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US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

bbc.com

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Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#161

Post by golem14 »

krapp wrote: post #145
00deadbeef wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-shoots-high-altitude-obje... > It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said. https://news.sky.com/story/us-shoots-down-unknown-object-fly... > The object, shot down on the order of President Joe Biden, was flying at a high altitude of about 40,000ft and was the size of a small car, the White House said.

Ok. To be fair, all of that could still describe a balloon. Per the ABC news article: "It did not appear to have maneuverability capability, he said. "It was virtually at the whim of the wind."

Sounds like a zeppelin

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#162

Post by belter »

rgbrenner wrote: post #38

I think China erred by sending such a large balloon that was visible to the naked eye, causing the American public to demand it be shot down. There's no hard rule about where national airspace ends and space begins.. a lot of times they fly too high for planes to reach, and under certain circumstances balloons are allowed through national airspace.. so if the balloon isn't causing a problem (like being a hazard to ai…

The second object has not been called a balloon by US Air Command. Most interesting are some reports of pilots saying the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes. [1]

Interfering with F-22 sensors? If they sent an airborne jamming platform over US space it's serious.

On a more positive note, now that private observers report the skies over the Artic, Northern Canada and Alaska border, have a constant presence of AWACS and other multiple airplane sorties, the Aliens everybody was talking about here days ago, seem to have vanished...

[1] - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-obj...

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#164

Post by jamiek88 »

throwaway4good wrote: post #135
BobbyJo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think shooting down a balloon in your own airspace is an aggressive act?

Three public shoot downs certainly signals something new.

Yes it suggests our military has the right to defend our sovereign airspace and that of our allies as well as the ability and will to do so until these outrageous and arrogant acts of escalation stop.

Be careful how many times you prod the beast.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#165

Post by bmitc »

stevenhuang wrote: post #106
detrites wrote: post #77

Is there a plausible explanation as to why the US government has not announced objects 2 & 3 are balloons, if they are balloons? They call them "objects", yet must know what they are. They wouldn't randomly missile unknowns. If it's for reasons of secrecy, why announce it at all? The second one was in the middle of nowhere, it could easily have been ignored, or dismissed as a military exercise if anyone had made a fu…

Could be they thought it was a balloon originally hence the immediate press conference, but now they've received conflicting accounts from the pilots (some reported experiencing sensor interference for example) so they're not sure what they are anymore. Apparently the Alaska object shattered upon impact against the ice. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/02/pentagon-shoots-down...

I know this is Hollywood magic thinking, but in the the spirit of no dumb questions, for an object like this, are there no capture devices besides just letting it crash?

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#166

Post by haimez »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #46
infradig wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source for that?

The press conference yesterday, the WH spokesman explicitly corrected someone who called the second object a balloon. They're being a bit cagey about whatever it actually is

They didn’t say they weren’t balloons, just that they were calling them “objects” and not balloons. Sure, that could be because they definitely want to emphasize the “we don’t know who owned them” aspect and calling it a balloon would immediately evoke China associations, or maybe they already know they’re not balloons. Either way, they also didn’t say “it wasn’t a balloon”

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#167

Post by throwawaymaths »

rgbrenner wrote: post #133
BobbyJo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's speculation on your part. The DoD has not released any information on what the payload of any of these balloons contains. Not true: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antenna...

Thank you. I missed this somehow.

Not that it's necessarily indictatory, but this balloon had a payload the size of a small jet. By my understanding (I could be wrong) that's very uncommon for a weather balloon.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#168

Post by chipsa »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #67
rgbrenner wrote: post #38

I think China erred by sending such a large balloon that was visible to the naked eye, causing the American public to demand it be shot down. There's no hard rule about where national airspace ends and space begins.. a lot of times they fly too high for planes to reach, and under certain circumstances balloons are allowed through national airspace.. so if the balloon isn't causing a problem (like being a hazard to ai…

Weather balloons are tiny, enough so they need to attach a specific device to reflect radar signals properly and these massive payloads are not innocent climate collection devices

Weather balloons are tiny, yes, but they aren't tracked by radar anymore. Generally, it's a set of meteorological instruments and a GPS to track the location. It's a bit easier to get that to work, as you no longer need to make sure your radar works, but rather, just that the GPS is working before you let go. That said, payload is substantially smaller than these things (<1 kg for current tech).

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#169

Post by jamiek88 »

mmerlin wrote: post #50
ALittleLight wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would watch a TikTok of "F22 shoots down my balloon."

TikTok is like a spy balloon in your own phone (assuming the 100% clipboard-exfiltration-at-all-times and other data harvesting reports are true). Ironic if people are being spied upon by TikTok whilst watching a spy balloon video.

assuming the 100% clipboard-exfiltration-at-all-times and other data harvesting reports are true

Woah! Even on iOS?

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#170

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

jemmyw wrote: post #146
oceliker wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? What does this mean? I don’t see a reference to tea in the comment you are replying to.

It's a common expression https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_that_got_to_do_with...

It’s not so common any more. I bet less than 5% of gen Z know it.
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