Balloons?

[Traveler]

 I saw a cartoon about the first balloon.  There were two frames to the cartoon – The first had a US general conversing with a fighter piolet and the general said not to shoot down the balloon until it was over an empty space.  In the second frame the balloon was directly over the general and the fighter piolet asked if now was a good time?

The cartoon is quit funny (my opinion) but it is also my opinion that something very serious is going on.  A long time ago in a country so very different – I worked in the defense department of a country engaged in what was called a cold war.  Everything was strategic and serios - never funny.  One area I worked in was electronic countermeasures.    There are a number of ways (including ways other than radar) that we look for possible threats with electric tech.  There are always methods to counter or deceive the methods being utilized.  At the core of countermeasures is understanding the methods and responses.

We see this same game played out in nature all the time.  One of the most effective methods is what Is called camouflage.   This works very well for both the hunter/killer as well as the prey.  One of the more cleaver means of camouflage is to simply make something look like something else.

One possible countermeasure that is not directly an electronic countermeasure concerns the cruse missile.  A very inexpensive drone was developed that has the same radar image as a curse missile.  The drone has just enough electronics to locate a radar device and fly into it.  Which would cause just enough damage to take it out of service for a while.

We can call this a cat and mouse game.  If I were to guess anything concerning the balloons in the news – my guess is that the US Defense Department is losing the game.

 

The Traveler

[LDSGator]

I know very little about spying, warfare etc. But how did a balloon make it all the way across America to Lake Huron? Shouldn't we have shot it down near California or New York or wherever it came over? Did Chinese sleeper cells release it over Chicago?

 

Where is Brad Thor when you need him? I have questions! 

Edited February 13, 2023 by LDSGator

[Guest Godless]

2 hours ago, LDSGator said:

I know very little about spying, warfare etc. But how did a balloon make it all the way across America to Lake Huron? Shouldn't we have shot it down near California or New York or wherever it came over? Did Chinese sleeper cells release it over Chicago?

 

Where is Brad Thor when you need him? I have questions! 

One of the objects (with exception of the first, the objects haven't been specified as being balloons) was shot down over Canadian airspace. The one over Lake Huron may have spent some time over Canada as well. There also seemed to be some confusion around the object shot down over Montana. It was initially reported to be a radar anomaly, then it was later reported that an object had been shot down.

[Traveler]

 

5 hours ago, LDSGator said:

I know very little about spying, warfare etc. But how did a balloon make it all the way across America to Lake Huron? Shouldn't we have shot it down near California or New York or wherever it came over? Did Chinese sleeper cells release it over Chicago?

 

Where is Brad Thor when you need him? I have questions! 

 

2 hours ago, Godless said:

One of the objects (with exception of the first, the objects haven't been specified as being balloons) was shot down over Canadian airspace. The one over Lake Huron may have spent some time over Canada as well. There also seemed to be some confusion around the object shot down over Montana. It was initially reported to be a radar anomaly, then it was later reported that an object had been shot down.

Using balloons is quite cleaver and cheap.   They do not move very fast and are easy to spot.  The reason they are cleaver is because there are lots of them floating around so they are considered harmless.  The initial balloon was quite large with lots of capabilities (or so they say).  It was so easy to spot that it was spotted by civilians that called in and asked questions – some that saw it contacted news outlets.  This is the only reason we know about this in the first place.

I know that the military does not like anything flying over controlled air space especially stuff that they do not know about.  There are some such places that will not allow even toy or civilian drowns.   I know for a fact that if a unauthorized plane (regardless of size) flue over Washington DC that it would be shot down – long before it ever got over water or away from possible harm to people on the ground.  I was aware of a craft above 90,000 feet that entered into controlled air space that would have been shot down but it turned out to be a left hand did not know what the right hand was doing thing so the default to shoot it down was given a stand down the last minute.

In essence we are being told a bunch of crap.  It is obvious (to me) that two things are going on.  First that our defenses do not know what they are dealing with and second – that they do not want anyone to know how truly unprepared they are.  Currently it costs the US more to shoot these balloons down than it would cost the Chinese to build them and to float them over here.  In addition – regardless of what happens – the Chinese win – both concerning information gathered and in worldwide public image.

 

The Traveler

[LDSGator]

16 hours ago, Traveler said:

In essence we are being told a bunch of crap.

To be fair, if the government came out and said “The sky is blue” a large chunk of the population would say the same thing you did here, lol. 
 

I’m not saying the gov’ is right here or telling us everything. But the only thing worse then believing everything you are told is believing none of it. 

Edited February 14, 2023 by LDSGator

[Traveler]

11 hours ago, LDSGator said:

To be fair, if the government came out and said “The sky is blue” a large chunk of the population would say the same thing you did here, lol. 
 

