Thread: Why the discovery of a Chinese balloon in US skies is such a big deal

Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai

Pickpockets usually work in pairs. One bumps into you, and while you are busy being mad at the person that bumped into you, the other one picks your pocket.
Could this be some of that?

Erm.... whatever floats your boat.

F-22 Safely Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon Off South Carolina Coast

President Joe Biden ordered the action on Wednesday, but it was delayed until the balloon was over water off the coast of South Carolina to ensure no Americans on the ground were harmed.

"The balloon, which was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above U.S. territorial waters," Austin said.

The action was taken in coordination and support of the Canadian government. "We thank Canada for its contribution to tracking and analysis of the balloon through [North American Aerospace Defense Command] as it transited North America," Austin said. "Today's deliberate and lawful action demonstrates that President Biden and his national security team will always put the safety and security of the American people first while responding effectively to the PRC's unacceptable violation of our sovereignty," Austin said referring to the Peoples Republic of China.

U.S. officials first detected the balloon and its payload on January 28 when it entered U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands. The balloon traversed Alaska, Canada and re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho. "President Biden asked the military to present options and on Wednesday President Biden gave his authorization to take down the Chinese surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to us civilians under the balloon's path," said a senior defense official speaking on background. "Military commanders determined that there was undue risk of debris causing harm to civilians while the balloon was overland."

An F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon.

The balloon fell approximately six miles off the coast in about 47 feet of water. No one was hurt.

Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon's collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese. The senior defense official said the recovery of the balloon will enable U.S. analysts to examine sensitive Chinese equipment. "I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us," the official said. "I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable."

The balloon did not pose a military or physical threat. Still its intrusion into American airspace over several days was an unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty. The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.

While Chinese officials admitted that the balloon was theirs, they said it was a runaway weather balloon. "The PRC has claimed publicly that the high-altitude balloon operating above the United States is a weather balloon that was blown off course. This is false," the official said. "This was a PRC surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposely traversed the United States and Canada, and we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites."

The mission now transitions to one of recovery. There are a number of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels establishing a security perimeter around the area where the balloon came to Earth. They are searching for debris, said a senior military official also speaking on background.

There is no estimate for how long the recovery mission will take, the military official said, but the fact that it came down in such a shallow area should make recovery "fairly easy".

The military official gave some detail of the engagement. The F-22 fired the Sidewinder at the balloon from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon at the time was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.

F-15 Eagles flying from Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, supported the F-22, as did tankers from multiple states including Oregon, Montana, South Carolina and North Carolina. Canadian forces also helped track the overflight of the balloon.

The Navy has deployed the destroyer USS Oscar Austin, the cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the USS Carter Hall, an amphibious landing ship in support of the effort.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

On Saturday, an F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon, which had floated southeastward across the United States.

a good use of a $216 million weapons platform if you ask me, I guess they were all out of BB guns.

^Our tax dollar hard at work

Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder - I can assure you this was not for civilian purposes. We are 100 percent clear about that.

Transcript

Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai

a good use of a $216 million weapons platform if you ask me, I guess they were all out of BB guns.

I expect Thailand will ask the Chinks to float a few over BKK so they can bolster their bid for an F22 to keep the skies safe

Originally Posted by malmomike77

I expect Thailand will ask the Chinks to float a few over BKK so they can bolster their bid for an F22 to keep the skies safe

I dont think you understand the connection between Thailand and China there Mike.

^ really? as usual you don't get it. At parties does someone have to follow you around explaining jokes and stuff But just for clarity i'm sure the raptor would never end up in a hangar with a chink maintenance team working on it.

^ you mean Japan, the Philippines, S/ Korea etc?

Originally Posted by OhOh

Which as the Chinese have stated, inclueds all it's islands and their UCAS defined marine boundaries.

Fuck what the chinkies have stated. They own chinkystan airspace. That's it.

US briefed 40 nations about China spy balloon

The United States held briefings in Washington and Beijing with foreign diplomats from 40 nations about the Chinese spy balloon that entered the US airspace in late January, a senior administration official and diplomats said on Tuesday.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Monday briefed nearly 150 foreign diplomats across 40 embassies, the official said, while in Beijing the US embassy gathered foreign diplomats on Monday and Tuesday to present US findings about the balloon.

“We want to make sure that we are sharing as much as we can with countries around the world who may also be susceptible to these types of operations,” the senior administration official said.

