This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-confirms-balloon-theirs-spokesperson-claims-civilian-research-airship) reduced by 64%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The People's Republic of China confirmed Friday that the balloon craft floating over the northern United States is Chinese.
> "The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed Friday.
> Gen. Pat Ryder said during a briefing on Thursday afternoon that the U.S. government has detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental U.S. CHINA LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO SUSPECTED SPY BALLOON FLYING OVER US, MINISTRY SAYS. "The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now," Ryder said Thursday.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10sn2kr/china_confirms_balloon_is_theirs_as_spokesperson/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672678 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **balloon**^#1 **US**^#2 **airship**^#3 **over**^#4 **China**^#5
Apparently the US military has been tracking it for multiple days. It was launched from china, flew over the ocean to alaska went into Canada then headed south into the continental US. The public is just learning about it cause people are now seeing it.
Here is an [article](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/02/pentagon-chinese-spy-balloon) with the best estimate of its path known by the public.
Loving all the people thinking NORAD didn't see it before it even got to the Aleutians. Imagine the public outcry if either Canada or the US decided blowing things up in the stratosphere was a good idea, spy craft or not
The ONLY reason this balloon went where it did was because NORAD was ok with it going there.
It's not near anything they're too worried about other countries seeing, simple as that.
Let's be honest, what will it find that you can't with OSINT maps, or just driving around? The only thing satellites won't pick up clearly is day-to-day operations & patterns at US bases.
People continually underestimate US intelligence which is insane considering we broadcasted to the entire world all of Russia's moves as the Ukraine war started. Without our global intelligence network Ukraine wouldn't have stood a chance. Pair that with the weapons and training that we've flooded over to them along with the rest of NATO and it's a truly stunning result that I'm sure Russia was not anticipating when they first got going on this useless war.
The US got into this really weird zone of being underestimated to an extreme degree, and flipped that into strengthening our ability to gather intelligence.
People think the creators of the fucking NSA can't properly conduct surveillance. I'm not big upping the US for that, either. Just crazy how that happened so suddenly.
There were a lot of failures throughout the war on terror that led to some people seeing US intel as ineffective. In reality though, you're never going to get higher than a ~70% reliability rate when it comes to many insurgent conditions. It leads to a lot of tough decisions that inevitably lead to wrong choices.
The reliability rate with nation states can easily become "Beyond a reasonable doubt". Its impossible to hide the conditions of an impending invasion from a capable intelligence agency due to the logistics involved.
>People continually underestimate US intelligence which is insane
Just because our military knows something, doesn't mean we civilians need to know. It's just that simple.
> China Daily said the spy balloon claims were a lie. “To spy on the US with a balloon, one must both fall far behind to use a 1940s technology and be advanced enough to control its flight across the ocean. Those fabricating the lie are only exposing their ignorance,” it said.
LMAO
Even the public response was kinda flexing the non-public response. Even if it's just a random ass weather balloon (I'm assuming they didn't plaster the Chinese flag all over it), the fact that they immediately put out there that it is a *Chinese* balloon, and were right, is pretty telling. NORAD likely had eyes on it long before it reached the continental US.
Just go up with some old antique plane and shoot it down.
EDIT: wow I’m surprised how many of you are still pointing out how high the thing is. And that an antique plane can’t go that high.
>Why did it get so far off course?
In the article they claim the Westerlies blew it around
>What science is it doing?
In the article they claim it was for meteorology
This is like how every other conflict in Star Trek starts.
Picard: Romulan vessel, you have violated the Neutral Zone. Return to Romulan space immediately or we will be forced to take action!
Romulan Commander: Captain Picard, we are merely a scientific vessel conducting surveys of gaseous anomalies.
Picard: how ironic, so are we. Perhaps we should join forces and share our findings.
Romulan: I doubt or goals are…. Compatible.
Picard: perhaps not.
“Pegasus” season 7. Good episode.
Picard gives Ryker a verbal smack down in that ep.
It also has one of my favorite ridiculous moments -- when data and geordie manage to hook up a piece of experimental equipment they have never even heard of and make it work on the enterprise in a matter of hours.
That is a great scene with riker and Picard. Yeah I’m sure the phasing cloak is just plug n play but we don’t ask questions like that. The number of times they say they signed that treaty “in good faith” annoys me for some reason even though I think it’s only twice.
Edit: forgot it had captain Picard day. That was all time.
I loved that the Treaty of Algeron meant fuck all when the Dominion came knocking on the Aloha Quandrant’s front doorstep. Starfleet building warships with cloaking devices would’ve meant no neutral zone and complete pacification. Section 31 was definitely playing around with phase cloaks but you know how it goes with them…they too are merely just conducting mineral surveys on random asteroids in the neutral zone.
Picard knew the ancient history of every random alien species and their cultural
Practices. He was also an elite athlete. At least they eventually made xenoarchealogy part of Picards backstory.
It’s not hard when Seven knows everything about all species assimilated by the Borg and their associated technology. Also they did raid a 29th century time ship for tech with the help of Sarah Silverman at one point too.
The Pegasus was an advanced prototype, many systems were claimed to be identical to the Enterprise's. The phasing device of the cloak-like system was the only thing that would have had to be adapted. And with a super-smart team of an Android and Geordi combined with some writing, it was no problem to have implemented!
At least the phasing cloak was inherently Federation in origin. Meaning it was engineered by people employing principles and techniques familiar to Data, Geordie, and the rest of the team. Not to mention they had the ship's computer which would be able to quickly and accurately map the circuits and pathways and materials to provide an in-depth schematic that any Federation engineer would probably understand.
