23 ms·
US aircraft shoots down new airborne object over Canada
- anigbrowl 4y agoThey're really beating a dead horse at this point.
- Multicomp 4y agoSurely this is not the world's slowest declaration of war? Whoever country is sending whatever these artificial objects are, what can they possibly gain from this?
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoI was joking in the other thread, that soon people will be buying weather baloons and setting them off "for the lulz" (youtube videos, tiktok, or whatever) :)
- ALittleLight 4y agoI would watch a TikTok of "F22 shoots down my balloon."
- mmerlin 4y agoTikTok is like a spy balloon in your own phone (assuming the 100% clipboard-exfiltration-at-all-times and other data harvesting reports are true). Ironic if people are being spied upon by TikTok whilst watching a spy balloon video.
- stirfish 4y agoI would watch an F-22 shoot down my phone. That's a good point though - people seem more worked up about the data collection balloon than they are about the little data collector in their pockets.
- jamiek88 4y agoassuming the 100% clipboard-exfiltration-at-all-times and other data harvesting reports are true Woah! Even on iOS?
- quenix 4y agoNah. I remember this went viral at a point when the first developer betas of iOS 14 (or was if 13?) came out and IOS started reporting clipboard accesses. For a while during those early betas, it seemed TikTok was accessing the clipboard every few minutes. Apparently it turned out to be innocuous—the app qas checking for TikTok links on the clipboard to show them to the user? Something like that. Other apps had the same issue (I think Telegram comes to mind?)
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoTelegram doesn't do that, atleast not for me, since android reports (via toaster popup) clipboard access now too.
- quenix 4y agoYes, I forgot to mention that this was a transient issue which got fixed by most apps (including tiktok) some time ago.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agohttps://streamable.com/etkpd0 https://streamable.com/etkpd0 we're not far :D
- zabzonk 4y agousa vs canada! it has happened before.
- ineedasername 4y agoPig War 2.0!
- enra 4y agoCould be for observing the response of US. Russia did, and I guess still does, this a lot. Flying their planes constantly in European airspace to see if what the response is and also make it more normal occurrence. If they one day attack it’s harder to tell if this again one of those random times or an actual attack
- partiallypro 4y agoThat is one of the reasons the US left the Open Skies treaty, Russia kept breaking the agreement doing things like that making the entire thing a handicap to the US.
- hindsightbias 4y agoTrolling is cheap
- drekipus 4y agoTrolling is a art
- lsh123 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genetrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genetrix
- whoisthemachine 4y ago> The Soviets recovered many of these balloons and their temperature-resistant and radiation-hardened film[8][9][10] would later be used in the Luna 3 probe to capture the first images of the far side of the Moon. Poetic.
- lsh123 4y agoOh, there is more. For example, in late 70s Soviets built a special purpose plane to hunt balloons: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-built-bespoke-balloon-killer-planes-during-the-cold-war https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-built-besp...
- bullfightonmars 4y agoWar? Chill with the historonics. Surveillance is not war.
- bagels 4y agoShooting missiles at aircraft can be though.
- garyfirestorm 4y ago‘Perceived Threat’
- howinteresting 4y agoI think it's more "part of the game" than a declaration of war.
- JohnBooty 4y agoShooting at unidentified and nonresponsive unmanned aircraft over your own airspace has never, ever been considered an act of aggression. That is a ridiculous suggestion.
- crystalmeph 4y agoI don’t know exactly how fast the air currents at 40,000-60,000 feet will drive a balloon, but I would assume that this most recent balloon was already airborne by the time the previous one was discovered. As long as they don’t launch anymore starting last week, this particular episode should wind down peacefully. As to why use balloons instead of satellites, the most reasonable speculation I’ve seen is that they’re collecting signals intelligence (radio traffic, etc.) which is not accessible from orbital distances.
- LarryMullins 4y agoLarge controllable balloons could probably be 'recalled' by instructing them to crash into the ocean. If any more big ones like the first balloon show up, it's probably on purpose.
- crystalmeph 4y agoI was wondering why China wouldn’t include a self-destruct feature. My daughter pointed out that crashing into a US city, even unintentionally, would probably be seen as even more hostile than sending the balloon in the first place. You obviously could choose to self destruct in a remote area or over water, but they may well have considered the escalation risk to be too high if they added potentially destructive capabilities.
- ksherlock 4y agoReportedly the NC balloon did have explosives to self destruct.
- hoppyhoppy2 4y agoWho is reporting this?
- kps 4y agoWSJ, linked in another comment on this post, “The craft came outfitted with small explosives to disable the surveillance equipment, an official said, though they weren’t detonated.” https://archive.is/oORem#selection-677.0-677.133 https://archive.is/oORem#selection-677.0-677.133
- dqpb 4y agoI propose we launch our own balloons, with razor blades. Last balloon wins. World's slowest war.
