In November, 700 Intercontinental Weapons Were Launched Against the USA?

bunker?

 

Is election season ever not around the corner?

 

"i wonder if election season weren't around the corner, if joe would be using these same tactics"

Let's step back. Post-facto media reports that more than a few high-altitude balloons have gone widely, over quite some years maybe. Previous President might never have been informed, for whatever reasons. But now it's front-page stuff, so not responding is not an option.

There are balloons, and now they are noticed and undesired, so P46 must shot them. Maybe a lower-cost way than F-22 will be established, going forward. Maybe some intel can be gleaned from dissecting them, but do not expect much disclosed about that . Expect instead that ABlinken may have a bargaining chip for international relations. With U Know Hu.

I wonder though, when is election season not around the corner? And what difference that could make to people who swore oaths to protect etc. (Constitution) if some foreign harm seems to present itself.

 

a second term president might not behave the same way. after knowing about possibly hundreds of these ufo's, were suddenly going to shoot everything down that we encounter?

politicians swear oaths with their fingers crossed behind their backs

 

I wonder if by universal treaty, a collection of troposphere, 55,000 ft, instrumented balloons, might improve earth weather prediction:

• GPS transponder - exact location and aviation avoidance
• temperature+humidity H{2}O
• CO{2}, CH{4} other gasses
• no optics since satellites can handle this

One minor point:

One should avoid attributing lying when incompetence, ignorance, and sloth are likely.

Bob Wilson

 

"The US is reportedly examining the possibility that the Chinese spy balloon was pushed off course by strong winds when it entered US airspace, having tracked it since its launch days earlier."
Chinese spy balloon may have been blown off intended course – report | Espionage | The Guardian

So the US was tracking it from the beginning. Intelligence services are probably annoyed they can no longer just watch them, and feed them false info anymore.

"“Violations of airspace by foreign unmanned reconnaissance balloons and other means that can be shot down are totally unacceptable,”"
fify

 

Troposphere tops out at ~74,000 ft high latitudes and ~47,500 ft equatorial. I don't favor this idea because sensors accurate enough to improve existing CO2 and methane maps are not cheap.

A moderate number of commercial jets are already flying around with CO2 sensors, adding instrumentation to those might be a good move.

 

An Illinois hobby group is missing one of its "pico balloons", last reported over Alaska:

Illinois hobby group says balloon might've been shot down - CBS Chicago
UFO shot down by Air Force could be hobby club's missing research balloon, report says | KOMO

https://nibbb.org/blog/
Project Picoballoon

 

Too bad for the balloon, but a story NIBBB members will be telling for years.

 

Biden says other objects shot down were not balloons

 

Is there a transcript of what he actually said? I may have seen differing reports.

 

Biden: "The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”

Biden says objects shot down over North America last week appear to not be part of China's spy balloon operation | CNN Politics

Video at 1:23 here:
Biden says 3 unidentified objects shot down likely not spy balloons | PBS NewsHour

 

Greater pico balloon detail from Aviation Week:

Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF | Aviation Week Network

"The balloons carry an 11-gram tracker on a tether, along with HF and VHF/UHF antennas to update their positions to ham radio receivers around the world. At any given moment, several dozen such balloons are aloft, with some circling the globe several times before they malfunction or fail for other reasons. The launch teams seldom recover their balloons."

"Three countries—North Korea, Yemen and the UK—restrict transmissions from balloons in their airspace, so the community has integrated geofencing software into the tracking devices. The balloons still overfly the countries, but do not transmit their positions over their airspace."

It seems that the FAA regulations apply to objects exceeding 6 pounds (~2700 grams). I'm seeing typical pico balloon payload weights variously listed as 6 to 11 grams. For comparison, the hummingbirds visiting the feeder just outside my window are typically 3 to 6 grams, while the crows out on the fence are typically 300 to 600 grams. The Canada Geese that took down the "Miracle on the Hudson" flight are typically 2500 to 6000 grams, so should be filing flight plans with the FAA.

 

I hope they get a "worked all stealth fighters" award out of this.

 

Crows are about half that weight and ravens about twice that, I guess you saw a turducken.

 

In the daytime, the balloon envelope would have a specular reflection of the sun, no? I'd think they'd attack from the sun to minimize the chance of the missile directly seeking the sun as SOP. I'd expect that reflection to make a decent target.

Even so it is impressive for sensitivity.

Also, the payload below had solar panels. They're converting visible light to electricity... mostly.... but they're also absorbing IR. Again, an impressive sighting for the missile.

 

I went by wikipedia's page for American crow:

"From beak to tail, an American crow measures 40–50 cm (16–20 in), almost half of which is tail. Mass varies from about 300 to 600 g (11 to 21 oz), with males tending to be larger than females."

However, it shows nearly three dozen crow varieties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow