Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

abcnews.go.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 593 posts

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#191

Post by ianburrell »

kranke155 wrote: post #2

Ok so it’s either a massive foreign program or UFOs.

It is possible that it is both. The first one was Chinese spy balloon. Part of long line but this one was bigger, noticed from the ground, and government had to do something about it.

The air defense folks increased the sensitivity of radars and started finding the UFOs. Maybe the UFOs were keeping away from population areas and radars but now were being picked up.

It is strange that the objects aren't stealthed. Which makes sense for balloon payload. But stealth, hovering, car-sized objects should be hard to detect. Maybe aliens don't know about stealth. The other weird thing is that they just hover. For advanced or alien technology, I would expect them to move away or dodge.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#192

Post by phpisthebest »

gambiting wrote: post #153
localplume wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

[flagged]

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#193

Post by jjcon »

oneoff786 wrote: post #167
jmknoll wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Utter nonsense. This would be a FTL alien civ. A civilization with many orders of magnitude more energy available. And manufacturing capabilities. And AI. And many other things. They’re not gonna send a stupid balloon. They’re not going to care about a balloon. It’s inconceivable that a civ could get here and not also have the ability to manufacture such basic technology on an enormous scale very easily.

> this would be a FTL alien civ.

Why FTL? or any of the things you list. We are already looking to fly tiny probes past alien exoplanets with Breakthrough Starshot.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#197

Post by thrill »

billiallards wrote: post #160
iancmceachern wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Dolphins. So long and thanks for all the fish!

They are cylindrical, grey, without apparent means of aerial propulsion, and prone to interfering with ultrasonic sensors... Most dolphins are smaller than a compact car, but I bet they would break apart upon impact with a frozen sea after dropping out of the sky. This might be the correct answer.

Yeah, but they travel in pods of 42.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#198

Post by dilyevsky »

blindriver wrote: post #127
moose_man wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China could do the same thing if they wanted. That isn't a good excuse to violate national airspace. Maybe they want to intercept cell phone data.

They have Huawei equipment is almost every cell tower installation to do that already.

Not in the us/europe they don’t

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#199

Post by s1artibartfast »

tezza wrote: post #190
gambiting wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

It can provide legal cover for invading countries… Bosnia, Iraq etc. The UN courts can issue judgements… Human Rights Courts: e.g. Slobodan Milosovic, Radavan Kardzich etc A lot of the global treaties are kicked around there They also enforce peace zones (poorly) like Lebanon, Israel demilitarised zone. They coordinate aid programs UNRWA etc

I don't think legal cover is the right term. My understanding that basically all nations view their domestic laws as higher than the UN.

UN decisions are more like a veil or facade of moral Authority

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#200

Post by luma »

tezza wrote: post #190
gambiting wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

It can provide legal cover for invading countries… Bosnia, Iraq etc. The UN courts can issue judgements… Human Rights Courts: e.g. Slobodan Milosovic, Radavan Kardzich etc A lot of the global treaties are kicked around there They also enforce peace zones (poorly) like Lebanon, Israel demilitarised zone. They coordinate aid programs UNRWA etc

So the UN is a way for powerful countries to justify taking action against less powerful countries if other powerful countries kinda agree to it.
Post reply on HN