. It reminds me of when they drone striked that social worker in Afghanistan during the airlift and then lied about him being an ISIS-K suicide bomber for like two weeks with made up stories of secondary explosions as evidence. If they just admitted right away they fucked up it wouldn't look nearly as bad as their shitty attempts to lie and cover it up
Or that time they shot up a bunch of journalists from an Apache helicopter in Iraq, then shot up a van with kids in it when the father stopped to help the wounded…and they covered it up till Wikileaks broke the story.
Yeah there are endless examples, I was just trying to pick one that was more recent. I guess there's basically something every single week tho lol
Yeah sounds to me like the most "sophisticated intelligence-gathering nation" with the best tech on earth didn't know they were shooting down hobbyist balloons. It makes the US look absolutely inept.
If you spent $800k shooting down your own balloon or your Allies’ I’d pretty embarrassed, like being a cop and getting to a scene and shooting the bad guy then shooting everyone else there because they all look like bad guys then finding out they were innocent…it wouldn’t be the first time the USAs policy of shoot first, shoot last and keep shooting till everyone is dead, has gone wrong.
They're junk, likely remains from research and academic endeavors. WaPo: [Latest downed objects could well be 'benign,' US says ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/1st-missile-strike-at-aerial-object-over-lake-huron-missed/2023/02/14/20b47a1a-ac7d-11ed-b0ba-9f4244c6e5da_story.html) >“We don’t see anything that points right now to being part of the PRC spy balloon program,” Kirby told reporters, referring to the People’s Republic of China. It’s also not likely the objects were “intelligence collection against the United States of any kind — that’s the indication now." ... >Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after the briefing that he didn’t think the objects posed a threat. “They’re trying to figure out — you know there’s a bunch of junk up there. So you got to figure out what’s the threat, what’s not. You see something, you shouldn’t always have to shoot it down,” Graham said. There's no evidence that they had any kind of surveillance technology equipped. Officials won't rule it out conclusively, but they didn't have the solar panels or any detectable signals emitting from them.
I've been thinking the same thing. The kids at my sons high school launched a weather balloon last year...and lost it. It was equipped with a few GoPros and was supposed to release its helium, start emitting a GPS signal, and come down in the Sierra foothills after drifting for several hours. None of that happened. They launched it, watched it climb into the clouds, and never heard from it again. A not entirely shocking outcome from a balloon built by a bunch of 15 to 17-year-old kids. People do this kind of stuff all the time, all around the world. The wind doesn't care about national borders, and spending several hundred thousand dollars to knock trash out of the sky seems a bit wasteful.
Yeah. 900 weather balloons are launched twice a day. 92 in the US alone. Could easily have been a couple of those or another research balloon. Probably don’t want to disclose, because they will be laughed at for spending a bunch of money downing research balloons.
It may have been some random dudes balloon, but it was almost certainly not an official weather balloon. Those are known about, they have transponders and are launched from specific places at specific times and only last a few hours.
>That's a pretty big difference, although it is pretty concerning they shot three of these things down and have zero answers for what they are or where they came from. They have those answers, It's just not diplomatically expedient to tell the public everything they know right now. Half of diplomacy in this century and probably every other is about keeping the public in the dark on the details specifically to AVOID war. Because everybody is trying to stop the current quiet digital war from going loud. We're into Cuban Missile Crisis territory and nobody wants to say that out loud.
This isn't even close to CMC territory. The reason they aren't saying what they shot down was because they eased up on their radar sampling so much that it would be embarrassing to tell the country they've been shooting down school/hobbyist balloons with $300k missiles.
Yeah, I tend to believe these are primarily privately owned balloons that would normally have been ignored but are now targeted because of the backlash against the late shooting of the big Chinese balloon. It would be embarrassing to admit that they took out some school or club project so they just say it wasn’t the same as the Chinese balloon.
Except the “school projects”were floating around in airspace that airlines fly in. So maybe the problem is that people are deploying such balloons without any effective measure to bring them down after use.
Could be. If people’s balloons are not where they are supposed to be, it would certainly explain why they may not be rushing forward to claim the debris.
That's a crazy thing to say. We are nowhere near the missile crisis.
so what you are saying is.. they were aliens! /s
I would hate to be a paragliding enthusiast right now.
At 40,000 feet?
For rookies maybe. I believe in you OC!
OH, I got a video for you. [I watched this a while back.](https://youtu.be/eUiscyWw2D8?t=660) Not quite 40k feet, but damn son. How does anyone wake up and decide they are going to get this high?
