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This. Why do people suspect it's a spy balloon? No reasons are given in the article. Even if it did come from China, it could be nothing more than a mere scient
by Rury 4y ago
This. Why do people suspect it's a spy balloon? No reasons are given in the article. Even if it did come from China, it could be nothing more than a mere scientific weather balloon. This smells like propaganda.
- drusepth 4y agoTechnically, a scientific weather balloon could also be classified as spying on our weather conditions. :)
- t0bia_s 4y agoThose Chinese comrades have to be damn good engineers. They released spy balloon in China and magically fly over US. Just wow. Are they really controlling the weather?
- boomboomsubban 4y agoAccording to Wikipedia, between 2000 and 5000 weather balloons are released daily. China's likely releasing hundreds of those. And there are reports of even regular helium balloons sometimes traveling thousands of miles. It wouldn't be magical for one to accidentally end up basically anywhere.
- t0bia_s 4y agoIsn't that one particular balloon for spying?
- boomboomsubban 4y agoYou responded to a post saying >Why do people suspect it's a spy balloon? No reasons are given in the article. Even if it did come from China, it could be nothing more than a mere scientific weather balloon. This smells like propaganda.
- Obscurity4340 4y agoWhere is the "Chinese" part even coming from? Does it have a Chinese return label printed on it or is the balloon a rice-patty shape?!
- stjohnswarts 4y agoWell it's highly likely they followed it's trajectory with satellites from launch to where it is now.
- Fatnino 4y agoIt's clearly not a Chinese spy balloon. China has spy sattelites that can do what this balloon supposedly can, and that's why the US isn't shooting it down. What a load of crap. 1) the US would shoot it down anyway 2) why would China send a balloon when they have sattelites? The conclusion drawn must be that it's either not Chinese, or not a spy balloon, or most probably not either.
- implements 4y ago> China has spy satellites that can do what this balloon supposedly can, Satellites have predictable orbits and are otherwise tracked, but a stealthy balloon might go unnoticed and manage to surveil sites that don’t mask their sensitive activities when they think the sky is currently clear. It’s possible that the ballon is performing signals intelligence gathering, or something else satellites at altitude can’t do. Also, the perception (true or otherwise) that the US is not fully able to control its national airspace is something China can make propaganda out of.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoEven the smallest high atmosphere balloon is gigantic. There's simply no way one could ever be hidden from radar. So 'stealthy balloons' do not exist.
- implements 4y agoThat’s a bit emphatic, surely? If you can make a B2 bomber stealthy then perhaps you can do the same with a balloon - the bags are thin polythene [1] and I assume you could combine geometry and radar absorbing material to make a payload disappear. If it were that obviously visible why wasn’t it intercepted when it crossed into America’s air defence identification zone? [1] https://www.nasa.gov/scientific-balloons/types-of-balloons https://www.nasa.gov/scientific-balloons/types-of-balloons
- Oxidation 4y agoIt's very clearly not stealthy, it's got solar panels hanging from it. I'm sure you could make a stealthy box, but this is not that.