According to the WSJ:
"The latest object appeared to be a small metallic balloon with a tethered payload, according to U.S. officials familiar with the situation."
US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
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Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#362Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like the best explanation. See https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones... for a fleshed out version of that argument. I think what changed is that the US decided to stop ignoring the "UFO"s. The Ukraine war has shown how important drones are and it's obvious that drones and balloons will play a huge role in any Taiwanese war.
FYI: this article has nearly 10k words and a 35 min estimated reading time.
This may be the funniest warning I've ever seen on this site. Thank you for waving us off this dangerously substantive article.
Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#364so america's official policy when we meet ET is to shoot first and ask questions later? can we open this debate before we're all exterminated?
Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#365Does anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities?
Which recent activities? House hearings on weaponization? Hersh's article on Nord Stream? Something else?
The spy balloon was bigger than previous and visible from the ground. People were reporting it and forced government to respond.
Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#366China seems to be testing the US air defense system, is this a sign that China is getting serious over Taiwan?
I think so; the volume of comments implying that either:
1. The US is just amplifying this to justify a war
2. The balloons are totally civilian
3. Aliens
Strike me as a relatively coarse influence campaign, notable mainly for its volume. Not sure if the ramp up is to save face, or part of a larger effort. Similar efforts were notable before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#367Does anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities?
> Does anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities? Possibly. I wouldn't use that information to be overly dismissive of the importance of the news. "Well shit, let's just start shooting them down" is a newsworthy change in a government's policy regardless of what it applies to.
To me this sounds like a Chinese victory.
If a couple of (supposedly bad and kinda not working) chinese spy baloons were suffient to suddenly make the US go nuts, and spend a lot of defense budget scrambling fighters around and shooting down UFOs, that was a lot of bang for the buck.
Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#368Grossly editorialised (unless the original article title has changed). "UFO" has a particular cultural meaning, and is not used in the article title:
U.S. fighter jet shoots down unidentified cylindrical object over Canada
The article places this firmly in the context of the recent shenanigans with China and makes no suggestion that we are being invaded by Martians.
Re: US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect finding a small balloon in the mind-boggling huge space that is American airspace is, can be surprisingly challenging. My understanding is that these UAFs are much smaller than that first Chinese balloon last week. It probably also costs a lot more money to shoot down a balloon than it costs China to put a balloon in the air.
Then stop using expensive missiles to pop a balloon. Are we so scared of a balloon to get into gun range? A short burst of 20mm would be pretty cheap compared to an AIM-9
It's not even about the expensive missiles - in fact long range Surface-to-Air missiles would be cheaper compared to scrambling fighters around.
That is a lot of bang for the buck.