Did the CCP just float an HEMP "trial balloon?"

[nobody's_hero]

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/stat...01525193080832

I'm underwhelmed honestly I thought he could come up with something snarkier than that. not that anyone should care what that relic from the Bush era has to say anyway.

The biggest threat to the US from China is the amount of debt we owe them. It's just ridiculous to see politicians freaking out about a balloon when we all know that they'll be on their knees sucking China's d*** tomorrow anyway.

[Dr.3D]

Did you just call something that came out of a full-on communist country "civilian"?

Well, it was just a friendly "civilian" spy balloon, comrade.

[Anti Globalist]

If this balloon had Trump 2024 written all over it, I bet it would have been shot down immediately.

[69360]

Apparently the balloon is the first and only confirmed air to air kill for the F22. Only in the US does it take billions of tax dollars to pop a balloon.

[DamianTV]

How much does one of these HEMP weapons weigh?

Is it realistic to have a balloon carry it as a payload?

Very realistic. The thing was the size of several football fields, accordingly. Thus, multiple nukes, EMP's or other types of weapons could be unleashed on the public by the CCP to force the US govt to surrender to China. At this point, I think if the chinese aimed a Zagnut Bar at a teddy bear hidden in a coat pocket, Joe Biden would surrender to that level of threat just as easily.

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/statu...70060638375937

[acptulsa]

[nobody's_hero]

How long before North Korea starts testing balloons that repeatedly crash into the Sea of Japan?

[nobody's_hero]

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/statu...70060638375937

Naturally that's what I assumed as soon as people started saying this also happened under Trump. If the media had suspected any inkling of weakness from Trump, they would have pounced on it. Kinda late to be spreading these rumors now.

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/statu...70060638375937

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/05/polit...ion/index.html

[Occam's Banana]

[Brian4Liberty]

Boomers are going boom thinking we live in the 1930s-40s as if China does not have advanced satellite, drone and other technology or even using publicly available data making it unnecessary to float obvious ballons.

A slow moving balloon at a much lower altitude can gather better intel than a high, fast moving satellite.

Politically the boomer morons are calling out Biden, despite that Trump allowed the ballons to cross into our airspace 3 times under his watch.

That is being disputed. Do you have any links on these flyovers during the Trump Admin?

What is this world coming to that I'm agreeing with kahless ... every time I think that Clown World can't out-do itself ... it does...

Do you believe MSM reports that this happened under Trump? Or do you believe Trump officials that deny it? Who has a link to a story about these balloons flying over the entire nation during Trump, or any other President?

...
These balloon fly overs are not unusual however usually planned and regularly noted in the news media. Amazing how short peoples memories can be considering not too long ago this watching for Russian balloons was in the news cycle with where and when to spot them.

Help us with our short memories. Post some links to old stories about this.

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/statu...70060638375937

Are Richard Grenell and John Ratcliffe lying about this, or was the liar a DNC MSM report using the infamous "anonymous official" as a source?

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/s...56820277620736

https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/stat...59489863880704

[acptulsa]

https://twitter.com/EfhaasC/status/1622604105712644097

[Brian4Liberty]

Interesting speculation...

Chinese ALTA Balloon Program

For a few years now DARPA has been playing with a concept for high altitude surveillance balloons using a technology called “Strat-OAWL.” Balloons have been fielded for centuries as surveillance weapons, but unpredictable wind and atmospheric changes push the balloons around, making them useless within a coupe of days for any specific region.

To break it down simply, Strat-OAWL is the experimental use of lasers to read wind speed and direction far ahead of a balloon. The balloon then uses that data to increase or decrease altitude to ride airstreams in whatever directing the military wants the balloon to go. This could allow increased navigational control, but the Holy Grail that DARPA seeks is a high alt balloon that can stay in one place indefinitely.

I find this idea impractical, like most DARPA projects, if only because wind currents can change faster than any balloon can adjust altitude, but I do see the potential uses here. The Chinese could unleash hundreds of high flying spy balloons with similar capabilities to spy satellites at a fraction of the cost and with less risk of destruction by enemy fire. The CCP may be attempting to test their own version of the DARPA directional balloon tech, while also waiting to see if the US has the means to shoot down the devices.

Lidar Observation From A Balloon Platform

The Chinese have been messing with lidar technology a lot lately. Lidar uses pulsed lasers to measure small variations in terrain to uncover hidden shapes and structures. It also has a knack for cutting through forest canopy and other obstructions. The problem with lidar is that the platforms commonly used to carry the apparatus are faster moving and only capture a snapshot in time. Also, it cannot see through thick clouds, dust, rain, snow or fog.

