I’ve been kind of obsessed with THIS story ever since Friday’s press meeting with the Pentagon guy who told everyone there was a spy balloon then didn’t give us much else to work with. Then the next day they shoot it out of the sky. And now, with no surprise, they’re saying they probably won’t recover anything of value to tell us anything. Almost seems like they couldn’t ignore it, so now they may as well use it as yet one more reason to plunge us into WWIII. We’ll see.
Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I’ll save my rants for later and give everyone else a chance to jump in (I can’t access Prongs from work anyway).
Who sends a ginormous fuckin balloon to spy? I thought the whole idea behind spying was to be covert. What’s more OVERT than a giant fucking balloon? How did we not see that shit slowly moving at us since launch? What do I know? Apparently shit was in wyoming looking at our nukes… I read there was another one in Brazil? Is it an over reaction? Is it even chinese? Who even knows. Maybe it’s everything they said it was. Is China claiming it?
I do wonder why they destroyed it and didn’t just pop it, so they could get at what it was carrying. but this has really been off my radar.
They’ve done it before, I’m sure they’ll do it again. I don’t have a citation at the moment, but one of the news shows said it happened when Trump was in office, only he didn’t even bother to shoot it down for whatever reason.
Probably just some “bored rich guy with a stupid hobby” type hoaxes.
The Chinese DID claim it was theirs, but just said it was a weather balloon that floated off course. And now they’re making funny vague threats about retaliation. . . kinda like they did when Pelosi flew to Taiwan last year.
If it was a weather balloon that floated off course (like anyone can control a balloon in the wind) why didn’t they alert us. “Hey, man our ballon got loose should be in your yard any day now. Just a heads up)
So, china is mad we popped their balloon? Launch another one and keep it in your yard this time. Who fuckin cares? Im with Acid on this one too. Much ado about nothing.
I’m not really clear about some of the “other” balloons. Apparently there were 3 that went cruising over the US during Trump’s administration but we didn’t KNOW about it until recently. I don’t know if that is from going back to review data or what. It is funny that there’s all this chest-pumping with Dems vs. Republicans about who would’ve done what and everyone playing couch quarterback. I think it’s something that’s been going on for a long time, and we probably sometimes have a strategic advantage in letting a “spy balloon” just hang out somewhere so we don’t let the other party know what we know or something. And we may learn more about them by watching what they are watching.
Just because we learn of a spy or spy device doesn’t mean we need to immediately blow it up. But I think priorities change when the public starts screaming about it. The last thing the government wants is transparency.
So, yeah, I think this was largely theatrical for our own people. I mean, we sent one of our most powerful advanced planes to shoot a fucking missile at it, hahahaha. I’m not a military expert, but it does seem comically overkill to me.
I think, though by no means positive, an F22 Raptor was used to shoot down the balloon. The balloon was something like 60K ft altitude. The only thing we have that can fly and maneuver at that height is the F22. I suspect that’s why an advanced aircraft was used. While the F22 does have a gatling gun on board, a missile is safer for the pilot as you can engage at a greater distance.
You may be right. I do remember reading some articles about the supposed “challenges” of dealing with the balloon and the altitude was a big concern, which I’m sure was at least a factor in airplane selection. Still pretty funny to me. I can only imagine how many times that pilot is going to tell the story at bars and such, trying to get some poon by telling girls how he saved our country from the balloon, hahaha.
And this is how all these dumb conspiracies get started. Something weird happens, the government is cagey about the details and people read way too much into it. I watched the press briefing yesterday, and it was absurd. This military guy came out and answered every question the same way. You could tell he was coached to only reply with a specific sentence. “It posed a clear and credible threat to civilian air travel” blah blah blah. It was like something out of Idiocracy.
Exactly! They’re cagey as fuck and 95% of what they tell us is complete horseshit so people are left to fill in the blanks. And as cockamamie as our “theories” may be, they’re still more accurate than the garbage we get spooned by so-called official sources, so it hardly even matters anymore.
@Gunnar I can’t imagine you’re much of a Bill Maher fan, but the below clip is from this week’s show. He interviews a former NSA and Counterterrorism expert. They talk mostly about Ukraine, but towards the end, Bill asks him about this balloon business and the guy shared his insight. Thought you might be interested.
Edit: Never mind, for some dumb reason, they cut off the balloon talk at the end. So stupid.
I actually like Bill Maher. I really only get him in smallish YouTube packets, but I’ve been following him kind of regularly for about 3-4 years. I’ll check out the clip when I get a chance. Thanks!