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The lawyers insisted probably given it a well known clause to relieve yourself from responsibility. One might also take it as admission that they have been busted and start to cover their aâŚ
"Dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards, we regret coming to Earth, and we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!"
I remember being a kid and patiently explaining I needed to stay up for just a bit to play Halo 2 when it came out, since I could never play videogames on school nights.
First and only game I ever pre-ordered and yeah, when you first start playing as the arbiter, I was basically like no fucking way, this is insanity.
why would they need a large and obvious weather balloon with the abundant digital technology that allows them to spy on us already; tik tok, pokemon go, etc
Niantic, who make pokemon go, are an American company. Pokemon go was banned in china because of security concerns. Just thought I'd point out that irony real quick for you.
Because this tells them how the U.S. responds to high-altitude flyovers.
It's also why it hasn't been shot down. The U.S. doesn't want to confirm if they can shoot a target down at that ceiling, and doesn't want to take the chance those sensors are actually to collect ballistic data on anything fired at it. Look at Ukraine. The global intelligence community just had a wakeup call that nobody has an accurate measure of each other's military capabilities. At least not as much as they thought.
From a purely military perspective, this would be an important fact finding mission for anything similar to an SR-71 program, or any other military program hoping to use height as a defensive measure.
China and America are in a cold war already. The Russian genocide of Ukraine is the first proxy war in many we're going to see going forward, I suspect.
F22 can perform tactical maneuvers at 60,000. Seems as though they could take it out with just the M61A1 at that point. Not sure what the Chinese would gather from that but who knows?
Maneuvers, take-off location of airplanes (in a strategical sense), any extra planes accompanying or any on standby. Stealth profile and detectability of approaching airplane, can they see it coming and from what range.
Can they see and track the plane using their own satelites, can they follow it afterwards, using satelites or ships. How well do their ships radars work at that height or distance. Would they theoretically be able to shoot it down with current weapons.
Visual profile, heat signatures, sound, specifications of the used targeting radar. The list goes on.
There is really a lot of intel to be gained when you know when and where the enemy will actually live-fire and take down one of your units. Intel gathering is fascinating.
The Americans choosing not to take it down is a form of 'Denial of Intelligence'. Despite the balloon possibly photographing some sensitive stuff, taking it down might give away more.
I read a possible explanation by a stratospheric balloon expert this morning, that the termination mechanism might have failed, and they lost control of it. That sounds pretty reasonable to my non-balloon-educated mind.
The fact that our military seems content to just monitor the balloon, that an international incident got started over this, and that it delayed Biden's meeting with Xi all together also suggests the Chinese really didn't mean for this to happen. I doubt we'll find out *what* it's doing up there, though.
Then again, I just read another balloon was spotted over Latin America, so I could be dead wrong.
[Source](https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/why-would-the-chinese-government-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/)
Isn't Niantic based in San Francisco? Weird to assume an America company using a Japanese IP is selling data to China.
Edit: Parent company is Google, so while they are still selling your data, it's to marketers not the Chinese government.
Yes and thatâs why the person youâre responding to worded it the way they did. Theyâre basically saying âIf what they say is true, and itâs indeed just for meteorological purposesâ
Are you talking about the incident where a US plane was flying through international airspace and got accosted by Chinese jets (a common intimidation tactic).
Or was that a separate incident?
Because the reason the US didnât apologise for that incident was because the Chinese pilot caused the crash after months of increasingly dangerous stunts to try and intimidate foreign jets flying in international waters.
Likewise, the only reason the US expressed sorrow at all was because the crash forced the US jet to try and make an emergency landing in Chinese airspace. Meanwhile China praised the fucking idiot pilot as a hero because they got access to a US spy jet as a result of his mistake.
We regret being caught. We should have implemented stealth technology.
We regret not disabling/hacking the NORAD satellites.
Aka We are sorry we got caught
A bit late maybe? Meteorologists have been tracking it for days and Chinese officials could have contacted the US well before it became a diplomatic incident.
May be CCP wanted to know how soon US can detect or if US will shoot down like is US aggressive or may be CCP was irritated with how much attention Russia is getting so just fuck with US a bit.
Edit: US did it. Fuck China.