NASA and DARPA have both been testing lidar from balloons as a means to keep the lasers in the sky longer above a specific area. The Chinese balloon also looks somewhat similar to the equipment used on European lidar balloon experiments.

A lidar based spy balloon would explain Chinese interest in Eastern Montana, where there are numerous known nuclear missile silos as well as suspected hidden silos. The Chinese balloon did in fact come near at least one known nuclear missile base near Billings. Lidar could be exploited to find hidden bases in the region.

Multispectral Imaging

Much like Lidar, multispectral imaging tech is highly dependent on the platform that it is mounted on. MI is used to measure wavelengths of light that are not visible to the human eye and it is tested in many scientific applications. However, there are military applications, including using MI to discover hidden variations in terrain that do not match the surrounding environment. In other words, its meant to sniff out camouflaged buildings, vehicles, fighting positions, etc.

China launched two satellites for multispectral imaging in 2019 and may now be trying to test the same equipment on balloons. It’s hard to say if they are looking for a unique target, or if they are just establishing baseline image maps to be used in the future for…who knows?

Weapons Delivery Platform

High altitude balloons are cheap and relatively effective surveillance platforms that can be used much like satellites but, with the right equipment, could become far more maneuverable. With the CCP’s limited resources it makes sense that they would be utilizing low-cost and low visibility measures instead of expensive and easier to target long range drones or spy planes.

However, these systems are not just useful for observation – They can also be used to deliver weapons packages, including EMP weapons, nuclear weapons and biological agents. The US has been testing balloons for nuclear delivery ever since Operation Yucca in 1956.

In the event of war between China and the US, the CCP may be looking for a way to strike with weapons of mass destruction with a passive delivery system that’s hard to defend against.
...
https://alt-market.us/chinese-spy-ba...tude-invasion/

[ClaytonB]

Do you believe MSM reports that this happened under Trump? Or do you believe Trump officials that deny it? Who has a link to a story about these balloons flying over the entire nation during Trump, or any other President?

I should have been more precise -- I'm agreeing with kahless that this is a tempest-in-a-teapot, yet another Wag-the-Dog distraction from whatever stunt the crooks in DC were pulling during the days that the balloon was national news. If Trump had allowed balloons over the continental US, Pelosi would have been screeching her lungs out from that day to this about it, so that's an obvious lie. When the MSMBS says, "LOOK HERE", I look everywhere EXCEPT where they're telling us all to look. If something has recently changed in the MSMBS, and they're actually covering real news stories, and this balloon just happens to be the first real news story they've reported on since... oh, idk, 9/11... then oops, sorry, my cynicism got the better of me after more than two decades of being fully justified 100% of the time. But this news story has every mark of boilerplate, Wag-the-Dog propaganda. If I am shown the relevant facts as to why this is not just another propaganda stunt, I'll change my mind. Until then, chuck it in the $#@!et-bucket with all the rest of the Fake News lies...

[nobody's_hero]

Interesting speculation...

I know not which weapons WWIII will be fought with, but WWIV will be fought with balloons.

[devil21]

A nuke detonated at high altitude over the US would take down the power grid for more than a few days. We are extremely vulnerable to EMP. Life as you know it would cease to exist for months at the minimum. No cell phones, no internet, nocars, no heating. Millions would die by each others hand in the intitial chaos and then millions more would freeze and starve.

You're probably right but is also why I said that any such occurrence could be a psyop, not the real deal. They can use smart meters to shut off power and remote kill switches in cars to screw with enough people to cause a panic. If it were to only last long enough to panic people but not create a long term outage, that's a big clue it's a psyop, not the real deal. Any way, just passing along something I specifically remember from a handle that seemed to "know things".

[acptulsa]

I'm still trying to figure out why no one noticed them during the Trump years.

They made them orange in his honor, and people thought they were the sun?

Biden was able to negate their Romulan cloaking devices?

There were always clouds in the sky during the Trump years?

[Anti Globalist]

I'm curious as to why Democrats didn't speak up about these supposedly 3 CCP weather balloons in the four years Trump was in office. Surely they would have made the news cycle at some point.

[Brian4Liberty]

I'm still trying to figure out why no one noticed them during the Trump years.

They made them orange in his honor, and people thought they were the sun?

Biden was able to negate their Romulan cloaking devices?

There were always clouds in the sky during the Trump years?

I'm curious as to why Democrats didn't speak up about these supposedly 3 CCP weather balloons in the four years Trump was in office. Surely they would have made the news cycle at some point.

It seems that the narrative at this point is that "they flew over us before, but NORAD didn't detect them, nobody told anyone in the Trump Administration, there were no executive briefings, the story never came out, but trust us, it happened, even though no one saw them."