I’m not saying the gov’ is right here or telling us everything. But the only thing worse then believing everything you are told is believing none of it. 

If the government said the sky was blue in the middle of a gray sky storm – you are correct in assuming that they are not completely wrong – but obviously they are deflecting what is really going on (a storm).  It would be better if they said that the blue sky was blocked by gray storm clouds.

I personally find it odd that they let one balloon travel across the entire USA – knowing where it came from, who was controlling it and that it targeted closed air space.  Then immediately shoot down 3 other devices claiming they have no idea where they came from, who is collecting the data or what they are doing. 

I think it would be a good idea to make it known, because of the circumstances, that anyone with objects in our nation’s air space contact the FAA immediately.  We also have the capability to determine what frequencies the objects  are broadcasting.  We can also determine who (inside the USA) is listening to those frequencies.  Shorter wave lengths are for longer ranges and can be easily jammed.   We also can determine if the broadcasted data is encrypted.  The point here is that we could be doing stuff that could look like we were smart and knew what we were doing. 

 

The Traveler

[LDSGator]

1 hour ago, Traveler said:

personally find it odd that they let one balloon travel across the entire USA –

We agree on that totally bro. 

[Still_Small_Voice]

23 hours ago, LDSGator said:

To be fair, if the government came out and said “The sky is blue” a large chunk of the population would say the same thing you did here, lol. 
I’m not saying the government is right here or telling us everything. But the only thing worse then believing everything you are told is believing none of it. 

Yeah, well the current administration has earned the right to be disbelieved.  The lies they tell the general population almost daily are so numerous that one could fill several pages in a book with them.

[Traveler]

1 minute ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

Yeah, well the current administration has earned the right to be disbelieved.  The lies they tell the general population almost daily are so numerous that one could fill several pages in a book with them.

The big political problem in my mind, is that according to political leaning - it seems that those that follow politics tend to filter the lies as though one party is less likely to tell the lies.  And neither party admits their lies especially when the lies are obvious - then it becomes the other party's fault. 

 

The Traveler

[LDSGator]

4 minutes ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

Yeah, well the current administration has earned the right to be disbelieved.  The lies they tell the general population almost daily are so numerous that one could fill several pages in a book with them.

I understand that. Again though in this political climate truth takes a back seat to what our personal politics are. Trump could have cured cancer and the left would complain about it. Now, it’s the rights turn to disbelieve everything. When a republican is back in office, the roles will all be the same with different actors. 

[Still_Small_Voice]

2 minutes ago, Traveler said:

The big political problem in my mind, is that according to political leaning - it seems that those that follow politics tend to filter the lies as though one party is less likely to tell the lies.  And neither party admits their lies especially when the lies are obvious - then it becomes the other party's fault. 

The Traveler

What a time to be alive.  It's like the collapse of Rome but with Wi-Fi.

Someone else said this and I find it funny but sad. 

[Guest Godless]

6 minutes ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

What a time to be alive.  It's like the collapse of Rome but with Wi-Fi.

Someone else said this and I find it funny but sad. 

The revolution will not be televised, it will be streamed on Tik Tok.

[LDSGator]

2 minutes ago, Godless said:

The revolution will not be televised, it will be streamed on Tik Tok.

The biggest/most socially influencing inventions of last century were the birth control pill and the shrinking of computers. For the Gen Xers/millennials it’s that we can carry a camera everywhere. 

[Traveler]

4 minutes ago, Godless said:

The revolution will not be televised, it will be streamed on Tik Tok.

If you think you will get or can get accurate and unfiltered information from the internet - you are worse off than the political faithful.

 

The Traveler

[Guest Godless]

23 minutes ago, Traveler said:

If you think you will get or can get accurate and unfiltered information from the internet - you are worse off than the political faithful.

 

The Traveler

'Twas a joke. 😉

[Traveler]

1 minute ago, Godless said:

'Twas a joke. 😉

obviously  🙃

 

The Traveler

[Traveler]

It has been over 40 years since I worked for the Department of Defense.   We had optics that were capable of seeing an emblem on the top of a pen in someone’s shirt pocket from a satellite.  We had inferred that could identify the signature of a particular automobile in traffic and track it anywhere.  If the vehicle went into a tunnel, if the signature changed enough to determine if someone got in or out of the vehicle.   We had sonar capabilities of determining what ships were operating from 1,000 miles away and we could detect metal objects moving anywhere in any ocean – with the exception of subs under the ice cap – which is why Russia hid their subs there.

We could track any number of balloons – especially those with metallic surfaces.   Radar was the primary technology but there were a few others as well making it almost impossible for something to be invisible.  The problem here is that there can be such numbers of things in the sky (or water) that it was important to identify friendly from foe and from irrelevant.   As I said previously it becomes a cat and mouse game of camouflage, misdirection and deception – and a few other possibilities.   It can also be a competition of surprises and rhetoric.   

