One of 99 red baloons goes by...

[Zero999]

I think we should keep an open mind until, an in depth analysis and pictures of the load are in the public domain.

Your open mind was probably why you said:

I believe China. It's a rogue weather balloon.

Yes so what? The most plausible theory at the moment, is a weather balloon, but it might be something else.

[TimFox]

Oh, My God, US is threaten by a white soft-baloons

Must fight back by a F22 and 11 Carrieres, all air-force go~!

Let's fly a balloon with cameras on it over any other country, maybe Russia or China would be a good choice, and see how non-threatened they are. I bet either one would go ballistic. The balloon itself isn't the issue, it's the payload.

The Soviet Union was not amused when they shot down the U2 spy plane in 1960, flying at 70,000 ft over the USSR.
The apparent cause of this overflight was exaggerated bragging from Khrushchev about the size of the Soviet missile fleet, and the CIA was looking for missiles that did not yet exist.
Unfortunate timing for diplomacy:  a scheduled meeting between Eisenhower and Khrushchev days later was cancelled.
There have been reports that the current version U2 was involved in tracking the recent balloon, since it could fly over it at higher altitude, but the shootdown was an F22 fighter.

[james_s]

That makes sense, the U2 can reach the altitude and it is probably the slowest manned aircraft we have that is capable of getting that high, but it doesn't carry any sort of weapons.

An article in the local news today said the balloon carried electronic equipment capable of monitoring communications. Hard to say what's really true at this point though.

[xrunner]

They should have spray-painted the entire balloon BLUE like the sky - Duh! 

[PlainName]

Hard to say what's really true at this point though

It will probably be hard to say at any point. Suppose it turns out that it was a weather balloon (or, at least, carried only equipment a weather balloon would carry) - is the Whitehouse going to hold their hands up and say oops, sorry China? Or suppose it carried a smoking gun (communications data recorded and an encrypted comms link ready to send that home) - would we actually believe them if they told us that?

A decade ago we might have given them the benefit of the doubt, but Snowden and others showed us they do stuff we would have thought far fetched had they been in a movie.

[Kim Christensen]

When the leaders of both countries stand up and express their outrage over some international incident, they are not talking to each other but rather to their own people in an attempt to make themselves look good. So you really cannot believe anything they say.
Same with the statements from the military spokesmen. No way are they going to tell the full truth, because they don't want the "enemy" to know what they know.

[james_s]

It will probably be hard to say at any point. Suppose it turns out that it was a weather balloon (or, at least, carried only equipment a weather balloon would carry) - is the Whitehouse going to hold their hands up and say oops, sorry China? Or suppose it carried a smoking gun (communications data recorded and an encrypted comms link ready to send that home) - would we actually believe them if they told us that?

A decade ago we might have given them the benefit of the doubt, but Snowden and others showed us they do stuff we would have thought far fetched had they been in a movie.

Does it matter? Either way it was in our airspace and we were within our rights to shoot it down. If I had built a giant balloon and released it to float across my own country I'd probably be in jail by now regardless of its purpose or what payload it carried.

[coppercone2]

well regardless of why its there you are supposed to notify NORAD that there is a damn rogue object in someones territory so they can notify the relevant authorities. If it lost control, how do you know it won't descend to normal plane level and crash into a jumbo jet? Why cover this up?

These things are supposed to be like insured that if scientific equipment can cause danger to someone their supposed to like pay for the shoot down with the insurance, and also the monitoring time (so civilian safety authorities can make the decision if its more dangerous to shoot it down or to let it stay up).

Hoping someone WONT find it when its already gone bad is super unprofessional. Kinda makes me think real weather scientists would not try to cover it up, because you could get shut down for trying to cover up international stuff. It's normal for stuff to malfunction, the normal procedure is to let people know something is gone haywire.

I am sure you can see why the government was already super pissed off regardless of why it was there but because it was not announced ASAP.

[helius]

I presume you are aware that research balloons are sent up all the time.
You are perfectly free to launch balloons, model rockets, kites, RC aircraft, etc. The regulations are not onerous.
http://www.arhab.org/

[coppercone2]

that is for payloads less then 15 pounds, this was the size of a passenger jet with a mass of 2000lb

[Haenk]

I'd say a weather balloon does not require an equipment of this size.
However the "the larger in size, the better" certainly fits the radio interception antennas. Plus - interception of communications is "easily" doale for huge areas, as shown by "the military".

[Zero999]

Good point about it being big for a weather balloon, but I don't see why a spy balloon would need such a large payload either. I would have thought the smaller, the better.

[AndyBeez]

Okay guys, the question is how much of an "airliner" sized payload was the Chinese balloon able to hold aloft? I attempted to calculate how much mass a pure Helium filled balloon can carry; assuming a circular diameter of 61 meters (200ft), an altitude of 18,000 meters, an air temperature of -65C and an air pressure of 100mB. But my results are just wrong? I must be missing something, like Arithmetic101. So are there any mathematical mega brains around here looking for a challenge? No prizes, just kudos

[james_s]

The "airliner" comparison is a bit silly IMO, the payload wasn't the size of an airliner, it was the length of a small regional airliner. From the appearance, most of the length was a truss assembly carrying the solar panels. The central equipment module was perhaps the size of a car.

[Marco]

Thats exactly what is happening, and just watch the recent diplomatic hostilities toward China for the last 36 months, all just to prepare the whole country for war by the warmongering neocons in Washington and Pentagon.

It's to prepare them for the fallout of a cold war due to possible regional wars or China's response to trade restrictions. A hot war is very unlikely, but just pretending trade will keep China docile in its regional disputes has become less straightforward after Ukraine. Not that Ukraine is directly relevant to China, it just showed the emperor of globalist peace had no clothes.

The status quo is collapsing mostly due to US actions, but those actions are inspired due the realization that the status quo was dangerously unstable any way and building to a worse collapse.

As for the balloon, it's just cold War games.

[AndyBeez]

Scratch 2

Not a balloon... a U.F.O. maybe?

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/object-shot-down-alaska/index.html

[Kim Christensen]

Not a balloon... a U.F.O. maybe?

Wasn't that how the silly Roswell conspiracies started?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident

[coppercone2]

[BravoV]

As for the balloon, it's just cold War games.

Meh ... the whole Yankeestan went baloney just for a stupid balloon, now watch as this becoming an ongoing trend with 2nd chapter coming recently just few hours ago in Alaska.

Its all about distraction, smoke'n mirror or what ever you want to called it.

Believe most of you are old enough to remember this ... you know the WMD thingies ...

"US invaded a sovereign nations, killed and maimed a lot of Iraqis, and lost some of the greatest American patriots to ever live — all for a goddamned lie."     

[Gyro]

Scratch 2

Not a balloon... a U.F.O. maybe?

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/object-shot-down-alaska/index.html

I hope the mother ship wasn't watching! 

[Kim Christensen]

Our secret spies have spotted China's next move. Here is a secret clip of their light infantry robotic ground trooper.

[coppercone2]

wow, that is built exactly like the aliens in the 1996 movie 'the arrival' that can jump 50 meters in the air, including the helium they are full of (when shot, they vent gas). Basically gas bags in human form. Also known as politicians.

[fourfathom]

Wasn't the balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic (balloon #1) supposed to have propulsion?  You can control direction somewhat by controlling elevation and hunting for useful wind direction, but this sounded like more than that.  Any recent news?

[BravoV]

3 down, 96 to go. 

[Gyro]

Yes, another car sized cylindrical one. Those little green men on the mother ship are going to be really pissed. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64614098


... I hope they find some wreckage soon!