Pentagon tracking Chinese spy balloon over U.S.

The US government lies so often you can never take their words at face value. Why use balloons when you have satellites? Oh that's right, USA wants to start a war with China by 2025.

Oh that's right, USA wants to start a war with China by 2025.

Japan is preparing for the war in 2025. Military budget is doubled and has no limit over 2% GDP. Joint Exercises are being held all over China perimeter. USA got a massive part of Kagoshima recently, and the USA is building 4 new bases in the Philippines. Australia is getting nukes. NATO prepared for its war with Russia in 2014. It is a long war, but Iran will be quick. China will be the longest.

If it’s over U.S. airspace, why not bring it down?

They thought about shooting the balloon down but were concerned about the fallout.

Given that stratospheric weather balloons are launched daily by many countries which travel wherever atmospheric movement takes them, over countries, over oceans, and given that 'control surfaces' for 'guidance' have little to work with at high altitude, the lingering of this balloon over a particular area would not seem indicative of Human direction. Also, if China has not already mapped out anything in the U.S. that is militarily interesting, as the U.S. has undoubtedly accomplished with China long ago, they are not the China of U.S. propaganda. I think we can safely place this 'news' in the "LOOK! A SQUIRREL!" category of fearmongering...

just ask yourself would it be shot down if it were Russian, North Korean or Iranian and you have your answer why it cant be shot down because it belongs to the CCP.

I hate to burst the haters bubbles, or is that balloons, but the most likely reason the US didn't shoot it down because the US military also employs high altitude balloons for intelligence gathering. If the US starts shooting down Chinese intel balloons they will do the same, and things go downhill rapidly from there. So you weigh what the Chinese might learn against what you might lose if you shoot it down. It is a rational choice made by military leadership and nothing to do with anyone being compromised by the Chinese.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a38005873/pentagon-balloons-strattolite/

Shot the ballon down and the falling debris kills someone. What then? Sue the USA or China?

The guy next door just rolled out camo netting over his cannabis plot.

If the Chinese have balloons over mainland USA, you can bet the FBI and DEA have too.

The defense official said the issue of the balloon had been raised with Beijing officials.

What did Beijing say?

China is always a good friend to people of America, if the news media don't made any anti Chinese phobia portraying a weather ballon is a spy ballon. By the way, the Chinese Airforce has spy satellite decades already!

what part of a balloon would fall and kill someone?

what part of a balloon would fall and kill someone?

The part with all the cameras and heavy equipment, genius.

There is a reason that it's a balloon. Because the stuff they want to transport is heavier (much heavier) than air.

But they advised against taking "kinetic action" against the balloon because of the danger falling debris might pose to people on the ground.

Montana, a sparsely populated state

they even wrote it in order for you.

What people?

cant they shoot it down without people somehow randomly standing right under where it will come down for no apparent reason?

If it’s over U.S. airspace, why not bring it down?

Read the second sentence of the article.

Beat those drums USA USA USA..

This story is way overblown. When I was in the military we knew all the times Russian and Chinese satellites were overhead and had specific "button-up" hours.

The Chinese won't get anything from this - and it just highlights that their satellites lack the sophistication of ours.

Funny to see how they get scared just for a Chinese balloon, lol!!..

Where are Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines when you need 'em.

It’s weird seeing people call this “scaremongering” or saber-rattling. The US literally said, “eh, it’s not a big deal. They can’t get any info this way and it’s been done before anyway, so who cares?”, and the reaction is “THIS IS A BUILD UP TO WAR BY LYING BIDEN!!”

they even wrote it in order for you.

Sparsely populated doesn't mean unpopulated. Also, if you looked a bit further:

But the Pentagon did not believe it constitutes a particularly dangerous intelligence threat. "We assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective," the official said.

So then why shoot it down? If anything, the US military is a bit too trigger happy, so call me crazy, but when they say it's not worth shooting down, I tend to believe them.

China has NOT denied whether it is their spy balloon or not

"China Says It’s Checking Whether It Sent Spy Balloon to Montana"

https://gizmodo.com/china-verifying-spy-balloon-montana-1850069388

That's intriguing since they usually deny so quick

Seems they do send spy balloons - just whether this is one of theirs or not

China has sent surveillance balloons over the United States in the past. However, this one has lingered in U.S. air space much longer, the senior defense official said.

And this is not the first time such a balloon has been sighted in the US airspace. So they've seen these, just this one has lingered much longer

Funny to see how they get scared just for a Chinese balloon, lol!!..

If they're scared, they would have shot it down already! Lol

Obviously they're not. In fact, here's what they said if you read the article:

But the Pentagon did not believe it constitutes a particularly dangerous intelligence threat. "We assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective," the official said.

"The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic. It does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground," Ryder said in a statement.

Kind of ridiculous !

Airspace being invaded by a balloon supposedly from China and yet they don't shoot it down or capture it .

It's not impossible to intercept a balloon and drag it off to a secure location ! ?

It all sounds a bit fishy to me !

The big bad brave USA cant shoot down a balloon ?

Yeah right !!?

I don't believe it .

The balloon is in the stratosphere.

Sure looks like large swaths of Montana are unpopulated.

https://snowbrains.com/map-nobody-lives-usa-47-usa-uninhabited/

some places are a 5 hour drive to the next city. So unless this balloon is moving at 100mph was plenty of time to shoot it down in totally unpopulated area.

what part of a balloon would fall and kill someone?

Here are articles with images of the balloon in question. You can clearly see what would fall and possibly cause injury, death or property damage. Just me but I would not even want that balloon material draped over my home or even my yard. But if the hardware hanging below hit my roof it would probably come right through and cause injury and major property damage. Also imagine that thing landing on I-80. Can you say chain reaction collision?

https://6abc.com/chinese-spy-balloon-china-over-montana-us/12766077/

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3208932/chinese-spy-balloon-spotted-over-us-pentagon-says

some places are a 5 hour drive to the next city. So unless this balloon is moving at 100mph was plenty of time to shoot it down in totally unpopulated area.

In the western US being a five hour drive from a major city doesn't mean an area is unpopulated. Far from it. I live in such a region, hours from a big city. Lots of homes out here. It is more spread out but it is not uninhabited. Fly over the region at night and you will see lots of little lights all around. Not the density of a big city but not too many areas with no lights at all. Even flying over Alaska you see lights. Siberia is dark like flying over the ocean but hardly anywhere in North America is dark like that.

Funny to see how they get scared just for a Chinese balloon, lol!!..

Who exactly are scared? The US Government wasn't saying a thing about it until the press started running articles about it, because all and sundry can see this thing from the ground. If the press hadn't made a story out of it probably nothing would have ever been said.

If the balloon drifted off course then why didn't the Chinese shoot it down over the pacific before it accidentally drifted into US airspace and over sensitive US military installations. Why did the US air force not shoot in down as an incursion over us air space as well as military installations. The USA needs to take on China more seriously and this balloon incident makes the USA look weak.

China has already admitted it's their balloon that got lost, saying it's for scientific purposes

(That's why they uncharacteristically didn't deny it immediately)

Who believes it's for scientific purposes? Depends what they mean by "scientific" Lol

And if it really got lost, how can they not able to track it, since it's full of supposed "scientific" instruments the size of a bus - and let other countries know ahead of time that the wind is taking it to their airspace? It's not like we can't track wind patterns nowadays, and surely some of those instruments include a simple GPS and a communication antenna

fairly informative article on this in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/03/spy-balloons-what-are-they-and-why-are-they-still-being-used