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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

#681

Post by ttul »

ck2 wrote: post #650
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does a weather baloon cost? ...compared to a F22 flight, a missle + all the logistics? If it's cheap enough, there will probably be youtubers and tiktokers buying them en-masse just "for the lulz".

Each one of those sidewinder rockets is half a million dollars. Think about how much healthcare, food, housing, we are burning up with this nonsense.

You’re missing the big picture. The wonderful, open, democratic society that we live in exists only because we secure it against adversaries. China has $1.4B striving, hungry citizens who would love to get a crack at that prosperity. If we let them, they will take it.

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

#682

Post by doodlebugging »

weeblewobble wrote: post #669
doodlebugging wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. It's also half as wide as it is long and 2 meters deep. That still is not a useful comparison if the audience has never seen one. It's a comparison without a useful reference. I always thought it funny and nearly worthless for an author or announcer to describe the volume of something in terms of Olympic swimming pools as if everyone listening or reading had a useful frame of reference in that comparison.

People who’ve never seen one still understand that an Olympic-sized swimming pool is “quite big”. Which is the general impression people are trying to get across when they use that phrase. People in the Olympics are the best athletes in the world. And I bet world class athletes need a big pool to compete in. That gives you a pretty decent sense of the scale of an Olympic sized swimming pool without ever having seen o…

I agree that most people will decide that Olympic sized pools must be big but it doesn't give a layman any clue to just how large a volume they contain in some contexts where you find the comparison used.

For example, I made a comment about a similar comparison in a post here on HN a while ago because their example was simply ridiculous [0]. The author in that article referenced the volume of a large body of water as being "about 240 billion Olympic sized pools". I believe that they could've used almost anything else that most people would identify as being very large as a reference but instead they chose a large swimming pool. If an item is used as a reference the scale of the reference and the object should be chosen such that the reader could quickly understand that while one may be big, the other is bigger by some easily pictured amount.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29710752

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

#683

Post by Eiriksmal »

wongarsu wrote: post #575
godelski wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They flew a F35 next to the object. "Unknown" is an overloaded term and it isn't binary (known vs unknown). Plus, they said it was the size of a small car (remember the other balloon's payload was the size of a bus). So while you don't know what exactly that payload is and is doing, you do know it isn't just a go pro. You also know it isn't a velociraptor or Felix Baumgartner.

The ballon in this youtube video is about the size of a (very) small car, and likely reached the size of a large car as it gained altitude (same gas in ballon, but less air pressure around it equals larger ballon). Granted, that ballon had not just a gopro but also a tray of garlic bread, and went higher up. But using a ballon the size of a small car to launch just a gopro seems incredibly reasonable. [1] https://www…

For posterity, I'm pretty confident Anamanguchi were the first men to send Italian food to space, for the Endless Fantasy music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fdr-Fiv92c

The raw space pizza footage even has the Gopro's audio from the little speaker looping the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGvVjEN1u8

After it fell back to earth, the local police in New Jersey were nonplussed and thought it might have been a terrorist device. The interview with Anamanaguchi on the topic is well done, but didn't surface after some quick DuckDuckGoing.

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

#684

Post by pasquinelli »

partiallypro wrote: post #466
leetrout wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that very link you can find info on the recent litigation accusing the government of an errant missile hit. There is enough evidence to bring forth the suit whether you agree it is a conspiracy or not. https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/citing-new-evidence-survivin...

Civil suits are incredibly easy to push through (which is why there are various civil suits from assassinations and murders, even if the underlaying accused person/entity was found innocent), it doesn't mean it happened.

yeah, but false stuff also gets reported all the time, so how does one decide what to believe?

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

#685

Post by zztop44 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #676
hinkley wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard rumors that during the bosnian war they were making fake SAM sites using microwave ovens with the door taken off. Get them to fire an air-to-ground missile at a device you got from the junkyard and an extension cord.

Microwaves transmit on a frequency nowhere near missile systems and are not modulated in any way resembling a missile fire control system, but cool story. ECM gear in US warplanes can classify a system based off its emissions and people think they're fooled by a microwave oven?

Not to be too provocative, but hugely expensive precision equipment being fooled by a microwave oven with the door cut off is exactly what I’d expect from the US military.

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

#686

Post by Kon-Peki »

alex_young wrote: post #651
13of40 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story: I was in Spain several years ago and was talking to a guy I met about sailboats. I mentioned I had a boat, and he asked how big. I thought for a second and said "7 meters" so as not to be an ignorant American. He thought for a second and said "huh, 21 feet".

Except it’s closer to 23 feet right?

The only time anyone wants to know the exact length of a sailboat is if there’s a concern about it fitting in some space.

At all other times, your incentive is to make the biggest lie you can get away with.

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

#687

Post by jamwil »

sundvor wrote: post #613
cardamomo wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? What scenarios are you thinking of?

The IR signature/target profile of a balloon contraption is very different to that of a jet exhaust, for one. Far less friction heat of movement etc + no engine. Although the X is an all aspect missile, the parameters would still be quite different. I think this is would all be firmly in the "not public domain" bucket of details though, as I haven't seen much of this modelled in DCS. (I suppose they could also have u…

What is DCS?

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

#688

Post by barsonme »

politician wrote: post #543
ilyt wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much money does the military lose due to the sensitive information being lost. ...probably around zero dollars. It would be different if it was above say active war zone but in this case it is almost as far from potential warzone as possible so probably absolutely nothing.

There is a lot you can learn by floating a slow moving object rigged with antennas over your adversary and then noting which types of radar light you up and from which direction. Especially when you float them over military sites.

I’m sure the US military is smart enough to put their toys away before the balloon they’ve been watching for a week floats overhead.

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

#689

Post by monocasa »

jasmer wrote: post #468
smcl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What mechanisms do you recommend for reining in, say, the NSA or GHCQ? Were either reined in at all after the Snowden leaks, or was it business as usual after things calmed down a bit? I think we have to accept that these intelligence agencies are effectively untouchable and here to stay. With that in mind I think it boils down to: who can do the most harm by spying on you: - a country thousands of miles away which y…

They are 'touchable', there is oversight, and their powers are very limited. Give me an example of Americans who have been materially harmed by those agencies? And what was the damage? Have Americans been oppressed, slandered for political gain, wrongly imprisoned, illegally targeted by police because of NSA activity? I think it's doubtful for anything other than a few incidents; the proportionality of these tradeoff…

> You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you

~ Senator Chuck Schumer on why publicly criticizing the intelligence community is a poor choice for a politician

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

#690

Post by Kon-Peki »

doodlebugging wrote: post #682
weeblewobble wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who’ve never seen one still understand that an Olympic-sized swimming pool is “quite big”. Which is the general impression people are trying to get across when they use that phrase. People in the Olympics are the best athletes in the world. And I bet world class athletes need a big pool to compete in. That gives you a pretty decent sense of the scale of an Olympic sized swimming pool without ever having seen o…

I agree that most people will decide that Olympic sized pools must be big but it doesn't give a layman any clue to just how large a volume they contain in some contexts where you find the comparison used. For example, I made a comment about a similar comparison in a post here on HN a while ago because their example was simply ridiculous [0]. The author in that article referenced the volume of a large body of water as…

The funny thing about Olympic-sized swimming pools is that they are so big that they are nearly useless except for the relatively rare elite swimming competition. So they are actually far more uncommon than you might expect, and are usually built with configurable “walls” so that they can be made smaller for everyday use!
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