- andrewflnr 4y agoActually, though, sling some detcord over the enemy balloon and set it off... (I don't know if detcord really works like that, but I'm pretty sure razor blades won't do the job either. :D)
- option 4y agoare Canada’s air forces non existent?
- Waterluvian 4y agoThe article answers the question pretty early on: both air forces scrambled fighters. NORAD is NORAD. They collaborate very closely and it becomes kind of moot who specifically does what.
- lom 4y agoIn the article it said both forces scrambled to down it, but it seems like the americans just got luckier.
- Yoric 4y agoAccording to the article, they were also dispatched. I guess the US air forces received order to shoot earlier?
- capableweb 4y agoSecond paragraph: > Both Canadian and US aircraft were scrambled to track down the object which Trudeau says was taken out by a US F-22. So clearly not.
- berkut 4y agoTheir F-18s can't fly as high (without doing zoom climbs) as the F-22 (which has very large control surfaces which help with this).
- Rebelgecko 4y agoDoes the plane have to be at the same altitude to launch the missiles?
- thrill 4y agoNo. It's useful if you want to eyeball the target first though.
- marcell 4y agoHow much if this is just awareness bias, where the media reports commonplace events that were previously ignored?
- mancerayder 4y agoIt's much more likely that the US government is wanting to tell the press, leak to the press and get the spin cycle going. There are spy events all the time, it's rare something gets actually reported proportionally.
- kneebonian 4y agoI've noticed that as well recently an increase in coverage of Ukraine and antagonistic articles of China while at the same time what could be termed as "anti-woke" media. Seems to me like the military-propaganda apparatus is spinning up to prepare the populace for a war. But it's more of a gut feeling at this point.
- unsupp0rted 4y agoWhy would they want a war now?
- avalys 4y agoThe response is certainly novel. The F-22 had zero recorded air-to-air kills a week ago, and as of today has three. Whether these intrusions by unknown objects were commonplace and previously had been ignored, is something I've wondered about myself.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jpalomaki 4y agoBased on quick search, these have been happening also before. "an official revealed during a briefing on Saturday that the U.S. was aware of three other instances during the prior administration and one instance earlier in the Biden administration that such an apparatus “transited” the country." [1] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3844511-chinese-balloons-flew-over-us-three-times-during-trump-administration-officials/ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3844511-chinese-balloons-...
- POiNTx 4y agoI wonder what the cost is of sending such a balloon vs shooting it down. If I was China I would be sending thousands of these. It's not going to cause an all out war, but it does impose some security threat which should be dealt with and can't be ignored.
- digdigdag 4y agoI don't see how China would willfully continue send these balloons without expecting a symmetrical escalation. Sure, they managed to send a few relatively undetected until the past recent weeks, but continued attempts would surely produce a physical response from NATO states, whether that's sending balloons of their own or overflying Chinese territory with other aircraft, or increased signals intelligence operations.
- interestica 4y ago>symmetrical escalation So like what, a similar but bigger balloon?
- anigbrowl 4y agoMore colors, unlike the boring monochrome available under Communism
- whatshisface 4y agoI've heard rumors of an advanced stealth coating called 14-4318-TCX.
- thrill 4y agoThat's just a blue sky theory.
- babyshake 4y ago"Mr. President, we must not allow a balloon gap!"
- abduhl 4y agoSo the F-22 is now 3-0 against balloons? And people had the audacity to call this plane a "failure"!
- deadlydose 4y agoWould you prefer they only shoot down living targets or are you just here for the snark?
- drekipus 4y agoI think it was a joke dude.
- vba616 4y agoWho called the F-22 a failure? Are you thinking of the F-35? And anyway, isn't the F-22 due to be retired before the end of the decade, so wouldn't debating its merits be beating a dead horse?
- partiallypro 4y agoEven F-35 criticisms don't hold all that much water, at least in terms of cost, given they are actually cheaper than the F-14 was when you adjust for inflation.
- HyperSane 4y agoThe F-22 was never called a failure. The main criticism is that we didn't make enough of them.
- yokem55 4y agoWell, it has a very niche application. It is absolutely the best at what it does, but an air superiority/dominance fighter is not typically useful in the conflicts that the US has been involved in since the F-22 entered service. The fact that it has been in service for almost 15 years before seeing any air to air action has meant it has been a cost that is tricky to justify.
- none_to_remain 4y agoSo how long has the CCP been sending these balloons and what caused the USG to start talking about them?
- colechristensen 4y agoThere was a big one easily observed by ordinary people which got news attention. This is why it’s being talked about now.
- Alifatisk 4y agoSo in other words, China have been doing this a long time and it wasn’t up until now when the public noticed it that the US interfered?
