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I would assume our government has the ability to get detailed photos of these objects, once they realize they are in our airspace. It seems right now the narra

I would assume our government has the ability to get detailed photos of these objects, once they realize they are in our airspace. It seems right now the narrative is nobody knows what these were, and that the debris may never be located. This is a conspiracy theorist's dream.

michaelteter 4y ago
> the ability to get detailed photos of these objects I imagine there could be methods of confusing cameras, especially when there are no points of reference in the sky other than the object itself. Maybe some human tech cloaking methods are sufficient to obscure an object. As for locating the debris, you would think that would be easy... but we're still finding bits of the Columbia space shuttle here and there.
- bmacho 4y ago
  > I imagine there could be methods of confusing cameras, Huh? Cameras turn lights into rgb, you can't confuse them, if not paint your balloons blue.
  - michaelteter 4y ago
    And mirrors reflect light. What happens when the reflection is toward sky and clouds?
stetrain 4y ago
Taking high quality photos of small objects far away is pretty difficult. See also how we can get crisp images of distant galaxies, but getting images of the equipment at the Apollo landing sites is elusive from anywhere farther away than lunar orbit. I definitely wouldn’t assume we can immediately get detailed photos of a drone-sized object flying at high altitude.
- kurthr 4y ago
  I suppose, but it's not really that hard to resolve things at 30-60k feet. The big Chinese balloon was ~300ft across (and the equipment ~100ft) at 60kft would be almost half the size of the moon... 0.25deg or easily visible by eye. And you can get shots of that with a hand held mobile phone at night. Any amateur astronomical camera set up is capable of 1-4 arc sec (better than 0.0001deg) and daytime exposures would be <10msec. So it's pretty easy to get 1ft resolution at that altitude. Getting 1inch is harder, but doable especially with multiple images, which is possible now even for amateurs. If it was moving at 100mph (closer to 30-50) that's only <1ft during the exposure time (still 50x faster than the moon). The gov can do much better, but I wouldn't count on mm resolution.
giobox 4y ago
I'm sure there are, but one issue the F16 pilots noted in radio transcripts from one of the recent shoot downs is that the difference in airspeed between a stationary or slow moving arial object and the speeds the F16 need to maintain to stay in the air make it surprisingly hard for pilots themselves to accurately describe the objects. These objects are small, to get a good view requires flying a very fast jet very close to a small relatively stationary object of which you may only get a split second glance. In the transcript I saw, the two F16 pilots can't really agree if the object they are dealing with is a balloon or not (this wasn't from the first shootdown of the Chinese balloon which was much larger and easier to identify), eventually one pilot just assumes it is as a best guess.
- ianburrell 4y ago
  This could explain much what is going on. The later objects have confusing descriptions which make hard to figure out what they were. But they could easily be small to medium balloons with the payload not visible. Spherical becomes cylindrical or octagonal, balloons become floating. This could explain why we haven’t gotten more info from government. They don’t want to admit that shot down weather or scientific balloons. Smaller balloons are likely to not be Chinese. It could also be that government is equally confused and are waiting to find the wreckage.
- DoctorOetker 4y ago
  why can't such a spy plane release shell with parachute, to slow down the shell, containing a self-inflating balloon? possibly with some thrusters?
LanceH 4y ago
> I would assume our government has the ability to get detailed photos of these objects For any territory that a camera can get detailed photos of something, there is much greater area (volume) which over which it can get poor photos. So the more cameras you have getting better photos, the (many times) more bad photos you'll have.
localplume 4y ago
I still don't understand why people think that the level of information that the public is aware of is somehow the exact same as the USG has. Not to mention, knowledge of what truly when on is heavily compartmentalized within the USG and IC as a whole. Whatever narrative the people are being told is the same narrative that our adversaries are being fed, so a fine line needs to be tread between putting the public at ease and giving away information about our capabilities. This obviously does leave room for speculation and thus conspiracy theorists, but what justification do conspiracy theorists need anyway? The crux of most conspiracy theories is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
- vkou 4y ago
  > so a fine line needs to be tread between putting the public at ease Also, there's no reason to assume that the goal of revealing all this information is to put the public at ease. Maybe the goal is to drum up public support for war, or at least, some adventure in brinksmanship. Or to make the administration look more hawkish than it is. Or there's some weird funding/ego/prestige power struggle between departments and generals. Or someone is playing a public game of cover-your-ass. Or is making his enemies in the organization look bad, by airing the dirty laundry. Figuring out which is which when it comes to the military leaking secret information is an exercise in Kremlinology.
- sys32768 4y ago
  Speaking of conspiracy theorists and conspiracies, Edward Snowden thinks these shoot downs are an engineered distraction to stop the public from believing the story that America blew up the Nordstream Pipelines: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1625241477642088454 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1625241477642088454
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    Snowden can pound sand for repeatedly regurgitating Kremlin propaganda that they weren't going to invade Ukraine, that it was all US government scaremongering. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1493641714363478016 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1493641714363478016 He doesn't know shit when it comes to this topic.
krapp 4y ago
Regardless of what these object are, there's no reason for the government to make photos of them public unless they need them for propaganda purposes.

