[HN Gopher] US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska ...
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US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
Author : Nrbelex
Score : 109 points
Date : 2023-02-10 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Imagine if this is how first contact is made.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Some think it happened in Roswell NM. in 1947.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident
|
| I've got a fanciful notion that the "foo fighters" are living
| creatures. The Air Force supposedly gave someone some of the
| excretions to examine and they found "unearthly isotopes" or
| some such.
|
| I figure something that lives, say, a couple hundred miles down
| inside a planet might only even notice the surface phenomenon
| that are the most dense, energetic, and anomalous (certainly at
| first), and pay more attention to those things. How might such
| beings interact with us and could we discern their efforts as
| such if we wanted?
| motohagiography wrote:
| It doesn't matter what the object was, it's that America's
| adversaries know they can do it without consequences, and what
| makes them believe this is what matters about this story. That is
| the irreversible change it signifies, imo.
| ginko wrote:
| I've always wondered: Is your nick a reference to Moto
| Hagio[1], the shojo manga artist?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moto_Hagio
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| If other reports are to be believed this has been happening for
| a while, and isn't some sort of new irreversible change. This
| is just the first time the public has become aware of it. The
| difference here seems to be that it was shot down (possibly
| because it had become so infamous).
| password11 wrote:
| > _it 's that America's adversaries know they can do it without
| consequences_
|
| There was a consequence -- we shot it down.
|
| > _That is the irreversible change it signifies, imo._
|
| It's not irreversible. Additional consequences can be initiated
| at any time.
| motohagiography wrote:
| You don't need to convince me, convince the people who keep
| sending the ballons, invading allies, and using NATO
| countries as rocket flyover paths.
| password11 wrote:
| [flagged]
| flurdy wrote:
| In other news - a Richard Branson type balloon enthusiast has
| just gone missing in Alaska...
| sys32768 wrote:
| They didn't let this one hang for a few days to finish its
| torrent seeding?
| [deleted]
| snerbles wrote:
| Their private tracker ratio is at an acceptable level now.
| TheAdamist wrote:
| Cheap balloon vs expensive missile, seems a good way to bankrupt
| us by sending continuous balloons.
| hot_gril wrote:
| They shot down a couple of balloons using whatever they had. If
| balloons were a common target, they'd design something more
| suitable. Maybe a monkey throwing darts.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| A government that spends more money on their military than the
| rest of the world combined isn't at risk of bankruptcy from
| firing a couple missiles.
|
| We're at risk of bankruptcy because our debt is 31 trillion
| dollars and in June we won't even be able to issue securities
| to continue bullshitting ourselves out of cutting spending.
| Welcome to America, we're broke because we spent all our money
| on guns rather than infrastructure, healthcare and education.
| pixl97 wrote:
| We spend more on Healthcare and education per capital than
| almost any other country. Don't let people bullshit you on
| the amount spent. Now results on dollars spent is a different
| question with a different answer.
| [deleted]
| it_citizen wrote:
| Interesting, didn't know that. I imagine it includes
| private/public spending as well?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| We spend more per capita _just in public money_ than some
| peer states do to provide universal healthcare, while
| ours isn 't universal.
|
| It makes more sense when you consider how many programs
| we have--a pretty high percentage of our population is
| covered by public spending, and--crucially--the ones who
| are are in some cases among the most expensive to care
| for.
|
| 1) Medicare (old or disabled)
|
| 2) Medicaid (poor)
|
| 3) Tricare or whatever they call it now, since I think
| the name changed (active and IIRC retired-with-full-
| benefits military _and their spouses and kids_ , at least
| for the active-duty ones, can't recall if that part
| carries over in retirement)
|
| 4) VA (military veterans, including those with short
| terms of service)
|
| 5) Federal employees
|
| 6) State employees
|
| 7) County employees
|
| 8) City employees
|
| 9) Cops and firefighters and such, if not covered under
| any of the above.
|
| 10) School district employees (there are _lots_ of these)
|
| Not all of these are cases in which _all_ the spending is
| covered by public money, but some of them are, and in
| other cases a great deal of it is. Also I 've probably
| missed some programs.
|
| [EDIT] Oh and that's not counting public money that goes
| to private companies but ends up paying for healthcare
| for those companies' employees and families, who are
| employed expressly to work on those publicly-funded
| projects--I can see arguments either way for counting
| that, depends on what you're trying to understand.
| ajross wrote:
| Standard reply to debt rhetoric: US debt service costs
| measured against the economy are not particularly high
| historically: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S
|
| The 80's were much, much worse. If we were ever going to go
| bankrupt, it was in the early Clinton administration due to
| the Reagan/Bush spending boom. We got through just fine.
| Those bonds were all paid off decades ago.
|
| Be _very very very_ cautious any time someone comes at you
| with this kind of hyperbole about federal debt. They 're
| selling you something.
| avalys wrote:
| > Welcome to America, we're broke because we spent all our
| money on guns rather than infrastructure, healthcare and
| education.
|
| This sentiment is completely untrue. Defense is approximately
| 12% of US government spending, healthcare approximately 24%,
| education approximately 15%, and social security roughly 20%.
| Infrastructure is harder to categorize, but the truth is that
| the US government spends at least 4x more on healthcare,
| education and welfare (combined) than defense.
|
| https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2023USrn_.
| ..
|
| The fact that this 12% of government spending amounts to the
| largest military on earth is in large part a consequence of
| the fact that the US is really, enormously wealthy compared
| to most of the rest of the world, has a fairly large
| population, and still has a larger GDP per capita than any
| other large or even medium-sized country.
| cpursley wrote:
| > the US government spends at least 4x more on healthcare,
| education and welfare
|
| And we're terrible at all three vs nations that spend
| fractions less...
| avalys wrote:
| Yes, and that's why we should oppose more tax increases
| and more government spending, and focus instead on how to
| make government more efficient and get more value for the
| money we do spend.
| ronsor wrote:
| We already spent the money on the missiles, may as well use
| them.
| markdown wrote:
| The US Department of Attack budget for 2023 is $1.9 trillion
| dollars. A couple of missiles is petty cash.
| bombcar wrote:
| China will need to send nine million five hundred thousand
| balloons and then the budget will be all used up.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > Cheap balloon
|
| I'm surprised this seems to be such a common point. Why is it
| believed that it was cheap?
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Yeah, these balloons that can hold small car to school bus
| sized payloads are not like a commercially available thing.
| It seems like they'd require truckloads of helium, which is a
| hard gas to store and not always available in massive
| quantities (seems like it should be prioritized for keeping
| MRI scanners cool instead of balloons). The balloons are
| probably really hard to produce, not made in great numbers,
| and require specialized equipment and processes to launch
| without puncturing. Not quite an airplane's cost but this
| isn't the send-a-gopro-to-100,000ft type of trick that relied
| entirely on products available to consumers.
|
| It's also possible whomever is running this operation doesn't
| care about their staff at all and they just use hydrogen.
| V99 wrote:
| There's only so much you can spend on a bag of helium;
| anything is cheap compared to satellites or stealth long
| range recon aircraft.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| The bag of helium isn't the expensive part I consider. I'm
| wondering how much computer hardware "the size of multiple
| buses" costs. I'm sure much of that is casing but much of
| it also is not. How much effort went into designing these
| things? There's probably a significant price tag on these
| bags of helium all things considered.
| [deleted]
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| I think I've played this game.
| 14u2c wrote:
| It's sad to see comments that are so obviously bait on HN.
| petre wrote:
| > An F-22 fighter jet shot down the object using an A9X missile
|
| What a waste if $200k, shooting Chinese baloons. These shold be
| zapped using lasers.
| Phlarp wrote:
| The US defense industry will absolutely find a way to make the
| marginal cost of shooting the laser be $200k or more.
| lame-robot-hoax wrote:
| Ordinance doesn't last forever. Might as well use them if
| you've got them.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Lots of zaps needed. But I guess if you cut a big enough line
| (or circle) it'll do the job.
| buildsjets wrote:
| The YAL-1 747 Airborne Laser had a megawatt class chemical
| oxygen-iodine laser. In an unclassified presentation I was at
| they claimed a hubcap-sized (30cm-ish?) spot diameter firing
| from Seattle to Wenatchee (~200 km) with the capability to
| melt thru an aluminum ICBM skin in just a few millisecond
| pulses. I think we could pop that balloon.
| Zetobal wrote:
| There is always stock that has to be used up before they go bad
| and the pilots and machines need flying time no matter what.
| It's not as bad as it sounds and the rockets have their
| warheads removed.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Don't most f-22s come with a 20mil cannon? Wonder we we're
| preferring the missiles to just plain old lead?
| davidmr wrote:
| It turns out that high altitude balloons don't pop when you
| put small holes in them:
| https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb
| durandal1 wrote:
| At those altitudes the combination of a very high closing
| speed (air is thin) and the short range of the gun creates a
| real risk of flying into the target you're trying to hit.
| Eduard wrote:
| This sounds paradoxical to me.
|
| Using the same reasoning, a gun bullet should also be
| faster with higher altitude, hence have a longer range.
| msandford wrote:
| It's not that the bullets won't fly a long ways. It's
| that the range where the gun is accurate is fairly small.
| Sure you could theoretically shoot it from 20 miles away
| as long as you're 15 miles above the target and can
| successfully plot the ballistic arc, windage, etc. But
| fighter jets aren't flying artillery pieces so their
| computers don't do that kind of targeting.