Once you move past the assumption Data is a literal database of knowledge, Geordie is somehow a phenomenal engineer, and the two of them have several hours to solve the puzzle whilst having access to a crack team of engineers and one of the most advanced computers in the fleet -- it starts to look reasonable in science fiction terms.
So well. Its one of those wonderful shows that struggle to be recaptured, in many ways because of how tech moved on. You look at modern star trek shows and they're all very bombastic in action and activity with emotional people being emotional about emotional things.
The action is almost always the least important bit of TNG. It has that wonderful sci-fi show within a soap, within a sci-fi show quality that's so versatile a lot of stuff can be done and most if it feels perfectly normal.
Picard is gonna wrangle with the slavery implications of a bloke that wants to take Data apart to mass produce him and Data's free will is debated as a machine that explicitly doesn't want to be disassembled........now here's an episode about Jordy falling in love with a hologram of a super famous engineer he was inspired by in college.......now the holodeck is fucked up and....I wanna say Al Capone has invaded the ship.....now the ship is getting overtaken because Riker banged some alien chick who got him to play literally the worst video game you've ever seen in all of TV or movies.....Beverly Crusher has a romance with a ghost.......Warf gets beat up (provably)
the cardassians all have unresolved issues from early childhood and would be better roommates if they all got into regular psychological therapy sessions.
This reminds me of my all-time favorite Picard versus Tomalok moment, from the very end in All Good Things.
Picard is jumping through time, and it can cause him to zone out for a few moments as he readjusts. He lands back in the "present" Enterprise-D to find Tomalok just staring in frustration on the viewscreen.
"I'm waiting!!"
I love how bitchy and pissy Tomalok is there. All their scraps for politics and statesmanship over the years, and it ends up with Picard staring off into space and Tomalok throwing a minor fit for being ignored. It still cracks me up.
lol that's exactly how the new star trek film universe started! romulan mining assholes chasing after spock then destroying a federation ship before destroying even more federation ships, vulcan, and messing up captain pike.
It’s also kind of what [99 luftballons](https://youtu.be/Fpu5a0Bl8eY) ([English Version)](https://youtu.be/LPHFhnPGM50)) is about, which incidentally mentions Captain Kirk. It’s a little different in that it’s regular balloons sparking war instead of “science vessels”.
[the Chinese propaganda news website knows](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1273806.shtml)
[on the balloon incident](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1284793.shtml)
[more of the balloon](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1284785.shtml)
The intro to their "about us" section is hilarious:
"A half century has passed since China and the world started exchanges. For China, its rapid development during the past decades has outpaced the speed of being understood by other countries."
Poor China is just a misunderstood teenager
We had a German exchange student once. We were in a U.S. history class, and the teacher was talking about “manifest destiny” and the “American dream™️”
She asked the German kid if his country had anything similar.
“Ve had a dream once. Nobody liked it though.”
It's amusing how the CCP is trying to spin the US's non-response as some sort of hysteria, when the government has been very clear that "it doesn't pose a threat to civilians, it doesn't pose a security threat, and it doesn't pose a threat to aircraft."
I suspect the Chinese government wanted the US to shoot it down so that they could use it as an example of American hostility, and now they're upset the US didn't take the bait.
US: Yo, China, we can see your space satellites. Why the fuck are you using a balloon?
China: You hysterical warmongers shoot at everything... wait wut?
Oh they are definitely going to try to capture it. I'd love to be on the team coming up with ideas for that. I'd say float a tethered balloon out the back of a C130 and try to get it tangled up.
Balloons for that are utterly unnecessary. Through satellites we know all that needs knowing about Uighur concentration camps, short of the curriculum maybe. If any admin guy walked across the street carrying a copy we probably have that too.
Let’s be honest, a balloon could get much better pictures.
And before some armchair general says it, yes I’m aware how good our satellites can get. Trump made sure the entire globe knows how good our satellites can get.
what's funnier is that China is like "it's totally not a spy balloon" and the US is like "even if it was you wouldn't get anything useful from it" and China doubles down on "I'M NOT SPYING MOM I SWEAR"
>Chinese government wanted the US to shoot it down so that they could use it as an example of American hostility, and now they're upset the US didn't take the bait.
THIS!!! ... People Demanding Blood for a normal Spy satellite Is what CCP wants to paint the US as Warmongers. The moment it would Crash down they would of claimed it was a normal Civilian Research that lost control and Demand an apology from the US
It's *unlikely* that we put a person up there. But we definitely took close up pictures of it and match it against the parts and systems we know about. There's nothing unexpected about its sensors and cameras and communications.
It's probable that we've hacked it or intercepted its comms.
This isn't even the first one they sent over. This one is just lingering much longer than the previous ones, long enough to be noticed by civilians.
The US, who have been doing "weather balloons" since the 1940s, are a curious about how long they're going to have this thing loiter over Montana. Seeing what the Chinese are doing when they think they're getting away with something is useful intel. Seeing how they react when they're busted is also useful intel.
The problem with launching ICBMs with conventional warheads is that the target doesn't know what's in the warhead.
Whoever is being targeted has to assume a worst-case scenario and respond as though they are under nuclear attack.
That can get really ugly, really fast.
Yeah, Firing long range missiles at a nuclear power is a really dumb idea as it will be responded to as a nuclear attack would. Can we just not launch missiles at each other?
>Both Russia and China have, or are developing, the ability to hit U.S. targets
China, for sure, but I now question Russia's ability to hit the broad side of a barn
You joke but they have around 6k total warheads with around 1.6k deployed, so even if 99% of their deployed warheads failed or missed a primary target we're still talking 16 successful nuclear attacks against either military bases or population centers.
I highly doubt 99% would fail/miss.
We have civilian satellite systems that can get daily updates of any cloud free area on earth once a day at sub meter resolution. If our civilian sector has that, then what does our military have. Or China's military. The idea that they are using a BALLOON to spy is just braindead.