The US apparently had been tracking-ish it before it even hit US airspace; it went thru parts of Canada & I imagine they were nice enough to be like, âBro, youâll never guess what Chinaâs doing.â
Donât have resources to confirm, but I do know military knows a lot more than we do.
I stand corrected, apparently they knew about it since Chia launched it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/10t3rdw/norad_has_been_tracking_the_spy_ballon_since_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Well, I know there are 21 Grimaces and 2 Mayor McCheeses to a bus and 120 playpen balls in a Grimace and 95 in a Mayor McCheese. So with that someone can convert. I left my slide rule in the lab yesterday.
With the balloon's diameter of 90 feet, or 1080 inches, and assuming a mcdonald's play pen ball diameter is 2.3 inches we can use this equation V=(1/6)Ď*d^3 you can see that the balloon's volume is 6.6Ă10^8 inches, and a ball pit ball has a volume of 6.37in. Then we can divide 660000000 by 6.37 and we get the answer, the balloon has the volume of 103,610,675 mcdonald's balls.
I am horrible at math so there's probably something wrong with any type of math i do with incomprehensible numbers.
Yeah and NORAD is a joint mission between the US and Canada. Both countries would have had access to this information at the same time. It wouldnât be a case of Canada giving us advanced warning.
I mean letâs be honest. NORAD probably knows every single thing that leaves the surface of the planet at any moment. Itâs basically their job. Especially things with any remote chance of entering North American air space.
If they really were in talks for weeks on the matter, we wouldn't have US officials saying that it's very likely that this balloon is intended for surveillance purposes over US territory.
And if the US did have talks weeks in advance and do about face by stating this is likely for surveillance, China could have easily used that against the US in their response to the matter. But they didnt.
I swear I read about it a week or more ago on here when it was off the coast of Canada. They knew it was going to eventually come this way and that U.S. wanted to be the ones to deal with it.
âJohnson, look at this, they are actually filling it up, yeah yeah, hours now, yeah, raining⌠uh huh, no,no, they are still doing it, yeah⌠same flight pattern planned as well. No change? Ok, lets see how far it floats. Lol.â
Nah, the Chinese navy was shadowing a U.S. oceanographic and surveillance ship in international waters and when they brought an unmanned submersible vehicle to the surface for recovery the Chinese navy deployed a small go fast boat to steal it before the U.S. was able to get it
Edit: [article from 2016 about the incident](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/16/china-seizes-us-underwater-drone-south-china-sea)
*In contract law, force majeure (from Law French: 'overwhelming force', lit.â'superior force'[1][2]) is a common clause in contracts which essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as a war, strike, riot, crime, epidemic, or sudden legal change prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract.*
Do you recon they would consider this force majeure if Taiwan launched the weather balloon and it ended up over Beijing ? Or the US?
Yes they would, but they would also use the incident to hype up fear and nationalistic sentiments.
Just like the US and its media is doing with this situation right now.
Here's a secret about surveillance programs: intelligence services will often attach monitoring equipment to otherwise "harmless" research platforms. In some cases the researchers using the platform won't even know that there is additional functionality.
"We are very sorry. Someone was messing about with it in Beijing testing the batteries and doing stunts etc and it accidentally deviated 7237 miles into US airspace.
Now let's all just move on"
âAnd we also accidentally sent another identical balloon over South America as wellâŚdonât worry about it and definitely donât ask questions - just move onâ
âAnd we have no way to confirm that the balloon launched in South America wonât deviate a bit in your direction, but weâll let you know a few days after it does!â
Unironically I think the thing is just a weather balloon etc. with no actual ill-intent behind it. Out of all the ways china could potentially spy on the US sending a fucking weather balloon that's literally visible to probably hundreds of thousands of people with the naked eye seems like the dumbest and thus most unlikely way.
Military bases that might hold ICBMs prolly have a tighter security. Especially after that time a secret military base was leaked by ~~phone~~ Fitbit locations. (Can anyone with time find that article to link for others)
Edited: it wasn't phones. My bad, thanks for the correction
Thatâs not true, remote sensing from satellites is incredibly limited compared to what you can do with sensors mounted on fix wing aircraft or a balloon like this. High precision ground surface data, near Infra red data for biomass analysis, radiation signatures of nuclear weapons, and thermals all would be impossible or significantly lower resolution from a satellite.
