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

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Chinese balloon!

Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai

They shot down a Unidentified Flying Object

*An

If you wanna get all cyrille about it

Good to hear the very brave pilot of the F22 Raptor got an award for his heroism in shooting down a Chinese balloon.

He was absolutely fearless.

Originally Posted by Iceman123

Good to hear the very brave pilot of the F22 Raptor got an award for his heroism in shooting down a Chinese balloon.

He was absolutely fearless.

Balloons aren't allowed on the BTS so must be quite dangerous...

Originally Posted by armstrong

Balloons aren't allowed on the BTS

How is Snubby going to get around Bangkok when he comes for his vacation?

'Unidentified object' downed over Lake Huron, 3rd this week

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday on orders from President Joe Biden, believed to be the same one tracked over Montana and monitored by the government beginning the night before, the Pentagon said.


It was the fourth object shot out of the sky by U.S. fighter jets in eight days, along with ones over Alaska and Canada and a suspected Chinese spy balloon. Pentagon officials have said they don’t know when the last shootdown of an unknown or unauthorized object over U.S. territory occurred before this spate of incidents.


U.S. authorities have made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them. But the unusually assertive response was raising questions about whether such use of force was warranted, particularly as administration officials said the objects were not of great national security concern and the downings were just out of caution.


The extraordinary air defense activity began in late January, when a white orb the officials said was from China appeared over the U.S. and hovered above the nation for days before fighter jets downed it off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That event played out over livestream. Since, then many Americans have been captivated by the drama playing out in the skies as fighter jets scramble to shoot down objects.


The latest brought down was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana, but it was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was going over Lake Huron, according to U.S. officials, who had knowledge of the downings and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operations.


U.S. and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object. It was octagonal, with strings hanging off, but had no discernable payload. It was flying low at about 20,000 feet, according to one of the officials.


Meanwhile, U.S. officials were still trying to precisely identify two other objects shot down by F-22 fighter jets, and were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalated about what Washington said was Beijing's large-scale aerial surveillance program.


An object shot down Saturday over Canada's Yukon was described by U.S. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the balloon — the size of three school buses — hit by a missile Feb. 4. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.


Both were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin.


The three objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike.


The officials said the other three objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.


Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that U.S. officials were working quickly to recover debris. Using shorthand to describe the objects as balloons, he said U.S military and intelligence officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information, then compiling a comprehensive analysis.


“The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the spy program that the administration has linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”


Eight days ago, F-22 jets downed the large white balloon that had wafted over the U.S. for days at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. U.S. officials immediately blamed China, saying the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals and could maneuver itself. White House officials said improved surveillance capabilities helped detect it.


China's Foreign Ministry said the unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course. Beijing said the U.S. had “overreacted” by shooting it down.


Then, on Friday, North American Aerospace Defense Command, the combined U.S.-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected and shot down an object near sparsely populated Deadhorse, Alaska.


Later that evening, NORAD detected a second object, flying at a high altitude over Alaska, U.S. officials said. It crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday and was over the Yukon, a remote territory, when it was ordered shot down by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.


In both of those incidents, the objects were flying at roughly 40,000 feet. The object on Sunday was flying at 20,000 feet.


The cases have increased diplomatic tensions between the United States and China, raised questions about the extent of Beijing’s American surveillance, and prompted days of criticism from Republican lawmakers about the administration’s response.


Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the administration was looking “somewhat trigger-happy.”


“Although that is certainly preferable to the permissive environment they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of most sensitive sites,” Turner, R-Ohio, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”


After the shootdown last weekend, Chinese officials said they reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”


Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, urged the administration to be as forthcoming as possible, saying the lack of solid information was fueling online speculation.


Himes said it was clear from briefings in recent years “that there is a lot of garbage up there” in the sky.


“The truth is that most of our sensors and most of what we were looking for didn’t look like balloons,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

'Unidentified object' downed over Lake Huron, 3rd this week

After the shootdown last weekend, Chinese officials said they reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”

Is there an international practice for spy balloons then?