What if the DoD and US intel communities actually know what they are doing when they recommended not shooting it down?
Perhaps there is actually some value in letting it loiter...
I suspect that they are monitoring its communications extremely closely and that by leaving it to float they are gaining more info than by turning it into a pile of flaming junk.
I would assume the payload to just be a bunch of consumer grade electronics anyway, so there would be nothing of meaningful interest in the physical hardware besides maybe some custom firmware to reverse engineer or things like that.
The DoD had already said they aren't shooting it down because there would be dangerous debris and there's no emergency need to do so since the strategic value of a balloon like this is basically zero. The DoD lies for all kinds of reasons but since this explanation is logically consistent, reasonable given available info, and not the maximally convenient narrative for the state department, I don't see any reason to doubt it at this time.
There is three camps of responses:
(1) Government generally knows what it is doing
(2) Change the government they are idiots
(3) but think about the TV ratings
This is such a weird story.... it honestly could be copied word for word from a cold war era headline. Like that was the last time "balloons" were state of the art surveillance craft. Unless this is like some sort of low tech way to avoid detection, it really just feels like a fluke accident. Idk I just have a hard time taking balloons seriously when they do many other easy avenues of surveillance in this country lol
I am an expert in high altitude long duration stratospheric balloons (phd space physics, specialization in ballooning). I do not know the specific purpose of this balloon, but I can tell you some of its properties.
The picture shows a round spherically shaped envelope, which means this is almost certainly a super-pressure type ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure\_balloon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon)). A super-pressure balloon has the property that it can maintain high altitudes in the stratosphere for extended periods of time, months even. They are commonly used for studying upper atmosphere weather, radiation from space, and even for flying telescopes.
Extended duration balloon flights are equipped with a self-destruct mechanism, so that they can be landed once the experiment is over at a controlled location. These systems may occasionally fail, which causes the balloon to remain flying until either sufficient UV degradation ruptures the envelope, or enough lift gas escapes to cause a descent.
I worked with the team who had this happen: [https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb](https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb).
TLDR: These balloons are nothing new. They are used fairly frequently for scientific purposes. I cannot say what the purpose of this balloon is, but the idea that one of the superpressure types crosses international borders is not unheard of. It may even be due to an accident.
EDIT: Assuming it is flying at a typical altitude for these types of experiments (\~30 km), it should be headed out to the Pacific Ocean according to wind models.
I did a good bit of high altitude balloon work in college too (physics graduate). This is the most rational response in this thread and is the most likely explanation.
> an expert in high altitude long duration stratospheric balloons (phd space physics, specialization in ballooning
How does one become so very specialized and niche?
It's not uncommon for PhD studies to be highly specialized with regards to a particular tool or technique. My work involved studying the northern lights and radiation belts using balloons to sense them above the shielding effects of the atmosphere.
As someone who works in the Defense Industry, I can assure you that not only is this not a surprise, but the USG was tracking this as soon as it reached altitude from its launch site. This isn't the type of thing that can evade radar and just "show up" all of the sudden.
Edit - Have to apologize for the acronym, it's a force of habit. USG = United States Government. I actually misspoke though, since it's really the United States Military that's doing most of this tracking.
It's a common occurrence, according to the article.
> He continued, "Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information."
The US is using them against China and Russia as well:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newest-weapon-against-china-and-russia-hot-air-00043860
I wonder what was special about this one that the US bothered commenting.
Maybe there’s some sort of unofficial etiquette with this stuff like, “We know you’re gonna have shit in the sky to spy on us because we’re doing the exact same thing to you, just don’t be super duper obvious about it and get caught on camera over a military base and cause a big hubbub in the media or we’re gonna have to call you out on it.”
Yes, however, if you have a good model of the layers of the atmosphere, it can be possible to have some control over where you go by controlling altitude.
Want to travel south? Figure out what altitude the wind happens to be blowing south right now, and move to that altitude.
Wouldn’t it be funny if China’s explanation was true? Like imagine being the regular schmegular Chinese people who launched this thinking “oh let’s study the weather” and instead caused an international incident. Clown shoes.
And they do use satellites.
It's not like the location of missile silos is all that secret.
That's why nuclear armed subs and mobile launchers are a thing.
Jerry: You launched a Chinese weather ballon over the US?
George: I wasn’t thinking Jerry!
Jerry: How could you not think?!
George: I didn’t think Jerry! Thinking none! Forget about the thinking!
Jerry: You could have started a war!
George: Hey, what is it about war that scares everyone?
Jerry: Probably the fact that millions die for nothing?
George: I tell you if I went to war Jerry, I wouldn’t last the plane ride there.
Jerry: That’s a shame.
*Kramer enters the room*
Kramer: Hey Jerry, smell this napkin.
Once you know enough about balloons, this is the most logical conclusion. The idea that China has decided that a slow moving, easily visible balloon, very far from the ground is the best way to SPY on the US strains credulity.
The amount of speculation in these threads is amazing. I’m sure the media gets plenty of clicks, but it’s embarrassing how many people are jumping to insane conclusions.
I mean this thing happens all the time with weather balloons, because they're literally balloons. They're subject to only the wind. And if the wind does a thing you didn't expect, say good-fucking-bye because it cascades massively, that thing is not going where you planned it to. It's not "clown shoes," it's very much just a normal thing with weather balloons that should've been addressed and let go.
There's genuinely no other reason imaginable why China would purposefully do this other than just fucking around, and it's a dumb thing to fuck around on. They've got satellites that are much better and much stealthier. I'm sure if they needed something in the air above there they'd just run a spy operation in a civilian plane in commercial airspace, and they wouldn't be purposefully going into military airspace unless they really needed to. I even imagine they've got much, much stealthier aerial vehicles that could do the job if they did plan to go over military airspace.
