Chinese reconnaissance balloon spotted over the United States

[mmckenna]

Wait until you guys hear about the capabilities of LEO satellites...

Hi I'm still here wondering what exactly this balloon can do that their satellites don't already. I asked that on the first page of this thread and have head many more people saying the same since.

Exactly.

But some people love to be outraged. It's a whole lifestyle for them.
It's kind of fun to watch them get wound up and spin out of control.

 

[Dog]

Hi I'm still here wondering what exactly this balloon can do that their satellites don't already. I asked that on the first page of this thread and have head many more people saying the same since.

What better way to test our response to an intruder in our air space than with an unassuming "weather balloon"? Just one example I can think of.

 

[N4KVL]

If these were conventional aircraft entering US airspace under 60k feet, F-22's would have been scrambled to intercept well before entering said airspace. It is well documented how well US airspace is protected and what the response will be.

Balloongate is uncharted territory. Short of getting hands on the thing and gas chromatography instruments to analyze, there really was no sure fire way of knowing exactly what potentially could be falling into the atmosphere upon just shooting the f***er down, especially with as much news coverage as this abnormally large version got over the past week. This is hardly the first of these things that has passed into US airspace in the past decade.

I'll be selling custom tinfoil-hats at Orlando Hamcation.

 

[Dog]

If these were conventional aircraft entering US airspace under 60k feet, F-22's would have been scrambled to intercept well before entering said airspace. It is well documented how well US airspace is protected and what the response will be.

Balloongate is uncharted territory. Short of getting hands on the thing and gas chromatography instruments to analyze, there really was no sure fire way of knowing exactly what potentially could be falling into the atmosphere upon just shooting the f***er down, especially with as much news coverage as this abnormally large version got over the past week. This is hardly the first of these things that has passed into US airspace in the past decade.

I'll be selling custom tinfoil-hats at Orlando Hamcation.

It came in over over Alaska wouldn't that be the best place to take it down? Maybe Canada as an aly could so something?

 

[natedawg1604]

A CNN article quotes a former intelligence official stating it could be picking up cell phone and radio traffic. How would it be monitoring cell phone traffic? I thought that stuff was encrypted. Are they breaking AES or something?

I'm also having a hard time seeing what radio traffic such a balloon would be looking for. Like Trunked military base talkgroups that aren't ENC? Why on earth would that be useful or interesting? I'm having a hard time seeing what radio traffic such a balloon would pick up that would be useful.

Maybe they're monitoring all of the military UHF band in hopes of finding analog FM stuff from aircraft?

It seems like anything military related that would be remotely useful to adversaries would be broadcast on the Harris Falcon III type radios in super ultra secure modes.

 

[mmckenna]

A CNN article quotes a former intelligence official stating it could be picking up cell phone and radio traffic. How would it be monitoring cell phone traffic? I thought that stuff was encrypted. Are they breaking AES or something?

I think you are right on.
Trying to listen to cellular traffic from 90,000 feet would be a total mess because it would hear so many sites on the same frequencies.

Military traffic, other system, I don't think it would be as successful as some might think. And there's no logical reason to do that with a balloon when it's easily done with people on the ground.

Getting any intelligence back to where it would be used would require a satellite link, so just use a satellite in the first place.

Only benefit I could see would be for aerial photography. There would be a benefit to not having so much atmosphere between the camera and the ground, like with a satellite. But again, using adaptive optics, there's ways around that with satellites, plus satellites are not at the whim of the jet stream and are flying overhead all the time. The capability of military satellites far exceeds what you'd get off Google Earth, or so we are told. But if we have it, it's likely they have it, and wouldn't need to send something as slow and poorly maneuverable as a balloon.

Maybe there was some nefarious plan, but I cannot imagine what they would gain from a balloon that couldn't be gathered some other way without the mess they created.

Gauging response to infiltrating aircraft? A balloon in no way acts like an aircraft or missile. Anyway, it's easier just to watch how the military responds in any other part of the world where we're doing that kind of stuff. No need to do it from a 90,000 foot high balloon. Hell, the Russians test that all the time.

No matter what happens, whatever they'll recover from the ocean off South Carolina will tell them what they need. And no matter what the military says, there will be those that claim we are not being told the truth and it's all a secret cover up. This will all set them spinning for the next 20 years.

I think I need to invest in aluminum. The market for custom foil hats is about to go through the roof….
If anything, this achieved setting up more panic and doubt, which does more to destabilize things that any weapon could. The "deep state" and conspiracy theory nut jobs are doing exactly what the Chinese want them to do.

