161–170 of 593 posts
Have aliens invaded and we just don’t know about it, the government holding them off lowkey? Edit: Now China’s shooting them down! https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/12/china-says...
Do we know why they are shot down? How do we know there is no dangerous material in them (e.g. radioactive)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that’s called immature ideological purity. Like it or not, state secrets are a necessary function of any civilization.
If you don't tell people the truth about something like this, they will cheerfully make something up and accept it as truth. That's not a "necessary function of any civilization," that's dereliction of duty to the people who elected the leaders.
Imagine if you launch a balloon for say $10k so that your adversary has to spend $400k on a missile plus $70k x number of planes x hours in flight. And now do it multiple times per week. Seems like a decent strategy.
The US Senator for Michigan reports that the object was “octagonal” and flying at 20,000ft: https://twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1624888630912188419?s=46&...
Like this could mean that there was only octagonal object, the balloon was octagonal, or the payload was octagonal. The latter seems the most plausible. It is hard to tell if this is more balloons or something really weird.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You overcome vast interstellar distances with a balloon and then sit there while primitive missiles blow you up?
As we've seen with our space probes, its difficult enough to land something on another planet and have it survive, nevermind equipping it with any offensive or defensive capabilities. Maybe these aliens are in the same place. They can get the balloon here, but just barely, and they're watching in dismay as their work get dismantled.
Balloons could be a clever counter to what the US is doing with Low Earth Orbit satellites recently. SpaceX is launching tons of spy/missile defense satellites over China as part of the Space Development Agency: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency China has been complaining to the United Nations about it. https://press.un.org/en/2022/gadis3698.doc.htm More details: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Star…
Alternatively (if they need a counter) they could launch LEO satellites themselves?
I sure hope this isn’t a distraction to get us to look up while something goes down under the sea.
Balloons could be a clever counter to what the US is doing with Low Earth Orbit satellites recently. SpaceX is launching tons of spy/missile defense satellites over China as part of the Space Development Agency: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency China has been complaining to the United Nations about it. https://press.un.org/en/2022/gadis3698.doc.htm More details: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Star…
Surveillance satellites are very different to directly flying this equipment into US airspace, including the fact that this equipment could hold paylods other than ISR. Not to mention this comment implies China does not have equivalent spy satellites, which it does. Also the UN is an absolute joke. That article links has China and Russia complaining about the West being aggressors so honestly its kinda BS. Also forge…