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Pentagon tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US

F-22Raptor

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CNN —
The Pentagon is tracking a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States, a senior defense official said on Thursday.

The Pentagon has been tracking the balloon for several days as it made its way over the northern United States, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said. He added that the US military decided against shooting the balloon down.

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

“We are confident that this high-altitude surveillance balloon belongs to the [People’s Republic of China],” the senior defense official said. “Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration.”

The official said the US government has engaged with the Chinese government both through the Chinese embassy in Washington and the US diplomatic mission in China.

The balloon “does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Ryder said.

The senior defense official added that it was the “strong recommendation” of senior military leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, “not to take kinetic action due to the risk to safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field.”

Officials assessed that the balloon has “limited additive value” from an intelligence collection perspective, the official said.

The news comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to Beijing in the coming days, a significant trip meant to follow up on President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last year. The conversation between the two leaders was “open and candid,” Biden said at the time, adding that while he was not “suggesting this is kumbaya,” he didn’t believe there’s need for concern of “a new Cold War.”

Tensions between the US and China escalated in August last year with the visit of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which resulted in China’s announcement of military exercises at the same time.

 

Shoot that bitch down

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Well, I can't believe the Chinese is still doing it. I mean they had done it since 2000s when I was in intelligence, and they are still using Balloon 20 odd years later??

I hope this is for atmospheric information gathering, otherwise it would be too much of a shame to do SIGINT on it, I mean we stop using them since 1950s except for weather balloons.
 
Well, I can't believe the Chinese is still doing it. I mean they had done it since 2000s when I was in intelligence, and they are still using Balloon 20 odd years later??

I hope this is for atmospheric information gathering, otherwise it would be too much of a shame to do SIGINT on it, I mean we stop using them since 1950s except for weather balloons.
I don't believe it is a spy balloon. It is likely a scientific or weather balloon or some hobbyist's experiment. What information can it collect that you can't get by Google earth or Google maps, let alone commercial satellite imagery?
 
I don't believe it is a spy balloon. It is likely a scientific or weather balloon or some hobbyist's experiment. What information can it collect that you can't get by Google earth or Google maps, let alone commercial satellite imagery?
Satellite can't do geo-sensing (like heat signature, RF signature and so on) that's why I use the term SIGINT. Basically, it locate server room (heat), or some type of structure that emit a specific signature (I forgot a lot of them and even if I do remember I don't know if I can tell you or anyone here) so if you located those area, you can put a pin in whatever signature they are emitting and correspond to each different type of activities. That was used for many things, one thing that involved me (or used to involve me) is target acquisition. Say if China wants to go to war with us, and they launch a first strike, those info will come in handy if you launch your first strike on Headquarter/Communication center. Which most of them emit some sort of "signal", by mapping them and then targeting them in the first strike, it will make our counter attack harder.

We used to do the same to Russia or anyone of our enemy back in the 50s and 60s, then we use plane like EP-3 and RC-135, U-2 (mostly for IMGINT) and SR-71 plus black flight for that role now. We don't use balloon because that is a no sum game for intel collecting nowadays, you can track them easy (there are no stealth balloon) and it's slow and it's not really efficient to do any of the thing I mention before, you may as well just refit a civilian Airbus or Boeing or more commonly Learjet or Embraer with SIGINT equipment and then fly them into US under the civ traffic disguise. This is not really useful now beside collecting atmospheric parameter. Which is still one part of intelligence apparatus
 
Satellite can't do geo-sensing (like heat signature, RF signature and so on) that's why I use the term SIGINT. Basically, it locate server room (heat), or some type of structure that emit a specific signature (I forgot a lot of them and even if I do remember I don't know if I can tell you or anyone here) so if you located those area, you can put a pin in whatever signature they are emitting and correspond to each different type of activities. That was used for many things, one thing that involved me (or used to involve me) is target acquisition. Say if China wants to go to war with us, and they launch a first strike, those info will come in handy if you launch your first strike on Headquarter/Communication center. Which most of them emit some sort of "signal", by mapping them and then targeting them in the first strike, it will make our counter attack harder.

We used to do the same to Russia or anyone of our enemy back in the 50s and 60s, then we use plane like EP-3 and RC-135, U-2 (mostly for IMGINT) and SR-71 plus black flight for that role now. We don't use balloon because that is a no sum game for intel collecting nowadays, you can track them easy (there are no stealth balloon) and it's slow and it's not really efficient to do any of the thing I mention before, you may as well just refit a civilian Airbus or Boeing or more commonly Learjet or Embraer with SIGINT equipment and then fly them into US under the civ traffic disguise. This is not really useful now beside collecting atmospheric parameter. Which is still one part of intelligence apparatus
Can someone not drive around with a bunch of sensors in his car, like Googles camera vehicle and collect lot better data from ground than from 60,000 feet altitude? With a car, you can easily power a kilowatt of hardware. What power can you get on a balloon? Also, balloon will go wherever wind takes it. What use is it if you grab data from a random flyover? I am not saying balloon is entirely useless. But it is like me spying on you by peeping through your keyhole. I see a 5 millimeter diameter of your life. What use is it?
 
Can someone not drive around with a bunch of sensors in his car, like Googles camera vehicle and collect lot better data from ground than from 60,000 feet altitude? With a car, you can easily power a kilowatt of hardware. What power can you get on a balloon? Also, balloon will go wherever wind takes it. What use is it if you grab data from a random flyover? I am not saying balloon is entirely useless. But it is like me spying on you by peeping through your keyhole. I see a 5 millimeter diameter of your life. What use is it?
unidentified cars aren't allowed in and around sensitive locations whereas Pakistani pigeons and Chinese balloons can roam around any and every place looking all nonchalant and innocent.
 
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Can someone not drive around with a bunch of sensors in his car, like Googles camera vehicle and collect lot better data from ground than from 60,000 feet altitude? With a car, you can easily power a kilowatt of hardware. What power can you get on a balloon? Also, balloon will go wherever wind takes it. What use is it if you grab data from a random flyover? I am not saying balloon is entirely useless. But it is like me spying on you by peeping through your keyhole. I see a 5 millimeter diameter of your life. What use is it?
That equipment is too big for a car, it will take at least a 40 ft container to have all those equipment installs, it's not like you are poking around with a thermostat or a radio antenna disguise as a car antenna where you pick up your FM radio from. Aerial surveillance is normally done for RF reconnaissance. You basically need to triangulate your signal source (to locate where it was), In civilian police world, you do that by placing 3 giant cell tower and triangulate the same signal and pin them down a location, yes, Military application is not going to be like hauling around with 3 cell towers, but it's not just a RF antenna either.

Also, you can't just do it on one pass, which mean if I am guarding a government facility and seeing you drive a 18-wheeler round and round the block, I will know something is up......
 
That equipment is too big for a car, it will take at least a 40 ft container to have all those equipment installs
So, that balloon is carrying a semi-truck size hardware? That would be a monstrosity. How did it get this far without sophisticated navigation and control, at least in vertical dimension to avoid storms, lightning and other weather phenomena? Even expert ballooners can't cross continents or oceans reliably.
 
if one needs an 18wheeler truck then how come Indians keep arresting Pakistani pigeons and shoot down Pakistani origin escaped/stray hobby balloons nearing indian border with air to air and ground to air missiles? honest! not joking
 
So, that balloon is carrying a semi-truck size hardware? That would be a monstrosity. How did it get this far without sophisticated navigation and control, at least in vertical dimension to avoid storms, lightning and other weather phenomena? Even expert ballooners can't cross continents or oceans reliably.
No, I mean the equipment of an RC-135 can only be stalled on a 40ft trailer. I don't know what that Ballon is for, maybe they have less capability than a RC-135? I don't even know if that is actually for RF surveillance, what I do know is Pentagon resist to shoot it down while it was over Montana, which means the balloon is big enough to be a concern as much as whether pentagon willing to shoot down an intruding Chinese Jet fear the debris would cause massive damage in populated area. So I would say maybe they aren't as big, but they are big enough to cause a concern.

On the other hand, you can visually distinguish a spy balloon with a weather balloon, because the wind speed gauge (or anemometers) is very distinctive and have to be put on the outside, you really can't miss it, and I don't see it on the alleged picture of said balloon.

Perhaps its just a very large Kong Ming Deng. After all it's Chinese new year.
Just wishing everybody a prosperous rabbit year.

View attachment 914767
sure, what are the odds that new year balloon followed a flight path that visited Aleutian island and then traverse all the way toward CONUS from Beijing that way randomly depending on wind direction and speed???

Balloon.jpg


I sincerely hope you are joking here......
 
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