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| The high speed is necessary so the plane doesn't fall out
| of the sky. A bullet is going to have a different
| friction coefficient than a plane so is not as affected
| by the altitude.
| exabrial wrote:
| "Not sure what the object was"
|
| "Shot Down using an Aim9x"
|
| That actually narrows it down a bit. Heat seeking warhead.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I just learned (yesterday[2]) about the rolleron[1], a
| stabilizing mechanism that prevents roll. It uses the airstream
| to spin up a gyroscopic mass.
|
| The AIM9 is the only use I'm aware of.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolleron
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzj3rRIVU4
| post_break wrote:
| His long hair dangling by that spinning disc while he demos
| it... ugh.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| snerbles wrote:
| Unlike previous Sidewinder iterations with a single-sensor
| thermal seeker, the AIM-9X has a thermal imaging seeker - it
| was used to shoot down the much larger balloon last week.
|
| https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/AIM-9X-Sidewinder
| jollyllama wrote:
| So it doesn't really narrow it down that much, then. Could be
| a plane, could be a balloon.
| jnurmine wrote:
| If it was not a drone, and "not a balloon", what could it
| be?
|
| Assuming this was a drone, the "car-sized", "unmanned",
| "not a balloon", "not maneuverable" (!?), the operating
| altitude (40k feet / 13 km), and use of AIM9X (IR/heat
| seeking) should narrow down the possible drones.
|
| Also, one thing I pondered: why F22 instead of F35 to shoot
| it down? Maybe a question of availability. But, at least
| publically the F35 operating ceiling is lower than F22, so
| I was thinking whether the object was in reality higher
| than the publically known F35 operating ceiling.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The F22 is America's superiority fighter, still beating
| the F35 in stealth and capability for anti flying things
| action. The F22 will probably be the default in most
| intercept circumstances.
| Animats wrote:
| > If it was not a drone, and "not a balloon", what could
| it be?
|
| It could be an unmanned glider with some solar power.
| Several companies make those. Including Google, which was
| considering them as data relays back around 2016.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Could also be a flying promotional bearskin bladder from a
| local hunting lodge.
|
| Which I have to say is where we may start to see a tragic
| lack of creativity unfolding on China's part.
| exabrial wrote:
| Dang, you're correct. It still had a thermal signature, but
| it wasn't as definitive as what I thought.
| pmccarren wrote:
| > Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told
| reporters Friday that an F-22 fighter aircraft based at Joint
| Base Elmendorf-Richardson shot down the object using the same
| type of missile used to take down the balloon nearly a week
| ago.[0]
|
| [0] https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-shoots-down-unknown-
| flyi...
| [deleted]
| themodelplumber wrote:
| It's considered a "system-guided" missile, not heat-seeking.
| It's much more advanced than the original heat-seeking concept
| and integrates additional optical technology in the fuse.
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| Pot calling kettle black. The US has been sending armed drones
| into several countries without coordination with local ATC or
| consent of the local government. Soleimani and a number of Iraqi
| military officers were taken out by a US drone.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| And it works because almost no one else on earth can gang radar
| to missile systems. So they can't shoot ours down. And we can
| shoot theirs down.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Soleimani and a number of Iraqi military officers were taken
| out by a US drone.
|
| Good. Right?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Sure, but that was still a violation of sovreign airspace. It
| would be like having a foreign drone targeting George W.Bush.
| Both are war criminals, but I'm not sure it suddenly makes
| violating foreign countries ok.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| Wasn't Soleimani Iranian? Are you at war with Iran? Did he
| receive a fair trial?
| moose_man wrote:
| Probably not a great sign of things to come.
| [deleted]
| bmitc wrote:
| Probably didn't help that an Air Force general was openly and
| loudly proclaiming that war is inevitable. I looked up some
| speeches of his, and he is off the rails, like the German
| general in _All Quiet Along the Western Front_.
| nostromo wrote:
| That is entirely up to China and what it decides to do with
| regards to Taiwan.
|
| Xi has made it very clear he would like to invade Taiwan, and
| soon. If Ukraine was going well for Russia, he may have
| already invaded.
| moose_man wrote:
| I mean, it's nothing compared to the internal speeches that
| China gives its troops. Heck it's nothing compared to the
| speeches Xi gives internally to troops. Chinese troops are
| currently training on their missile corp on models of US
| aircraft carriers.
|
| Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-
| forc...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-builds-mockups-
| us-...
| jollyllama wrote:
| That's been going on for decades, and supposedly the
| balloons are nothing new. What's changed is the USA
| response, in terms of the American general's rhetoric and
| the coverage and downing of balloons. So there's been a
| shift on the part of the USA.
| moose_man wrote:
| That's a lie. It started in 2012 but it took until the
| middle of the 2010s before they started openly
| threatening war. This is not some status quo situation
| that the US General upended. China's been escalating
| toward war since Xi took over. I mean before Xi it was
| hide your strength bide your time.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Ok, _a_ decade ago.
|
| > it took until the middle of the 2010s
|
| Here's a Chinese general openly threatening war with
| Japan in 2012:
|
| https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-general-
| pre...
|
| The Taiwan Strait crisis of the '90s was before my time
| but it'd be interesting to know how bellicose the
| rhetoric got back then.
| moose_man wrote:
| Different than threatening war with US. Edit and yes, it
| stepped up in 2012 when Xi took over. Started with Japan
| and has migrated to aggression against US and allies.
|
| Edit: Taiwan crisis wasn't great, but it ended when the
| US sailed an aircraft carrier through Strait of Taiwan.
| So while it wasn't great, it wasn't like they were
| threatening war against US.
| riku_iki wrote:
| my speculation is that the main goal of Chinese covid
| lockdown was to train and simulate mass policing of
| population in case of upcoming war.
| mikewarot wrote:
| My understanding is their vaccine doesn't work at all,
| they don't have a strong emergency medical care system,
| thus it was the only real option for them.
| riku_iki wrote:
| they could buy western vaccine
| pixl97 wrote:
| And admit weakness?, autocracy doesn't like doing that
| much.
| riku_iki wrote:
| They not necessary need to tell population it is foreign
| vaccine.
|
| But maybe they were trying to solve the problem of aging
| population that way.
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| Why would you need to police population in case of war
| for returning Taiwan? It will be very popular war and you
| definitely won't need to lock people down.
| nostromo wrote:
| Look at Russia as an example. The war has been longer and
| less popular than expected and economic sanctions have
| hurt the working class the most.
|
| China imports 66%-75% of its oil. That would drop
| dramatically in a hot war, as oil imports via the South
| China Sea would likely be blocked. This would require any
| imports to sail around Australia, which would likely be
| stopped by the US.
|
| Russia would happily sell China oil, but it doesn't
| produce nearly enough to cover the gap.
|
| No oil, no military. No oil, no economy.
| riku_iki wrote:
| there will be consequences from these war for population.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Like everything I think this is at least a half truth.
| COVID did happen but probably not intentionally. And then
| China (And a few other countries) saw it as a great
| excuse to try a few things out on the general population
| and see what they could get away with.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| As with speculation about US Covid measures being some
| kind of training or testing for god-knows-what crazy
| thing, the political and economic costs of the measures
| are far too high for those to make any sense as major
| motivations.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Some of the propaganda videos people are posting on douyin
| (OG tiktok) are hilarious (even if the historical events
| they're inspired by are very serious). It's interesting to
| compare foreign propaganda about the US military to US
| propaganda about foreign militaries.
|
| https://www.douyin.com/video/6946497713223585028
|
| https://www.douyin.com/video/7081571993102961958
| [deleted]
| HillRat wrote:
| Yeah, he's ... a little excitable. Dude runs Air Mobility
| Command, he could stand to remember he's not running ACC,
| he's FedEx for things what go bang.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Do you have a link or name of the guy? I haven't heard about
| this
| bagels wrote:
| edit: Maybe this?