Statement on Today's Actions by North American Aerospace Defense Command

Today at 2:42 p.m. ET, at the direction of President Biden, and based on the recommendations of Secretary Austin and military leadership, an F-16 fired an AIM9x to successfully shoot down an airborne object flying at approximately 20,000 feet altitude in U.S. airspace over Lake Huron in the State of Michigan. Its path and altitude raised concerns, including that it could be a hazard to civil aviation. The location chosen for this shoot down afforded us the opportunity to avoid impact to people on the ground while improving chances for debris recovery. There are no indications of any civilians hurt or otherwise affected. North American Aerospace Defense Command detected the object Sunday morning and has maintained visual and radar tracking of it. Based on its flight path and data we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive DOD sites. We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but assess it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities. Our team will now work to recover the object in an effort to learn more.

• White House: No indication objects were part of China spy program

The White House on Tuesday said that they don’t have an indication that the three objects shot down by the U.S. military over the weekend were part of China’s spy program, noting though the difficulties with recovering the debris.

“While we can’t definitively say, again without analyzing the debris, what these objects were, thus far — and I caveat that by saying thus far — we haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the [China’s] spy balloon program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” national security spokesman John Kirby said.

Officials have not been able to analyze the debris because getting access to them has been difficult, considering the tough conditions where they landed when they were shot down.

When asked if there’s a possibility that the debris may never be recovered, Kirby said, “I think we’re taking this day by day and doing the best we can to try to locate the debris and then develop a plan to recover it.”

__________

In other news……

• US intercepts four Russian warplanes near Alaska

The U.S. military said it intercepted four Russian warplanes near Alaska on Monday.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said it detected four Russian aircraft, including TU-95 BEAR-H bombers and SU-35 fighter aircraft, entering and operating within the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), according to a Tuesday statement from the command.

Originally Posted by Norton

^"Because such Russian activity happens so regularly — an average of six to seven intercepts of Kremlin military aircraft in the ADIZ annually since 2007 — it is “not seen as a threat, nor is the activity seen as provocative,” according to NORAD."

So really a common occurrence that suddenly becomes important to make the headlines.

I think he's talking about aircraft, not balloons. The Russians are always testing someones airspace. That's where the chinkies got the idea.

Why China has both spy balloons and spy satellites

Balloons have some advantages over satellites when it comes to surveillance, but also carry different risks — as Beijing recently learned when the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that flew into U.S. airspace earlier this month.

Why it matters: The U.S. and China are now embroiled in a deepening dispute over high-altitude balloons that is threatening to further derail the bilateral relationship.

Driving the news: China's foreign ministry on Monday accused the U.S. of sending high-altitude balloons "illegally" into Chinese airspace more than 10 times since last year.

• U.S. officials deny this. "Any claim that the U.S. government operates surveillance balloons over the PRC (People's Republic of China) is false," National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.

Between the lines: The paths of high-altitude balloons are largely governed by winds. As they climb through the troposphere — where most weather occurs — they're buffeted by west-to-east prevailing winds.

• Those winds make it relatively easy for China to launch balloons that would fly above the U.S., but much harder for the U.S. to fly balloons over China.
• "Where are you launching them from? That gets left out of this a lot," James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells Axios.
• "Taiwan? Winds don't blow that way. Korea? Winds don't blow that way. Japan? You could do it if you didn't mind a bunch of them going off course. You could do it, but I think the Chinese are either confused or making this up."

How it works: U.S. spy satellites were developed after high-altitude balloons and aircraft began to be targeted in enemy airspace.

• Satellites can provide exquisite imagery and collect signals — from communications systems and other technology — but they are relatively easy to track, even by amateurs on the ground.
• High-altitude balloons, however, can gather high-resolution images and signals, and fly in a part of airspace that make them relatively difficult to track. Balloons are also able to stay over one area for a longer time than a satellite.

Yes, but: The norms that govern spying in space and airspace, where high-altitude balloons fly, are different.

• The difference between orbit and airspace was established after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957.
• Sputnik "goes up and goes around and nobody objects — including the United States — to that overflight," the Secure World Foundation's Brian Weeden tells Axios. "That establishes precedent that satellites can go round and round and they have this freedom of overflight — that space is legally different than airspace."
• That means shooting down unknown foreign objects in a nation's airspace is tolerated today, whereas blowing up a spy satellite would likely be considered a huge escalation.

