From Huron in we have to demand answers
Well if you ask me, this whole thing is Erie. Hopefully the object's aren't from a Superior civilization.
Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
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Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#432Balloons 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…
Mind you, Google was flying hundreds of high-altitude balloons at one point too via the now-defunct Project Loon:
https://x.company/projects/loon/
Rather than being all secretive, it would be just as easy to blame some new upstart company being a little more cavalier than Google.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#433Earlier 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.
> UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters.
Article 43 of the UN Charter would, if it were ever implemented, create a military force under the control of the UN Security Council.
>The potential of the United Nations and its Charter remained a dominant subject in schools and communities into the 1950s, focused especially on those Charter promises to protect member states "against violators of the peace." Chapter VII dealt with enforcement action: Article 39 first authorized the Security Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression"; Article 42 was designed to respond with "air, sea or land forces as may be necessary"; and Article 43 committed all UN member states "to make available to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces, assistance, facilities, including rights of passage necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security." Although much hope for the future was placed in the ratification of Article 43, it was never implemented.
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA514849456&sid=sitemap...
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#434So far that's two million dollars in sidewinder missiles (that we know of) How much food and housing, medical care and education could that have provided? They need to find a way to deal with this for $100 a pop or it's going to get stupid.
US military budget is 700 billion annually.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#435Earlier 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.
Maybe they want to intercept cell phone data. If they wanted low key interception of civilian terrestrial radio signals, seems like it would be better to just rent a Uhaul or RV, load it up with radio gear, and drive it across the country.
they could just make TikTok and get everyone addicted to using it
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you're not. The descriptions are consistent with these objects being balloons or dirugibles. The terrestrial technology that can keep a cylinder the size of a car afloat for days is called "hydrogen".
I don’t think this is correct… a thousand cubic feet of hydrogen is 68lbs of buoyancy at sea level. A cylinder that was 20’ long, and 5’ in radius (which is a lot bigger than my minivan - would be about 1570 cubic feet. That could lift about 100lbs at sea level… at flight level 400… that’s going to have to be a huge balloon to lift 100 lbs or the payload has to be tiny tiny - which is possible but I don’t think somet…
Which do you think is the most likely explanation?
1. A lighter than air craft or drone with a small payload
2. A man-made object that uses unknown physics
3. Aliens
I know everyone wants a cooler answer, but I see way too many people being irrational here.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>So when the alien invaders arrive with the FTL ships and release their conquering armies...our automatic machine guns and missiles and tanks and bazookas and such totally outmatch the aliens troops who have flintlock rifles and black powder. That doesn't even make sense. Why would having simple gravity manipulation stop progress on the development of other technologies, particularly weapons? Especially if, as it see…
It stopped progress on other technologies because there was no need to develop them. They spent all their time expanding and attacking. I assumed that aliens didn’t develop science or industrialization. The story didn’t go into how they improved FTL or how was distraction.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#438Earlier 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…
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Can you be more specific? I'm from a country that people would consider part of "The West". However we've never attacked anyone except invaders in entire country's history.
I'm sure you could dredge up some connection to the US and get angry with us about it, if you were an Islamic extremist or something. More realistically though, you could find fault with any country with that attitude.
Speaking of current geopolitics instead of historical, the recent blame for causing a rise in aggression lies firmly with Russia and China. The US is not blameless but neither are they starting any new wars in almost two decades.
So, tell me again about why everything is the fault of "The West", including all the western countries who have never attacked anyone, in your mind?
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Of course.
It's all to appease the major powers to not use their nukes.
To a degree, it also gives the lesser players a voice to feel heard so that they continue to participate in the economic system that benefits the big players. Again, this keeps the big players from acting unilaterally, imperialistically, etc. in a way that threatens the use of nukes.
A side benefit is that this lets the bigger players test their geopolitical strategies without dangerous surprises. If tensions can be expressed and gently eased into a final state, that prevents a flash bang.
It's kept us from having another world war. Or nuclear exchange. Here's hoping we keep it up.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#440Earlier 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.
The UN is certainly something more than that, and not literally just a forum. They have an active duty peacekeeping force of approximately 81K people. While that's similar in size to the active duty forces from a nation like a Peru or Chile, the Blue Helmets have had a de facto quasi-blanket immunity when committing war crimes, and have some pretty horrifying history in places like Central Africa. For example: "Consi…
As I always say, you either have warfighters or peacekeepers, not both.
I used to be in the 82nd Airborne and the inevitable problems when they got sent on peacekeeping missions in the 90s was no big surprise at all.