- godelski 4y agoThey've been doing it for a few years. The US did it in the 50's. The reason we're talking about them is two fold: 1) the "first" one had such a massive payload that people could see the object from the ground. People were posting a bunch online even before the media picked it up. 2) It became a political issue about the US's strength in response to China. That amplifies the former to be a larger and broader discussion(s). This could also indicate China's surveillance capabilities. Need to use balloons to get high resolution rather than relying on satellite imagery (kinda why we don't really use U2s anymore and why that Trump tweet was seen as a big deal). It could also be trolling. It could also be testing (including of cameras that would be put on satellites). It is hard to say anything with certainty tbh. Militaries work in secrecy and that's why information is so valuable (despite what many think). But the objects will be recovered and you'd be surprised what can be reverse engineered from an exploded pile of scrap.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- userbinator 4y ago...with Canada's permission; I think that should be said explicitly.
- marstall 4y agoarticle states that it was on Canada's orders. I didn't know that was a thing, Canadian PM having the power to command US jets. Can anyone who knows more about NORAD weigh in with an ELI5?
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoAuthorize US jets you mean? Canada is a close US ally, norad allows both US and Canada to learn about the object at the same time, and US may have offered to shoot it down with Canada’s permission since we probably have some new patrols in the area since Friday’s ballon
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoA close enough ally that the US was willing to sell nuclear tipped SAMs to Canada during the cold war. The only reason it didn't happen is because the general public flipped shit when they found out about the plan.
- fuzzfactor 4y agoUltimately, it's the Canadian Geese at risk so you've got to let them make the final call.
- throw0101c 4y ago> […] and US may have offered to shoot it down with Canada’s permission since we probably have some new patrols in the area since Friday’s ballon The US was monitoring it on Friday: > A statement from Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said the object shot down on Saturday was first noticed over Alaska on Friday evening. Two F-22 fighter jets “monitored the object” with the help of the Alaska Air National Guard, Ryder’s statement said, “tracking it closely and taking time to characterize the nature of the object.” * https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/norad-additional-object-northern-canada/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/norad-additional-obj... However: > Defence Minister Anita Anand said in a news conference the "small, cylindrical object" was about 40,000 feet above ground and downed — due to possible risks to civilian aviation — at around 3:40 p.m. ET about 100 miles from the U.S. border in central Yukon. > A senior government source with direct knowledge of the situation told CBC News that the Canadian government was first alerted to the object Friday night when it was still travelling through Alaska. > The source added the object crossed into Yukon on Saturday morning and Trudeau ordered the shoot down by whichever country arrived at it first. * https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/norad-monitoring-airborne-object-north-1.6745575 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/norad-monitoring-airborne-o... So it looks like the US 'took too long' to decide to shoot it down, and once it crossed the border Canada had final authorization. The US jets just happened to be closer (CA jets were scrambled as well).
- le-mark 4y agoThis is third shoot down we’ve been told about. First was the Chinese balloon, second was the small less maneuverable vehicle off of Alaska, and this third one in Canadian airspace. Feels like some cold conflict we’ve been unaware of is heating up.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoYup, a switch has been flipped. Actions that may or may not have happened in the past, and are happening now, are no longer being tolerated. Between this and the CHIPS act I expect the current divestment from China to go from a trickle to flood..
- ProAm 4y ago"We have always been at war with Eastasia"
- dinkumthinkum 4y agoI think TikTok is probably the most successful weapon so far, and not because of spying or privacy concerns.
- jb1991 4y ago> not because of spying or privacy concerns go on... why is that?
- rgbrenner 4y agoI think China erred by sending such a large balloon that was visible to the naked eye, causing the American public to demand it be shot down. There's no hard rule about where national airspace ends and space begins.. a lot of times they fly too high for planes to reach, and under certain circumstances balloons are allowed through national airspace.. so if the balloon isn't causing a problem (like being a hazard to air traffic), people just ignore it... weather balloons fly through our airspace all the time. But the US public saw this massive balloon and demanded it be shot down, even if it caused an international incident.. and luckily nothing serious happened. So now that the cat is out of the bag, we're going to shoot down every balloon that hasnt filed all of the required paperwork that enters out airspace that's reachable by our aircraft... because 1) the public demands it; 2) it'll become political fodder if the white house doesn't; and 3) the international issue it generates is easier for the white house to handle than the political criticism. If China never sent that large balloon.. they could have sent a dozen more small ones and no one would have cared.. just like we never cared about the 3 during the previous administration. Edit: bobbyjo pointed out this link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antennas-other-equipment-to-gather-intelligence-u-s-says-11675953033 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antenna... Since that likely settles the balloons intent… we can add 4) now that we know it’s a spy balloon, we’re going to shoot down all the balloons. Before the large balloon was shot down, no one would have bothered to check. No one is stopping weather balloons at the border. Big mistake on chinas part.