As I said previously – I think we are losing.   We ought to evaluate our military advisors that thought the Taliban would not take over Iraq for months or a year and that Ukraine would fall within 72 hours.  It is my opinion that the current episodes demonstrate that military leadership is not capable and ought to be replaced.

 

The Traveler

[Guest Godless]

25 minutes ago, Traveler said:

obviously  🙃

 

The Traveler

Lol, the reference may have been more obscure than I thought.

23 minutes ago, Traveler said:

It has been over 40 years since I worked for the Department of Defense.   We had optics that were capable of seeing an emblem on the top of a pen in someone’s shirt pocket from a satellite.  We had inferred that could identify the signature of a particular automobile in traffic and track it anywhere.  If the vehicle went into a tunnel, if the signature changed enough to determine if someone got in or out of the vehicle.   We had sonar capabilities of determining what ships were operating from 1,000 miles away and we could detect metal objects moving anywhere in any ocean – with the exception of subs under the ice cap – which is why Russia hid their subs there.

And herein lies the reason why, while certainly not a nothingburger, the Chinese balloon probably isn't as serious a threat as some people are trying to make it out to be. I guarantee China has satellites with surveillance capabilities similar to our own. Is a balloon at 60,000 feet going to see anything that a satellite can't? I understand the need to protect our commercial and military airways from unauthorized and unexpected traffic, but I just don't see a credible national security threat.

[mikbone]

 

[Just_A_Guy]

I wonder, tactically, what a balloon in the stratosphere could do that a satellite in low-earth orbit couldn’t do.  

[estradling75]

12 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I wonder, tactically, what a balloon in the stratosphere could do that a satellite in low-earth orbit couldn’t do.  

Drop a payload that would not burn up entering the atmosphere.

[NeuroTypical]

45 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I wonder, tactically, what a balloon in the stratosphere could do that a satellite in low-earth orbit couldn’t do.  

Avoid 95-98% of the cost of putting a satellite into orbit.

I mean, Star-Wars-ey sci-fi stuff is always cooler, better, more precise, but there's nothing wrong with a good old school 500 balloon invasion for a hundredth of the price.

[Vort]

On 2/15/2023 at 9:35 AM, Godless said:

And herein lies the reason why, while certainly not a nothingburger, the Chinese balloon probably isn't as serious a threat as some people are trying to make it out to be. I guarantee China has satellites with surveillance capabilities similar to our own. Is a balloon at 60,000 feet going to see anything that a satellite can't?

Yes, indeed. Satellites are constrained to their orbits, and that orbit can change at will only by drastically shortening the satellite's life—that is, at great expense. Much cheaper to put a few tens of thousands of dollars into a balloon to get decent-res pics.

As to why the Biden Administration allowed the balloon to travel the width of the US before intercepting it: The idea that we just didn't notice it is, of course, absurd. The alarmist conspiracy theory (which I do not totally discount) would be that elements within the Biden Administration are working for the overthrow of the US by aiding and abetting a geopolitical enemy in China. I think a more realistic possibility is that the US wanted China to gather whatever surveillance they were looking for and thus tacitly allowed it. For example, perhaps China was concerned about missile deployment in Kansas and the US gov't wanted to assuage those fears. I would not be surprised if the Biden Administration and military top brass knew this was happening and danced the dance to maintain credible deniability. This is spook territory, which I know next to nothing about, other than having watched Burn Notice.

[NeuroTypical]

27 minutes ago, Vort said:

I would not be surprised if the Biden Administration and military top brass knew this was happening and danced the dance to maintain credible deniability. This is spook territory, which I know next to nothing about, other than having watched Burn Notice.

Me too, except I haven't even watched Burn Notice.  Just 20 year old Tom Clancy novels here.

So this was a welcome interview between Hugh Hewitt and Mike Pompeo (former Secretary of State, former CIA director):

 

[Traveler]

It appears from current reports that the following 3 balloons shot down had unknown origins and were shot down – perhaps to give the impression that the current administration is in charge.  If it turns out that such targets were improperly identified – this only adds to the incompetence of both our military and administration. 

It seems the longer I live and the more I learn – the more incompetent our government leaders seem to be.  It is obvious to me that a free people cannot make intelligent choices about a government with minimal transparency.   I made a statement once when I was working for the government that there are secrets (classified information) that ought to be leaked to our enemies that would definitely confuse them and likely prevent them from anywhere near – intelligent response.  Put them back decades in tech development.  But then I suspect that most of the wars and conflicts are born of such confusion and lack of intelligent responses.

 

The Traveler