[Brian4Liberty]

Tucker Rips Biden Admin For Claiming Chinese Spy Balloon 'Posed No Threat'

[kahless]

A slow moving balloon at a much lower altitude can gather better intel than a high, fast moving satellite.



That is being disputed. Do you have any links on these flyovers during the Trump Admin?



Do you believe MSM reports that this happened under Trump? Or do you believe Trump officials that deny it? Who has a link to a story about these balloons flying over the entire nation during Trump, or any other President?



Help us with our short memories. Post some links to old stories about this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnov...ffice-too/amp/

Some of the old stuff will take some digging but I clearly remember following a number of sites that tracked particularly the Russian balloon fly overs under the open skies agreement. I thought we discussed it here as well. It was not a big deal politically at the time so the discussion were focused on the policy and the trajectory - how to spot them.

I am surprised no one else can remember this or maybe selective forgetting to protect to whomever their political god is. This Russian fly overs did make the fear news cycle briefly before some other boogey man took it's place.

Are Richard Grenell and John Ratcliffe lying about this, or was the liar a DNC MSM report using the infamous "anonymous official" as a source?

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/s...56820277620736

https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/stat...59489863880704

Upgraded Russian SPY PLANE makes maiden flight over US nuclear & military sites – report
https://www.rt.com/news/457679-russian-spy-plane-us/

A Russian Tu-214ON spy plane has reportedly made a reconnaissance tour over the southwestern US, taking a glimpse at an array of military bases as well as nuclear and chemical weapons depots as part of the Open Skies treaty.

The Drive reported, citing FlightRadar 24 tracking service data, that the newest version of the Tu-214 observation aircraft graced US skies after taking off from Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph, Missouri on Thursday.

The flight reportedly lasted six hours and saw the surveillance aircraft fly over a series of US defense and storage facilities scattered over the territory of West Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. The plane is reported to have flown over the Kirtland Air Force Base, which hosts the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and functions as a nuclear storage site. In Colorado, the plane passed over the Pueblo Chemical Depot, one of the last two sites in the US with chemical munitions and materials.

The flight itself had been authorized by the US under the Treaty on Open Skies, which allows its signatories to conduct short inspections of each other’s territory. The treaty was signed in 1992, but did not come into force until 2002. The US and Russia are among its 34 members.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the details of the mission. Earlier, Sergey Ryzhkov, head of the Russian Center for Reduction of Nuclear Threat, announced that the Tu-214ON would be conducting surveillance from Missouri Airport between 22 April and April 27. Under the treaty, the flight has to be monitored by US specialists on board the plane.

Washington eventually greenlighted the Tu-214ON flyover after initially refusing to certify the Russian “spy eye,” claiming that its digital surveillance equipment was more advanced than Moscow had declared and might manipulate digital data. After some back-and-forth, the US approved the plane for the flights over its territory in September last year.

Tu-214ON is an updated version of the regular Tu-214. Its cockpit can fit two more people, which allowed the manufacturer to install more modern electronics. Its range has increased to a reported 6,500km (4,040 miles). The aircraft boasts three sensor arrays that include a digital photo camera, an infrared camera, and a TV camera complete with a sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar.

Russia BOASTS of successful spy mission over US nuclear sites
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/11...uclear-weapons

Despite being reluctant, Donald Trump’s administration gave Russia the green light on the Tu-214ON flyover after initially refusing to approve the Russian “spy eye”.

[vita3]

Fascinating post Kahless

[Philhelm]

What if they have a biological payload on the balloon? Shoot it down and it releases a newly created virus...

They obviously don't need balloons that though.

[nobody's_hero]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnov...ffice-too/amp/

Trump himself posted a video to Twitter yesterday, rambling about how the University of Pennsylvania might be compromised by Chinese spies, an accusation for which he provided no evidence. Trump, a known liar and continued threat to the safety and security of the United States, also called for a the U.S. government to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon.

I do admit I at least appreciate the author wearing his bias on his shoulder.

It seems that the narrative at this point is that "they flew over us before, but NORAD didn't detect them, nobody told anyone in the Trump Administration, there were no executive briefings, the story never came out, but trust us, it happened, even though no one saw them."

In a nutshell. I'm curious to see if they can keep the story going. It's hard to tell a lie too long before it comes back onto you. Either:

1) The top brass knew about the balloons and failed to notify the president at the time, which is plausible since Mark Milley actually came out a while back and basically bragged that he worked to keep the president out of the information loop (see for example: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/mill...tion-lies.html )
2) They're lying now

Either way it makes them look bad, but luckily for them no one in this administration will hold them accountable so . . .

[acptulsa]

We're quoting Forbes, now? Oh, well, sounds like fun. By all means, let us explore just what it is that passes for "journalism" at Forbes these days...

