Japan probing links between Chinese balloon, past flying object

Reminds me of my time in the USAF.

We had some "small" balloons that could be set to go to a chosen altitude, with an instrument package. Definitely not built for international travel though. So, one time I had an extra balloon left over after a special spy satellite launch. I snuck it over to a nearby town, attached a bunch of lights, and released it to go over the town, at night, at low altitude. It never made the news, but I imagine a few citizens were scratching their heads over that one.

He declined to comment since he had no prepared statement nor any clue-par for the course in Japan

Was there any action taken at that time at all.

When a white, balloon-like object was spotted by residents of Miyagi and neighboring Fukushima prefectures in June 2020, local authorities sent a helicopter to investigate but were ultimately unable to identify it or determine its origin.

Those balloons way too high for helicopters.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinese-spy-balloon-has-unexpected-maneuverability/

There is no international agreement on ownership or control of airspace beyond what is controllable by air traffic control. I believe that the Chinese balloon was higher than airspace controlled by air traffic control so no international agreements, laws or rules were breached. Correct?

And for those naive souls who

Like, using a balloon, the size of a number of buses, to spy, from a very high altitude... the CCP might be many things, but not something from a Tom Clancy novel.

The Fu, metrologist launch big balloon everyday,to gauge the atmospheric forecast

The NWS releases 1800 balloon daily world wide

The Chinese leadership does not actually think that everyone is happy with them sending these spy balloons around the world, do they?

Considering the situation they are being pretty darned arrogant about it, telling the US they used "disproportionate force" (really?), saying the wreckage is the property of China and making veiled threats of future retribution.

Regarding using an expensive missile to knock down the balloon, I have a few ideas on that.

For one thing, a certain number of missiles are used every year for training purposes, so this was not necessarily a waste of money. We used to launch a few ICBMs down to Kwajalein Atoll every year, just to see if we could, and I think it was slightly more expensive to launch one of those than to find out if an air-to-air missile could be used to shoot down a balloon.

It definitely would have been cheaper just to put a bullet or two into it, but I don't know what the balloon was constructed with. If it was indeed a weather balloon, which I don't believe, since the instruments are reported to have weighed over a ton, then a single bullet would have caused a catastrophic failure, and the instrument package would have fallen immediately. A weather ballon, or rawinsonde, lifts a package of maybe one pound in an uncontrolled ascent. If it was another type of balloon, one that is semi-rigid, then one or two bullet holes may have caused a slow descent, or no descent at all, depending on how it was built. This would have had the advantage of causing the instruments to descend in one piece, but the balloon might have drifted for many miles before landing. One of the goals of shooting it down was to recover the instruments in the shallow water near the shoreline, and allowing the balloon to drift far out to sea would have been counterproductive. Bullets could have been used safely to shoot it down, as long as the plane approached from the landward side. I definitely would like to see what a bullet does to one of these balloons.

While on this subject, much has been made lately about Russian spy ships near American waters. This is nothing new. Every time we were set to launch a spy satellite from Vandenberg AFB, there would be one of more Soviet spy ships just off the twelve mile limit, easily visible from shore, and no one thought twice about it, as long as they stayed in international waters. I imagine they could see us clearly through binoculars. Must have been very boring duty.

Modern weather balloons weigh just a few grams and are much smaller.

China has a balloon gap, they are trying to close. Three were seen over the Americas this week - USA/Canada, Columbia and Costa Rica. What do all those countries have in common? US military support and communications equipment. Hummmmm ...

If you want to eavesdrop on RF signals, let's just say that the antennas can't be in orbit for the greatest sensitivity. Talk to some people in military signals and see if they will explain anything. Can't hurt to ask.

Chinese spy balloon

I seriously doubt it was a spy balloon. That would be like riding an elephant around the enemies town with a tape recorder and Polaroid camera.

Someone messed up and is getting pulled over coals for it, unfortunately for them.

And for those naive souls who believe it was a perfectly innocent weather-balloon accidentally blown off course, take a look at the flight-path and you'll see how coincidentally it seemed to be checking-out some very important military sites on its' way......

We'll find out in due course the nature of the mission once the wreckage is recovered, but my money's on the deceitful Chinese up to their usual sneaky tricks. After all, the 93million members of the CCP spend their waking-hours on total surveillance of the entire population, possibly making it the most thoroughly repressed nation on the planet.

And for those naive souls who believe it was a perfectly innocent weather-balloon accidentally blown off course, take a look at the flight-path and you'll see how coincidentally it seemed to be checking-out some very important military sites on its' way......

Whose naive? People who think they know the truth based on innuendo and whatever details get filtered through them are the morons who are naive. It's why so many get sucked into the right-wing culture wars over the issues that would actually matter to an intelligent person's life.