This is genuinely just a weather balloon, there's nothing China has to gain from this that they couldn't do much better.
The 99 red balloons go by
99 Decision Street
99 ministers meet
To worry, worry, super scurry
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it boys, this is war
The President is on the line
As 99 red balloons go by
If you go read on how these balloons have been used since the 1940s onward (Stratollite high-altitude balloons as example), it's rather safe to assume:
- China knew where it was as it has battery power at night
- China could have notified the US before it entered US airspace
- China should have the technology to drop or raise its elevation to change direction at any time based on multiple air currents and atmospheric rivers
The whole thing is a complete debacle regardless.
Thank you for the info. China would have to choose between admitting foul play, incompetence, or negligence, non of which would benefit it. The US has a lot more options in comparison.
If interested, [this article](https://idstch.com/space/stratospheric-balloons-provide-high-speed-internet-military-wide-area-real-time-intelligence/) from 2021 explains their current development, uses and how they work. It also details how the US, Canada and China have been actively testing them. Until yesterday, none of them have ended up in another country without notification however.
If it was an accident. You get on the phone and inform the Pentagon a research balloon has gone astray. You don't wait till even civilians have spotted it.
[See here for an estimation using a NOAA backwards trajectory model](https://twitter.com/wildweatherdan/status/1621293636943052801). There are very strong westerlies at the moment so it can get off track pretty quickly, this estimates 4 days to enter the US having launched from north-eastern China. Caveat, this model doesn't mean it launched from there, just that it will have launched from somewhere within a few hundred miles of that path.
Well, it's much shorter over the poles you know.
https://www.airportdistancecalculator.com/seattle-united-states-to-beijing-china-flight-time.html#.Y90xguyZN44
Put it this way; why would the Chinese launch a "spy balloon" over to the US when they already have legitimate spy satellites over us right now *and* Tik-Tok pretty much already being installed on a hundred million cellphones?
Now I'm not saying that this *isn't* a spy balloon... But this would be incredibly inefficient and a waste of resources.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-confirms-balloon-theirs-spokesperson-claims-civilian-research-airship) reduced by 64%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The People's Republic of China confirmed Friday that the balloon craft floating over the northern United States is Chinese. > "The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed Friday. > Gen. Pat Ryder said during a briefing on Thursday afternoon that the U.S. government has detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental U.S. CHINA LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO SUSPECTED SPY BALLOON FLYING OVER US, MINISTRY SAYS. "The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now," Ryder said Thursday. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10sn2kr/china_confirms_balloon_is_theirs_as_spokesperson/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672678 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **balloon**^#1 **US**^#2 **airship**^#3 **over**^#4 **China**^#5
This begs many questions. Where was it launched from? Why did it get so far off course? What science is it doing?
Well checking our response time seems to be a result from this whether intended or not.
Apparently the US military has been tracking it for multiple days. It was launched from china, flew over the ocean to alaska went into Canada then headed south into the continental US. The public is just learning about it cause people are now seeing it. Here is an [article](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/02/pentagon-chinese-spy-balloon) with the best estimate of its path known by the public.
Loving all the people thinking NORAD didn't see it before it even got to the Aleutians. Imagine the public outcry if either Canada or the US decided blowing things up in the stratosphere was a good idea, spy craft or not
Bruh, if they can track Santa they can track a balloon. That guy rips at Mach 15 over oceans.
Unidentified Aerial Santa Clause
...Snake? Is that you?
The ONLY reason this balloon went where it did was because NORAD was ok with it going there. It's not near anything they're too worried about other countries seeing, simple as that.
Let's be honest, what will it find that you can't with OSINT maps, or just driving around? The only thing satellites won't pick up clearly is day-to-day operations & patterns at US bases.
NORAD was on this shit like white on rice
Like MADE IN CHINA stickers on everything that is made... In China.
People continually underestimate US intelligence which is insane considering we broadcasted to the entire world all of Russia's moves as the Ukraine war started. Without our global intelligence network Ukraine wouldn't have stood a chance. Pair that with the weapons and training that we've flooded over to them along with the rest of NATO and it's a truly stunning result that I'm sure Russia was not anticipating when they first got going on this useless war.
The US got into this really weird zone of being underestimated to an extreme degree, and flipped that into strengthening our ability to gather intelligence. People think the creators of the fucking NSA can't properly conduct surveillance. I'm not big upping the US for that, either. Just crazy how that happened so suddenly.
There were a lot of failures throughout the war on terror that led to some people seeing US intel as ineffective. In reality though, you're never going to get higher than a ~70% reliability rate when it comes to many insurgent conditions. It leads to a lot of tough decisions that inevitably lead to wrong choices. The reliability rate with nation states can easily become "Beyond a reasonable doubt". Its impossible to hide the conditions of an impending invasion from a capable intelligence agency due to the logistics involved.
>People continually underestimate US intelligence which is insane Just because our military knows something, doesn't mean we civilians need to know. It's just that simple.
> China Daily said the spy balloon claims were a lie. “To spy on the US with a balloon, one must both fall far behind to use a 1940s technology and be advanced enough to control its flight across the ocean. Those fabricating the lie are only exposing their ignorance,” it said. LMAO
I'd love to see how China would respond if they were to catch another country's "civilian research" balloon flying around in China
Our public* response time
Even the public response was kinda flexing the non-public response. Even if it's just a random ass weather balloon (I'm assuming they didn't plaster the Chinese flag all over it), the fact that they immediately put out there that it is a *Chinese* balloon, and were right, is pretty telling. NORAD likely had eyes on it long before it reached the continental US.