Sherman’s briefing was first reported by the Washington Post. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The appearance of the Chinese balloon over the United States last week caused political outrage in Washington and prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing that both countries had hoped would patch their frayed relations. Blinken would have arrived in Beijing on Sunday.

A US Air Force fighter jet shot down the balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, a week after it first entered US airspace.

China has said it was a weather balloon that had blown off course into US airspace and was an “unexpected, isolated incident”. It condemned the shoot-down and accused the United States of overreacting.

The State Department also sent US missions around the world information about the balloon incident to share with allies and partners, the official added.

In the briefings in Beijing, the United States presented information to demonstrate that the balloon, which entered US airspace in the last days of January and flew over US military sites, was not a weather research balloon as Beijing said but an airship that was used for espionage, said diplomats in Beijing who attended the discussions.

Washington said the balloon was controlled by the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army.

The diplomats at the Beijing briefing said they were told that the solar panels on the balloon meant that it needed more power than a weather balloon, and that its flight path did not conform with natural wind patterns. US officials have said the balloon was equipped with rudders and propellers.

“Based on the US briefing, our own understanding about such balloons and the fact that China has so far refused to name the company or entity that owns this balloon, we find it hard to believe it is a civilian weather balloon,” said a Beijing-based Asian defence diplomat.

The information was similar to what Pentagon has shared with reporters since the weekend, saying the balloons were part of a Chinese aerial fleet that has also violated the sovereignty of other countries.

The Washington Post reported that although analysts still don’t know the size of the balloon fleet, one US official said there have been “dozens” of missions since 2018 and that the balloons use technology provided by a private Chinese company.

Originally Posted by malmomike77

you mean Japan, the Philippines, S/ Korea etc?

They will do whatever the are told to do.

Originally Posted by OhOh

They will do whatever the are told to do.

Like let the US build bases on them.

*chortle*

Chinese spy balloon had antennas, solar panels

The Chinese balloon that traveled across the United States last week before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean had both antennas to collect communications and solar panels to power its sensors, a State Department official said Thursday.

The official said the balloon could collect communications signals and was part of a widespread operation from the Chinese military to conduct spying on more than 40 countries across five continents.

“We know these balloons are all part of a [People’s Republic of China] fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations,” they said.

The official said that high-resolution images that U.S. U-2 spy planes gathered while the balloon was still in the air showed it had intelligence capabilities much beyond what a weather balloon could conduct.

China has admitted that it owns the balloon but claims it was designed to conduct meteorological research, an assertion the U.S. has rejected.

The official said the multiple antennas that the balloon had were “likely capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” and that the solar panels were large enough to produce the power necessary to operate multiple intelligence collection sensors.

They said the U.S. is contacting the countries that have been the targets of the surveillance operations to inform them of China’s activities.

A top spokesperson for the Pentagon previously confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that the balloon was part of a larger surveillance operation that Beijing runs and that the U.S. knew of at least four Chinese balloons that had flown over some part of U.S. territory in the past.

The State Department official said the U.S. is “confident” that the company that made the balloon has direct ties to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. They added the company is an approved vendor of the military but did not identify it.

The official said the company advertises balloon products on its website and has videos from past flights of its balloons, which appear to have flown over the territory of the U.S. and its allies.

“The United States sent a clear message to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] that its violation of our sovereignty was unacceptable by shooting down the balloon, protecting our own sensitive intelligence, and maximizing our ability to track the balloon and recover the payload to get more information on the PRC’s program,” the official said.

They further said the U.S. will consider taking action against Chinese entities linked to the military that supported the balloon and “broader efforts” to address Beijing’s surveillance operations.

China has criticized the U.S. for its response to the balloon, saying that it is “irresponsible” and a demonstration of “information warfare” against Beijing.

The U.S. reportedly took action to limit the capabilities of the balloon while it was in the air before shooting it down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, stopping it from collecting U.S. communications.

US shoots down another ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska

The U.S. military on Friday took down an object flying over Alaskan airspace days after shooting down a Chinese spy balloon along the South Carolina coast, the White House confirmed.

John Kirby, a national security spokesperson for the White House, said the Defense Department was tracking a “high-altitude object” over Alaska at 40,000 feet that posed “a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.”

The object was shot down within the last hour at President Biden’s direction, Kirby said, and landed in U.S. waters.

“At the direction of the president of the United States, fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully took down a high-altitude airborne object off the northern coast of Alaska at 1:45 eastern standard time today within U.S. sovereign airspace over U.S. territorial water,” Pentagon press secretary Brig Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters in a separate briefing.