 

[chrismol1]

What better way to test our response to an intruder in our air space than with an unassuming "weather balloon"? Just one example I can think of.

US air space is well protected and has been for quite some time. Apparently this balloon was detected as it entered Alaska and that there wasn't going to be any word of this in public until some joe schmo with a good camera took a photo, the internet and news found out and people started asking questions

They seem pretty sure in claims it isn't a weather balloon, interesting they didn't go along with chinas story and said yes its an off course weather balloon and all of this was handled secretly as they wanted in the first place. Maybe watching it to see it change course as it came down in canada, possibly planning to let it go or shoot it down in secret until it became a national media story in montana just as it entered this country. Its all so interesting isnt it

Only benefit I could see would be for aerial photography. There would be a benefit to not having so much atmosphere between the camera and the ground, like with a satellite. But again, using adaptive optics, there's ways around that with satellites, plus satellites are not at the whim of the jet stream and are flying overhead all the time. The capability of military satellites far exceeds what you'd get off Google Earth, or so we are told. But if we have it, it's likely they have it, and wouldn't need to send something as slow and poorly maneuverable as a balloon.

I read something a while back on a forum discussing satellites and a commenter wrote a post of their father who worked for an aerospace company doing DoD stuff in the 90's who brought them home a souvenir as a kid.....it was the photo of a dime on a sidewalk

 

[WRQS621]

Why didn’t the Coast Guard intercept this thing in Alaska? What data was it transmitting? Did our Coast Guard find the equipment after it hit the water? How did it get to lower 48 undetected (or at least no statement from our government)?

Seems like we have been at the brink of war for the past couple of years. I don’t know what changed and I don’t like it.

 

[rescue161]

Has anybody got the audio from the Military Air & Space Communications Facebook page? I heard that they posted the communications of the aircraft shooting down the balloon, but I don't have Facebook and can't listen.

 

[trentbob]

If you look in the Maryland state Forum there's a thread called Mid-Atlantic MilAir 2023. That has been covering this, check it out from when this started you might have some of your questions answered and it's got quite a bit of information.

 

[tribby2001]

I hadn't read this entire thread but just wanted to mention that the Air Force had one of their two Boeing RC-135U Combat Sent aircraft trailing Balloon Boy. Who knows what that RC-135 could/did do. But it's certainly a state of the art RF vacuum cleaner and I'm certain can jam signals as well.

RC-135U Combat Sent

The RC-135U Combat Sent provides strategic electronic reconnaissance information to the president, secretary of defense, Department of Defense leaders, and theater commanders.

www.af.mil

Primary function: Electronic intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance

 

[TexScan780D]

Has anybody got the audio from the Military Air & Space Communications Facebook page? I heard that they posted the communications of the aircraft shooting down the balloon, but I don't have Facebook and can't listen.

I just checked the Military Air & Space Communications Facebook page and looks like has not been updated since early 2020. I checked their milradiocomms.com and doesn't seem to exist.

 

[MUTNAV]

Exactly.

But some people love to be outraged. It's a whole lifestyle for them.
It's kind of fun to watch them get wound up and spin out of control.

Some of the people I know kind of just expect the government to do what it's supposed to do without additional supervision, then something like a kid in drag rapes a girl in a high school bathroom, is just sent to another school and does the same thing, then all of a sudden lots of people are awakened to whats been going on with the the idea that the schools aren't doing what they were expected to do.

Same with the border, or the increase in crime, to many at this point it's just politicians squabble-ing, if it was anything important everyone would have agreed about a problem existing by now.

I just spoke with a person yesterday that was bewildered at the idea that a baloon was allowed to cross sensitive sites. When I mentioned it crossed over the aleutions a while back and could have been dealt with then, and they were really dumfounded at basically what has become of the countries defenses.

Thanks
Joel

 

[MUTNAV]

If these were conventional aircraft entering US airspace under 60k feet, F-22's would have been scrambled to intercept well before entering said airspace. It is well documented how well US airspace is protected and what the response will be.

Balloongate is uncharted territory. Short of getting hands on the thing and gas chromatography instruments to analyze, there really was no sure fire way of knowing exactly what potentially could be falling into the atmosphere upon just shooting the f***er down, especially with as much news coverage as this abnormally large version got over the past week. This is hardly the first of these things that has passed into US airspace in the past decade.

I'll be selling custom tinfoil-hats at Orlando Hamcation.

Actually, as far as the well documented part, just recently we had to intercept Russian bombers with aggresser F-16s for some reason, the happiest reason would be that maybe it was a test to see if they could do a different mission on short notice or something.