The U.S. and China have different strategies for their spy satellite networks.

• The U.S. has historically used a relatively small number of expensive, technically advanced satellites that take incredibly detailed images of Earth.
• China, meanwhile, has a more distributed network of spy satellites that aren't quite so exquisite in their imagery but it's a "good enough approach," Weeden says.
• The U.S. is interested in moving toward a more distributed spy satellite network, making it more resilient to attack and making the military less reliant on a small number of expensive satellites that could be appealing targets for jamming, dazzling and other interference.

The intrigue: The high-altitude balloon dispute may also call into question China's spy satellite capabilities, Lewis says.

• If the balloon shot down on Feb. 4 was collecting signals intelligence, it may mean China's spy satellites are limited in what information they can collect, he says.

What to watch: A big question looms over 21st century space-based defense about defining where airspace ends and space begins.

• Currently, there isn't a legal, accepted definition of where space begins and airspace ends internationally.
• Some nations "want to be able to exploit this gray zone between air and space," Weeden said, adding that's because these countries are conducting activities in that grey zone they don't want them to fall into either airspace or space.

If theses things are for scientific research why has no organization stepped up and claimed them?

Originally Posted by Norton

So really a common occurrence that suddenly becomes important to make the headlines.

Exactly. Very sad indeed.

Japanese news last night showed how many of these balloons from China have flown over Japan in the last few years. They had the days and times and routes. It isn’t like they have gone unnoticed, just not interfered with.

China vows to take countermeasures after US unveils blacklist

China said on Wednesday it will take countermeasures in accordance with the law against United States entities that have undermined its sovereignty and security, after Washington blacklisted six Chinese companies and institutions.


Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin announced the decision at a regular news briefing in Beijing, saying that China will resolutely safeguard its national sovereignty and legitimate rights and interests.


After an unmanned Chinese civilian airship accidentally entered US airspace earlier this month, China has repeatedly explained that it was purely an unintended, unexpected and isolated event.


"However, the US has escalated the situation by using force in apparent overreaction to the incident and even used it as a pretext to illegally sanction Chinese companies and institutions. China is strongly opposed to this," Wang said.


According to the spokesman, while the US cited the entry of the Chinese airship as a violation of its sovereignty, it said nothing about the more than 10 overflights of its own high-altitude balloons in China without permission, including in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and the Tibet autonomous region.


However, the US government sought to deny that these flights took place. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed on Monday that there were no US surveillance aircraft in Chinese airspace.


Calling Washington's reaction "irresponsible", Wang said that the US needs to explain to China and the international community about its behavior by conducting serious investigations and verifications.


He urged Washington to stop smearing and attacking China and stop misleading the US public and the world.


Wang said that US officials have continued to hype up the situation and have described the Chinese airship as a threat, but remained silent about domestic incidents such as the toxic chemical leak caused by a recent train derailment in Ohio.


"We cannot help but ask who is actually trying to deflect people's attention by overreacting to the Chinese airship. I believe the answer is clear to all of us," he said.


The spokesman also hit back at the Japanese government's groundless accusations against China regarding objects that flew over Japan's airspace in recent years.


"As a responsible country, China strictly adheres to international law and respects all countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity. Without conclusive evidence, Japan is making up stories to smear and attack China. We are firmly opposed to this," Wang said.


Japan should be objective and refrain from following the US in hyping up the incident, he added.

China vows to take countermeasures after US unveils blacklist - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

^ I have to laugh. There are photographs citizens took of these objects which flew over Japan.

Can you actually believe a superpower like the USA can get so hyped up about friggin' air balloons. Were they filled with phosgene or something?
It would have been so much more elegant and humorous to publicly track the dirigible on the internet, compleat with photos- and take the piss out of China.
But oh no, with all the bad news around slow Joe had to be the 'tough guy', and now it's you that are the laughing stock and ya look like a bunch of pussies.

Originally Posted by sabang

Can you actually believe a superpower like the USA can get so hyped up about friggin' air balloons. Were they filled with phosgene or something?
It would have been so much more elegant and humorous to publicly track the dirigible on the internet, compleat with photos- and take the piss out of China.
But oh no, with all the bad news around slow Joe had to be the 'tough guy', and now it's you that are the laughing stock and ya look like a bunch of pussies.