The government is still collecting information about the object, Kirby said. It is not yet known whether it was operated by another country or if it was privately or commercially owned. Kirby also would not say if the object was a balloon or another device.

“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” he told reporters.

“We don’t understand the full purpose. We don’t have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object,” he continued, adding that officials expect to be able to recover the debris.

Ryder said North American Aerospace Defense Command detected the object on ground radar on Thursday and sent up aircraft for further investigation, after which the decision to shoot it down was made.

Biden was briefed on the matter at that time, Kirby said.

The aircraft, an F-22 flying out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to take down the object, which was traveling at about 40,000 feet above ground in a northeasterly direction.

Given that the balloon was operating at an altitude that posed “a reasonable threat to civilian air traffic,” the president gave the order to take it down, Ryder said.

The decision to take down the object over Alaska comes six days after Biden directed the military to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon days after it was first discovered floating over the continental United States.

In that case, officials said they wanted to wait until the Chinese spy balloon was over water so that it did not pose a threat to people or property when it crashed down.

The U.S. does not yet know where the latest object originated from and was hesitant to refer to it as another balloon as it was “about the size of a small car,” nowhere near the size of the high-altitude surveillance balloon taken down off the coast of South Carolina.

Chinese spy balloon condemned by House resolution

House unanimously approves resolution condemning China for spy balloon

The House unanimously approved a resolution on Thursday condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a spy balloon over the continental U.S., labeling the situation “a brazen violation of United States sovereignty.”

The resolution — which cleared the chamber in a bipartisan 419-0 vote — came to the House floor five days after the U.S. shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast, intensifying tensions between Washington and Beijing.

“An event like this, Mr. Speaker, must not happen again. And it cannot go unanswered,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and sponsor of the measure, said on the House floor during debate Thursday.

“They only understand one thing and that is force, and that’s projecting power, and we need to project power and force and strength against the Chinese Communist Party,” he added. “They must understand that we do desire peace, but infringing upon our sovereignty leads us down a dangerous path. Our adversaries must believe that any future incursion into American airspace by a spy balloon or any other vehicle will be met with decisive force. And that is why the House should pass this resolution.”

Trudeau: US fighter shot down object over northern Canada

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that on his order a U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the U.S. took similar action over Alaska.


North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined U.S.-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, said it had detected an object flying at a high altitude over northern Canada. It wasn’t immediately clear how high up it was flying or what it was.


Trudeau said he also spoke with President Joe Biden, who himself ordered the downing of an unidentified object over remote Alaska on Friday.


A spokesman, Maj. Olivier Gallant, said both Canadian and U.S. jets operating as part of NORAD had been deployed. The jets were scrambled and it was a U.S. jet that shot it down.


F-22 fighter jets have now downed three objects in the airspace above the U.S. and Canada over seven days, a stunning development in the skies that is raising questions on just what, exactly, is hovering overhead and who has sent them.

At least one of the objects downed was believed to be a spy balloon from China, but the other two have not yet been identified. Trudeau said that Canadian forces would recover the wreckage for study.

The down came a day after White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said an object roughly the size of a small car was shot down in remote Alaska. Officials couldn’t say if it contained any surveillance equipment, where it came from or what purpose it had.


Kirby said it was shot down because it was flying at about 40,000 feet (13,000 meters) and posed a “reasonable threat” to the safety of civilian flights, not because of any knowledge that it was engaged in surveillance.


According to U.S. Northern Command, recovery operations continued Saturday on sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska.


In a statement, the Northern Command said there were no new details on what the object was. It said the Alaska Command and the Alaska National Guard, along with the FBI and local law enforcement, were conducting search and recovery.


“Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow, and limited daylight, are a factor in this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety,” the statement said.

Last Saturday, U.S. officials shot down a large white balloon off the coast of South Carolina.


The balloon was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said. The U.S. has said Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of countries across five continents in recent years, and it learned more about the balloon program after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina.


China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”


The Navy continued survey and recovery activities on the ocean floor off South Carolina, and the Coast Guard was providing security. Additional debris was pulled out Friday, and additional operations will continue as weather permits, Northern Command said.

Trudeau: US fighter shot down object over northern Canada | AP News

Originally Posted by misskit

U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over the Yukon,

They shot down a Unidentified Flying Object

Originally Posted by misskit

Trudeau: US fighter shot down object over northern Canada

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that on his order a U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the U.S. took similar action over Alaska.

Canada should announce that it wants to build a base or two in the Phillippines. That will have the chinkies spitting feathers.