Alleged Chinese Spy Balloon Hovering Over Montana
 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mon...enate-briefing

Montana’s Republican Senator Steve Daines sent a letter to the Department of Defense (DOD) demanding answers on the suspected Chinese spy balloon spotted above his state.

Daines sent a late letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday amid reports of the suspected surveillance balloon over U.S. airspace.

The Montana Republican called the high-altitude Chinese balloon a "concerning event" and told Austin that the "fact that this balloon was occupying Montana airspace creates significant concern that Malmstrom Air Force Base (AFB) and the United State’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fields are the targets of this intelligence gathering mission."

Daines wrote that given "the serious nature of the event," he is "requesting a full security briefing from the administration on this situation."

"It is vital to establish the flight path of this balloon, any compromised U.S. national security assets, and all telecom or IT infrastructure on the ground within the U.S. that this spy balloon was utilizing," the letter reads.

"As you know, Montana plays a vital national security role by housing nuclear missile silos at Malmstrom AFB," the senator continued.

"Given the increased hostility and destabilization around the globe aimed at the United States and our allies, I am alarmed by the fact that this spy balloon was able to infiltrate the airspace of our country and Montana," he added.

Well that's pretty concerning. Yikes.

And for some reason we're just letting it float along?

We’re too busy giving Ukraine billions of dollars and screaming at each other over gender ideology to notice foreign spy balloons floating above our country.

Pathetic and scary.

Reed Richards would be proud of this reaching.

The former is arguably not a distraction since the War in Ukraine is just as crucial to the Anti-Communist effort as internal security issues.

Well, what do you know? Trump was right. Again.

Nothing wrong with fighting communism both abroad and at home. There's plenty to go around, sadly.

So, while i'm not a fan of sending billions over too anyone, especially sketchy democrat billions.... The Ukraine did get invaded and are getting pummled. what's wrong with supporting them?

Mitch McConnel was calling for a debriefing and intel session on this and there are leftists whose commentary about that was that the balloon should open up and drop $#!( on McConnel. Dumbest generation of people to ever walk the Earth.

And we have such a clown-government in place, elected by clown-society that China is brazen enough to do this. There is. A Chinese. Asset. Flying over America. And we are observing it.

This was a message from China - there is no way they sent that thing over thinking that we wouldn't see it. And so, it was sent to send a message. And the modern-$#!(bag wants to use it as commentary about an aging Republican who believes it should be investigated.

Oh no. No no no. We noticed. And so it's clearly worse than that.

And next time it might not be just a spy-thing...
But, nah, hating on China is a "Sinophobia". And commies are nice guys. And rumors about China being a totalitarian genocidal state are just rumors. And...

Russia is not Communist. But you can blame current conditions on Communism, since the ultranationalism and obsession with money we see in Russia today is a counter reaction to 74 years of Communism (1917–1991).

I know. There was a period where the societal outcry over this would be huge. But now the widely public-facing part of our society is filled with the Power Rangers generation and younger who think this is a circus act that we should sit through, probably for the sake of "fairness to Chineese culture".

I am literally living in the society now where these people would stare doe-eyed at rockets landing on the U.S. and then complain about how it's not fair while we are utterly rocked to our core. Dumbest generation of people to ever walk the Earth. The kind of people the criminal smiles at and asks if they are okay while the knife goes in and out, in and out. But they'll complain more about being hit on or "mansplained to" than the criminal knifing them. Dumbest generation of people to ever walk the Earth. F'n cavemen had more sense.

Keep telling yourself that, see if it comes true.

Huh... from a certain angle, it kinda looks like Captain Hook's flying pirate ship in Disney's Peter Pan.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ph...f-6c71ed3dbf68

So what if this balloon leads to spreading Super CoVid in the air?

There have been rumors of people working on a new and improved CoVid.

Again... What is so important about this vaccine that they even want to create more pandemics to force people into taking them?

Simple. More sick people equals more money for Big Pharma.

China confirms balloon is theirs, as spokesperson claims it is civilian research airship

China To America:
Yeah. It's ours but it's a civilian science project, so don't worry about it over your country.

Every American @$$hole Younger than 40:
Oh cool. No sweat, we love your cultural contributions.

So hey, it's a civilian research balloon the size of three school buses in super high altitude that made a global journey. No problem at all. Hmmm. although -scratches chin- You'd figure that if it drifted off course they'd have told us about it in our airspace so as to avoid an international incident.

Just shoot the f*cking thing down and be done with it.

We should capture it.

But the truth is that anything is better than "just observing" a piece of spy tech as it surveys you. The only viable tactic for "just observing" it would be if we could direct significant misinformation to it and let the Chinese think they were successful.

Maybe that’s what they want. But they sure as hell don't want it destroyed.

Hmm so it's not about actually saving lives, you say?

Almost like big pharma doesn't have our best interest in mind. But that can't be true, can it? Lord Fauci and Big Daddy Biden are the good guys, aren't they?

Wouldn't that be a declaration of war?