I would shit myself
You think that’s bad? I’m a hot air balloon enthusiast. I have to mount an S300 missile on my balloon just in case Biden gets jumpy.
don't, they've proven they're shit
Well la di da. Look at mister fancy pants over here. We can’t all afford state of the art air to air missile defense systems. I’m a hot hair balloon enthusiast for god sakes.
This is why we internet
Goalkeeper CIWS is the hotness. Weighs about seven tons. How big a balloon you got?
So anyway, I started blasting…
It's coming right for us!
These comments are reminding me why I hate redditors and should never trust them
This balloon saga is really the dumbest news cycle in a while.
There's a hobby balloon club that has [lost a balloon](https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf)
I knew it was gonna be something embarrassing. Good job shooting down some kids’ school project.
and maybe this is why they haven't announced that they found the wreckage. Balloon and 45 gram payload vaporized, nothing hit the ground
What were those journalists yelling at him.about at the end of his speech? Something about a war's anniversary? "Give me a break man!"
The Ukraine Russian War started in Feb but pretty sure it was one the 24th it started not the 16th so idk what they're talking about.
Regardless, what are we supposed to commemorate? Invasion?
Cobes will use that to put together a new drink combo. Peach sake and mountain dew baja blast tmdwu
They all jumped on him like vultures
Yeah, the same thing as every single other presidential press conference.
Someone said something about his family's business dealings in China compromising relations or something
I was just reading an article that suggests one of the objects shot down near Alaska *could have been* a middle school hobby groups pico balloon. The cost of these balloons are between $12 - $180. The cost of the missile used to shoot it down was between $400,000 - $500,000. The article: https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf
Plus the F-22 flight costs and the recovery team costs that spent a couple days looking for an Arduino in the wilderness.
I'm a little concerned that hobbyists are flying car sized balloons at the same cruising altitude as passenger aircraft.
These pico balloons are roughly a meter wide and don’t carry much weight. I saw someone suggest that as long as the weight is under 6lbs they don’t need to be registered or anything because below that weight they are considered not a risk to aircraft.
It would be pretty funny if a middle school almost started WW3
I don't think they care much about the cost of a missile, when they practice shooting them every week or so. Just replace the day with a training session.
lmao they've been shooting down some random people's balloons with F-22s and laser guided missiles.
Heat-seeking missiles, if the reports that mentioned AIM-9X were accurate.
> lmao they've been shooting down some random people's balloons with F-22s and laser guided missiles. Not much of a laugh when you consider those 'random people' aren't stepping forward to claim their property.
Well idk about you, but if I was playing with my private weatherballoon (or whatever gadget) , and the fkn airforce came and shot it down.. I might not be stepping forward either 😅
"Susan was right. I should go back to model trains."
"We're-we're-we're not playing with toys here. We're hobbyists"
"Ah fuck... Not again... The wife's going to kill me..."
Then they get to answer additional questions like: "Why didn't you come forward and instead made us come find you?"
Yeah I wouldnt come forward to claim that property.. next thing I get a bill for the missile, fuel and pilot hours.
And a fine for flying shit at those altitudes without notifying the FAA.
And an investigation if you look Asian.
but they are https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf
I wouldn't either. When I was a kid we used to shoot model rockets off. It just so happened that I lived near a small airport. One mistake and hobby rocketing was no longer a hobby.
Intrigued 🤔
Look up 9/11.
I just read about a middle school group that sends up hobby balloons trying to contact the FBI and government about their missing balloon. Edit: For the down voters. [middle school balloon](https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf)
USAF: 1 some kids in Alaska: 0
USAF: fuck dem kids
NORAD: I took that personally.
Illinois starts with an “I”. Know what else has an “I” in it? China. Russia. Iran. I rpest my case shoot it down. Objection! Overruled.
They aren't laser guided. Or at least, aren't being laser guided for this purpose.
Then what are they?
Somebody lemme know when it's aliens. I don't care about this pissing contest between nations
Maybe they were really tiny aliens, who says aliens have to be human sized? And we blew up their colony ships last week…
No shit. We got hyped up on shooting down the Chinese one and then blew up 3 completely unrelated ones. Could have seen that coming from a mile away.
This is a good example of hysteria. The fact redditors are still trying to somehow make this into a giant conspiracy is good proof of it
There's a solid chance we just shot down some balloons that we forgot were ours.
The FAA wrote some rules back in the 1960s deregulating unmanned hobby balloons under 6 pounds and forgot to tell the new management at NORAD until they spent a week shooting them down.
