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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

#181

Post by garyrob »

oceliker wrote: post #141
ksherlock wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no hard rule about where national airspace ends and space begins What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? There's no hard rule about when life begins but killing a 5 year old isn't a 22nd trimester abortion, it's murder. 18-60'000 feet is class A, controlled airspace in the US and Canada. When the US sent U2s over the USSR, the rationale wasn't that 70,000 feet was "space", it was that it w…

> 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.

My mother used to say that all the time!

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#182

Post by dqpb »

Multicomp wrote: post #2

Surely this is not the world's slowest declaration of war? Whoever country is sending whatever these artificial objects are, what can they possibly gain from this?

I propose we launch our own balloons, with razor blades. Last balloon wins. World's slowest war.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#183

Post by mxkopy »

bmitc wrote: post #165
stevenhuang wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Helicopters are really expensive and that's the only way I can think of getting a delta V low enough so the device, tether or aircraft doesn't shatter/snap on capture.

But more importantly, it sends a message - don't fuck with our airspace, we won't even send body bags

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#184

Post by hoppyhoppy2 »

ksherlock wrote: post #127
crystalmeph wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering why China wouldn’t include a self-destruct feature. My daughter pointed out that crashing into a US city, even unintentionally, would probably be seen as even more hostile than sending the balloon in the first place. You obviously could choose to self destruct in a remote area or over water, but they may well have considered the escalation risk to be too high if they added potentially destructive capa…

Reportedly the NC balloon did have explosives to self destruct.

Who is reporting this?

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#185

Post by dumbaccount123 »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #177
dumbaccount123 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reason they would not? Maybe they just caught this time. I'm being serious btw

Extraordinary claims. The burden of proof is on the claimant. Might as well say it’s wizards showing up… because wizards don’t have a reason not to.

>One official told ABC News that the object was “cylindrical and silver-ish gray” and gave the “balloon-like” appearance of floating without “any sort of propulsion” It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/alaska- mystery-flying-object-us-chinese-balloon https://news.sky.com/story/us-shoots-down-unknown-object-fly...

Any idea why they refuse to confirm that its a balloon if it is? The pilots confirmed its "unmanned" but why wont they confirm if its a balloon or not? strange dont you think.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#186

Post by l3mure »

Ancapistani wrote: post #78
randerson wrote: post #69

The US Government shooting down an Unidentified Flying Object sounds like the start of a science fiction film. If there were ever a bad time and place for actual aliens to come visit...

The most interesting thing to me is that the US federal government isn’t calling them “balloons” - or even “lighter than air craft”. It leaves open a lot of conspiracy type theories, and I just don’t see the motivation to do that It “feels” to me like there’s something more than US/China brinksmanship going on.

> It leaves open a lot of conspiracy type theories, and I just don’t see the motivation to do that

Really? You can't think of any reason the US government would be happy to stir up disinfo and bullshit? I mean...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-...

> Multiple U.S. officials acknowledged that the U.S. has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect, as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the U.S. is just “trying to get inside Putin’s head.”

Emphasis mine.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#188

Post by andrewflnr »

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."

Yeah, I know it's possible to create a blimp that size, since I've seen smaller ones as toys.

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#189

Post by dqpb »

brindidrip wrote: post #66

I don't know why everyone is so quick to label these other objects as balloons.

Asked if was "balloon-like," the official said, "All I say is that it wasn't 'flying' with any sort of propulsion, so if that is 'balloon-like' well -- we just don't have enough at this point."

Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada

#190

Post by dumbaccount123 »

"Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes"

"Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet."

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-object-...

"It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said."

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-shoots-high-altitude-obje...

"Defense Department official said it broke into pieces"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-...

That sounds vaguely similar to the one purportedly shot down over Russia last month:

"Vasily Golubev, the governor of Rostov oblast, wrote on Telegram that a "small-size object in the shape of a ball" had been discovered flying "in the wind" at an altitude of around one and a half miles on January 3."

Any connection to the spherical metallic ball UFO caught over Iraq by U.S. reconnaissance aircraft in 2016?

https://nypost.com/2023/01/24/possible-ufo-caught-on-camera-...

2014 Chilean Navy UFO looks pretty similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEK3YC_BKTI&ab_channel=FoxNe...

As does the U.S. Navy footage of a UFO caught off the coast of San Diego in 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz-6jRrbtuI&ab_channel=TODAY

Another similar looking metallic sphere UFO caught by the U.S. Navy in 2021:

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/K5ohaoh2ayfECjmuxtczQJ-970...

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