Tag: surveillance

What’s Known So Far About The “Cylindrical & Silverish Gray” Object Downed Over Alaska

Recovery efforts utilizing military planes and helicopters in the far northeast arctic region of Alaska continue, where on Friday an unidentified object was shot down by F-22 jets.

Still, little definitive is known, including who owns the object or where it came from; however, in media and US official reports the ‘high-altitude’ object is increasingly being referenced as a another balloon.

Biden called the operation a “success” – and yet didn’t engage reporters’ questions directly when asked about follow-up details. 

What has become clear is that Biden gave the order to shoot it down before knowing who owned it or where it came from, or whether it was state-owned or perhaps owned by a corporation. And of course the question remains: was this another Chinese spy balloon? Or was it a weather research balloon just downed over Alaska?

According to details from White House and Pentagon briefings on Friday, including descriptions from senior officials, here’s what’s known at this point:

  • It flew at 40,000 feet
  • Deemed a safety threat to civilian aircraft
  • Unknown origin or ownership 
  • Cylindrical and silverish gray
  • Roughly the size of a car
  • Smaller than the Chinese ‘spy’ balloon shot down last Satursday
  • Object not maneuverable or propelled 
  • Shot down by US F-22 with sidewinder missile

In the meantime the media is only hyping the rampant online speculation into overdrive…

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First Balloons, Now Space Lasers: Chinese Satellite Blasts Green Lights Over Hawaii

Chinese spy balloons aren’t the only strange thing flying over U.S. airspace as of late.

Numerous green laser lights were spotted over Hawaii on Jan. 28, initially believed to be from a NASA satellite that monitors the thickness of ice sheets on earth. However, the claim was retracted on Feb. 6, and responsibility was instead attributed to a Chinese atmospheric monitoring satellite.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan published a photo of the lasers on Jan. 28 saying they were “thought to be from a remote-sensing altimeter satellite ICESAT-2/43613,” the NASA satellite. Then, on Feb. 6, NAOJ released an updated report and said it was unlikely to have come from the NASA satellite due to the trajectory of the lasers.

NASA scientist Dr. Alvaro Ivanoff determined via a simulation that the culprit was likely China’s Daqi-1/AEMS satellite, according to Science Alert.

Daqi-1 monitors the earth’s atmospheric environment and can project lasers from its Aerosol and Carbon Dioxide Detection Lidar (ACDL), according to The Science Times.

NASA’s IceSAT-2 functions similarly and fired 10,000 lasers per second to measure changes on the earth’s surface, according to The Science Times.

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Nothing About the Chinese Balloon Saga Makes Sense

Nothing about the “Chinese spy balloon” story makes sense—but that hasn’t stopped U.S. officials from using it to stoke anti-China sentiment and cancel an attempt to ease diplomatic relations.

The basics: A Chinese balloon started drifting into U.S. territory about 10 days ago. It first entered Alaskan airspace, then drifted over Canada, then made its way back into U.S. airspace, appearing over Montana on February 1. By Saturday, when U.S. forces shot down the balloon, it was floating over the shores of South Carolina.

What the Chinese say: It was “a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes”—a weather balloon, essentially—that veered off course due to westerly winds and “limited self-steering capability.”

What Americans are saying: It’s a spy balloon! It’s an act of open hostility! U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken called it “a violation of our sovereignty” and “a violation of international law.” House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) declared the balloon “a threat to American sovereignty” and “a threat to the Midwest.” Mitt Romney used it as an opportunity to call for banning TikTok.

The fallout: Blinken was supposed to visit Beijing this past weekend, on a trip designed to help keep relations cordial and keep lines of communication open between the countries. He was even scheduled to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping. But Blinken canceled the trip last week, as the Chinese balloon loomed large (literally and figuratively) over America.

Not only did the balloon nix a diplomatic visit, it’s inflaming tensions—and paranoia—here in the States. The balloon is “more fodder for China hawks in Washington, for sure,” NPR correspondent Michele Kelemen said on Saturday. Kelemen described the incident as sounding like a story out of the Cold War, which was “exactly what [Blinken’s] trip was supposed to prevent.”

The absurdity: The balloon in question is absolutely massive, with “an undercarriage roughly the size of three buses,” as The New York Times put it. This would be an absolutely bonkers way to spy on the United States—especially since the images it picks up are reportedly no better than those it can obtain through satellites. One defense official said, as summarized The Washington Post, that the images a balloon like this could obtain “wouldn’t offer much in the way of surveillance that China couldn’t collect through spy satellites.”

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How Did Biden Admin Retroactively ‘Discover’ Chinese Balloons in the U.S During the Trump Years?

The Biden administration has been trying to plug a gigantic hole in their story about Chinese spy balloons flying over U.S. territory during the Trump administration with no one in the government aware of it.

Initially, the Biden administration sought to deflect attention from their failure to shoot down the balloon by noting that Chinese spy balloons transited U.S. territory three times during the Trump years. But when several Trump administration officials hotly denied that charge, Biden administration officials changed their story. They claimed that the balloons were only over U.S. territory briefly — skirting Hawaii and flying over part of Florida — unlike this latest spy balloon, which traversed the entire width of the country. They also claimed that the balloons weren’t detected.

But how do we know this if the balloons weren’t detected and national leaders weren’t informed of their presence?

The American military had a “domain awareness gap,” according to Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.

“Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats,” VanHerck said. “And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out, but I don’t want to go into further detail.”

What’s a “domain awareness gap”? General VanHerck didn’t define the term, but Breaking Defense offered a partial explanation.

When VanHerck speaks of a “domain gap,” he’s referring to the U.S. Northern Command not having “the correct mix of sensor capabilities.”

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By Shooting Down Balloon, the Expensive, Useless F-22 Fighter Finally Won a Dogfight

When it officially entered military service in 2005, the U.S. Air Force hailed the F-22 Raptor as an “exponential leap in warfighting capabilities.”

American taxpayers ultimately paid $67 billion to buy 187 of the planes, which had been in development since 1986 “to project air dominance, rapidly and at great distances” with technical capabilities that “cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft.”

On Saturday, the F-22 scored its first-ever victory against an airborne adversary when it shot down…a balloon.

There may not be a better metaphor for the costly grandiosity of the American military than the use of a multi-million-dollar fighter jet to dispatch an unarmed, unmaneuverable opponent. But the fact that the F-22 had never won a dogfight before its decisive victory over what may or may not have been a Chinese spy balloon is a nice illustration of why the United States has the world’s most expensive military by a massive margin.

In short, it’s because the Pentagon buys lots of expensive toys that have no use.

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Amid Spy Balloon Controversy, Biden Admin Approves $2.1 Billion Aid Package to Defend Ukrainian Skies

As national attention was captured by a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the United States, the Biden administration has approved another $2.1 billion military aid package to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense arsenal.

The package includes $425 million in arms and equipment drawn from existing U.S. stockpiles, as well as $1.75 billion in Ukraine Assistance Security Initiative (UASI) funds, which Ukraine can use to purchase new weapons—particularly those related to air defense—from manufactures contracted with the U.S. Department of Defense.

In Friday’s announcement, the Pentagon said the package includes “critical air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people.”

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US military shoots down Chinese spy balloon over Atlantic Ocean

The U.S. military has shot down the Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean.

While the balloon was off the coast of South Carolina, the balloon was shot down by U.S. military fighter jets on Saturday afternoon, according to Fox News sources. 

A senior defense official said during a Thursday afternoon briefing that the U.S. government is “confident” the surveillance balloon is from the People’s Republic of China. 

When asked about the balloon on Saturday by a reporter, Biden said “we’re going to take care of it.” 

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Suspected Chinese Spy Balloon Spotted Over North Carolina; US Might Shoot It Down Over Atlantic

A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon appears to be heading toward North Carolina, according to ABC News, citing a senior US official familiar with the situation. That official said the US would probably shoot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean and retrieve it. 

Within the last hour, numerous Twitter users have uploaded footage of what appears to be the Chinese balloon floating above North Carolina. 

On Friday, we cited Capital Weather Gang, who accurately predicted the balloon’s trajectory while it was floating above the Midwest. Now updated predictions for Saturday morning show the balloon might be headed toward the Atlantic. 

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Chinese Spy Balloons: Potential Purposes For The High Altitude Invasion

My home state of Montana was recently featured in news feeds this week as the first to observe and identify what the US Air Force says is a Chinese spy balloon. The Chinese claim it is a civilian weather apparatus that was blown off course, but the equipment visible in photographs suggests that this is a lie. Beyond that, another similar balloon has been spotted over Latin America – one wayward high tech Chinese balloon might be believable, but two is not a coincidence.

There are numerous theories as to why such a surveillance platform would be used by the CCP and what it is designed to look for, and I thought I would offer a couple theories based on my years of study into similar projects pursued by the US Department of Defense and DARPA.

First, the immediate question is why the Biden Administration has not destroyed the balloon? Why not shoot first and ask questions later? Well, Biden’s silence on this issue suggests he either has no answers or that the truth will make the American public very angry. The most likely reason it has not been shot down is because it is very difficult or impossible to shoot down.

High-altitude balloons travel at 80,000 to 120,000 feet. The average fighter jet can hit altitudes of 65,000 feet and new generation drones can climb to 50,000 feet. These balloons also emit little to no heat signature, which makes them very difficult to target using missiles. If laser technology exists that has such a range, the US military is not talking about it. It might actually be easier to shoot down a Chinese satellite than one of these balloons.

Is there a way? It could be done perhaps with a missile using a large fragmentation-type warhead, but the White House does not seem too interested in exploring options.

Another explanation is that the DoD is waiting to see what these balloons do. This is where I would present a few theories as to their purpose. Here is what I think is most likely given the progress of spy balloon technology right now…

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Montana Authorities Address ‘Massive Explosion’ Rumors in Sky Where Chinese Spy Balloon Was Spotted

Montana officials have issued a statement saying that reports of a “massive explosion” taking place in the sky near where a Chinese spy balloon was spotted are inaccurate after a video went viral on social media purporting to show several blasts in the sky over Billings and what could be debris falling to the ground.

Two explosions and a trail of smoke in the sky over Billings Montana, where the balloon had been flying over the region, were captured on camera on Friday.

Dolly Moore, who shot the video and shared it on Twitter, said she saw a jet zooming by “so fast” followed by explosions.

The video was shared widely on social media and was picked up by a number of cable networks, drawing speculation whether the U.S. military had shot down the spy balloon, as a number of prominent current and former officials had called for.

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