What, shooting down an unidentified foreign aircraft that penetrated American airspace all the way to the Midwest unauthorized and for undisclosed reasons...? How?

Some would say that thing's current status is the declaration of war, on China's behalf.

For once, I have to rather agree, I’m rather surprised it hasn’t been blasted apart yet.

Though I guess shooting it down also requires timing to avoid negative impacts on the ground, so I can see why that still could be an issue and not an action taken immediately.


edit: Shame it couldn't have just been some wayward and harmless Chinese New Year balloon drifted this way on the wind, because that would just be hilarious, minus any air traffic concerns...

https://i.imgflip.com/2q63gq.jpg

No entry without permission

Apparently the reason it's still floating is because they don't want debris to injure people on the ground. But surely we've got a big net or something.

It is not a reaction - it is an extension of Soviet ideology.

So is this thing manned? Is there people in it?

Drifted on the wind across roughly 1/4 of the planet's circumference?

It's a balloon, wind will carry them, so no matter what degree of control they have over its direction, unless they inflated it on U.S. soil, that would be the case, yes. Prob especially some heavy duty surveillance thing meant to last a while.

Now my joke... I'd expect it to at least have lost some amount of its helium if that were the case, since some big "party" balloon isn't made to last as well. But at least something harmless would just be weirdly funny instead of this concerning crap.



Just wait until the thing is over enough open land and take it down so it isn't hurting anyone or anything.

I'm fighting the urge to ask "A wind-carried Chinese balloon? At this time of year? In this part of the country? Localized entirely over your military bases?" and I hope you appreciate how hard that is.

Anyway, the thing's clearly steerable, drifting balloons don't maintain, and then deliberately change, a straight trajectory and altitude. The news over here mentioned it coming in through Canadian airspace, how reliable is that?

Or the Great Lakes.

Post #17 brother.

The Technodrome forums. Where people talk at each other not with each other. :lol:

:P

As for shooting it down, I can't imagine that we don't have an energy weapon that could puncture it precisely and bring it down in a controlled manner - we are already lasing various targets like drones. On another note, sending a spy unit into another nation is act of war. Shooting down a foreign asset inside of your own territory is an act of self-defense.

On another note, if you "wait" to shoot it down once it's over a lake then it's already curated and likely disseminated via satellite the intelligence it was gathering. What you do is disable it immediately and if it's retrievable for intel that's even better. God sometimes I can't even fathom where some of you guys are coming from with some of this. Holy $#(.

Article I was looking at suggested it may have solar panels (some of those black marks in photos I guess?), though doesn't seem to have propellers or any obvious way of steering. If this golf ball-looking thing has anything built in for steering, it must be quite minimal that we can't pick it out in photos.

That could work, if can't get it down sooner over open parts of the Midwest. Provided winter storms don't make it a problem, in either case.

'Course if they can control the direction and can resist where wind takes it, it might be hard to force it to go that way.

But if you shoot you it down over a populated area, who knows what collateral damage might occur? Who knows for sure how that thing's built, what's inside it, etc? Could even kill someone. I'd rather risk losing a foreign spy craft and its data than civilian casualties.

What do you suppose the black structure halfway down its surface is?

That's the thing - that balloon could be equipped with spectrometers or other muon sensing equipment that penetrates into the ground and broadcasts to a satellite. That's why you don't chance it.

It's literally flying over where we keep nuclear assets. The current liberal-appointed Washington braintrust says that it can't see things of importance, but what if it's got ground penetrating sensors that can not only see ICBM launch sites but see within them?

"Oh the Chinese don't have that!" How do you know? That's the whole point - you don't chance it. This was a calling card test from China to see how far they can push the envelope.

There are a zillion ways to bring that balloon down - very likely more than we are aware of at this level. The government can hit things with shaped charges that can literally end the destruction of a building within inches of a target. You're gonna tell me that we can't shoot down a balloon so that it doesn't hit something in sparsely populated Montanna or Kansas City?

It looks like a solar array with a communication grid on it.

https://i.imgur.com/6Woqxzmm.jpg

I imagine the architecture to the immediate interior of the panels are various camera systems.

It was mentioned in an official press conference earlier today by our “intelligence” that the balloon does have some ability to maneuver. If that’s true then this thing is definitely more than it seems.

Anybody's guess, but along the bottom edge of the balloon it doesn't seem to fall off that edge like an object attached, it looks like it follows the shape of the balloon.

Some article suggested solar panels and maybe those black rectangles are what they were talking about. Maybe it has a system with that to keep itself inflated.


If weather conditions and location doesn't permit taking it down over land... well if anyone sees it, just be sure to flip them off. lol At least until it's blasted out of the sky over the Atlantic at the very latest.

Hope we do get that thing down. Even if it turned out to be of minimal concern, would be interesting to hear how it's rigged up mechanically.

It's possible that the solar array is articulated whereby each square-panel can also serve as an airfoil as well as an energy accumulator, giving the entire thing a degree of planned mobility.

On another note, you don't "steer" with "propellers". :roll: omfg

Second one reported crossing Latin America. Yeaaah...def starting to look less accidental.