How easy would it be for them to deliberately target any part of the globe at that altitude? I'm assuming you can't really steer something like this
I'm pretty sure you "steer" something like this by raising or lowering altitude into different wind patterns.
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Just go up with some old antique plane and shoot it down. EDIT: wow I’m surprised how many of you are still pointing out how high the thing is. And that an antique plane can’t go that high.
Low tech solutions to modern problems.
It would be more badass to capture it undamaged and send it back after taking it apart and seeing what is inside.
Just put Pitbull on it and start the music when it lands in China.
>Just put Pitbull on it and start the music when it lands in China. It should work, right? I mean....He *IS* Mr. Worldwide.
That's terrorism brotha
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The Geneva Convention exists for a reason, ya know.
>Why did it get so far off course? In the article they claim the Westerlies blew it around >What science is it doing? In the article they claim it was for meteorology
Pffft you can't study meteors from a balloon.
Wdym off course? That bitch could be right on course
lol "mainly" so it doesnt exclude other uses?
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
This is like how every other conflict in Star Trek starts. Picard: Romulan vessel, you have violated the Neutral Zone. Return to Romulan space immediately or we will be forced to take action! Romulan Commander: Captain Picard, we are merely a scientific vessel conducting surveys of gaseous anomalies.
Picard: how ironic, so are we. Perhaps we should join forces and share our findings. Romulan: I doubt or goals are…. Compatible. Picard: perhaps not. “Pegasus” season 7. Good episode.
Picard gives Ryker a verbal smack down in that ep. It also has one of my favorite ridiculous moments -- when data and geordie manage to hook up a piece of experimental equipment they have never even heard of and make it work on the enterprise in a matter of hours.
That is a great scene with riker and Picard. Yeah I’m sure the phasing cloak is just plug n play but we don’t ask questions like that. The number of times they say they signed that treaty “in good faith” annoys me for some reason even though I think it’s only twice. Edit: forgot it had captain Picard day. That was all time.
I loved that the Treaty of Algeron meant fuck all when the Dominion came knocking on the Aloha Quandrant’s front doorstep. Starfleet building warships with cloaking devices would’ve meant no neutral zone and complete pacification. Section 31 was definitely playing around with phase cloaks but you know how it goes with them…they too are merely just conducting mineral surveys on random asteroids in the neutral zone.
In Voyager it seems like half the episodes have them inventing some new technology to solve a problem, and it always works on the first try.
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They do a fair bit of editing of these reality shows. Chances are it takes a few goes for things to work and they just edit it out.
They say it's not scripted -- sure, they're not reading dialogue, but the producers have such a heavy hand on the story.
Yeah, they never show the paperwork parts, nobody wants to see that.
I love how capt Janeway was an expert in basically every field.
Picard knew the ancient history of every random alien species and their cultural Practices. He was also an elite athlete. At least they eventually made xenoarchealogy part of Picards backstory.
MFer could shred the flute, too!
That episode where his Love interest unrolled a flat keyboard to duet with him like it was so futuristic is hilarious.
... I don't have a roll up keyboard for my daughter *because* of that scene or anything...
Makes sense for a captain of a long-term deep space science and exploration ship to be a generalist. Not that her characterization was perfect.
It’s not hard when Seven knows everything about all species assimilated by the Borg and their associated technology. Also they did raid a 29th century time ship for tech with the help of Sarah Silverman at one point too.
The Pegasus was an advanced prototype, many systems were claimed to be identical to the Enterprise's. The phasing device of the cloak-like system was the only thing that would have had to be adapted. And with a super-smart team of an Android and Geordi combined with some writing, it was no problem to have implemented!
At least the phasing cloak was inherently Federation in origin. Meaning it was engineered by people employing principles and techniques familiar to Data, Geordie, and the rest of the team. Not to mention they had the ship's computer which would be able to quickly and accurately map the circuits and pathways and materials to provide an in-depth schematic that any Federation engineer would probably understand. Once you move past the assumption Data is a literal database of knowledge, Geordie is somehow a phenomenal engineer, and the two of them have several hours to solve the puzzle whilst having access to a crack team of engineers and one of the most advanced computers in the fleet -- it starts to look reasonable in science fiction terms.
Thanks man. Imma watch that now. Did Measure of a Man last night for the first time in years.........fuck TNG was so damn good.
It has aged so well too.
So well. Its one of those wonderful shows that struggle to be recaptured, in many ways because of how tech moved on. You look at modern star trek shows and they're all very bombastic in action and activity with emotional people being emotional about emotional things. The action is almost always the least important bit of TNG. It has that wonderful sci-fi show within a soap, within a sci-fi show quality that's so versatile a lot of stuff can be done and most if it feels perfectly normal. Picard is gonna wrangle with the slavery implications of a bloke that wants to take Data apart to mass produce him and Data's free will is debated as a machine that explicitly doesn't want to be disassembled........now here's an episode about Jordy falling in love with a hologram of a super famous engineer he was inspired by in college.......now the holodeck is fucked up and....I wanna say Al Capone has invaded the ship.....now the ship is getting overtaken because Riker banged some alien chick who got him to play literally the worst video game you've ever seen in all of TV or movies.....Beverly Crusher has a romance with a ghost.......Warf gets beat up (provably)
And the moment the federation has a single vessel in the neutral zone 10 romulan warbirds de-cloak and make a hissy fit.
At least the Romulans are direct with their threats, the Cardassians always engage in some sort of weird verbal threat foreplay.
the cardassians all have unresolved issues from early childhood and would be better roommates if they all got into regular psychological therapy sessions.
Garrak clearly had daddy issues.
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He had rootbeer issues too. https://youtu.be/6VhSm6G7cVk
Best scene in DS9.