- themodelplumber 4y agoThey are probably going to keep making blunders like this, now that internal leadership (source of many internal blunders in recent years) has been consolidated / stabilized, and they are still aiming for more international power. The degree of de facto stabilization will dictate whether e.g. the US may be able to transform this opportunity into an effective new policy framework aimed at leverage in rather obvious blind spots. That could be pretty huge. I have a hunch that we'll also see an increasing number of opportunities for the US or other nations to effectively call out China's future tendency toward expeditionary blunders in South America, Africa, etc. Right now Chinese leadership does not want to be seen "bending" in this way or that, by their internal audience. But not doing so is a huge risk factor for them in international diplomacy. Whether the US or any other country really takes advantage of the opportunity and resulting partial leadership vacuum in the international space will be interesting to see.
- cebu 4y agoJets seem to be eclipsing balloons as the dominant air combatant
- FormerBandmate 4y agoThose Wright Brothers might be onto something. Wonder if you could use their “aeroplane” to travel across the world
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- detrites 4y agoIs there a plausible explanation as to why the US government has not announced objects 2 & 3 are balloons, if they are balloons? They call them "objects", yet must know what they are. They wouldn't randomly missile unknowns. If it's for reasons of secrecy, why announce it at all? The second one was in the middle of nowhere, it could easily have been ignored, or dismissed as a military exercise if anyone had made a fuss about it.
- yumraj 4y agoCould be Drones?
- consumer451 4y agoDrones have relatively limited range.
- dogma1138 4y agoMALE/HALE UAVs have an endurance of 30> hours and a range of nearly 4-5000 (7000km>) nautical miles without aerial refueling.
- consumer451 4y agoThanks, I didn't realize the extent of the range. Although, if launched from mainland China a round-trip to Canada is still pretty darn far, eh? But now I am playing the guessing game a bit too much for my own liking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-altitude_long-endurance_unmanned_aerial_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-altitude_long-endurance...
- dogma1138 4y agoYou assume it was launched from the ground, both air and sea launches are quite possible too. Also there is the Arctic you can take off and land on ice and use either an icebreaker or a sub for deployment and recovery. China does have some advanced drones with a substantial range e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou_WZ-7_Soaring_Dragon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou_WZ-7_Soaring_Dragon Ofc how they perform in reality vs their published specs no one knows. In the past at least likes of China and Russia tended to inflate the specs that they made public whilst the west tended to keep the real figures hidden and release far more conservative figures especially when it came to things like maximum speed, range and operational ceiling.
- brindidrip 4y agoI don't know why everyone is so quick to label these other objects as balloons.
- rolenthedeep 4y agoBecause we very famously shot down a balloon and everyone is talking about the balloon that we shot down from the air and now there's more objects being shot down from the air and everyone is talking about it. The government is apparently not saying what these objects were, so people are assuming they're balloons.
- PonySoldier 4y agoSeriously! All official statements so far have been pretty clear that they're not labeling it a balloon (yet). A CNN correspondent [0] just claimed that there were conflicting statements from the pilots that it interfered with their sensors as they approached it. And that they couldn't figure out how it was staying in the air. I have no idea where she got those updates, but it certainly adds mystery to the situation. [0] https://twitter.com/i/status/1624544183208890369 https://twitter.com/i/status/1624544183208890369
- Alifatisk 4y agoThat’s little scary
- dqpb 4y agoAsked if was "balloon-like," the official said, "All I say is that it wasn't 'flying' with any sort of propulsion, so if that is 'balloon-like' well -- we just don't have enough at this point."
- randerson 4y agoThe US Government shooting down an Unidentified Flying Object sounds like the start of a science fiction film. If there were ever a bad time and place for actual aliens to come visit...
- Ancapistani 4y agoThe most interesting thing to me is that the US federal government isn’t calling them “balloons” - or even “lighter than air craft”. It leaves open a lot of conspiracy type theories, and I just don’t see the motivation to do that It “feels” to me like there’s something more than US/China brinksmanship going on.
- l3mure 4y ago> It leaves open a lot of conspiracy type theories, and I just don’t see the motivation to do that Really? You can't think of any reason the US government would be happy to stir up disinfo and bullshit? I mean... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-... > Multiple U.S. officials acknowledged that the U.S. has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect, as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the U.S. is just “trying to get inside Putin’s head.” Emphasis mine.
- booleandilemma 4y agoThe US government loves to tease the public with speculation of aliens and UFOs for some reason. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/pentagon-ufo-videos/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/pentagon-ufo-videos/... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/ufo-report-government-can-t-explain-143-144-mysterious-flying-n1272390 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/ufo-report-go... https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-team-study-ufos-release-report-public-2023 https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-team-study-ufos-release...
- zxcvbn4038 4y ago
- canadiantim 4y agoI think this time it legit actually is aliens. Buckle up.
- unsupp0rted 4y agoWhy would aliens show up this way?
- tremon 4y agoBecause they need to get over the border wall somehow?
- dumbaccount123 4y agoAny reason they would not? Maybe they just caught this time. I'm being serious btw
- unsupp0rted 4y agoExtraordinary claims. The burden of proof is on the claimant. Might as well say it’s wizards showing up… because wizards don’t have a reason not to.
- dumbaccount123 4y ago>One official told ABC News that the object was “cylindrical and silver-ish gray” and gave the “balloon-like” appearance of floating without “any sort of propulsion” It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/alaska- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/alaska- mystery-flying-object-us-chinese-balloon https://news.sky.com/story/us-shoots-down-unknown-object-flying-in-airspace-near-alaska-12807818 https://news.sky.com/story/us-shoots-down-unknown-object-fly... Any idea why they refuse to confirm that its a balloon if it is? The pilots confirmed its "unmanned" but why wont they confirm if its a balloon or not? strange dont you think.
- dumbaccount123 4y ago
- Alifatisk 4y agoWill we ever get to know what this ufo actually was?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- brindidrip 4y agoForeign Ministry of Defense for Canada confirmed it was not a balloon, but a small cylindrical object.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ANumberlessMan 4y agoDo we know it wasn't just random lightweight trash that has been blown out of proportion?
- thorawayz 4y agoIt's like nobody hear listens to George Knapp or anyone who's been saying "the propulsion tech exists, it's not a question of if but how, who and why"
- rossjudson 4y agoSucks to be an alien right now.
- birdymcbird 4y agoif this alien then bigger danger for human. civilization that travel how many light year to get here possess technology human identify to be magic or God. terrifying to think at least to me :)
- booleandilemma 4y agoNot necessarily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_stor...
- poly_morphis 4y agoMaybe "they" have been here all along.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dumbaccount123 4y ago"Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes" "Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet." https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-object-alaska-military-latest/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-object-... "It was described as "cylindrical and silver-ish gray" and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said." https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-shoots-high-altitude-object-alaska-white-house/story?id=97040022 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-shoots-high-altitude-obje... "Defense Department official said it broke into pieces" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-object-shot-down-alaska.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-... That sounds vaguely similar to the one purportedly shot down over Russia last month: "Vasily Golubev, the governor of Rostov oblast, wrote on Telegram that a "small-size object in the shape of a ball" had been discovered flying "in the wind" at an altitude of around one and a half miles on January 3." Any connection to the spherical metallic ball UFO caught over Iraq by U.S. reconnaissance aircraft in 2016? https://nypost.com/2023/01/24/possible-ufo-caught-on-camera-flying-over-iraqi-city-of-mosul-in-2016/ https://nypost.com/2023/01/24/possible-ufo-caught-on-camera-... 2014 Chilean Navy UFO looks pretty similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEK3YC_BKTI&ab_channel=FoxNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEK3YC_BKTI&ab_channel=FoxNe... As does the U.S. Navy footage of a UFO caught off the coast of San Diego in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz-6jRrbtuI&ab_channel=TODAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz-6jRrbtuI&ab_channel=TODAY Another similar looking metallic sphere UFO caught by the U.S. Navy in 2021: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/K5ohaoh2ayfECjmuxtczQJ-970-80.png.webp https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/K5ohaoh2ayfECjmuxtczQJ-970...
- Waterluvian 4y agoIs it just me or does this sound unremarkable? If we take one question mark from each event, we can construct a very spooky narrative. But none of the question marks, on their own, seem all that peculiar.
- graderjs 4y agoHN vibe when ET life is finally acknowledged by government: “ is it just me or does this sound unremarkable? I mean think about it the universe is so big. We’ve always welcomed open minded scientific inquiry on this forum, I don’t think any of us ever seriously doubted we’d eventually find ET life. Why is this on front page? Let’s get back to bickering over the latest shiny tech fad.” Hehe
- dqpb 4y agoIs there nothing we can send up to take a picture of it? Edit: ffs, Do the downvotes mean "obviously there is" or "obviously there isn't"?
- kps 4y agoNot a downvoter, but yes, ‘we’ (governments) have airplanes, but that doesn't mean ‘we’ (you and I) get to see the pictures.
- drekipus 4y ago> ffs, Do the downvotes mean "obviously there is" or "obviously there isn't"? Downvotes on HN are handed out like candy to mean anything. Some people think obviously there is, and so downvote, others will think there isn't and downvote. Others think this is a stupid idea and will downvote. Others might think it's a good idea but disagree with the way you framed to the question I wouldn't really worry too much about the votes here. They mean nothing. I predict I will get downvoted on this comment, I don't know what it's meant to signify.