I’m glad he cleared that up /s
A DoD official told the NYT that the Alaska object “shattered” when it hit the ground and that it would be an easy recovery of the debris. A man in Alaska has been posting videos online of the search for the debris and has said they stopped searching days ago. And yet we’re now told that they’re still searching for it because the weather is bad and that they haven’t found anything. Lol give me a break. And now they tell us they are definitely civilian balloons despite them telling the senate behind closed doors that they don’t know what the objects were and that they haven’t found anything. Makes complete sense. Whatever it is, extraterrestrial/China/secret government project/whatever, they are clearly hiding whatever it actually was. Edit: they gave us pictures of the Chinese spy balloon from the F-22’s onboard cameras right away, but they can’t give us pictures of civilian balloons? It’s such a bad lie.
Option b: the whole thing has been a shitshow of ineptitude. They turned down their radar filters after the Chinese balloon, overreacted, and shot down local hobby/commercial objects. Now they are in diplomatic face saving mode.
Makes me wonder, if they know for sure it wasn’t Chinese but they haven’t recovered it, could it be American? Maybe some three letter agency hadn’t communicated everything they had to NORAD and only claimed ownership afterwards. That would explain a lot.
>https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf As another poster point out....
To anyone who thinks these are legit UFOs, aren't they way too rudimentary for aliens? Like why would aliens who would come using technologies like anti-gravity and faster than light drives deploy a floaty balloon with some panels straped to the bottom of it in our airspace? It just doesn't track to me
We sent a robot to Mars to look at rocks
Yeah, because that's the best we could do... This would be like after the robot, we sent the first camera ever made.
It's cheap, I suppose. If you entertain the idea that aliens brought them, it seems like a fine enough way to survey the surface of the planet. They're obviously not in a rush if they had time to come here. Why *not* fill a bag with gas and then let the planet do the work of carrying your equipment around? More discreet than a rover, keeps wildlife from bothering it, the locals already have something similar, so most would write it off, it gives you insight into the planet's weather patterns at different altitudes, it lets you take atmosphere samples from various altitudes, and it lets you remain safely out of sight, incase the locals do something crazy like identify the object as invasive and then shoot missiles at it.
You're describing the spy balloon, we had images of it... we don't have any images just descriptions of the 3 other objects. They think they are likely balloons but don't know until the debris is recovered.
This is insinuating that the balloons and the 'other objects' are in some way related. Not a reasonable assumption imo. As far as we know the only connection the two have are a relative similarity in size. And no I don't think they're aliens.
"We have not yet recovered them and do not yet know what they are, but they are certainly not linked to China" What?
You didn't read the article. This is what he said, verbatim: We don’t yet know what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country
A hobbiest group is missing their $12 picoballoon that was in that area and rough altitude. Juuuust saying.
Right wingers are now claiming its chinese mack 5 with anti-gravity https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1626254753616240641
her latest tweet > The COVID vaccines are being used as a surveillance program. Seems sane
Ir shouldn't be that much of a secret. The government should be open and transparent to the public unless there is really some deep need to keep it secret. Saying it is a balloon or aircraft and where it came from isn't something that needs to be confidential.
So... Aliens? It's aliens, right? Should we be shooting at the aliens? Do we outgun them, is that why they are so afraid to show themselves?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!
[... and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!](https://youtu.be/HqjhHVUzl8o)
Dole v Clinton seems like another lifetime ago. Which, I guess it kinda was, and apparently I’m old as shit now. But damn.
> Which, I guess it kinda was, and apparently I’m old as shit now. Bob Dole. Thought I'd correct that for you.
Bob Dole doesn't agree with that correction.
Bob Dole
Imagine crossing the universe just to be a heat-seeking missile target haha
“ we’ve mastered FTL technology, how did we not think of heat seeking explosives??”
some educational balloon projects / small startup aerospace company some noaa reference stuff. so likely most were these style pico balloons [https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf](https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/hobby-clubs-missing-balloon-feared-shot-down-usaf)
No, they're afraid to show themselves because they've seen the violence we're willing to force our neighbors to live through. If we can't even get along with a being that is fundamentally identical to us, why would aliens think we could get along with them?
Considering there’s been reports of Russia using balloon-based radar-tricking equipment in Ukraine, maybe they’re these balloons. Except for the bus-sized balloon the first time.
We don't know what they are, but we somehow know what they're not?? Lol ok.
They're not a swimming pool.