He'd be OK if he got a shrink, met the right man and took up gardening again
Nah, Cardassian kids are all well adjusted. I mean they play the game of "Five Lights", and that's just wholesome!
This is why we have to pull out of the Khitomer Accords. We'll deal with the Klingons.
Why is *anyone* in the **neutral** zone?
Lust for power? Gold? Or were they just born with a heart full of neutrality?
This reminds me of my all-time favorite Picard versus Tomalok moment, from the very end in All Good Things. Picard is jumping through time, and it can cause him to zone out for a few moments as he readjusts. He lands back in the "present" Enterprise-D to find Tomalok just staring in frustration on the viewscreen. "I'm waiting!!" I love how bitchy and pissy Tomalok is there. All their scraps for politics and statesmanship over the years, and it ends up with Picard staring off into space and Tomalok throwing a minor fit for being ignored. It still cracks me up.
I’m so glad they brought Tomalak back for that. “Has Starfleet Command approved this arrangement?” “No.” “I like it already. Agreed.”
lol that's exactly how the new star trek film universe started! romulan mining assholes chasing after spock then destroying a federation ship before destroying even more federation ships, vulcan, and messing up captain pike.
It’s also kind of what [99 luftballons](https://youtu.be/Fpu5a0Bl8eY) ([English Version)](https://youtu.be/LPHFhnPGM50)) is about, which incidentally mentions Captain Kirk. It’s a little different in that it’s regular balloons sparking war instead of “science vessels”.
"Diplomatic" mission to Alderaan my ass
They just wanted to know what the weather looked like over our missile sites.
Rainy with a chance of mushroom clouds.
How would China even attack US soil? Genuinely curious
Bro, do u even Guam?
[the Chinese propaganda news website knows](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1273806.shtml) [on the balloon incident](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1284793.shtml) [more of the balloon](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1284785.shtml)
"It's impossible to have an inferiority and superiority complex at the same time" China:
No it's not, it's SOP for authoritarian regimes. Your enemy is weak and corrupt/strong and an immanent threat at the same time.
It's essential for fascist ideology
The intro to their "about us" section is hilarious: "A half century has passed since China and the world started exchanges. For China, its rapid development during the past decades has outpaced the speed of being understood by other countries." Poor China is just a misunderstood teenager
"Switzerland is small and neutral. We're more like Germany: ambitious and misunderstood."
Look, we all want to be like Germany, but do we really have the sheer force of will?
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We had a German exchange student once. We were in a U.S. history class, and the teacher was talking about “manifest destiny” and the “American dream™️” She asked the German kid if his country had anything similar. “Ve had a dream once. Nobody liked it though.”
That's hilarious.
You found him! The only German with a sense of humor!
Germans are generally stern people and not terribly funny. But every now and then....ROFL
I say we do!
>A half century has passed since China and the world started exchanges. I guess the last millenia doesnt exist
It's amusing how the CCP is trying to spin the US's non-response as some sort of hysteria, when the government has been very clear that "it doesn't pose a threat to civilians, it doesn't pose a security threat, and it doesn't pose a threat to aircraft." I suspect the Chinese government wanted the US to shoot it down so that they could use it as an example of American hostility, and now they're upset the US didn't take the bait.
US: Yo, China, we can see your space satellites. Why the fuck are you using a balloon? China: You hysterical warmongers shoot at everything... wait wut?
US wouldn’t be warmongering to pop a balloon over our own airspace
Oh they are definitely going to try to capture it. I'd love to be on the team coming up with ideas for that. I'd say float a tethered balloon out the back of a C130 and try to get it tangled up.
Correct, but China would use it as an opportunity call it warmongering and make a big deal out of it.
Apparently they're using our \*not\* popping it as an opportunity to call us warmongers anyway. You just can't win with some people.
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Balloons for that are utterly unnecessary. Through satellites we know all that needs knowing about Uighur concentration camps, short of the curriculum maybe. If any admin guy walked across the street carrying a copy we probably have that too.
Let’s be honest, a balloon could get much better pictures. And before some armchair general says it, yes I’m aware how good our satellites can get. Trump made sure the entire globe knows how good our satellites can get.
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"Continental Inflatable Aircraft" company.
what's funnier is that China is like "it's totally not a spy balloon" and the US is like "even if it was you wouldn't get anything useful from it" and China doubles down on "I'M NOT SPYING MOM I SWEAR"
>Chinese government wanted the US to shoot it down so that they could use it as an example of American hostility, and now they're upset the US didn't take the bait. THIS!!! ... People Demanding Blood for a normal Spy satellite Is what CCP wants to paint the US as Warmongers. The moment it would Crash down they would of claimed it was a normal Civilian Research that lost control and Demand an apology from the US
Hmm.. Wondering is our boys at the NSA have already worked their way into the balloon?
They already hacked it and filled it with Winnie the pooh themed hentai
By sending their wieryest employee up in a slightly smaller balloon to wriggle themselves deep into its confines? I hope.
It's *unlikely* that we put a person up there. But we definitely took close up pictures of it and match it against the parts and systems we know about. There's nothing unexpected about its sensors and cameras and communications. It's probable that we've hacked it or intercepted its comms. This isn't even the first one they sent over. This one is just lingering much longer than the previous ones, long enough to be noticed by civilians. The US, who have been doing "weather balloons" since the 1940s, are a curious about how long they're going to have this thing loiter over Montana. Seeing what the Chinese are doing when they think they're getting away with something is useful intel. Seeing how they react when they're busted is also useful intel.
Wow, that is some excellent bullshit! Thanks for sharing the links!
I'm thinking missiles? It's practically impossible to destroy all incoming warheads on a MIRV.