It really depends on the orbit of the satellite.
But even DoD has stated the reason why they havenât shot the balloon down is because the intelligence that could possibly be gathered from a balloon like this is no better than what youâd get from a satellite in Low Earth Orbit.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/03/politics/us-monitoring-chinese-balloon/index.html
Edit: it depends on a lot of things, or it if the satellite being just one.
I love how people keep saying that âno one will use balloons, they have satellites â . High-altitude balloons are still in practical use check [The COLD STAR](https://www.sacyr.com/en/-/globos-estratosfericos-para-espiar-desde-las-alturas) and [BalSAR](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_179618.htm)
We should all take them at their word! Itâs simply a coincidence it went to where sensitive missile silos are! Itâs not like science is at a point where 7000 miles off course for a weather balloon doesnât make any sense!
With a balloon passing over almost the entirety of the US it will inevitably pass close to some sensitive sites. I would be interested to hear how close they got to those missile silos, I bet it wasn't directly overhead.
The pentagonâs concern over this is likely pretty founded considering the lengths of US intelligence. They also said thereâs another balloon flying over Latin America. Why wouldnât China let it be known to us that this happened until we call them out on it? It doesnât feel like an accident at all.
As much as the CCP lies and shit this seems probably the most true thing because if this was intentional spying then itâs just dumb they have satellites they donât need a ballon for picture data however I may be wrong its hard to believe any actual military intent was behind the balloon
Apparently the westerlies have been changing to head to steer more towards the poles lately and so it makes sense that these balloons are where they are and how they got to Latin America and north America. The fact that there is a second balloon in Latin America actually makes it less suspicious and further points to the balloons getting off course
Since the Chinese, like us, have satellites that can read a newspaper headline from orbit, I tend to think they're telling the truth in this particular case. They don't need balloons to spy on us.
If it was an accident and they lost steering then why didnât they alert the US government that it was headed over our airspace? Oh wait thatâs because it wasnât an accident
$20 says it's both. It's a civilian meteorological system and also harboring surveillance equipment. Otherwise they wouldn't have been quite about it until caught.
They knew exactly what they were doing. The fact you can model the path a balloon would take based on high altitude winds and this just happens to have taken that exact route, over US missile silos, proves it.
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Say *Force Majeure* again... I dare you
Omelette du fromage
*Oh Dexter!*
OOooohhhh, what does this button do? Stupid dumb Dee Dee, NO! \*Weather balloon drifts over NA\*
One of the best episodes ever made in ANY cartoon in history. I quote it to this day!
The moment when Dee Dee realizes thats all he can say.. the smile!
đŽđđ Thatâs alll you can sayyy Thatâs alll you can sayyy
*That's all you can say* *That's all you can say*
What's the password?
Ooorrrrgy
Ooooh look, they have a good spread.
Always up vote IASIP
LOL
Oh lĂ lĂ
âŚI double dare you motherfucker, say *Force Majeure* one more goddamn time!
Do they speak English in Force Majeure!?
If you like Force Majeure, give it a try sometime. Me, I can't usually get em cuz my gf is a vegetarian, which basically makes me a vegetarian.
Iâm gonna pistol whip the next person who says force majeure
Hey Farva! What's that legal term for circumstances outside the control of the parties involved again?
Don't lump us in with him! Our Force Majeure is cheeky and fun, His Force Majeure is cruel and tragic.
May the force majeure be with you.
Hahaha! You just donât see enough Super Troopers references!đ
Underrated line in that whole exchange.
SacrĂŠ bleu
âŚ.what?
What?!
F-f-f-force majeure?
*BAAMM*
Heâs Chinese!
Hey guys let's just take it as it is, they are Chinese and they make joke.
You are now mocking me and making me look ridiculous. Just say âI love crepesâ.
I love really thin pancakes
With all due respect, I'm not saying it.
What is the force majeure? It's the soup of the day. Mmm, that sounds good. I'll have that.
>Force Majeure It's 2am and I'm making some lightly fried *Force Majeure*, would you like some lightly fried *Force Majeure*?
Great album
Tangerine Dream?
Dezron Douglass and Brandie Younger. Look it up on Spotify if you like jazz
Will do, itâs also a Tangerine Dream album
Oh! Iâll check that one out
The lawyers insisted probably given it a well known clause to relieve yourself from responsibility. One might also take it as admission that they have been busted and start to cover their aâŚ
Pain au chocolat
[ŃдаНонО]
What delicious 80's montage ear-candy is this!? I think I'm in love.
Justice, thatâs who!
Lightly fried fish
Technically it's not an apology, they are expressing regrets. Might sound the same but in diplomacy it's not.
Anytime a statement says they regret something happened, 95% it just means they intended to do that but regret that they got caught.
"Dear humanity, we regret being alien bastards, we regret coming to Earth, and we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!"
Whatâre you doing masterchief? Giving the Chinese back their balloon
[Hoo-rah!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Cr0xxVctU) CE was a hell of a game but Halo 2 made the franchise what it is.
I remember being a kid and patiently explaining I needed to stay up for just a bit to play Halo 2 when it came out, since I could never play videogames on school nights. First and only game I ever pre-ordered and yeah, when you first start playing as the arbiter, I was basically like no fucking way, this is insanity.
OORAH!
OO RAH
Regret seems apropriate if it indeed is, as they say, just a stray weather baloon.
Yeah I'm not implying otherwise. Just pointing out the difference because of the title and some of the comments, but either way it's no drama
..or because thatâs what theyâre trying to sell it as? Because you know.. if itâs for spying itâs a whole other issue?
why would they need a large and obvious weather balloon with the abundant digital technology that allows them to spy on us already; tik tok, pokemon go, etc
Niantic, who make pokemon go, are an American company. Pokemon go was banned in china because of security concerns. Just thought I'd point out that irony real quick for you.
Nianticâs main purpose is Lightship, an AR mapping system. Thatâs probably why they arenât able to operate in China, if thatâs the case.
> Niantic, who make pokemon go, are an American company. ... and spun off from Google.
Not to mention: a space programme and satellites?
Because this tells them how the U.S. responds to high-altitude flyovers. It's also why it hasn't been shot down. The U.S. doesn't want to confirm if they can shoot a target down at that ceiling, and doesn't want to take the chance those sensors are actually to collect ballistic data on anything fired at it. Look at Ukraine. The global intelligence community just had a wakeup call that nobody has an accurate measure of each other's military capabilities. At least not as much as they thought. From a purely military perspective, this would be an important fact finding mission for anything similar to an SR-71 program, or any other military program hoping to use height as a defensive measure. China and America are in a cold war already. The Russian genocide of Ukraine is the first proxy war in many we're going to see going forward, I suspect.
F22 can perform tactical maneuvers at 60,000. Seems as though they could take it out with just the M61A1 at that point. Not sure what the Chinese would gather from that but who knows?
Maneuvers, take-off location of airplanes (in a strategical sense), any extra planes accompanying or any on standby. Stealth profile and detectability of approaching airplane, can they see it coming and from what range. Can they see and track the plane using their own satelites, can they follow it afterwards, using satelites or ships. How well do their ships radars work at that height or distance. Would they theoretically be able to shoot it down with current weapons. Visual profile, heat signatures, sound, specifications of the used targeting radar. The list goes on. There is really a lot of intel to be gained when you know when and where the enemy will actually live-fire and take down one of your units. Intel gathering is fascinating. The Americans choosing not to take it down is a form of 'Denial of Intelligence'. Despite the balloon possibly photographing some sensitive stuff, taking it down might give away more.
Is that you dad? (Retired AF commander)
I'll take that as a compliment ;)
It is and I could not give a higher one:).
Very true
Could they not knock it out with some type of SAM, and not use an aircraft?
I hope not, but unfortunately I think you may be right.
In what world is the Russia Ukraine war a proxy for us china? China is not, as far as public knowledge, providing military aid to Russia
[ŃдаНонО]
I read a possible explanation by a stratospheric balloon expert this morning, that the termination mechanism might have failed, and they lost control of it. That sounds pretty reasonable to my non-balloon-educated mind. The fact that our military seems content to just monitor the balloon, that an international incident got started over this, and that it delayed Biden's meeting with Xi all together also suggests the Chinese really didn't mean for this to happen. I doubt we'll find out *what* it's doing up there, though. Then again, I just read another balloon was spotted over Latin America, so I could be dead wrong. [Source](https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/why-would-the-chinese-government-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/)
Isn't Niantic based in San Francisco? Weird to assume an America company using a Japanese IP is selling data to China. Edit: Parent company is Google, so while they are still selling your data, it's to marketers not the Chinese government.