Tucker Carlson has claimed on his FOX News show Tucker Carlson Tonight that there’s been “a near-total media blackout of this story.” But since there doesn’t seem to be any type of memo circulating to journalists telling them to not cover “this story,” let’s cover it now and see how much veritas it really has.

What’s “this story” that’s supposedly the subject of a media blackout according to Carlson? Well, Carlson has also tweeted the following about it: “Project Veritas just released an undercover video of a Pfizer executive bragging about how his company conducts Frankenstein science, manipulating COVID viruses for profit, and does it in secret, possibly in violation of federal law.”

Wow, a Pfizer exec bragging about “Frankenstein science?” That sounds like a monstrous revelation, doesn’t it? But before Carlson’s claim makes you sit bolt upright in your chair, keep in mind that this was Carlson who had said this. Yes, this was the Tucker Carlson whom John Oliver has called a “superspreader” of Covid-19 vaccine fears and doubts and a “scrunch-faced fear baboon,” as I covered on May 3, 2021, for Forbes. Now, to be fair, Carlson is not necessarily always “scrunch-faced.” He has also sported the “I’m concerned”, the “Whatcha talkin bout, Willis”, and the “I really have to go to the bathroom” facial expressions. But is there any truth to what Carlson has been claiming about this Project Veritas video or is it actually a hot air baboon situation?

Do they ever even pretend to objectivity?

[Occam's Banana]

Wow, a Pfizer exec bragging about “Frankenstein science?” That sounds like a monstrous revelation, doesn’t it? But before Carlson’s claim makes you sit bolt upright in your chair, keep in mind that this was Carlson who had said this. Yes, this was the Tucker Carlson whom John Oliver has called a “superspreader” of Covid-19 vaccine fears and doubts and a “scrunch-faced fear baboon,” as I covered on May 3, 2021, for Forbes. Now, to be fair, Carlson is not necessarily always “scrunch-faced.” He has also sported the “I’m concerned”, the “Whatcha talkin bout, Willis”, and the “I really have to go to the bathroom” facial expressions. But is there any truth to what Carlson has been claiming about this Project Veritas video or is it actually a hot air baboon situation?

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...51235045187589


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...24343321628688


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...79805201145858

[acptulsa]

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...51235045187589


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...24343321628688


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...79805201145858

I don't know how they could make it any more obvious that they don't inform, they just try to herd people like sheep dogs.

[Anti Federalist]

I should have been more precise -- I'm agreeing with kahless that this is a tempest-in-a-teapot, yet another Wag-the-Dog distraction from whatever stunt the crooks in DC were pulling during the days that the balloon was national news. If Trump had allowed balloons over the continental US, Pelosi would have been screeching her lungs out from that day to this about it, so that's an obvious lie. When the MSMBS says, "LOOK HERE", I look everywhere EXCEPT where they're telling us all to look. If something has recently changed in the MSMBS, and they're actually covering real news stories, and this balloon just happens to be the first real news story they've reported on since... oh, idk, 9/11... then oops, sorry, my cynicism got the better of me after more than two decades of being fully justified 100% of the time. But this news story has every mark of boilerplate, Wag-the-Dog propaganda. If I am shown the relevant facts as to why this is not just another propaganda stunt, I'll change my mind. Until then, chuck it in the $#@!et-bucket with all the rest of the Fake News lies...

Who's Jordan Walker?

That said, I think the legitimate concern here is not all the blather from the Marxist media organs, but rather why did the nation's multi trillion dollar "defense" complex stand down and dither with its dick while this thing gathered whatever intel the communist Chinese were looking for.

We all know the answer but maybe Boobus will finally figure it out.

[kahless]

Who's Jordan Walker?

That said, I think the legitimate concern here is not all the blather from the Marxist media organs, but rather why did the nation's multi trillion dollar "defense" complex stand down and dither with its dick while this thing gathered whatever intel the communist Chinese were looking for.

We all know the answer but maybe Boobus will finally figure it out.

Perhaps they considered open skies negotiations and thought if approved they would have ended up with this intel anyway or Russia would and provide the intel to China.

If you think about it what were they really going to gleam from the balloons that they could not already get from other easily available online and on the ground sources. It is not like the US is in total lockdown to foreigners. We even let the Chinese buy up property around our military bases and other sensitive areas. Not saying it is right but it is what it is. Nothing in the news media is as they spin it.

Things will only turn around when people start to realize if an elite in the news media, politics or entertainment is talking it is usually a lie with an agenda. There are no good guys no matter how many promote and put their favorite Democrat or Republican on a pedistal as some supposed outsider that has the best interests of this country at heart.