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-air-
| fo...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I dont see anything crazy there
|
| > Minihan said in the memo that because both Taiwan and
| the U.S. will have presidential elections in 2024, the
| U.S. will be "distracted," and Chinese President Xi
| Jinping will have an opportunity to move on Taiwan.
| bmitc wrote:
| You need to read the full memo, sent out as an email and
| watch his prior speeches. The memo appears to have been
| admonished by actual national security experts.
| Irregardless of the accuracy, there are better ways to
| handle these things, and he doesn't seem to have proper
| authority to make those statements.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Parent is presumably talking about recent comments by Gen.
| Mike Minihan (Air Mobility Command).
|
| IMHO, people/news are blowing it out of proportion.
|
| If the boss of FedEx said we're going to end up in a war
| with China, how much does that say about what defense
| contractors are doing?
|
| What it was probably _actually_ about was shocking the
| troops assigned to AMC, establishing an important mission
| and raising morale, and declaring business as usual was no
| longer acceptable.
|
| Gotta be creative to make people excited about moving
| supplies.
|
| See also: every ridiculous statement by every startup CEO
| in a bubble, ever
| krapp wrote:
| Warmonger suggests we should mong a war. Film at eleven.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Would be great if just more people had read this great book
| nowadays (and please, not watch that super bad recent movie
| that doesn't deserve to bear the same title (: ).
|
| And cannot belief statesman proclaiming that now everywhere
| :( War should always be seen as evitable, at least that
| belief needs to hold up til the last second.. and even
| further. But who am I...
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| I'd say it feels like a return to the era of cold war tensions
| but I wouldn't know, I was born around when the Berlin Wall
| fell. What say you older HNers, is this what it was like?
| moose_man wrote:
| The Cold War had expectations, guardrails, rules. Those don't
| exist in the current setup. China didn't even pick up the
| emergency hotline in the first balloon crisis.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| From first approximation, there are 2 major questions to
| initiating a conflict.
|
| 1. Will I be able to stay in power? (Related: Will my
| populace support this war? Will my economy keep
| functioning?)
|
| 2. Will I end the conflict with more power / prestige /
| resources? (Related: How expensive will the conflict be in
| blood and treasure?)
|
| Most of the things the West are doing over Ukraine are to
| make the "Related" answers less palatable. Very few people
| are calculating enough to climb to power, then risk
| everything on a gamble with bad odds.
|
| If China gets serious about Kinmen and Matsu, then everyone
| should start worrying.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| So... it's worse?
| moose_man wrote:
| Honestly, I've been watching this unfold since 2012 and
| the point where we are now is pretty bleak. Unless
| something intervenes to change the course of where things
| are going, we're headed for a bad place. It's bleak to
| the point where experts on both sides (Chinese and US)
| seem resigned to conflict.
| [deleted]
| LarryMullins wrote:
| The Cold War wasn't uniform of course, there were periods
| of greatly increased tension and periods of relative
| relaxation (e.g. _Detente_.) What we have now is
| somewhere in the middle, I 'd say on the peaceful/Detente
| side of the scale.
| influx wrote:
| In the 80s, I resided on a US Military base in West
| Germany. Currently, I feel like the world is getting
| closer to World War III, which is the closest experience
| I have had in my lifetime. There is ongoing conflict in
| Europe involving a country that possesses nuclear
| weapons.
|
| Additionally, tensions are escalating with China and the
| economy seems unstable. I sincerely hope that reasonable
| minds will be able to prevent any further escalation of
| these conflicts, but there is always the possibility of
| an unintentional incident that could lead to an expansion
| of these wars.
| csa wrote:
| I agree with dctoedt.
|
| This is nothing.
| mikewarot wrote:
| It feels to me like things are just starting to spool up.
| Unlike during my youth, I think the playing field is much
| more tilted in the United States favor.
|
| I had lots of nightmares about seeing a bright orange flash
| in the window back in my youth. I've had a few recently.
|
| If they decide to take out the Steel Works in Gary, I'll be
| toast. If not, fallout is something that can be avoided by
| staying inside, away from exterior walls and the roof, and
| waiting it out for at least a week.
|
| I've had Potassium Iodide in stock for my child's use since
| the Fukushima meltdown... I bought a new bottle when Ukraine
| kicked off.
| [deleted]
| snozolli wrote:
| I would say the tensions seem similar, but the consequences
| seem different.
|
| In the 80s, it felt like you might find yourself vaporized or
| living in a nuclear apocalypse hellscape at any moment,
| likely due to a misunderstanding or malfunction.
|
| These days it seems like we're more likely to just be in a
| long-term adversarial position with likely proxy wars.
|
| I feel like the WWII and Cold War eras were more about
| existence, whereas these days the aggression is more about
| how much more bounty do we want. Look at the Chinese land
| grabs around disputed islands versus Japan. They don't need
| them, but it would be nice to have them.
|
| The whole thing just seems like a bunch of unnecessary, ego-
| driven B.S. on every side.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What say you older HNers, is this what it was like?_
|
| The Cold War was a lot scarier than what we have now. In the
| back of your mind, every day you thought that today could be
| the day we all get wiped out.
|
| I'm not too worried about Russia or China starting anything
| nuclear these days. Russia invade Scandinavia? Sure. China
| invade Taiwan? Absolutely. But I'm not worried that they'll
| nuke someone else from a distance.
| fest wrote:
| > But I'm not worried that they'll nuke someone else from a
| distance.
|
| I'd like to hear more about this perspective- is this based
| solely on the fact that they haven't done it before or
| something else?
| death_to_satan wrote:
| [dead]
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _What say you older HNers, is this what it was like?_
|
| I'm old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis -- to
| borrow from Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie _Wag the
| Dog_ , "This? THIS is NOTH-ing!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jR4gld-nUA
| mikeyouse wrote:
| There's a weird set of specifications with this one since they
| seem to be making a distinction between the balloon last week and
| whatever this is;
|
| * Flying at 40k feet altitude
|
| * Size of a small car
|
| * Not manned
|
| * Didn't appear to be maneuverable
|
| * Shot down with an AIM-9X heatseaking missile
|
| What could that be? Also, seems premature to assume China again
| when Russia is far closer to the Alaskan coast and just as
| antagonistic.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| the equivalent of a satellite being hung from a balloon. "Non
| maneuverable" is still sort of ambiguous because these types of
| vehicles navigate by selecting the altitude with the most
| favorable winds and using controls to attain that altitude,
| either with a more advanced gas fill/release system or dropping
| ballast. It sounds like the previous balloon had a good amount
| of these systems so it could be aimed and this one likely had a
| more rudimentary version?
| dustractor wrote:
| We should figure out a way to harvest the helium.
| yummybear wrote:
| Actual weather balloon?
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I like how the measurement unit seems to be either small cars or
| school busses.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| American no abstract good
| tedunangst wrote:
| It incorporates error bars. A mini is a small car, but maybe a
| mustang is a small car, too.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Shoot first ask questions later? Why not intercept it, disable
| it, and then dismantle it to figure out what and why it is?
| judahmeek wrote:
| What's the difference between disabling a flying object &
| shooting it down?
| pcmaffey wrote:
| How many pieces it's in, I suppose.
| [deleted]
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I wonder if it's a drone from an HK cargo ship like the ones that
| flew onto / around US Navy ships in the past.
|
| - Drones can be the size of small cars
|
| - 40K feet is not a problem for a drone
|
| In such a case it'd be more about the class / properties of the
| drone...
| ksherlock wrote:
| 40,000 feet is within class A airspace and flying into Alaska
| means crossing the ADIZ so it has no business being there
| whatever it is.
| dang wrote:
| We merged all the threads into this one, since it seems to have
| been first.
|
| We changed the url from
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-...
| to what appears to be the article with most recent updates (via
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34745940 - thanks yabones!).
| thinking001001 wrote:
| I dread to think of all the state-funded technology companies
| with backdoor-ed firmware/software coming out of China
| billyhoffman wrote:
| While RSA isn't a state-funded technology company, they did
| accept a $10M payment from the NSA to make their BSafe security
| product default to use the DUAL_EC_DRBG cryptographically
| secure pseudorandom number generator. Which the NSA had
| designed and backdoored...
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5231006/nsa-paid-10-mill...
| sschueller wrote:
| I don't see much difference between Chinese routers having
| back-doors and what Cisco has peddled to its customers all
| these years either willfully or just incompetence.
| [deleted]
| kazmerb wrote:
| I'd rather my own government spy on me than China. I'd rather
| Hannibal fucking Lecter be able to see me through my webcam
| than China.
| sschueller wrote:
| I would too but Europe sold all its companies to the US and
| China.
| ginko wrote:
| You know Nokia and Ericsson are still huge players in
| telecom technology right?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Your own government has a much higher ability to affect
| your life than China does, so what you're saying is
| completely irrational. Not that it's OK for the Chinese to
| spy on us, mind you, or to claim that they don't have
| nefarious purposes.
| Mindless2112 wrote:
| You can bring your own government to account for what it
| does. You can do nothing about what what China does.
| mulmen wrote:
| I'd rather be spied on by a western democracy than China.
| Our intelligence agencies are out of control but there's
| still better mechanisms for reigning them in than China.
| smcl wrote:
| What mechanisms do you recommend for reigning in, say,
| the NSA or GHCQ? Were they reigned in _at all_ after the
| Snowden leaks?
| smcl wrote:
| Why, though? Your own government has far more power over
| you and far more reason to be interested in you than China
| ever would (unless you're a prominent critic of China,
| politically connected, or involved in military intelligence
| or something like that).
|
| I mean I don't want _anyone_ spying on me, but I 'm less
| worried about China targetting me than the Czech government
| (where I live) or the UK one (where I'm from).
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Yeah... I would say a large part of why I'm skeptical of
| Chinese made computing devices is because I understand what
| the US has been doing with ours over the last 50 years.
|
| That said... from a national security perspective - it is
| still the right call to be wary of devices that are likely
| compromised by another nation. You should just be assuming
| that if you didn't make them locally (as in under your own
| territorial control) they are compromised during production.
| For everyone. Everyone should be acting with that as the
| default.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently.
|
| The general premise is this:
|
| U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on
| spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of
| Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to
| either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent
| them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd
| occasionally get caught (perhaps on purpose) and cause a base to
| scramble to intercept. The proposed theory on why they'd get
| caught on purpose was to gather up intelligence on what a
| response would be flying through the airspace.
|
| It's possible they've been doing this for more than a decade and
| the military has gotten caught with egg on it's face having
| ignored the reports for so long.
| cjg_ wrote:
| More or less the premise of this 2021 article:
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones...
| nsxwolf wrote:
| It's like Israel's "Iron Dome" interceptors. $50,000 each to
| take out what amounts to a $50 Estes model rocket.
| TheGuyWhoCodes wrote:
| I don't think it's a fair comparison because a rocket hit
| could be much more expensive in direct and collateral damage
| than 50k
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Yeah, a $50k missile to save even a single unoccupied house
| is a missile that paid for itself. And if it saves a few
| human lives then it was positively cheap.
|
| If bankrupting Israel by forcing them to expend Iron Dome
| interceptors is Hezbollah's plan, it obviously isn't
| working.
| jxramos wrote:
| I wonder how much is going into location technology much
| like ShotSpotter but for rockets and mortar and all that
| sort of thing. They may already know the origins of fire
| but maybe can't fire back at that precise location or
| something?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Counter-battery radar that can track artillery shells or
| ballistic rockets back to their point of origin have been
| around for many years now; the Israelis surely know
| exactly where the rockets are being fired from. I think
| they (usually) avoid firing back because they know there
| would be civilian casualties and want to avoid some of
| that bad PR.
|
| One such system operated by Israel:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EL/M-2084
| nsxwolf wrote:
| True. But they're unguided, almost none of them will cause
| real damage, but you have no choice but to take all of them
| out to prevent the losses from a lucky shot - at great
| expense. It's a great way to drain your enemies funds,
| great asymmetric warfare. Casualties are just icing on the
| cake.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| It's also a great way to test and hone one's missile
| shield with live unscheduled "drills" that may not be
| drills.
|
| Makes it a lot easier to get funding when requested too.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Part of Iron Dome is trajectory analysis. If the profile
| of a target matches that of an unguided rocket _and_ the
| CEP is in some unoccupied area, no interceptors are
| fired. If it looks like it 'll land in a populated area,
| interceptors are fired. It doesn't just shoot everything
| in the sky.
| voldacar wrote:
| Pringles cans have never been observed to move in ways that
| violate Newton's laws
| krapp wrote:
| Given the possibilities of an alien spacecraft observed on
| Earth violating the known laws of physics, or some error on
| the part of the observer, I'm going with the latter every
| time.
|
| First, prove that everything we know about physics is wrong
| at a fundamental, irreconcilable level. Then explain why our
| completely wrong models of physics still work as well as they
| do. Then explain the Fermi Paradox in light of the apparent
| existence of easy faster than light/antigravity technology
| _and_ confirmation of the existence of other technologically
| advanced civilizations in the universe. Then I 'll be willing
| to concede the _still practically nil_ chance of any of those
| aliens actually being _here_ given the vast size of the
| observable universe as being likely enough to consider.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I want it to be true. I _desperately_
| want it to be true. I 've been fascinated by UFOlogy and
| sightings and the related folklore for decades. I want some
| fate for humanity other than us slowly choking to death on
| our own poison, alone on this island in the midst of vast
| seas of infinity. It's just that the bar for proving any
| other possibility is higher than a third-hand account of
| someone seeing a light in the sky that moved really fast.
| tedunangst wrote:
| If we don't know what it is, we don't know it's not a
| pringles can.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Nor has there been good evidence of UAPs doing so.
| nostromo wrote:
| Those UFOs were lens flares.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs
|
| Turns out we like to spend gobs of money even when we're just
| chasing our shadow.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Mick Wests videos on the topic have been thoroughly debunked
| by fighter pilots and experienced aviators.
|
| He also completely ignores the eyewitness testimony and radar
| data.
|
| He's one of the least credible debunkers you can find.
| herbstein wrote:
| Mick West's videos are so good, specifically because the
| analysis are based on what's actually shown in the interface
| in the videos. There's no big "like, comment,
| subscribe"-section either. Just a pure explanation of why the
| object shown isn't as mystical as it appears at first glance.
| united893 wrote:
| That video helps explain one property one of the UFO videos
| (the rotation) but doesn't explain the rest. Doesn't explain
| the Tic Tac videos. It does not explain why these were
| observed on radar as well.
|
| While some of the videos have explanation, I would kindly
| encourage you to look at this with more curiosity.
| herbstein wrote:
| > Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos
|
| He covers the "Tic-Tac" and "Go Fast" videos too, just not
| in that specific video. Like in this one, where he explains
| how the "Go Fast" video isn't actually even a fast object
| zipping just above the water, but rather an object flying
| at roughly wind-speed at about 12000 feet.
|
| https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _It does not explain why these were observed on radar as
| well._
|
| The lens flare was caused by the camera looking at the ass
| end of another jet. The radar saw the other jet.
|
| For even one of these videos to have a mundane explanation
| that should have been obvious to the Navy upon
| investigation, I think that discredits the lot. Either the
| Navy couldn't figure it out themselves (which seems
| _highly_ improbable), or for some reason the Navy is
| deliberately misleading the public, or at the very least
| allowing some of their personnel to mislead the public and
| playing coy about it. I think this is what 's happening.
| zeven7 wrote:
| > or for some reason the Navy is deliberately misleading
| the public, or at the very least allowing some of their
| personnel to mislead the public and playing coy about it
|
| But why?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Maybe they think it's funny. Maybe it's to confuse their
| adversaries, or a ploy for more funding from Congress.
| Maybe they're allowing some pranksters to have their fun
| because they want to encourage an environment of open
| reporting where pilots aren't afraid to report strange
| things.
| xwdv wrote:
| They need to stop doing this. If they send out thousands of
| cheap balloons it would be like a denial of service attack!!
|
| We don't have the bandwidth to basically dog fight thousands of
| aircraft simultaneously!! We'll go bankrupt!
| foreverobama wrote:
| [dead]
| thedorkknight wrote:
| That was actually similar to a concern from CIA director Walter
| Bedell Smith:
|
| >According to Smith, it was CIA's responsibility by statute to
| coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the
| problem. Smith also wanted to know what use could be made of
| the UFO phenomenon in connection with US psychological warfare
| efforts.
|
| https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/cias-role-in-t...
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause
| the US to spend gobs of cash. I even hesitate to mention some
| ideas that immediately come to mind that would be easier/more
| efficient to really nail than the Pringles can idea.
|
| Plus many of the more prominent base-personnel sightings land
| quite a bit far from that particular ballpark. Take a look into
| the Rendlesham Forest incident for example.
|
| The problem with "summing up UFO contact" is that the variety
| of encounters is absolutely insane. Compare Rendlesham to
| Varginha, etc.
|
| It really starts to bring out the "inter" in the more colorful
| inter-dimensional contact theories.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Had never heard of the Rendlesham Forest incident - what a
| rabbit hole. Thank you for sharing.
| cpursley wrote:
| Knowledge like this is what keeps bringing me back to HN.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways
| to cause the US to spend gobs of cash.
|
| Yeah.
|
| My best understanding based on watching a lot of retired
| military personnel is that isolated incidents cost the US
| almost exactly zero additional dollars.
|
| The way an Air Force base works is this: there is a budget.
| This covers the (considerable) costs of the base itself, the
| personnel, the equipment, and so on.
|
| Active-duty fighter pilots _must_ fly a certain number of
| hours per month to remain on active status. Just like any
| other demanding activity (sports, competitive gaming,
| whatever) their skills require constant maintenance. These
| flying hours are of course budgeted. (This will be true of
| literally any air force; it 's not specifically a USAF thing)
|
| Things like these incident responses, and even things like
| flyovers before sporting events, come out of those
| predetermined budgeted flying hours that they were going to
| fly anyway. So isolated incidents like these don't really
| increase USAF expenses in a meaningful way. Those $400K/ea
| missiles will presumably need to be replenished but this must
| be compared to the USAF's total budget of $180 billion.
|
| To put any strain whatsoever on the US's capabilities our
| foes would need to start sending large amounts of drones:
| essentially, a saturation attack. More than we can
| comfortably respond to. Which is of course... extremely
| possible.
|
| But as long as these remain isolated incidents we can surmise
| that our adversary's goal is not "cost the US a bunch of
| money."
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to
| spend gobs of cash._
|
| Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop
| a super secret jet, very big, very fast.. it must be very
| impressive fighter jet! America is spooked so tons of
| resources are poured into the F-15 to make the absolute best
| possible air superiority fighter jet they can, to counter
| this new Soviet threat.
|
| Except then it turns out that the Mig-25 was never a fighter
| jet, it was an interceptor that was very fast in a straight
| line but not much more. So the US built an incredible air
| superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never
| really existed in the way America thought.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#F.
| ..
|
| Come to think of it, maybe China is going low-tech with
| balloons to avoid this dynamic?
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| If you know something about how the USAF responds to
| incidents, the idea of the deputy base commander and disaster
| preparedness running around in the middle of the night
| chasing UFO's is hilarious. It's obviously a practical joke
| that got out of hand.
| NikkiA wrote:
| Making a high altitude balloon highly visible (eg, put lights
| inside it) and sitting back and waiting is actually a terrific
| tactic for finding out maximum operational ceiling of
| interceptors when the number is non-public.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Mission accomplished. The previously published ceiling of the
| F-22 was 50K feet. The Pentagon said it was flying at 58K
| feet when it shot down the first balloon. Guess it can do (at
| least) 58K.
|
| This was probably not entirely groundbreaking news to anybody
| including China. Everybody knows that the published specs of
| military hardware are intentionally distorted in one
| direction or another.
|
| The F-15's known ceiling is 65K feet for example. So it's not
| surprising that newer fighters can match that.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| The proposed theory on why they'd get caught on
| purpose was to gather up intelligence on what a
| response would be flying through the airspace.
|
| It's certainly the most likely explanation.
|
| Accordingly, it seems highly possible that the countries
| targeted by such incursions (a) realize their response time is
| being tested (b) fuzz/delay their responses by some certain
| amount of time in order to frustrate such efforts.
| pvaldes wrote:
| So we finally have our explanation for all the strange attempts
| to resurrect UFO interest in the last years.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942463
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970609
|
| You could fly a flashing cow in this times and nobody would stop
| looking down at their phones.
| thedorkknight wrote:
| The director of national intelligence explicitly said in a
| Congressional hearing last may that they want to destigmatize
| UAP sightings so that pilots will actually report them when
| they happen. It hasn't really been a big mystery why some
| people in the government have been trying to change the
| attitude around UFOs recently - that's why they use the term
| UAP instead, less cultural baggage
| jshzglr wrote:
| Other countries are trying to spy on the US's super advanced
| "UAPs". Pet theory of mine.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| What are UAPs?
| jshzglr wrote:
| Historically known as UFOs
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon
| tromp wrote:
| I've also seen Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena but Aerial
| makes more sense.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=What+are+UAPs%3F&ei=6L_mY7_5.
| ..
| larrywright wrote:
| The F-22 has gone from zero kills to two in under a week.
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| Now even with the number of fatalities in the F-22's flight
| history, I believe.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Indeed. If you charted those it'd be likely show as a breakout
| event vs. relevant moving averages at this point.
|
| So from that POV, one may start to think about a quick buildup
| of momentum in the general direction of F-22s shooting things
| down, or air combat, or just combat, etc.
|
| Not so much to predict the future, as to ideate and prepare
| frames of mind for potential changes in circumstance.
| adversaryIdiot wrote:
| Technical analysis is astrology!
| harles wrote:
| Extrapolating from here, expect 2^52 objects shot down by
| F22s this time next year.
| ralusek wrote:
| I'm seeing Fibonacci so far, not doubling.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Why are they calling it an object. It seems like a huge deal what
| kind of "object" this was. Was it another balloon? Missile?
| Private plane? How could they not know, and if they do know, why
| would they not say?
|
| Edit - this video isn't loading for me, but I've just watched
| what I assume is the same briefing on Twitter. They have a pilot
| assessment that the object was unmanned - but they can't tell us
| balloon, missile, drone? I'm not understanding how a pilot could
| see the thing, communicate ("I'm looking at an unmanned object,
| should I shoot?") and somehow not convey what the object was. I
| appreciate the speed of this briefing, but I would prefer they
| wait at least until they know what they are saying. In the
| briefing below the guy says NORAD has been tracking it for a day
| - and they still don't know what it is? I guess that rules out
| missile, at least.
| [deleted]
| LinuxBender wrote:
| _" Object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a
| reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight"_ and _"
| Object the size of a small car"_ [1] according to General Ryder
|
| No details beyond this yet due to classification restrictions.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544hoprTeTw
| sammalloy wrote:
| John Kirby of the National Security Council said he would not
| call it a balloon, according to NBC News. What was it then?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Maybe it was a balloon but Kirby is being curmudgeonly and
| thinks it should be called an "Unmanned Buoyant Aircraft
| (UBA)" or something like that. These national security
| types love wordy terms and acronyms. Maybe he thinks
| calling a balloon a balloon makes it sound too trivial or
| something.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| We will not know until the DoD provide the public report on
| this information. Everyone is speculating so I would wait
| for the official report.
| post_break wrote:
| A drone of some sort, something with an engine if they used
| a heat seeking missile.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Didn't they use a heat seeking missile on the balloon in
| Carolina?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The US doesn't have any heat-seeking missiles. They use
| multi-spectral imagers that can see in the infrared
| spectrum among others.
| operatingthetan wrote:
| "Heat seeking" is a bit of a misnomer. It uses thermal
| imaging to determine contrast against the background and
| then heads to the center of the detected object. No
| engine required. This is the same missile they used last
| week.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Spying happens all the time, even between allies. From what I
| read/understood about past spying incidents, it's only when
| someone starts mentioning it to the press that they want the rest
| of the population to be up an arms about it. Why that might be
| true: there are probably tons of Chinese spy events (and American
| spy events on China) that never made it. Was the balloon the
| first? Come on.
|
| If the above hypothesis is true, it means the U.S. is trying to
| rile up / ready / etc. the population to view China as a threat.
|
| Kind of ironic given the intense scrutiny and fears prior to
| Trump getting elected that he would trigger a depression or war
| because of his isolationist attitude about China specifically.
|
| But more importantly what does that mean now? Will it justify
| laws passed to further isolate China?
| [deleted]
| death_to_satan wrote:
| [dead]
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > If the above hypothesis is true, it means the U.S. is trying
| to rile up / ready / etc. the population to view China as a
| threat.
|
| If so, the previous balloon was a pretty fuckin' stupid way to
| do that, since letting it wander all over the US was obviously
| going to be used by political adversaries to attack the
| administration (justly or unjustly, doesn't matter).
| krapp wrote:
| Political adversaries will always attack the administration,
| that's par for the course.
|
| But regardless of what the actual facts on the ground (er, in
| the sky) might be, or what party A says about party B, the
| media and online commentariat are framing them within a
| narrative of aggressive threats from China, and of war being
| imminent, possibly even necessary. Our consent is clearly
| being manufactured for something.
| justinclift wrote:
| > If the above hypothesis is true, it means ...
|
| In your comment, you say "it means the US is trying to rile up
| / ready /etc" the population. That's not the only plausible (or
| even most likely) scenario though.
|
| The publishing of this info could indeed be for that purpose.
| Or it could be for something else, such as to influence the
| currently-ongoing negotiations with other players (eg European)
| at a critical time.
|
| Or it could be for some other purpose again, that's neither of
| those. :)
| mancerayder wrote:
| You mean influence the population of European allies or their
| leaders?
|
| The hypothesis above is roughly connected to this wider idea
| about international relations that the 'big ideas' happen
| behind closed doors, and there is a second 'public' face.
| Here the balloon type incidents leak to the public
| strategically while other incidents go unmentioned except in
| private or in some esoteric place.
|
| If true, why would the US press and mainstream media be
| headlining it when of course it'll enrage the population. It
| was a choice to publicize it and a choice for our political
| parties to point fingers at each other over it, as part of
| the typical spin cycle.
| justinclift wrote:
| > You mean influence the population of European allies or
| their leaders?
|
| Their leaders, and the people representing them during
| negotiations.
|
| > If true, why would the US press and mainstream media be
| headlining it when of course it'll enrage the population.
|
| No idea. Possibly a side effect, maybe wanted, maybe not.
|
| Potentially so "the population" gets onboard with whatever
| the outcome of the EU negotiations are.
| bspammer wrote:
| The thing was visible to the naked eye, and so was its demise.
| I don't see any reason to believe there was some agenda at play
| on the US side. They couldn't have covered it up if they wanted
| to.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I dunno, AFAICT the previous 3 or 4 balloons over the US
| weren't noticed by the general public
| brindidrip wrote:
| I noticed some odd things while watching the press conference.
| Pat Ryder had a potential Freudian slip and said that it was
| taken down because it "posed a threat to civili..." and he
| enunciated the "li" as if he were going to say "civilization,"
| but he then paused and corrected himself to say "civilian."
| Another odd thing was when Pat Ryder answered a question about
| why the President's decision to take down the object was
| necessary. Pat mentioned something like, "Presidents usually make
| decisions when certain threats in our airspace pose a danger to
| civilians on the ground."
|
| It's extremely odd to me that they were able to identify the
| object by sending our own airmen to visually confirm it, but if
| that's the case, wouldn't they be able to definitively conclude
| that it wasn't a balloon? Pat kept it ambiguous and kept
| insisting that it was some sort of object.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Part of me thinks they wanted to shoot down the first balloon,
| but the president was kind of incapacitated and unable to give
| the order. That's the only thing I can think of for why they
| didn't shoot the first one down when it was over Alaska, but they
| shoot this one down when it is.
| sschueller wrote:
| Would be hilarious if they shutdown some high school project with
| a Go-Pro attached to it.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > The object, which the U.S. learned about on Thursday evening,
| was described as "roughly the size of a small car," Kirby said.
| flangola7 wrote:
| A high school project could definitely launch a car sized
| balloon.
| dtx1 wrote:
| Even more hilarious if it's a UAP.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| In northern Alaska? How are they getting this level of helium
| in the region as consumers?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That would probably make it some of the best non-armed forces
| footage of an F-22 in action, wouldn't it?
| consumer451 wrote:
| > Officials said the object was far smaller than the previous
| balloon, did not appear to be maneuverable and was traveling at a
| much lower altitude.
|
| "Not maneuverable" and "previous balloon" so is it fair to assume
| that it's a balloon as well?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| No, it is just as likely to be a reporter's garbled
| understanding of an explanation. In mysterious matters wait
| until you have 2 or 3 datapoints before using a heuristic.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Agreed, but the "previous balloon" part may be unnecessary.
|
| User dTal is on the same train of thought as I was regarding
| the "not maneuverable" part.
|
| What other type of object exists which can fly and yet does
| not have the ability to maneuver?
| singleshot_ wrote:
| ICBM
|
| Airplane on autopilot with dead/sleeping pilot
|
| Control surface problem (e.g. 737 elevator jackscrew
| excursion scenario)
|
| (Just thinking out loud/adding ideas, not contradicting).
| mulmen wrote:
| I wondered about this too. But even balloons are maneuverable
| in some sense, by changing their altitude. So maybe the meaning
| is more like "didn't maneuver in response to our presence".
| zardo wrote:
| > But even balloons are maneuverable in some sense, by
| changing their altitude.
|
| Most balloons are not equipped to actively change their
| bouyancy.
| cdot2 wrote:
| Especially because the high altitude stuff are generally
| zero pressure balloons
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Would a smaller balloon fly lower? Seems likely.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| That's an interesting catch. Still, it's known that the
| previous object was a balloon, so I'd say it makes more sense
| to expect those words are shorthand for "previous object (which
| was a balloon)". This new object may still be a balloon, but
| those words aren't admission of that.
| dTal wrote:
| Not many other types of non-maneuverable flying craft.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Fair point; I doubt it's anything like a bottle rocket or
| whatever else. I guess it doesn't really matter either way
| since it's likely to be revealed what it was.
| [deleted]
| georgeg23 wrote:
| Given the Chinese have been complaining to the UN for the last
| year about American Low Earth Orbit satellites spying on them
| (Starshield, Space Development Agency, etc..) this balloon thing
| is pretty clever.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| I mean maybe I'm just not up to date on recent history, but when
| was the last time we shot down anything in our our airspace prior
| to last week?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Can't find anything remotely recent on a list of shoot-down
| incidents on Wikipedia (aside from these balloons), but I'd not
| be surprised if a few smuggling-related drones have been shot
| down in the last couple decades, depending on what we're
| counting.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > when was the last time we shot down anything in our our
| airspace
|
| hunting season
| pvaldes wrote:
| * * *
| ejb999 wrote:
| TWA flight 800 in 1996? I am not convinced we didn't.
| neogodless wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800_conspiracy_theo.
| ..
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| WW2, I think
| perihelions wrote:
| Hopefully this isn't on that kind of hair-trigger that shoots
| down civilian airliners by mistake. It's happened literally
| dozens of times [0], so it's hard to believe any kind of blanket
| "this can't possibly happen because..." logic.
|
| Seems to be particularly likely to happen in panicky situations,
| or when someone has something to prove. E.g., the Soviet-American
| tensions surrounding an American spy plane, a RC-135, were a
| factor in the Soviets shooting down KAL-007 (they thought it was
| the RC-135) [1].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
| [deleted]
| whateverman23 wrote:
| It wasn't a hair-trigger decision. From the AP article [0]:
| "U.S. pilots who flew up to observe it determined it didn't
| appear to be manned"
|
| [0] https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-shoots-down-unknown-
| flyi...
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Protocol is to visually identify the target. In the case of an
| airliner, they try to make visual contact with the pilots if
| they don't respond by radio. There are visual verification
| methods commercial pilots are trained on.
|
| And airliners have transponders and flight plans. If a civilian
| plane stopped talking to ATC, the Air Force is likely already
| involved.
|
| Additionally, we're not on a high-alert war footing like during
| the Cold War. As far as I know, we don't have hostile military
| aircraft routinely flying with transponders off on our coasts.
|
| Even if we did, I'm pretty sure the larger military radar
| systems that would be used to track this stuff can read
| transponders and separate out which plane is which.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part of
| the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to airborne
| (and beyond) surveillance.
|
| "They shoot down our surveillance balloons, giving us precedent
| to shoot down their high altitude drone planes or satellites in
| the future."
| dTal wrote:
| This is a very reasonable explanation for the otherwise
| mysterious question of why even use an (obvious, provocative)
| balloon in the first place, when China has perfectly good
| satellites.
|
| It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's
| the right way to think about the question - they are
| engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter
| how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outraged. US
| leaves them alone? US looks weak.
| jallen_dot_dev wrote:
| > why even use an (obvious, provocative) balloon in the first
| place, when China has perfectly good satellites.
|
| The balloon floated about 100x closer to the surface than a
| satellite in low-Earth orbit and travelled much slower,
| making it potentially easier to collect signals/images.
| hughw wrote:
| Obvious, provocative.... and unsteerable.
| dTal wrote:
| The previous balloon was steerable, as it could control its
| altitude to catch different currents.
|
| I don't think we know enough about this "unknown object" to
| definitively say what it could and couldn't do.
| Osyris wrote:
| Not unsteerable if you have altitude control + a good model
| of wind patterns. This is what Project Loon[1] did and I
| think it's fair to assume the technology might be similar.
|
| [1]: https://x.company/projects/loon/
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Presumably if not shooting them down looks weak, then
| shooting them down looks competent. And playing outraged
| confers no advantage to China.
| dTal wrote:
| Maybe not. But honestly, they're so massive and slow and
| visible, and visibly loitering over sensitive sites, that
| they practically scream "shoot me down". There must be some
| advantage gleaned from it, because they can't reasonably
| have expected anything else to have happened.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > when China has perfectly good satellites.
|
| We need to move past this whole "why use spy balloons when we
| have satellites" thing. Even Scott Manley repeated it.
|
| The USA has what are likely the most capable surveillance
| satellites in the world yet the USA still employs spy planes.
|
| For one thing, RF signals suffer from path loss over
| distance. The difference is >140km in distance. That's a lot
| of signal loss. Another factor is loiter time.
| cpursley wrote:
| This is exactly what Larry Johnson (former CIA) at sonar21.com
| suggested.
| nkurz wrote:
| Or more directly, maybe our balloons. There were stories last
| year that the US military was planning to deploy surveillance
| balloons over Russian and China. Have we indeed been doing so?
| Here's one of the stories:
| https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/07/06/us-military-
| balloo....
| yamtaddle wrote:
| That precedent already exists. Trespassing planes were shot
| down during the cold war, when they could be, and China knocked
| a US intelligence plane out of the sky over "contested"
| airspace (way south of China, near some of the islands they're
| claiming in a move to gain sovereignty over as much of the sea
| route via the Straight of Malacca, and sea routes to SE Asian
| states like Vietnam, as they can) in '01 (kinda by accident,
| probably, but that didn't stop them from claiming it was OK for
| them to do that and detaining the flight crew until an apology
| was issued)
| [deleted]
| bailoon wrote:
| > I've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part
| of the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to
| airborne (and beyond) surveillance.
|
| It's more likely a coordinated event to get people to talk
| about something other than covid and the last 3 disastrous
| years. Lets be honest here, neither china nor the US wants
| people asking uncomfortable questions about covid. Now that the
| covid era appears to be over, what better way to distract
| people than "war".
|
| They did the same thing with 9/11. Uncomfortable questions
| about 9/11 was overshadowed by war and iraqi "wmds". Eventually
| people forget or move on.
|
| Call me a cynic, but china ends covid lockdowns and all of a
| sudden we get "surveillance" balloons. And the entire media
| apparatus has us talking about silly balloons instead of
| wondering what the last 3 years of covid was about. My guess
| was a staged "terrorist" attack somewhere to transition us from
| the covid news cycle. Turns out we got balloons instead.
| Whatever works in the end.
| pkaye wrote:
| People moved on from Covid long before these balloons.
| arcticfox wrote:
| >Lets be honest here, neither china nor the US wants people
| asking uncomfortable questions about covid
|
| at least in the US, I don't think anyone is really interested
| in covid anymore enough to require any distraction. Maybe
| that argument makes sense in China.
| bailoon wrote:
| What? Many want fauci, the pfizer ceo, etc arrested. People
| want answers to how covid started, the lockdowns, masks,
| etc. Everyone here is over covid as a pandemic, but that
| doesn't mean we don't have questions that we want answered.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| Briefing happening now:
| https://www.c-span.org/video/?525994-1/pentagon-briefs-downi...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder
| missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude
| greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. Send over
| the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) to
| protect the west coast.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order
| of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one
| balloon.
|
| This seems like conjecture. Is there any reliable data on how
| much said balloon cost?
| poutine wrote:
| The balloon last week could have easily been an order of
| magnitude more expensive than the AIM-9X. It was hundreds of
| feet in diameter with a suspended gantry with a multi-kw
| solar array. You don't put that much solar on to power
| nothing, so presumably there was a ton of military grade
| comms equipment on it.
| serf wrote:
| >This seems like conjecture.
|
| It's conjecture for me to presume the sky is blue without
| looking out of my window, but it's a safe bet on days with
| good weather.
|
| Unless this balloon -- or whatever it was -- was diamond-
| bedazzled and platinum-plated and filled with alien
| technology it's a safe bet that it was a fair amount cheaper
| to produce/launch/maintain than sortieing one of the most
| expensive and exclusive modern aircraft in the world and
| shooting off a missile that costs 600k/ea -- and that's not
| even considering collateral costs associated to the action.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I don't think that's really such a good bet. The first one
| was supposedly the size of multiple buses. That is a bunch
| of computer hardware held up by a balloon rather than "just
| a balloon". The price of such a thing could easily reach
| hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, let alone any
| associated R&D costs.
|
| That's all before bringing up that the person I quoted
| claimed off-hand that it's an order of magnitude
| difference. They're probably rather similar in cost.
| arcticfox wrote:
| Right, but presumably F-22s need to fly and pilots need to
| shoot down things with live ammo occasionally anyways to
| stay in shape? And logistics needs to know how to supply,
| and intelligence needs to know how to scramble them etc.
|
| This seems like what amounts to a training program to me,
| unless a lot more start coming.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Don't necessarily disagree and I don't know sufficient details
| to form a responsible opinion, but I imagine there's
| expenditure for training, whether they hit actual stuff or not?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| For some number of balloons N, the operational experience our
| fighter pilots get is priceless.
| lazyeye wrote:
| What would be ideal would be some kind of anti-balloon
| weaponry/recovery system. Some kind of balloon-based counter-
| balloon technology that could take control of the balloon and
| bring it to the ground intact. Would be a fun project to say
| the least.
| samwillis wrote:
| A "sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs" are a rounding
| error in the national security budget. The experience and
| lessons learnt from using it are valuable to all layers of the
| military and administration, significantly more so than the
| financial cost.
|
| (I'm British and so not a US tax payer, just a spectator, but
| would argue the same here)
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| You must be an eve online player.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The laser is real.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373672
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I've read about those but I'm more referring to the cost
| comment. In eve it is common to hedge a loss as "ISK
| Positive" if the value of the ammo that blew you up costed
| more than your ship, as tallied up on the killmail.
| Sharlin wrote:
| I can't not shake my head reading comments like this.
|
| Seriously, the concept of weighing the cost of an action
| vs the cost of inaction was not... exactly invented by
| Eve Online players. The entire _point_ of warfare is to
| make waging war more expensive to your opponent than to
| yourself, whether in terms of men, materiel, dollars, or
| popular support. And the concept of a Pyrrhic victory is
| likely as old as war itself - even our very term for it
| derives from a battle fought 2300 years ago!