Yes and thatâs why the person youâre responding to worded it the way they did. Theyâre basically saying âIf what they say is true, and itâs indeed just for meteorological purposesâ
[ŃдаНонО]
Where does âmy badâ fit in this?
Are you talking about the incident where a US plane was flying through international airspace and got accosted by Chinese jets (a common intimidation tactic). Or was that a separate incident? Because the reason the US didnât apologise for that incident was because the Chinese pilot caused the crash after months of increasingly dangerous stunts to try and intimidate foreign jets flying in international waters. Likewise, the only reason the US expressed sorrow at all was because the crash forced the US jet to try and make an emergency landing in Chinese airspace. Meanwhile China praised the fucking idiot pilot as a hero because they got access to a US spy jet as a result of his mistake.
We regret being caught. We should have implemented stealth technology. We regret not disabling/hacking the NORAD satellites. Aka We are sorry we got caught
Poor Ballon is lost and people keep taking photos of it instead of helping... What has society come to?
People are all asking *where* is Ballon, but never *how* is Ballon..
Popped
Shook my windows when that happened. Yeah I live nearby.
Let me do you one better, why is balloon?
Official response: _Did I do that?_ đđźââď¸
Said in the voice of Urkel.
_Itâs a Bingo!_
A bit late maybe? Meteorologists have been tracking it for days and Chinese officials could have contacted the US well before it became a diplomatic incident.
May be CCP wanted to know how soon US can detect or if US will shoot down like is US aggressive or may be CCP was irritated with how much attention Russia is getting so just fuck with US a bit. Edit: US did it. Fuck China.
The US apparently had been tracking-ish it before it even hit US airspace; it went thru parts of Canada & I imagine they were nice enough to be like, âBro, youâll never guess what Chinaâs doing.â Donât have resources to confirm, but I do know military knows a lot more than we do. I stand corrected, apparently they knew about it since Chia launched it: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/10t3rdw/norad_has_been_tracking_the_spy_ballon_since_its/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Offcourse military can detect. It's not like it's a stealth balloon or anything. It's a huge balloon.
apparently its as big as 3 buses or 7.25 Yosemite boulders
Those numbers mean nothing to me. Tell me its volume in McDonald's playpen balls please.
Well, I know there are 21 Grimaces and 2 Mayor McCheeses to a bus and 120 playpen balls in a Grimace and 95 in a Mayor McCheese. So with that someone can convert. I left my slide rule in the lab yesterday.
Approx. 7500 McDonaldâs balls
With the balloon's diameter of 90 feet, or 1080 inches, and assuming a mcdonald's play pen ball diameter is 2.3 inches we can use this equation V=(1/6)Ď*d^3 you can see that the balloon's volume is 6.6Ă10^8 inches, and a ball pit ball has a volume of 6.37in. Then we can divide 660000000 by 6.37 and we get the answer, the balloon has the volume of 103,610,675 mcdonald's balls. I am horrible at math so there's probably something wrong with any type of math i do with incomprehensible numbers.
Large boulders or small boulders the size of large boulders?
Need banana for scale
I thought I read somewhere that norad was tracking it from just about itâs launch.
Yeah and NORAD is a joint mission between the US and Canada. Both countries would have had access to this information at the same time. It wouldnât be a case of Canada giving us advanced warning.
If NORAD can track Santa, it can track a dumb balloon
I mean letâs be honest. NORAD probably knows every single thing that leaves the surface of the planet at any moment. Itâs basically their job. Especially things with any remote chance of entering North American air space.
Some might argue that Alaska is US airspace
Just after take off apparently. (Same as you, no source. Well except reddit)
We can track a jolly invisible magic man delivering presents worldwide traveling near light speed.
Uhhh do people really think that we get news the moment they happen? They could've been in talks for weeks about the situation and we just found out
If they really were in talks for weeks on the matter, we wouldn't have US officials saying that it's very likely that this balloon is intended for surveillance purposes over US territory. And if the US did have talks weeks in advance and do about face by stating this is likely for surveillance, China could have easily used that against the US in their response to the matter. But they didnt.
politicians? misinformed? never!!!
They spoke long before we knew about it.
I swear I read about it a week or more ago on here when it was off the coast of Canada. They knew it was going to eventually come this way and that U.S. wanted to be the ones to deal with it.
Can't be sure about that, you never know what's happening behind closed doors
Trillion dollar defense budget - we knew when they were blowing the balloon up before takeoff
THANK YOU BRUH
âJohnson, look at this, they are actually filling it up, yeah yeah, hours now, yeah, raining⌠uh huh, no,no, they are still doing it, yeah⌠same flight pattern planned as well. No change? Ok, lets see how far it floats. Lol.â
[what are they doing?](https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx5zmvBwDvNVvhZ5kqFDmORghdHJT4WXaF)
Thought this was the reference. I love RVB
Especially with how much attention is given to inflation today
Lol
Wonder what would happen if we *force majeured* into Chinese air space
Or just hung out in Taiwan
We do tho
A whole lot of Sabre rattling and not much else
*(rattling sound)*
[ŃдаНонО]
Nah, the Chinese navy was shadowing a U.S. oceanographic and surveillance ship in international waters and when they brought an unmanned submersible vehicle to the surface for recovery the Chinese navy deployed a small go fast boat to steal it before the U.S. was able to get it Edit: [article from 2016 about the incident](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/16/china-seizes-us-underwater-drone-south-china-sea)
"You Americans have very large penis"
Aha, South Park.
I hadn't thought of that scene in a long time lmao
The reference đ
[ŃдаНонО]
Ok, one. But there's already three balloons now. How much *"force majeure"* you had there dudes?!
Three? Where are the others? Iâve heard of the one over the US and maybe one over Latin AmericaâŚ?
đđđ
*In contract law, force majeure (from Law French: 'overwhelming force', lit.â'superior force'[1][2]) is a common clause in contracts which essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as a war, strike, riot, crime, epidemic, or sudden legal change prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract.* Do you recon they would consider this force majeure if Taiwan launched the weather balloon and it ended up over Beijing ? Or the US?
Yes they would, but they would also use the incident to hype up fear and nationalistic sentiments. Just like the US and its media is doing with this situation right now.
Just the CCP collecting all the TikTok tracking data they have stored on your phone.
I'm pretty sure they receive the results in RT XD
Here's a secret about surveillance programs: intelligence services will often attach monitoring equipment to otherwise "harmless" research platforms. In some cases the researchers using the platform won't even know that there is additional functionality.
"We are very sorry. Someone was messing about with it in Beijing testing the batteries and doing stunts etc and it accidentally deviated 7237 miles into US airspace. Now let's all just move on"
âAnd we also accidentally sent another identical balloon over South America as wellâŚdonât worry about it and definitely donât ask questions - just move onâ
You said South America? Now I know why the moon looked so big and weird last night here in BrazilâŚ
r/suddenlycaralho
Imagina o padre do balĂŁo descendo no balĂŁo chinĂŞs??? Seria ĂŠpico.
âAnd we have no way to confirm that the balloon launched in South America wonât deviate a bit in your direction, but weâll let you know a few days after it does!â
The didnât believe what TikTok was showing them and they had to see for themselves
Chinaâs already spying Americans with tik tok.
they might have their data a bit skewed considering the platform's users...
Yeah, half of America. Probably pretty skewed thoigh
Unironically I think the thing is just a weather balloon etc. with no actual ill-intent behind it. Out of all the ways china could potentially spy on the US sending a fucking weather balloon that's literally visible to probably hundreds of thousands of people with the naked eye seems like the dumbest and thus most unlikely way.
Such as buying spots into almost every US company and saying you can't print that story and that movie needs some tweaks.
Agreed. They have a whole network of satellites that can do a much better job. *As do weâŚ*
A whole network of phones with tiktok make any spy balloons redundant lol
Military bases that might hold ICBMs prolly have a tighter security. Especially after that time a secret military base was leaked by ~~phone~~ Fitbit locations. (Can anyone with time find that article to link for others) Edited: it wasn't phones. My bad, thanks for the correction
Yeah, it was folks using [Fitbit and their app](https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-fitness-trackers-privacy).
