"Not sure what the object was" "Shot Down using an Aim9x" That actually narrows it down a bit. Heat seeking warhead.
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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
#72Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#73Cheap balloon vs expensive missile, seems a good way to bankrupt us by sending continuous balloons.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#74We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. Send over the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) to protect the west coast.
> The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon.
This seems like conjecture. Is there any reliable data on how much said balloon cost?
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#75Imagine if this is how first contact is made.
Some think it happened in Roswell NM. in 1947.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident
I've got a fanciful notion that the "foo fighters" are living creatures. The Air Force supposedly gave someone some of the excretions to examine and they found "unearthly isotopes" or some such.
I figure something that lives, say, a couple hundred miles down inside a planet might only even notice the surface phenomenon that are the most dense, energetic, and anomalous (certainly at first), and pay more attention to those things. How might such beings interact with us and could we discern their efforts as such if we wanted?
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably didn't help that an Air Force general was openly and loudly proclaiming that war is inevitable. I looked up some speeches of his, and he is off the rails, like the German general in All Quiet Along the Western Front .
Do you have a link or name of the guy? I haven't heard about this
edit: Maybe this?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-air-fo...
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#77So what’s the deal with these balloons? Provocation? Do they think nobody will notice?
Laser mapping of military POIs before a war in a few years? See the recent laser rays on Mauna Kea.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#78Probably not a great sign of things to come.
I'd say it feels like a return to the era of cold war tensions but I wouldn't know, I was born around when the Berlin Wall fell. What say you older HNers, is this what it was like?
It feels to me like things are just starting to spool up. Unlike during my youth, I think the playing field is much more tilted in the United States favor.
I had lots of nightmares about seeing a bright orange flash in the window back in my youth. I've had a few recently.
If they decide to take out the Steel Works in Gary, I'll be toast. If not, fallout is something that can be avoided by staying inside, away from exterior walls and the roof, and waiting it out for at least a week.
I've had Potassium Iodide in stock for my child's use since the Fukushima meltdown... I bought a new bottle when Ukraine kicked off.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#79So what’s the deal with these balloons? Provocation? Do they think nobody will notice?
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 forces the adversary to ask "where do we draw a line, and what consequences do we give for crossing it?"
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#80Pot calling kettle black. The US has been sending armed drones into several countries without coordination with local ATC or consent of the local government. Soleimani and a number of Iraqi military officers were taken out by a US drone.