michaelteter 4y ago

> the ability to get detailed photos of these objects I imagine there could be methods of confusing cameras, especially when there are no points of reference in the sky other than the object itself. Maybe some human tech cloaking methods are sufficient to obscure an object. As for locating the debris, you would think that would be easy... but we're still finding bits of the Columbia space shuttle here and there.

bmacho 4y ago
> I imagine there could be methods of confusing cameras, Huh? Cameras turn lights into rgb, you can't confuse them, if not paint your balloons blue.
- michaelteter 4y ago
  And mirrors reflect light. What happens when the reflection is toward sky and clouds?

stetrain 4y ago

Taking high quality photos of small objects far away is pretty difficult. See also how we can get crisp images of distant galaxies, but getting images of the equipment at the Apollo landing sites is elusive from anywhere farther away than lunar orbit. I definitely wouldn’t assume we can immediately get detailed photos of a drone-sized object flying at high altitude.

kurthr 4y ago
I suppose, but it's not really that hard to resolve things at 30-60k feet. The big Chinese balloon was ~300ft across (and the equipment ~100ft) at 60kft would be almost half the size of the moon... 0.25deg or easily visible by eye. And you can get shots of that with a hand held mobile phone at night. Any amateur astronomical camera set up is capable of 1-4 arc sec (better than 0.0001deg) and daytime exposures would be <10msec. So it's pretty easy to get 1ft resolution at that altitude. Getting 1inch is harder, but doable especially with multiple images, which is possible now even for amateurs. If it was moving at 100mph (closer to 30-50) that's only <1ft during the exposure time (still 50x faster than the moon). The gov can do much better, but I wouldn't count on mm resolution.

giobox 4y ago

I'm sure there are, but one issue the F16 pilots noted in radio transcripts from one of the recent shoot downs is that the difference in airspeed between a stationary or slow moving arial object and the speeds the F16 need to maintain to stay in the air make it surprisingly hard for pilots themselves to accurately describe the objects. These objects are small, to get a good view requires flying a very fast jet very close to a small relatively stationary object of which you may only get a split second glance. In the transcript I saw, the two F16 pilots can't really agree if the object they are dealing with is a balloon or not (this wasn't from the first shootdown of the Chinese balloon which was much larger and easier to identify), eventually one pilot just assumes it is as a best guess.

ianburrell 4y ago
This could explain much what is going on. The later objects have confusing descriptions which make hard to figure out what they were. But they could easily be small to medium balloons with the payload not visible. Spherical becomes cylindrical or octagonal, balloons become floating. This could explain why we haven’t gotten more info from government. They don’t want to admit that shot down weather or scientific balloons. Smaller balloons are likely to not be Chinese. It could also be that government is equally confused and are waiting to find the wreckage.
DoctorOetker 4y ago
why can't such a spy plane release shell with parachute, to slow down the shell, containing a self-inflating balloon? possibly with some thrusters?

LanceH 4y ago

> I would assume our government has the ability to get detailed photos of these objects For any territory that a camera can get detailed photos of something, there is much greater area (volume) which over which it can get poor photos. So the more cameras you have getting better photos, the (many times) more bad photos you'll have.

localplume 4y ago

I still don't understand why people think that the level of information that the public is aware of is somehow the exact same as the USG has. Not to mention, knowledge of what truly when on is heavily compartmentalized within the USG and IC as a whole. Whatever narrative the people are being told is the same narrative that our adversaries are being fed, so a fine line needs to be tread between putting the public at ease and giving away information about our capabilities. This obviously does leave room for speculation and thus conspiracy theorists, but what justification do conspiracy theorists need anyway? The crux of most conspiracy theories is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

vkou 4y ago
> so a fine line needs to be tread between putting the public at ease Also, there's no reason to assume that the goal of revealing all this information is to put the public at ease. Maybe the goal is to drum up public support for war, or at least, some adventure in brinksmanship. Or to make the administration look more hawkish than it is. Or there's some weird funding/ego/prestige power struggle between departments and generals. Or someone is playing a public game of cover-your-ass. Or is making his enemies in the organization look bad, by airing the dirty laundry. Figuring out which is which when it comes to the military leaking secret information is an exercise in Kremlinology.
sys32768 4y ago
Speaking of conspiracy theorists and conspiracies, Edward Snowden thinks these shoot downs are an engineered distraction to stop the public from believing the story that America blew up the Nordstream Pipelines: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1625241477642088454 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1625241477642088454
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  Snowden can pound sand for repeatedly regurgitating Kremlin propaganda that they weren't going to invade Ukraine, that it was all US government scaremongering. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1493641714363478016 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1493641714363478016 He doesn't know shit when it comes to this topic.

krapp 4y ago

Regardless of what these object are, there's no reason for the government to make photos of them public unless they need them for propaganda purposes.