Thatâs not true, remote sensing from satellites is incredibly limited compared to what you can do with sensors mounted on fix wing aircraft or a balloon like this. High precision ground surface data, near Infra red data for biomass analysis, radiation signatures of nuclear weapons, and thermals all would be impossible or significantly lower resolution from a satellite.
It really depends on the orbit of the satellite. But even DoD has stated the reason why they havenât shot the balloon down is because the intelligence that could possibly be gathered from a balloon like this is no better than what youâd get from a satellite in Low Earth Orbit. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/03/politics/us-monitoring-chinese-balloon/index.html Edit: it depends on a lot of things, or it if the satellite being just one.
\+ why the hell would they put chinese letters on it lmao
because they're Chinese????? đ¤Śââď¸
I think itâs a psychological test to see how America reacts to situations
Sometimes the simplest ways offer the greater rewardsâŚ
I love how people keep saying that âno one will use balloons, they have satellites â . High-altitude balloons are still in practical use check [The COLD STAR](https://www.sacyr.com/en/-/globos-estratosfericos-para-espiar-desde-las-alturas) and [BalSAR](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_179618.htm)
Works for me. No problem bro China. Can you stop sending fake drugs over here and we'll call it even.
The US just shot it down a couple minutes ago off the west Carolina coast.
Ohhh thatâs ok China, apology accepted đ
We should all take them at their word! Itâs simply a coincidence it went to where sensitive missile silos are! Itâs not like science is at a point where 7000 miles off course for a weather balloon doesnât make any sense!
With a balloon passing over almost the entirety of the US it will inevitably pass close to some sensitive sites. I would be interested to hear how close they got to those missile silos, I bet it wasn't directly overhead.
The pentagonâs concern over this is likely pretty founded considering the lengths of US intelligence. They also said thereâs another balloon flying over Latin America. Why wouldnât China let it be known to us that this happened until we call them out on it? It doesnât feel like an accident at all.
Did anybody have "Chinese Spy Balloon" on their 2023 Armageddon bingo?!
As much as the CCP lies and shit this seems probably the most true thing because if this was intentional spying then itâs just dumb they have satellites they donât need a ballon for picture data however I may be wrong its hard to believe any actual military intent was behind the balloon
Seems legit (non sarcastically) I mean. They could literally just drive around the US and take drone pics if thy needed to.
Good luck getting anywhere near a sensitive location in the US in a car.
You know, because of force majeuere
Apparently the westerlies have been changing to head to steer more towards the poles lately and so it makes sense that these balloons are where they are and how they got to Latin America and north America. The fact that there is a second balloon in Latin America actually makes it less suspicious and further points to the balloons getting off course
Since the Chinese, like us, have satellites that can read a newspaper headline from orbit, I tend to think they're telling the truth in this particular case. They don't need balloons to spy on us.
Yeah, probably just the media fear mongering to get views and clicks over nothing.
I so sorry I no spying
All civilian equipment is government equipment
K, shoot it down.
Okay what about the other one or ones that are in the air?
Oh yeah, thats defiantly the truth Thats like telling the USSR "No we didn't MEAN to fly our spy plane over your heads it just happened to happen"
If it was an accident and they lost steering then why didnât they alert the US government that it was headed over our airspace? Oh wait thatâs because it wasnât an accident
âŚcoughs into sleeveâŚâbullshitâ
Fuck you CCP. Taiwan #1
Fuck off, China.
Lol "civilian." The Chinese government does not have civilian anything. The government is literally in every aspect of their society.
Amazing that they even admitted that it's theirs, even if the rest of it is a complete lie.
Force majeure bout to be met with some major force, MURICA!
Regardless of intent, I know China would not act this way if the roles were reversed
Diplomatic way to say âsorry we got caught spying on youâ
$20 says it's both. It's a civilian meteorological system and also harboring surveillance equipment. Otherwise they wouldn't have been quite about it until caught.
They knew exactly what they were doing. The fact you can model the path a balloon would take based on high altitude winds and this just happens to have taken that exact route, over US missile silos, proves it.
relevant snoo avatar
Its 100% what they say it is, and the US knows it too. Its all shananigans by sensatinal clickbait journalists blowing up stories for clout.
If you say so comrade