Someone asked about rules governing balloon operations and asked if any rules apply.

They do, as mentioned in the FAA page shown below.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html/chap9_section_6.html

China failed to properly inform the FAA of their projected flight path as they were supposed to do, per FAA rules.

The Chinese leadership does not actually think that everyone is happy with them sending these spy balloons around the world, do they?

There is no international agreement on ownership or control of airspace beyond what is controllable by air traffic control. I believe that the Chinese balloon was higher than airspace controlled by air traffic control so no international agreements, laws or rules were breached. Correct?

Nope. A nations sovereign airspace extends from the surface to the beginning of outer space, which is defined as the Karman Line, 100 kilometers (62) miles above the Earths surface. At 60,000 feet this Chinese balloon was very much within US sovereign airspace.

While on this subject, much has been made lately about Russian spy ships near American waters. This is nothing new. Every time we were set to launch a spy satellite from Vandenberg AFB, there would be one of more Soviet spy ships just off the twelve mile limit, easily visible from shore, and no one thought twice about it, as long as they stayed in international waters. I imagine they could see us clearly through binoculars. Must have been very boring duty.

They probably sailed up there from San Diego where they always hung out. We were told to never fly over them and to stay as far away as possible so as not to antagonize them. As long as they stayed outside the 12 nautical mile limit, which they always did, there was nothing to get excited about.

Even if these balloons are for spying U.S military installations and activities, the U.S. is doing the same in kind using U-2 spy planes over the territories of its adversaries, isn't it? 

Even in the day of drones and satellites, balloons are said to be useful in terms of the cost and closeness to targets. Probably in a similar vein, U-2 spy planes are still in active use even today.

Some pundit points out the similarity between the recent balloon incidents and the 1960 U-2 incident that deepened the Cold War.

Although the Chinese government has claimed the balloon was being used for "civilian" research purposes and accidentally deviated from its intended route, the U.S. military shot it down

Although???

Is the U.S. military or those in charge supposed to believe what the CCP commies might say?

Come on Kyodo

People who wholeheartedly believe in accelerationism are the most irresponsible revolutionaries and deconstructionists. They are eager to change the status quo, but they have not thought about what kind of path to choose after changing the status quo.

The fact that the right-wing government, non-government, and corporate forces in the United States are so keen to promote neo-accelerationism is one of the results of the inability and lack of effectiveness of the left.

How much drama they continue to create for China just for a little balloon, the US was left in check without knowing what to do, this is going to cost good old Joe his re-election..

The pathetic thing is that the US spies on the entire planet but they are outraged by a little balloon, lol ..

How much decadence...

Thank you little Chinese balloon, you made me spend a fun weekend at the cost of the ridicule that the US made..

just as well the J Gov invented that time machine so they can go back and actually investigate it

Japan announces that it will purchase $10billion worth of US missiles capable of shooting down spy balloons.

Twice a day, every day of the year, weather balloons are released simultaneously from almost 900 locations worldwide! This includes 92 released by the National Weather Service in the US and its territories. 

The Chinese have a permanently crewed space station that they built themselves. They have a rover on the moon that they built themselves. The have a rover on Mars that they built themselves, sent to Mars themselves, landed themselves and operate themselves.

They have a quantum experimentation satellite that they built themselves, put into space themselves and successfully ran a quantum entanglement experiment with themselves.

That a country which can run satellite quantum entanglement experiments and crew a space station would use a balloon to spy on Japan / US or the US is having a fit of paranoid delusional ideation.

They used a $400,000 missile to pop a balloon and has been leaning on everyone to report this as a security threat instead of just another weather balloon, one of the 1800 released daily around the world, or the separate atmospheric research balloons that are one offs.

Japan is a very technologically advanced nation, so how come nobody spotted the Chinese spy-in-the-sky balloon cross between Okinawa and Kyushu last Friday, as it made its' way up towards the USA......

This has got to be embarrassing, especially has they have their crack top-team Self-Defence Force on constant lookout, as well as a few Americans helping out - someone's going to be in the firing-line.

The balloon flew over Japan brielfy, noting there was no intelligence worth gathering, and then moved on.

"Meanwhile, Isozaki declined to comment on precisely what measures were taken at the time by the ASDF in dealing with the flying object."

His comment speaks volumes. No comments because no action was taken. Trust me, these guys think a missile is launched when it isn't and it gets days of news. If some foreign object were flying in the skies over Japan they'd scramble the jets and make it the news of the month or year, especially if it would help bolster claims that they need to beef up defense, which I assume are coming.

Meanwhile, Isozaki declined to comment on precisely what measures were taken at the time by the ASDF in dealing with the flying object.

He declined to comment since he had no prepared statement nor any clue-par for the course in Japan