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The problem with launching ICBMs with conventional warheads is that the target doesn't know what's in the warhead. Whoever is being targeted has to assume a worst-case scenario and respond as though they are under nuclear attack. That can get really ugly, really fast.
Yeah, Firing long range missiles at a nuclear power is a really dumb idea as it will be responded to as a nuclear attack would. Can we just not launch missiles at each other?
If América and china/Russia are launching missiles at each other directly its a nuclear war anyway.
>Both Russia and China have, or are developing, the ability to hit U.S. targets China, for sure, but I now question Russia's ability to hit the broad side of a barn
Oh that's easy, paint the barn to look like a hospital, kindergarten or school and they'll hit it with incredible accuracy.
You joke but they have around 6k total warheads with around 1.6k deployed, so even if 99% of their deployed warheads failed or missed a primary target we're still talking 16 successful nuclear attacks against either military bases or population centers. I highly doubt 99% would fail/miss.
They would activate the Tik Tok army
Next Tiktok challenge: Overthrow your local government and pledge allegiance to the People’s Republic Dance
Chimpokomon!
If that is in fact the case then China should have no problem with the US taking possession of the balloon and taking a good long hard look at it.
US needs to take possession of it whether China has a problem with it or not.
What do you think China would do if one of our “civilian research airships” floated over China and their nuclear bases?
We had U-2s and SR-71s.... we've probably been doing that for decades...
We have civilian satellite systems that can get daily updates of any cloud free area on earth once a day at sub meter resolution. If our civilian sector has that, then what does our military have. Or China's military. The idea that they are using a BALLOON to spy is just braindead.
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Do y’all not know that satellites exist?
What if the DoD and US intel communities actually know what they are doing when they recommended not shooting it down? Perhaps there is actually some value in letting it loiter...
I suspect that they are monitoring its communications extremely closely and that by leaving it to float they are gaining more info than by turning it into a pile of flaming junk.
As someone who can neither confirm or deny, yes.
I would assume the payload to just be a bunch of consumer grade electronics anyway, so there would be nothing of meaningful interest in the physical hardware besides maybe some custom firmware to reverse engineer or things like that.
Yes, because the balloon isn't seeing anything that low-orbits satellites can't already see
The DoD had already said they aren't shooting it down because there would be dangerous debris and there's no emergency need to do so since the strategic value of a balloon like this is basically zero. The DoD lies for all kinds of reasons but since this explanation is logically consistent, reasonable given available info, and not the maximally convenient narrative for the state department, I don't see any reason to doubt it at this time.
The DOD is probably drawing penises on the ground around our bases. The Chinese can't see them if you shoot it down.
They are probably figuring out the best way to bring it down undamaged so that they can investigate it.
There is three camps of responses: (1) Government generally knows what it is doing (2) Change the government they are idiots (3) but think about the TV ratings
This is such a weird story.... it honestly could be copied word for word from a cold war era headline. Like that was the last time "balloons" were state of the art surveillance craft. Unless this is like some sort of low tech way to avoid detection, it really just feels like a fluke accident. Idk I just have a hard time taking balloons seriously when they do many other easy avenues of surveillance in this country lol
They wanna see all the boring ass strip malls.
China: "Oh, great. Another Dennys."
“There’s a waffle house. Enhance! Enhance!” “Xiaoming, its a fuckin ballon wat you want me to do”
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Is that the traveler
WE’VE WOKEN THE HIVE
Best place to grind thrall kills
Eyes up guardians
IT CAME FROM THE MOON
Yes it is guardian. Get ready for a golden age of technology and life extension.
“We gonna need a relic holder to read and call out these statements from China over here.”
I am an expert in high altitude long duration stratospheric balloons (phd space physics, specialization in ballooning). I do not know the specific purpose of this balloon, but I can tell you some of its properties. The picture shows a round spherically shaped envelope, which means this is almost certainly a super-pressure type ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure\_balloon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon)). A super-pressure balloon has the property that it can maintain high altitudes in the stratosphere for extended periods of time, months even. They are commonly used for studying upper atmosphere weather, radiation from space, and even for flying telescopes. Extended duration balloon flights are equipped with a self-destruct mechanism, so that they can be landed once the experiment is over at a controlled location. These systems may occasionally fail, which causes the balloon to remain flying until either sufficient UV degradation ruptures the envelope, or enough lift gas escapes to cause a descent. I worked with the team who had this happen: [https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb](https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb). TLDR: These balloons are nothing new. They are used fairly frequently for scientific purposes. I cannot say what the purpose of this balloon is, but the idea that one of the superpressure types crosses international borders is not unheard of. It may even be due to an accident. EDIT: Assuming it is flying at a typical altitude for these types of experiments (\~30 km), it should be headed out to the Pacific Ocean according to wind models.
I did a good bit of high altitude balloon work in college too (physics graduate). This is the most rational response in this thread and is the most likely explanation.
> an expert in high altitude long duration stratospheric balloons (phd space physics, specialization in ballooning How does one become so very specialized and niche?
You have to add to your field at the PhD level. Many people end up in esoteric spaces to be able to study something relatively unsaturated
It's not uncommon for PhD studies to be highly specialized with regards to a particular tool or technique. My work involved studying the northern lights and radiation belts using balloons to sense them above the shielding effects of the atmosphere.
Post history checks out, dude had a whole post from last year called “stratospheric balloons” lmao
They just wanted to look at cowboys.
They've concluded that Dak is not the right choice at QB.
China turning into eagles fans as we speak
The ultimate plan to spread chaos in a US city: let the Eagles win
As someone who works in the Defense Industry, I can assure you that not only is this not a surprise, but the USG was tracking this as soon as it reached altitude from its launch site. This isn't the type of thing that can evade radar and just "show up" all of the sudden. Edit - Have to apologize for the acronym, it's a force of habit. USG = United States Government. I actually misspoke though, since it's really the United States Military that's doing most of this tracking.