- riddleronroof 4y agoWhat are the chances these are warnings by another power for Ukraine?
- nl 4y agoRelated: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-new-object-flying-high-over-alaskan-waters https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-new-o... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40638/what-we-know-about-the-high-tech-balloons-lingering-off-the-coasts-of-the-u-s-recently https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40638/what-we-know-abo...
- larrywright 4y agoTangentially related, but this site (and its editor, Tyler Rogoway) are my go-to news source for anything military aviation related. Consistently great reporting. He’s worth a follow on Twitter [0] if this sort of thing is of any interest to you. [0] https://twitter.com/aviation_intel https://twitter.com/aviation_intel
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dqpb 4y agoUsed to be that everything was explained away as "probably just a weather balloon". Now, when asked specifically if it was a balloon, the govt is like "Welllll...I can say it used no method of propulsion known to science, so if that's balloon-like..."
- alsaaro 4y agoReuters sacrificed common sense for sensationalism, these are drones/balloons, not alien space craft, and everyone knows it. Clickbait!
- geraldwhen 4y agoUFO just means unidentified.
- alsaaro 4y agoYeah, but my point is UFO means alien craft in popular parlance, hence the clickbait.
- typeofhuman 4y agoWhat's your proof?
- idlewords 4y agoThe headline and article say "unidentified cylindrical object", not alien spacecraft.
- halayli 4y agoYou're confusing unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and aliens.
- Freedom2 4y ago
- ihatepython 4y agoThis is a bit embarassing, but that was actually my balloon. Sorry guys
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- i_have_to_speak 4y ago99 Luftballons.. As Griffin would say, "uh oh, we're in this one"..
- ourmandave 4y agoThey keep going at this rate, we'll get to 99 before mid March.
- c3534l 4y agoI wonder if they're trying to figure out what we can detect and we're giving them all the information they need by publically shooting these down.
- jahewson 4y agoIf you’ve got it, flaunt it.
- RajT88 4y agoMy gut feeling, having read all about how the balloon was NBD, and it wasn't worth the risk of shooting down over land, it happens all the time, etc., was that the publicity of an airspace incursion this time around required a response along the lines of, "F*CK YOUR BALLOON!".
- crayboff 4y agoI'm convinced that's why the balloons haven't been shot down in the past. Learning our detection abilities is probably way more important for China than anything they would be able to take a picture of.
- AlbertCory 4y agoYeah, I don't think that's it. Detecting a balloon doesn't take any exotic technology. Now a hypersonic missile, or a stealth plane -- that would be a test. But losing one of those would be pretty expensive.
- crayboff 4y agoI suspect finding a small balloon in the mind-boggling huge space that is American airspace is, can be surprisingly challenging. My understanding is that these UAFs are much smaller than that first Chinese balloon last week. It probably also costs a lot more money to shoot down a balloon than it costs China to put a balloon in the air.
- sebastien_b 4y agoIt’s not the US that shot it down - it was NORAD.
- pcbro141 4y agoIt was a US F-22. The US and NORAD are not mutually exclusive.
- 1over137 4y agoSays a lot about the RCAF though: they can't even defend their territory properly.
- poly_morphis 4y agoDid you even read the article? > The Pentagon said the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected the object over Alaska late Friday evening. U.S. fighter jets from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, monitored the object as it crossed over into Canadian airspace, where Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joined the formation.
- 1over137 4y agoI did read the article, yes. It was the US plane that did the actual take down. Of course RCAF planes joined, how much more pathetic would it have been if only foreign planes did the work. Did Canadian planes join in the other day when the Alaska one was shot down? Of course not, because the USAF is able to do it on their own, unlike the RCAF, which was my original point.
- tempestn 4y agoBecause that's how it's supposed to work. The US and Canada work together to defend their combined airspace. They're literally under the same chain of command, hence "NORAD". It would be rather inefficient to set that up and then have both countries redundantly responding everywhere.
- sebastien_b 4y agoNORAD shot it down, not the US.
- aurelien 4y agoFucking aliens !
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kneebonian 4y agoClosing down Montana airspace, two UFOs shotdown toxic train derailment in OH.... What a weekend.
- partiallypro 4y agoMontana airspace shutdown was just a radar anomaly mixed with a NORAD on higher than usual alert.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bamboozled 4y agoDefinitely time to bring back Mulder and Scully from retirement.
- ck2 4y agoThe plan is obviously bankrupt the US one half-million sidewinder at a time. How much does 2000 balloons cost?
- graphe 4y agoThere’s tons of equipment on it too.
- ck2 4y agoIs there though? Doesn't have to be, not anymore. North Korea wants to agitate world, just release thousands of balloons with sand.
