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

401–410 of 593 posts

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

#401

Post by morpheos137 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #308
phpisthebest wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure everyone knows they can take IR photos from the Plane... That is not really a secret. Plus I reject the idea of secrecy from the citizens, government can not be "for the people by the people" if they keep secrets from the people

It’s amazing what you can learn about capabilities from a picture. Apparently German scientists during ww2 used the diameter of the Hiroshima explosion from the newspapers to calculate the mass of uranium involved.

Hiroshima happened after Germany surrendered so I am curious what you mean. Certainly not nazi scientists.

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

#402

Post by time0ut »

tzs wrote: post #324
oneoff786 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to understand that if you’re being attacked by a FTL capable alien invader, you are so incredibly f**ed that it just does not matter. People don’t write popular sci fi novels about realistic alien invasions because they would be so utterly one sided and brief that it simply wouldn’t make a good story.

There was an amusing short story called "The Road Not Taken" about that. In it gravity manipulation technology turns out to be really simple. It is something every civilization (except one) discovers early, like before they reach what on Earth would have been medieval technology level, and then all their technological development is focused on their gravity technology. The one civilization that somehow missed gravity…

Harry Turtledove also wrote a series of alternate history novels (called the world war series) based on a similar idea. In it, the aliens’ civilization progresses very slowly. A few centuries of human progress would take them millennia. They send a probe to earth in the middle ages, mark earth for an easy conquest, and show up during world war 2 where they find an almost evenly matched adversary. It’s pretty contrived, but an easy and amusing read.

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

#403

Post by anon7725 »

janoc wrote: post #111
throwawaycities wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which means also we can expect a lot more false positives. Perhaps we can, but clearly we can expect to find actual UAVs corresponding to these radar signals. If these UAVs that have been shot down were domestic research balloons or some other aircraft exempt from FAA regulation, then we can expect a party to come forward and publicly acknowledge ownership/control of the UAV. However, based on the descriptions of t…

>and not domestic weather/research balloons ... Keep in mind that not only US or Canada launches weather balloons. These things are well capable of flying huge distances, including across the oceans. There has been one launched by amateur radio operators a few years ago that has circumnavigated the globe - and that's not at all a rare feat. See e.g.: https://qrp-labs.com/circumnavigators.html So no need to go all con…

I was under the impression that weather balloons fly well above the max altitude of commercial airliners (60k ft). It seems significant that the last 3 “objects” have been encountered at typical airliner altitudes (40k ft or under)

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

#404

Post by sofaygo »

alecfreudenberg wrote: post #397

looks like an aerial refueler has been circling phoenix for a few hours now [0] anyone have any info on if this could be a similar ufo? [0] ADVCE20 from Phoenix https://fr24.com/ADVCE20/2f2d34d7 edit: superbowl

Might be related to the Super Bowl, which is happening there right now.

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

#405

Post by alecfreudenberg »

sofaygo wrote: post #404
alecfreudenberg wrote: post #397

looks like an aerial refueler has been circling phoenix for a few hours now [0] anyone have any info on if this could be a similar ufo? [0] ADVCE20 from Phoenix https://fr24.com/ADVCE20/2f2d34d7 edit: superbowl

Might be related to the Super Bowl, which is happening there right now.

I just came to edit my post

looks like this is standard for superbowl flyovers

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

#406

Post by gfodor »

RajT88 wrote: post #245
anigbrowl wrote: post #114

An unnamed congressional aide claims the object was shaped 'like an octagon.' Sounds like BS, but you'd like to think the Wall Street Journal has some capacity to to identify and filter quality sources. https://www.wsj.com/articles/latest-flying-objects-shot-down...

Schumer came out and said each of these objects was a balloon of some sort. https://nypost.com/2023/02/12/latest-2-objects-shot-down-by-...

This was denied as being known by the military presser, and the general involved also made the ridiculous claim that they shot it down entirely to prevent an accident to civilian air traffic.

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

#407

Post by gfodor »

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #306

Press briefing happening right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59-6yOWotc

That presser kind of blew my mind. I was sure these were obviously ID'ed as balloons by now. And the general seems to have said that we've never shot anything down over the US before, we don't know what these are or where they came from, and that this is the first time we've shot anything down in history, while also saying they NORAD's job is to "defend the homeland" and have a policy of shooting down kinetic threats, but shot this one down anyway, which wasn't deemed to be a kinetic threat, but a threat to air traffic, except it's extremely hard to even see never mind run into by pilots to the point where they couldn't even shoot it.

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

#408

Post by giantg2 »

elorant wrote: post #355
giantg2 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fly dummies for the purpose of having them shot down, they wouldn't have to carry much. It's probably nothing too expensive or they'd put it on a satellite. If they're flying really expensive stuff at commercial flight levels, that's pretty dumb since it will be shot down.

IF they’re dummies why bother shooting them down?

We won't know that until the debris is recovered. There's no way to know what payload the next one will be carrying either.

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

#409

Post by giantg2 »

jrockway wrote: post #340
giantg2 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fly dummies for the purpose of having them shot down, they wouldn't have to carry much. It's probably nothing too expensive or they'd put it on a satellite. If they're flying really expensive stuff at commercial flight levels, that's pretty dumb since it will be shot down.

> If they're flying really expensive stuff at commercial flight levels, that's pretty dumb since it will be shot down. Seemed like a good strategy until about a week ago!

The prior ones weren't at the commercial level.

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

#410

Post by neodymiumphish »

braingenious wrote: post #291
phpisthebest wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

This is such a pedantic and unnecessary line of questioning. Based on my understanding of the federal budget, my contribution to the UN last year would be somewhere between $100 and $200.

Why are you and the other GP asking about individual contributions? Isn't that more than enough to be irritated with their existence or capacities? $150/year is a significant amount that I'd definitely rather not pay.

This is based on one estimate that 1.2% of the federal budget was for the UN. Another estimate says 11.2b in 2020, when the federal budget was 4.79t. That estimate knocks my contribution significantly lower (anywhere from $10-40).

Post reply on HN