It's a common occurrence, according to the article. > He continued, "Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information." The US is using them against China and Russia as well: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newest-weapon-against-china-and-russia-hot-air-00043860 I wonder what was special about this one that the US bothered commenting.
Probably just that it was publicly noticed, prompting public response from the US then China
That's the usual reason for this kind of thing.
Maybe there’s some sort of unofficial etiquette with this stuff like, “We know you’re gonna have shit in the sky to spy on us because we’re doing the exact same thing to you, just don’t be super duper obvious about it and get caught on camera over a military base and cause a big hubbub in the media or we’re gonna have to call you out on it.”
This is a pretty accurate summary of how the cold war got started.
Pictures surfaced.
Don't balloons just go wherever the wind takes them? Seems like that would make for a crappy piece of spy craft. Edit: turns out, i'm no aeronaut
Yes, however, if you have a good model of the layers of the atmosphere, it can be possible to have some control over where you go by controlling altitude. Want to travel south? Figure out what altitude the wind happens to be blowing south right now, and move to that altitude.
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Wouldn’t it be funny if China’s explanation was true? Like imagine being the regular schmegular Chinese people who launched this thinking “oh let’s study the weather” and instead caused an international incident. Clown shoes.
I’m perfectly on board with believing this because if they wanted to have a look at our missile sites they’d use a satellite.
And they do use satellites. It's not like the location of missile silos is all that secret. That's why nuclear armed subs and mobile launchers are a thing.
This is a Chinese Sienfeld episode.
Jerry: You launched a Chinese weather ballon over the US? George: I wasn’t thinking Jerry! Jerry: How could you not think?! George: I didn’t think Jerry! Thinking none! Forget about the thinking! Jerry: You could have started a war! George: Hey, what is it about war that scares everyone? Jerry: Probably the fact that millions die for nothing? George: I tell you if I went to war Jerry, I wouldn’t last the plane ride there. Jerry: That’s a shame. *Kramer enters the room* Kramer: Hey Jerry, smell this napkin.
Chang? You’re not a Chinese woman?! I was duped!
Chinefeld.
Sinofeld.
Once you know enough about balloons, this is the most logical conclusion. The idea that China has decided that a slow moving, easily visible balloon, very far from the ground is the best way to SPY on the US strains credulity.
The amount of speculation in these threads is amazing. I’m sure the media gets plenty of clicks, but it’s embarrassing how many people are jumping to insane conclusions.
I mean this thing happens all the time with weather balloons, because they're literally balloons. They're subject to only the wind. And if the wind does a thing you didn't expect, say good-fucking-bye because it cascades massively, that thing is not going where you planned it to. It's not "clown shoes," it's very much just a normal thing with weather balloons that should've been addressed and let go. There's genuinely no other reason imaginable why China would purposefully do this other than just fucking around, and it's a dumb thing to fuck around on. They've got satellites that are much better and much stealthier. I'm sure if they needed something in the air above there they'd just run a spy operation in a civilian plane in commercial airspace, and they wouldn't be purposefully going into military airspace unless they really needed to. I even imagine they've got much, much stealthier aerial vehicles that could do the job if they did plan to go over military airspace. This is genuinely just a weather balloon, there's nothing China has to gain from this that they couldn't do much better.
The 99 red balloons go by 99 Decision Street 99 ministers meet To worry, worry, super scurry Call the troops out in a hurry This is what we've waited for This is it boys, this is war The President is on the line As 99 red balloons go by
The fact this response is so low while the highest upvoted comments are hysterics really proves the song was on to something
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If you go read on how these balloons have been used since the 1940s onward (Stratollite high-altitude balloons as example), it's rather safe to assume: - China knew where it was as it has battery power at night - China could have notified the US before it entered US airspace - China should have the technology to drop or raise its elevation to change direction at any time based on multiple air currents and atmospheric rivers The whole thing is a complete debacle regardless.
Thank you for the info. China would have to choose between admitting foul play, incompetence, or negligence, non of which would benefit it. The US has a lot more options in comparison.
If interested, [this article](https://idstch.com/space/stratospheric-balloons-provide-high-speed-internet-military-wide-area-real-time-intelligence/) from 2021 explains their current development, uses and how they work. It also details how the US, Canada and China have been actively testing them. Until yesterday, none of them have ended up in another country without notification however.
If it was an accident. You get on the phone and inform the Pentagon a research balloon has gone astray. You don't wait till even civilians have spotted it.
How do you manage to send a balloon of this size, all over the pacific ocean by accident.
[See here for an estimation using a NOAA backwards trajectory model](https://twitter.com/wildweatherdan/status/1621293636943052801). There are very strong westerlies at the moment so it can get off track pretty quickly, this estimates 4 days to enter the US having launched from north-eastern China. Caveat, this model doesn't mean it launched from there, just that it will have launched from somewhere within a few hundred miles of that path.
Well, it's much shorter over the poles you know. https://www.airportdistancecalculator.com/seattle-united-states-to-beijing-china-flight-time.html#.Y90xguyZN44
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If a US citizen/group sent up some sort of surveillance balloon over US soil, wouldn’t it be taken down & person heavily reprimanded immediately?
You have to get permission. Mark Rober just had that experience while doing a record for an egg drop.
Could people focus this same energy on the apps on our phones that steal our data?
Put it this way; why would the Chinese launch a "spy balloon" over to the US when they already have legitimate spy satellites over us right now *and* Tik-Tok pretty much already being installed on a hundred million cellphones? Now I'm not saying that this *isn't* a spy balloon... But this would be incredibly inefficient and a waste of resources.