Thanks
Joel

 

[MUTNAV]

I think you are right on.
Trying to listen to cellular traffic from 90,000 feet would be a total mess because it would hear so many sites on the same frequencies.

Military traffic, other system, I don't think it would be as successful as some might think. And there's no logical reason to do that with a balloon when it's easily done with people on the ground.

Getting any intelligence back to where it would be used would require a satellite link, so just use a satellite in the first place.

Only benefit I could see would be for aerial photography. There would be a benefit to not having so much atmosphere between the camera and the ground, like with a satellite. But again, using adaptive optics, there's ways around that with satellites, plus satellites are not at the whim of the jet stream and are flying overhead all the time. The capability of military satellites far exceeds what you'd get off Google Earth, or so we are told. But if we have it, it's likely they have it, and wouldn't need to send something as slow and poorly maneuverable as a balloon.

Maybe there was some nefarious plan, but I cannot imagine what they would gain from a balloon that couldn't be gathered some other way without the mess they created.

Gauging response to infiltrating aircraft? A balloon in no way acts like an aircraft or missile. Anyway, it's easier just to watch how the military responds in any other part of the world where we're doing that kind of stuff. No need to do it from a 90,000 foot high balloon. Hell, the Russians test that all the time.

No matter what happens, whatever they'll recover from the ocean off South Carolina will tell them what they need. And no matter what the military says, there will be those that claim we are not being told the truth and it's all a secret cover up. This will all set them spinning for the next 20 years.

I think I need to invest in aluminum. The market for custom foil hats is about to go through the roof….
If anything, this achieved setting up more panic and doubt, which does more to destabilize things that any weapon could. The "deep state" and conspiracy theory nut jobs are doing exactly what the Chinese want them to do.

I have to assume the reasons, that are admittedly beyond my depth of understanding, would be that either the Chinese satellites aren't that good, or for the same reason that we still use U-2s, whatever reasons that is.

Conspiracy theories are interesting, I remember the Bill Clinton-Monica thing, the conspiracy theory I heard at the time was that Hillary did know about his affairs and was giving him hell that he would be discovered.

Years later some of the relationship with Epstein comes out with the whole sex slave / Island thing. In this case the consipiracy theory WAY undershot what was happening.


Thanks
Joel

 

[BC_Scan]

Maybe Canada as an aly could so something?

Huh ? what ? Canada has no Airforce interested in this - bunch of ol F18 some w/upgrade some with not , however we did enter agreement for the new F35 (cant wait)
let's see comms might go like this " yeah range control I cant get that high ? uh not really sure what to do here permission to go vertical ??
while I dont mean to undermine our forces , I doubt it was even a blink in Canada

 

[Brales60]

Huh ? what ? Canada has no Airforce interested in this - bunch of ol F18 some w/upgrade some with not , however we did enter agreement for the new F35 (cant wait)
let's see comms might go like this " yeah range control I cant get that high ? uh not really sure what to do here permission to go vertical ??
while I dont mean to undermine our forces , I doubt it was even a blink in Canada

Your Prime main guy was more worried about what costume to wear?

 

[ladn]

If, as the CHICOMs claim, this was a rogue "weather balloon", why didn't they take it out themselves over international waters?

 

[osborne605]

there are 3 KC-135's on ADS-B without callsigns all loitering between Shelby and Havre MT right now, presumably supporting assets that are doing the dirty work (jamming it, getting ready to shoot it down etc)

I think they all 3 came out of Fairchild AFB in Spokane.

Pretty remote out there, but there are a lot of ICBM missile fields in the area. I would imagine there might be some pretty good Mil-Air going on in that area.

I drove from Billings to Helena thru Great Falls last Wednesday and Mil-Air traffic was slim to none and SLC was active on the Billings, Lewistown and Great Falls radios. I did notice some more Malmstrom folks on the roads east of Great Falls.

 

[chrismol1]

Hi I'm still here wondering what exactly this balloon can do that their satellites don't already. I asked that on the first page of this thread and have head many more people saying the same since.

The updated responses from military spokespeople have said the balloon presents no different if any very little advantage than current chinese satellite capabilities. It all seems like an experiment to gauge the governments response, what better test than send a balloon. A "benign" piece of un-manned equipment that isn't a flyby near the defense identification area, isn't a warship close to the coast, close to US warships or its allies or other conventional 'threat'. China claims its a weather balloon, US Gov says its a spy balloon, China claims its uncontrolled, US Gov says its very much controlled and under control of an operator

Now, what do you think China would do if the US had a rouge "weather balloon" that was over mainland China?

Its all very very fascinating because this is something unconventional but very "conventional", reminds me of controversy of Sputnik