- refurb 4y agoThe military loves this stuff. Instead spending money on practice they get to do real intercepts.
- tamaharbor 4y agoI, for one, will welcome our new insect overlords.
- graphe 4y agoUFOs are just spy drones with sensor jammers and detectors that are designed to look strange and unnerving to pilots so they will scope them out. Pilots are trained NOT to go by them or engage with them for fear of secrets leaking.
- CharlesW 4y ago> UFOs are just spy drones with sensor jammers and detectors… They can be, but they can also be weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb
- vba616 4y agoUFOs can be anything, by definition. The interesting thing here is the social phenomenon of suddenly shooting them all down. Coincidentally, I was just reading about MH17.
- glandium 4y agoAnd by the time you know what they are, by definition, they're not UFOs anymore.
- graphe 4y agoin the context of this discussion,recent times, and the fact the military always sees them around I'd say all of the current UFOs are spy drones.
- ErikCorry 4y agoThat seems like the best explanation. See https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones-are-spying-on-the-u-s-and-the-pentagon-acts-like-theyre-ufos https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones... for a fleshed out version of that argument. I think what changed is that the US decided to stop ignoring the "UFO"s. The Ukraine war has shown how important drones are and it's obvious that drones and balloons will play a huge role in any Taiwanese war.
- jdrbc 4y agoI wonder if the north american military is concerned about enemy aircraft seeding the countryside with weaponized drones.
- exabrial 4y agoPlease stop using a $400k missile to shoot down a $300 party favor. Certainly we could have a kid wave a high powered laser out of a window of a Cessna 172 for 1/10 of the price
- brianwawok 4y agoIt’s ok we have plenty of those. Good target practice.
- Scalene2 4y agoCessna can't fly high enough. Child can't stabilize laser well enough to do required damage.
- quickthrower2 4y agoWeird take.
- refurb 4y agoChina and Xi have plainly stated they plan to go toe to toe with the US. This is just stirring the pot, intentionally so.
- cc101 4y agoOne effect of this is that China now has more concrete information on North American air defense systems. When analyzing hostile events proceed from the effect backwards to determine motivation.
- MichaelMoser123 4y agoChina seems to be testing the US air defense system, is this a sign that China is getting serious over Taiwan?
- 65a 4y agoI think so; the volume of comments implying that either: 1. The US is just amplifying this to justify a war 2. The balloons are totally civilian 3. Aliens Strike me as a relatively coarse influence campaign, notable mainly for its volume. Not sure if the ramp up is to save face, or part of a larger effort. Similar efforts were notable before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
- MichaelMoser123 4y agothe Russian military had this strange anti-satellite missile test - last January, right before the war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvdQcDDUV1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvdQcDDUV1o
- darthrupert 4y agoThe confusing part is: why would enemy propaganda be focused on this relatively obscure board?
- 65a 4y agoIt's not. There's plenty of that elsewhere as well.
- darthrupert 4y agoExactly. So we mostly have useful idiots here.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- FpUser 4y agoI am curious if those "research vessels" carry whole bunch of tiny drones that can be released in places of interest and do some real surveillance.
- rlt 4y agoOr worse https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA
- butterlesstoast 4y agoDoes anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities?
- pyuser583 4y agoYeah, it seems we’ve just been letting these things fly through our airspace.
- 37 4y agoWhich recent activities? House hearings on weaponization? Hersh's article on Nord Stream? Something else?
- thepasswordis 4y agoThere's a war happening in Europe right now. That's a pretty major recent activity.
- Consultant32452 4y agoDon't worry, a border dispute involving Germany and Russia would never get out of hand.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThe demonization of China is politically advantageous. Publicizing incursions like this assists in the demonization (to be clear, it is think it’s warranted — the amount is espionage perpetrated by China on the US, corporate and cyber and governmental, Is insane)
- allisdust 4y agoForced labour camps, genocide, authoritarian, cyber warfare against other nations, salami slicing neighbours, purposefully violating air space over other nations. I don't think China needs any demonisation. This is just showing its reality. If anything both sides of the political spectrum doesn't want to get into showing China as the demon because unlike the previous cold war, they are not sure if they can win it or even force a draw. China is too powerful as it stands and getting more powerful as years pass while the current superpower is busy fighting it self with culture wars.
- JBiserkov 4y ago"What we don’t yet understand is what sorts of technology are in there,” the official said. Are we at war with extraterrestrial aliens without even realizing it?! In all Hollywood movies the aliens attack the US first, so this hypothesis checks out.
- coding123 4y agoWhat happened to UAP. We spent 15 years collectively trying to retrain everyone to say UAP. This world is so weird
- lakomen 4y agoI feel like I'm thrown back to the 80s, all this military and fear mongering and propaganda and war.
- ARandomerDude 4y ago[flagged]
- Scalene2 4y agoYou do know that they have done this several times over the last decade or so, right?
- localplume 4y ago[flagged]
- Scalene2 4y agoYou got a cite detailing the previous events?
- pphysch 4y ago[flagged]
- doodlebugging 4y agoI was curious about part of the description given by the pilots who shot down the object off the coast of Alaska. It was described as being at about 40000' altitude (12192 m) and moving about 40 mph (64 kph) with no visible means of propulsion. To me, that implies that it was drifting in the wind at that altitude since it had no visible means of propulsion. I took a look at Ventusky (ventusky.com) to try to get an idea of the wind speed at that altitude so that I could know whether 40 mph (64 kph) made any sense. Ventusky gives wind information at various altitudes though I have no idea how accurate the information may be. I checked the available altitudes for one close to 40000 feet and found a listing for 12000 m (39370 feet). That's close enough for the girls we go with as the old-timers always said. For several days before the reported shoot-down (use the day selector at the bottom of the screen to see data for each day and the slider for time of day) the reported wind speeds were in the range of 20-35 mph (32-56 kph). As they say, close enough for the girls we go with especially when you consider the likely observational error associated with estimations made from a moving jet. The first reported sighting of that object was over Nome, Alaska and it was tracked across Alaska until the shoot-down just off the north coast in the Prudhoe Bay area or just east of it. Backtracking along the jet stream into China, the most likely source for the object, I decided that there was probably a balloon launch facility in north-eastern China, possibly near Harbin since a launch in that city will carry an object along that general route. It was just a guess and someone in one of those twitter threads actually found a balloon launch facility to the southwest of Harbin, near Hohhot that is a much better candidate for the origination point of these objects. Anyway. It was fun looking at all this stuff but to me, these last two cylindrical things are balloons. The question about whether the balloons serve some intelligence gathering function for the Chinese will likely be answered in the coming days.
- w4ffl35 4y agothe chinese have been spying on us navy ships for a long time with drones. the public is just becoming aware because there was a big ufo awareness campaign that ran online for a few years and now we are shooting down their spy crafts.
- doodlebugging 4y ago
- ovidiusnaso 4y agoAccording to the WSJ: "The latest object appeared to be a small metallic balloon with a tethered payload, according to U.S. officials familiar with the situation." https://archive.is/HEj6R#selection-319.0-319.139 https://archive.is/HEj6R#selection-319.0-319.139
- modzu 4y agoso america's official policy when we meet ET is to shoot first and ask questions later? can we open this debate before we're all exterminated?
- mellosouls 4y agoGrossly editorialised (unless the original article title has changed). "UFO" has a particular cultural meaning, and is not used in the article title: U.S. fighter jet shoots down unidentified cylindrical object over Canada The article places this firmly in the context of the recent shenanigans with China and makes no suggestion that we are being invaded by Martians.
- exodust 4y agoThe URL has "UFO" in it, so probably the title was updated. reuters.com/world/us/us-still-gives-no-details-about-alaska-ufo-new-object-seen-over-canada-2023-02-11/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deafpolygon 4y agoWar of the Worlds begins. In a realistic alien invasion scenario, is it likely that our governments will even say anything to us until it's too late?
- Julesman 4y agoFor anyone who wants a bit of entirely factual context COMPLETELY absent from mainstream reporting. US Military to Use High-Altitude Balloons Against China, Russia: Report https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/07/06/us-military-balloons/ https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/07/06/us-military-balloo...
- iancmceachern 4y agoYeah but we're team America world police so we can do what we want /s
- wiseowise 4y agoNo need for /s.
- gre345t34 4y agoThe context is that US is developing high altitude balloons for detecting hyper-sonic weapons. Developing a technology and actively using in another country's airspace are quite different things, so it's not really that surprising that articles don't find it important to include.
- Jabbles 4y agoThey wouldn't tell us if they were, that information would almost certainly be highly classified. Compare the balloons with this technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Operational_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Opera...
- jtrip 4y agoI present to you Tu-128, the USSR's dedicated NATO balloon buster [0]. US found it quite funny to send in hundreds of balloons to reconnoitre and send a message[1][2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-28#Operational_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-28#Operational_hist... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genetrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genetrix [2] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-built-bespoke-balloon-killer-planes-during-the-cold-war https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-built-besp...
- lofaszvanitt 4y agoWhat will happen when a real alien UFO comes. Nobody will care. Ah look, another bloody unoriginal, booring fake spaceship. People will shout: GO HOME! Not interested! :DDD
- magwa101 4y ago[dead]
- datavirtue 4y agoI'm not saying it aliens...but...
- Havoc 4y agoWhy is the US doing the shooting?