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Nice, you spent 479 characters to say literally nothing.
| I'm +80 characters positive now in this thread where I
| also have said literally nothing.
| Sharlin wrote:
| HN happens to be one of the rare places on the modern
| internet where just flapping your figurative mouth pieces
| for the sake of flapping your figurative mouth pieces is
| not looked upon favorably. The attitude of "have
| something to say or shut the fuck up" is very refreshing.
|
| And if you think that _I_ didn 't say anything... I
| suggest re-reading my comment.
| rocqua wrote:
| What keeps a cannon from working? That would already reduce the
| costs by a lot, and from the visual identification it seems
| that 40,000 feet is well within the flight ceiling of fighter
| jets
| nradov wrote:
| Cannons are very short range. The fighter would have to
| approach the balloon at a high closure rate, creating some
| risk of a mid-air collision.
|
| With a missile, the pilot can shoot from several miles out
| and never has to fly directly at the target. So, it's much
| safer.
| adolph wrote:
| Why Shooting Down China's Spy Balloon Over The U.S. Is More
| Complicated Than It Seems https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
| zone/why-shooting-down-chin...
|
| See also:
|
| F-22 Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon Off Carolinas With
| Missile (Updated) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
| zone/f-22-shoots-down-chine...
|
| U-2 Spy Planes Snooped On Chinese Surveillance Balloon
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u-2-spy-planes-
| snooped...
|
| F-22 Shoots Down "Object" Flying High Over Alaskan Waters
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-
| new-o...
|
| The Soviets Built Bespoke Balloon-Killer Planes During The
| Cold War https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-
| built-besp...
| pixl97 wrote:
| We need to base the number of occurances against our average
| training flight time/ammo expenditure. Currently we train a
| hell of a lot more than we actively shoot down targets so the
| expenditure is practically nothing. Now if a lot more show up
| that's a different equation.
| cm2187 wrote:
| The big balloon from earlier this month was more like a
| satellite hanging from a balloon. Not sure it was that cheap.
|
| The problem is what can you fly that has a cannon and can reach
| those altitudes. Apparently only the F22 and F15 could, and
| that was their very limit.
| [deleted]
| oceanplexian wrote:
| That's definitely not their limit since they can shoot down
| satellites at the altitude of the International Space
| Station. And that's the stuff we're allowed to know about.
| jcrites wrote:
| The shootdowns did not involve using airplane guns. Those are
| less accurate, especially at the engagement range (from
| 40,000 ft., IIRC), and would have likely damaged the payload.
|
| The shoot-downs used AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles (per TFA). We
| also don't know the ceiling altitude of the F-22 since it's
| classified.
|
| However, the F-22 can carry the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range
| Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) which has a disclosed engagement
| altitude of 25 kilometers (85,000 feet) -- enough to target
| even much higher balloons.
| api wrote:
| So what's the deal with these balloons? Provocation? Do they
| think nobody will notice?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| IMO, the balloons are an excuse to raise tensions with China.
| bitL wrote:
| Laser mapping of military POIs before a war in a few years? See
| the recent laser rays on Mauna Kea.
| mulmen wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this? My understanding of the Mauna Kea
| lasers is that they are used to adjust the mirrors for
| atmospheric conditions in real time.
| bitL wrote:
| Yes, those originating from (around) the telescopes. But
| just recently Subaru telescope captured laser beams
| originating from space scanning Mauna Kea in regular
| intervals that looked like satellite mapping.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/mysterious-green-lasers-hawaii-
| chin...
| elmomle wrote:
| It's boundary-pushing.
|
| They're unmanned and ambient, yet are clearly a provocation and
| give China an information advantage over where it would be
| without the balloons, and in a geopolitical sense it asserts
| Chinese ascendency. At the same time, it's hard for the US or
| other powers to figure out an appropriate response. Very
| similar to Russian/NK/Chinese/Israeli/American state-sponsored
| hacking groups--it continually forces the adversary to ask
| "where do we draw a line, and what consequences do we give for
| crossing it?"
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It sounds similar in goals to the Regan-era PSYOP described
| by Peter Schweizer
|
| > "It really got to them," recalls Dr. William Schneider,
| [former] undersecretary of state for military assistance and
| technology, who saw classified "after-action reports" that
| indicated U.S. flight activity. "They didn't know what it all
| meant. A squadron would fly straight at Soviet airspace, and
| other radars would light up and units would go on alert. Then
| at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return
| home."[1]
|
| Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret
| Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union
| markdown wrote:
| Surely the appropriate response is to release some "weather"
| balloons from Taiwan.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they'd head towards the US too, but I'm not
| exactly sure of the prevailing winds.
| jcynix wrote:
| You can check wind conditions with https://www.windy.com
| to find out ...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| If I were Russia (which is not far from Alaska) I would
| launch these at random intervals with junk COTS electronics
| just to confuse matters. The cost of each launch can probably
| be denominated in thousands.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Damn that's cheaper than 10 mobiks
| wheelie_boy wrote:
| Part of the provocation is that China has been seen testing
| balloons as a weapons delivery platform for high-speed
| gliding munitions
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23758/video-appears-
| to...
| andbberger wrote:
| nah, SIGINT. great way to probe the air-defense capabilities
| of your opponent
| krolden wrote:
| Who is 'they'?
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| I'm pretty sure nobody here knows.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _provocation_
|
| Quite possibly. Minor provocations that by themselves are too
| inconsequential to warrant a response, nothing to start a war
| over, but incrementally provokes the target into lashing out in
| some way that is advantageous for China.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_salami_slicing_strateg...
|
| (Other countries do it too, of course..)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It's not like this is new. We know there were 3 during the T
| administration. Now for some reason we've decided we need to be
| paranoid about them.
| batch12 wrote:
| From what I have read these 3 were just recently 'discovered'
| and weren't known prior to Biden coming into office. How this
| can be true, I have no clue. Either way, I don't remember
| people posting balloon pictures a few years ago. I have a
| feeling that if they had transited during the previous
| administration, and people knew, they would have nailed this
| criticism to Trump too.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _Now for some reason we 've decided we need to be paranoid
| about them._
|
| That last one getting noticed by the public probably had
| something to do with it.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Probe detection & response times for various approaches and
| altitudes, sigint for radio chatter that doesn't reach past the
| US, similar for active radar targeting high altitudes, wasting
| more US money than they cost China by a _long_ shot, trial-run
| for a mass launch of these with potentially more _interesting_
| payloads than these sacrificial trial ones are carrying (even
| just as a kind of attention- and resource-wasting chaff during,
| say, an attack on Taiwan), radio-signal mapping for some crazy
| new passive guidance system. Lots of possibilities.
| specialp wrote:
| It could be to gradually increase reaction expectations so it
| would not be surprising if China shot down one of the USA's
| drones. Or perhaps escalate by using their previously
| demonstrated ability to blow up satellites. The balloon was a
| very public microaggression that forced the USA to respond in a
| very public way. China tried the public "oops it was a weather
| balloon" to give the USA a chance to back off the public
| response (but know that China was still provoking them). But it
| was too brazen to accept.
|
| The USA is already on their doorsteps by having bases in almost
| all the neighboring countries, and conducting operational
| freedom exercises by flying and sailing through disputed areas.
| omegaworks wrote:
| It's a boogeyman, a harmless prop hyped up by the right-wing in
| an effort to heighten tensions with China and criticize a tepid
| response by the administration.
|
| The Biden White House seems happy to play right along,
| justifying more equipment from top donors Raytheon and Boeing,
| and helpfully distracting from the massive freight derailment
| chemical disaster currently spewing vinyl chloride into the
| atmosphere in Ohio.
| h2odragon wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6ZYLp
|
| My pull quotes:
|
| > The Pentagon downed an unidentified object over Alaska on
| Friday at the order of President Biden, according to U.S.
| officials.
|
| > Mr. Kirby said the object was traveling at 40,000 feet. He said
| officials were describing it as an object because that was the
| best description they had of it.
|
| > A recovery effort on the debris will be made, Mr. Kirby said.
| He said the object was "roughly the size of a small car" -- much
| smaller than the spy balloon that had a payload the size of
| multiple buses.
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