Other countries are trying to spy on the US’s super advanced “UAPs”. Pet theory of mine.
What are UAPs?
US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
131–140 of 864 posts
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's boundary-pushing. They're unmanned and ambient, yet are clearly a provocation and give China an information advantage over where it would be without the balloons, and in a geopolitical sense it asserts Chinese ascendency. At the same time, it's hard for the US or other powers to figure out an appropriate response. Very similar to Russian/NK/Chinese/Israeli/American state-sponsored hacking groups--it continually…
Surely the appropriate response is to release some "weather" balloons from Taiwan.
I'm pretty sure they'd head towards the US too, but I'm not exactly sure of the prevailing winds.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#133There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently. The general premise is this: U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd occasionally get caught (perhaps o…
Pringles cans have never been observed to move in ways that violate Newton's laws
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, it's nothing compared to the internal speeches that China gives its troops. Heck it's nothing compared to the speeches Xi gives internally to troops. Chinese troops are currently training on their missile corp on models of US aircraft carriers. Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-forc... https://…
That's been going on for decades, and supposedly the balloons are nothing new. What's changed is the USA response, in terms of the American general's rhetoric and the coverage and downing of balloons. So there's been a shift on the part of the USA.
That's a lie. It started in 2012 but it took until the middle of the 2010s before they started openly threatening war. This is not some status quo situation that the US General upended. China's been escalating toward war since Xi took over. I mean before Xi it was hide your strength bide your time.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. If you charted those it'd be likely show as a breakout event vs. relevant moving averages at this point. So from that POV, one may start to think about a quick buildup of momentum in the general direction of F-22s shooting things down, or air combat, or just combat, etc. Not so much to predict the future, as to ideate and prepare frames of mind for potential changes in circumstance.
Extrapolating from here, expect 2^52 objects shot down by F22s this time next year.
I'm seeing Fibonacci so far, not doubling.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#136I've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part of the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to airborne (and beyond) surveillance. "They shoot down our surveillance balloons, giving us precedent to shoot down their high altitude drone planes or satellites in the future."
This is a very reasonable explanation for the otherwise mysterious question of why even use an (obvious, provocative) balloon in the first place, when China has perfectly good satellites. It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's the right way to think about the question - they are engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outrage…
Presumably if not shooting them down looks weak, then shooting them down looks competent. And playing outraged confers no advantage to China.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very reasonable explanation for the otherwise mysterious question of why even use an (obvious, provocative) balloon in the first place, when China has perfectly good satellites. It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's the right way to think about the question - they are engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outrage…
Obvious, provocative.... and unsteerable.
The previous balloon was steerable, as it could control its altitude to catch different currents.
I don't think we know enough about this "unknown object" to definitively say what it could and couldn't do.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't most f-22s come with a 20mil cannon? Wonder we we're preferring the missiles to just plain old lead?
At those altitudes the combination of a very high closing speed (air is thin) and the short range of the gun creates a real risk of flying into the target you're trying to hit.
This sounds paradoxical to me.
Using the same reasoning, a gun bullet should also be faster with higher altitude, hence have a longer range.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#139I've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part of the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to airborne (and beyond) surveillance. "They shoot down our surveillance balloons, giving us precedent to shoot down their high altitude drone planes or satellites in the future."
That precedent already exists. Trespassing planes were shot down during the cold war, when they could be, and China knocked a US intelligence plane out of the sky over "contested" airspace (way south of China, near some of the islands they're claiming in a move to gain sovereignty over as much of the sea route via the Straight of Malacca, and sea routes to SE Asian states like Vietnam, as they can) in '01 (kinda by accident, probably, but that didn't stop them from claiming it was OK for them to do that and detaining the flight crew until an apology was issued)
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very reasonable explanation for the otherwise mysterious question of why even use an (obvious, provocative) balloon in the first place, when China has perfectly good satellites. It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's the right way to think about the question - they are engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outrage…
Obvious, provocative.... and unsteerable.
Not unsteerable if you have altitude control + a good model of wind patterns. This is what Project Loon[1] did and I think it's fair to assume the technology might be similar.