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US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

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Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#281

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

V99 wrote: post #182
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cheap balloon I'm surprised this seems to be such a common point. Why is it believed that it was cheap?

There's only so much you can spend on a bag of helium; anything is cheap compared to satellites or stealth long range recon aircraft.

The bag of helium isn’t the expensive part I consider. I’m wondering how much computer hardware “the size of multiple buses” costs. I’m sure much of that is casing but much of it also is not. How much effort went into designing these things? There’s probably a significant price tag on these bags of helium all things considered.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#282

Post by pkaye »

bailoon wrote: post #169
next_xibalba wrote: post #108

I'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."

> I've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part of the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to airborne (and beyond) surveillance. It's more likely a coordinated event to get people to talk about something other than covid and the last 3 disastrous years. Lets be honest here, neither china nor the US wants people asking uncomfortable questions about covid. Now that the covid era appears to…

People moved on from Covid long before these balloons.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#284

Post by oceanplexian »

riku_iki wrote: post #70
moose_man wrote: post #27

Earlier 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://…

my speculation is that the main goal of Chinese covid lockdown was to train and simulate mass policing of population in case of upcoming war.

Like everything I think this is at least a half truth. COVID did happen but probably not intentionally. And then China (And a few other countries) saw it as a great excuse to try a few things out on the general population and see what they could get away with.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#285

Post by omegaworks »

api wrote: post #59

So what’s the deal with these balloons? Provocation? Do they think nobody will notice?

It's a boogeyman, a harmless prop hyped up by the GOP in an effort to heighten tensions with China and criticize a tepid response by the administration.

The Biden White House seems happy to play along, justifying more equipment from top donors Raytheon and Boeing.

The balloon panic helpfully distracts from the massive freight derailment chemical disaster currently spewing vinyl chloride into the atmosphere over Ohio.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#287

Post by yamtaddle »

riku_iki wrote: post #70
moose_man wrote: post #27

Earlier 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://…

my speculation is that the main goal of Chinese covid lockdown was to train and simulate mass policing of population in case of upcoming war.

As with speculation about US Covid measures being some kind of training or testing for god-knows-what crazy thing, the political and economic costs of the measures are far too high for those to make any sense as major motivations.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#288

Post by LarryMullins »

themodelplumber wrote: post #105
r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

There 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…

Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. I even hesitate to mention some ideas that immediately come to mind that would be easier/more efficient to really nail than the Pringles can idea. Plus many of the more prominent base-personnel sightings land quite a bit far from that particular ballpark. Take a look into the Rendlesham Forest incident for example. The probl…

> it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash.

Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop a super secret jet, very big, very fast.. it must be very impressive fighter jet! America is spooked so tons of resources are poured into the F-15 to make the absolute best possible air superiority fighter jet they can, to counter this new Soviet threat.

Except then it turns out that the Mig-25 was never a fighter jet, it was an interceptor that was very fast in a straight line but not much more. So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#F...

Come to think of it, maybe China is going low-tech with balloons to avoid this dynamic?

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#289

Post by zardo »

mulmen wrote: post #261
consumer451 wrote: post #47

> Officials said the object was far smaller than the previous balloon, did not appear to be maneuverable and was traveling at a much lower altitude. "Not maneuverable" and "previous balloon" so is it fair to assume that it's a balloon as well?

I wondered about this too. But even balloons are maneuverable in some sense, by changing their altitude. So maybe the meaning is more like "didn't maneuver in response to our presence".

> But even balloons are maneuverable in some sense, by changing their altitude.

Most balloons are not equipped to actively change their bouyancy.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#290

Post by JohnBooty »

NikkiA wrote: post #171
r3trohack3r wrote: post #95

There 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…

Making a high altitude balloon highly visible (eg, put lights inside it) and sitting back and waiting is actually a terrific tactic for finding out maximum operational ceiling of interceptors when the number is non-public.

Mission accomplished. The previously published ceiling of the F-22 was 50K feet. The Pentagon said it (edit: by "it" I mean the F-22) was flying at 58K feet when it shot down the first balloon. Guess it can do (at least) 58K.

This was probably not entirely groundbreaking news to anybody including China. Everybody knows that the published specs of military hardware are intentionally distorted in one direction or another.

The F-15's known ceiling is 65K feet for example. So it's not surprising that newer fighters can match that.

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