Pentagon Tracking Suspected Chinese Spy Balloon Over the US

[BluePig]

I gota say i am so sick of the media and even in this forum, that you or those commented that it's a Chinese spy ballon. You guys are no better than the media. WHERE is the proof it's from China..there is none! Media says this and that and then you start to believe what the media says. Get a damn grip and get proof, then you can say what country it's from.

I believe I heard yesterday that they admitted it was their balloon.
There were multiple articles on this.

 

[ditcherman]

I still figure we cold laser it from the ground if we wanted, how many watts would it take to make a small hole in it? Weather is clear as we can see from the photos so limited degradation of the beam strength.

What about the fail safe possibility?
It doesn’t have to be true, they just have to mumble the words, “bomb goes off below 30,000’”.

 

[Sylvain]

Is this thing going to fly over Indiana???

I'm surprised there not already an INGO crowd founding to rent a freakin' helicopter.

Not sure about the legally of private citizens shooting that thing down ...

Does the FAA consider a balloon like that to be an aircraft?

I guess you could use the Alec Baldwin defense and say your gun "just went off" while cleaning it inside your helicopter ... while flying next to a giant balloon.

 

[KellyinAvon]

Is this thing going to fly over Indiana???

I'm surprised there not already an INGO crowd founding to rent a freakin' helicopter.

Not sure about the legally of private citizens shooting that thing down ...

Does the FAA consider a balloon like that to be an aircraft?

I guess you could use the Alec Baldwin defense and say your gun "just went off" while cleaning it inside your helicopter ... while flying next to a giant balloon.

Looked like it would go over Evansville in the south-west part of the State.

 

[KellyinAvon]

To get to Southern Indiana from Missouri you go across Illinois. Scott AFB is the home to the USAF Air Mobility Command and the US Transportation Command.

OH!! I forgot, what is in Indiana... south of B-Town... HUGE Naval facility called Crane NSWC. They do lots of... stuff there.

 

[Leadeye]

Maybe Illinois will arrest the balloon and then turn it loose with no bail.

 

[ditcherman]

Is this thing going to fly over Indiana???

I'm surprised there not already an INGO crowd founding to rent a freakin' helicopter.

Not sure about the legally of private citizens shooting that thing down ...

Does the FAA consider a balloon like that to be an aircraft?

I guess you could use the Alec Baldwin defense and say your gun "just went off" while cleaning it inside your helicopter ... while flying next to a giant balloon.

I told the team to not release any of the pictures until we were already heros!! How did you get that?

And ‘legally’? Ppppphhhffftttt. See ‘hero’s’ above.

 

[4sarge]

Looks like BIG GUY JOE will do Nothing, its still headed East thru North Carolina. Not long before its out of our once sovereign Air Space

 

[jsx1043]

S2 Underground always bringing the Intel.

 

[Cameramonkey]

I still figure we cold laser it from the ground if we wanted, how many watts would it take to make a small hole in it? Weather is clear as we can see from the photos so limited degradation of the beam strength.

The lighter a surface is the harder it is to damage with a laser.

So good luck with that.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Don’t necessarily agree with the deepest of conspiracy theories put out here, but everything is worth considering.

The Trojan horse analogy is not exactly accurate, but while everyone’s looking at the ballon, what’s behind it?
Don’t worry, it’s probably just another ballon. Oh wait.

And as for shooting it down, when they originally wrote this movie they did a better job of explaining that “if it drops below x number of feet the bomb goes off”. That’s how I remember it from the book anyhow.

In other words, if you were smart enough to build an intercontinental ballon, might you be smart enough to put failsafes in it?

And do what, exactly? Payload limits would mean any charge wouldn't be a danger to anything but itself, and then anything in the debris field. Given the size and the shape of the thing, and it's mostly lighter than air balloon bits, we're back into sci-fi realm to worry about an explosive, conventional or nuclear, being anything other than a light show and/or nuisance. And for what gain? They aren't mindless idiots in charge of China willing to risk war and economic destruction for something that meaningless vs our capabilities to retaliate.

 

[DadSmith]

 

[BluePig]

There is a bunch of things that doesn't make sense.
If launched from China, it would have flown over Japan & Russia before it got to us.
You think they would have said something about that thing floating over their airspace.
Unless it was launched out at sea off a sub.
Then there is the fact that if it was detected over Alaskan airspace, you had to know where the airstream at that altitude was going.
It wasn't going back to the west for sure.
Too much shenanigans going on right now.

 

[ditcherman]

And do what, exactly? Payload limits would mean any charge wouldn't be a danger to anything but itself, and then anything in the debris field. Given the size and the shape of the thing, and it's mostly lighter than air balloon bits, we're back into sci-fi realm to worry about an explosive, conventional or nuclear, being anything other than a light show and/or nuisance. And for what gain? They aren't mindless idiots in charge of China willing to risk war and economic destruction for something that meaningless vs our capabilities to retaliate.

Not pushing any particular idea, just thinking about the what ifs.
Like I said, all they have to do is mumble the words of a threat.
The most benign thing that it can be is the actual weather ballon veered off course, and then the Chinese get to say look how easy that was, we can do that again.

It’s easy to say shoot it down, or it’s completely benign, but we don’t know what we don’t know, and that includes military technology, like payload capacities and tech abilities.

All I’m really pushing I guess is we don’t know, and there’s no point in analyzing it in terms of what we, as lay people, do know.

 

[DadSmith]

There is a bunch of things that doesn't make sense.
If launched from China, it would have flown over Japan & Russia before it got to us.
You think they would have said something about that thing floating over their airspace.
Unless it was launched out at sea off a sub.
Then there is the fact that if it was detected over Alaskan airspace, you had to know where the airstream at that altitude was going.
It wasn't going back to the west for sure.
Too much shenanigans going on right now.

The majority of Americans voted for this.

 

[ditcherman]

So it exploded in Montana but now it’s in North Carolina? Makes sense.

 

[ditcherman]

The majority of Americans voted for this.

Wait I thought it was stolen?

 

[DadSmith]

So it exploded in Montana but now it’s in North Carolina? Makes sense.

Did you watch it

 

[ditcherman]

Did you watch it

No, I just read the caption.

 

[DadSmith]

No, I just read the caption.

Something happened up there.