Why are the chinky whiners so upset at them being shot down then?

Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF

A small, globe-trotting balloon declared “missing in action” by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on Feb. 15 has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by U.S. Air Force fighters since Feb. 10.


The club—the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB)—is not pointing fingers yet.


But the circumstantial evidence is at least intriguing. The club’s silver-coated, party-style, “pico balloon” reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and a popular forecasting tool—the HYSPLIT model provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—projected the cylindrically shaped object would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11. That is the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same general area.


There are suspicions among other prominent members of the small, pico-ballooning enthusiasts’ community, which combines ham radio and high-altitude ballooning into a single, relatively affordable hobby.


“I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), a Silicon Valley company that makes purpose-built pico balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists.


The descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down Feb. 10-12 match the shapes, altitudes and payloads of the small pico balloons, which can usually be purchased for $12-180 each, depending on the type.


“I’m guessing probably they were pico balloons,” said Tom Medlin, a retired FedEx engineer and co-host of the Amateur Radio Roundtable show. Merlin has three pico balloons in flight in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.


Aviation Week contacted a host of government agencies, including the FBI, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Security Council (NSC) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for comment about the possibility of pico balloons. The NSC did not respond to repeated requests. The FBI and OSD did not acknowledge that harmless pico balloons are being considered as possible identities for the mystery objects shot down by the Air Force.


“I have no update for you from NORAD on these objects,” a NORAD spokesman says.


On Feb. 15, NSC spokesman John Kirby told reporters all three objects “could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose,” but he did not mention the possibility of pico balloons.


Launching high-altitude, circumnavigational pico balloons has emerged only within the past decade. Meadows and his son Lee discovered it was possible to calculate the amount of helium gas necessary to make a common latex balloon neutrally buoyant at altitudes above 43,000 ft. The balloons carry an 11-gram tracker on a tether, along with HF and VHF/UHF antennas to update their positions to ham radio receivers around the world. At any given moment, several dozen such balloons are aloft, with some circling the globe several times before they malfunction or fail for other reasons. The launch teams seldom recover their balloons.


The balloons can come in several forms. Some enthusiasts still use common, Mylar party balloons, with a set of published calculations to determine the amount of gas to inject. But the round-shaped Mylar balloons often are unable to ascend higher than 20,000-30,000 ft., so some pico balloonists have upgraded to different materials.


Medlin says he uses a foil balloon sold by Japanese company Yokohama for $12. The material has proven to be resilient for long periods at high altitude, he says, even if the manufacturer never intended the balloon to be used for that purpose. An alternative is Meadows’ SBS, which makes a series of balloons designed specially for circumnavigational flights.


The pico-ballooning community is nervous about the negative attention by some members of Congress and the White House, who have called the objects shot down at altitudes of 20,000-40,000 ft. dangerous to civil aviation.


“We did assess that their altitudes were considerably lower than the Chinese high-altitude balloon and did pose a threat to civilian commercial air traffic,” Kirby says. “And while we have no specific reason to suspect that they were conducting surveillance of any kind, we couldn’t rule that out.”


In fact, the pico balloons weigh less than 6 lb. and therefore are exempt from most FAA airspace restrictions, Meadows and Medlin said. Three countries—North Korea, Yemen and the UK[at]—restrict transmissions from balloons in their airspace, so the community has integrated geofencing software into the tracking devices. The balloons still overfly the countries, but do not transmit their positions over their airspace.


The community is also nervous that their balloons could be shot down next. Medlin says one of his balloons—call sign W5KUB-112—is projected by HYSPLIT to enter U.S. airspace on Feb. 17. It already circumnavigated the globe several times, but its trajectory last carried the object over China before it will enter either Mexican or U.S. airspace.


“I hope,” Medlin said, “that in the next few days when that happens we’re not real trigger-happy and start shooting down everything.”

Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF | Aviation Week Network

Originally Posted by misskit

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

Big deal only because mainstream media are all over it which in turn has made for a big political football. So now Joe is shooting down anything to keep the Republicans from calling him weak.

Bottom line, not a big deal at all!

Maybe it is a big deal to these guys-

the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade