Chinese spy balloon over Montana

[pixy0stix]

www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/us-tracking-china-spy-balloon/index.html

Wtf?!

This goes along with the TikTok thread about China using our own phones to spy on us.

[Bad Dingo]

"China claims balloon over U.S. is "civilian airship" that blew off course"
Insert "Ok, Jan" gif here.

This feel like a bad spy show, I am having a hard time being worried about it because it just seems so ludicrous.

[bears]

The article has the official line, but is this something that is meant to be intimidating to Americans/our government rather than actually threatening? Like Sputnik?

[mpm]

Very interested in what the Chinese government expects to find in Montana.

(Because apparently it wasn’t clear, this was a joke.)

[pixy0stix]

Feb 3, 2023 9:44:12 GMT -5 mpm said:

Very interested in what the Chinese government expects to find in Montana.

Since it's floating, who knows what it went over before it got to MT. That's just where the general populace spotted it.

[Bad Dingo]

Feb 3, 2023 9:44:12 GMT -5 mpm said:

Very interested in what the Chinese government expects to find in Montana.

There are nuclear missile silos in Montana.

[aurora]

This just seems like such a clumsy move.

I've seen several news stories saying the actual info they can get from the balloon is probably not much different from what they can see in satellite images. Here's one:

www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/03/blinken-postpones-china-trip-suspected-spy-balloon-detected-over-us/

So, it might not make much of a difference intelligence-wise, but it certainly doesn't help diplomacy!

[pinkplasticdoll]

China says its a weather balloon that went off course

[Velar Fricative]

Canada's tracking a potential second incident in their airspace: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-02/pentagon-is-tracking-a-chinese-spy-balloon-hovering-over-montana

These motherfuckers. I don't believe a word they say. Covid was totally a nothingburger too in Winter 2020, right???

[docholly]

If it was a weather balloon, why wait so long to communicate…?

[aurora]

Feb 3, 2023 11:10:06 GMT -5 pinkplasticdoll said:

China says its a weather balloon that went off course

And crossed Washington and Idaho (or British Columbia) before its owners noticed? Yeah, that's not a plausible explanation.

[audette]

I mean, if we really want to go tin foil hat...

We're 80 years on from these, but, they made it to US mainland.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb

[docholly]

Feb 3, 2023 14:03:23 GMT -5 aurora said:

Feb 3, 2023 11:10:06 GMT -5 pinkplasticdoll said:

China says its a weather balloon that went off course

And crossed Washington and Idaho (or British Columbia) before its owners noticed? Yeah, that's not a plausible explanation.

Yes. Our government has rejected this idea.

“The Pentagon rejected China's claims that the balloon that entered the US was a "civilian airship" for research that deviated from course.
"The fact is, we know that it's a surveillance balloon, and I'm not going to be able to be more specific than that," he said, noting the information is classified.”

They also say they know it is maneuverable.

www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/suspected-chinese-balloon-us/index.html

[pinkplasticdoll]

And now the NWS picked it up in Kansas City

[Velar Fricative]

Feb 3, 2023 14:42:30 GMT -5 pinkplasticdoll said:

And now the NWS picked it up in Kansas City

I bet the Eagles paid off China to spy on the Chiefs before the Super Bowl.

[Deleted]

Lol. The only thing about this that surprises me is that they aren’t just hacking into our aerial imagery databases, or hell, even our cell phones, instead of sending some kind of balloon. Maybe a red herring?

[dancingirl21]

Apparently now it’s over southern Illinois. A Facebook weather group I follow is asking people to take pictures if they see it. The comments, though. “Why isn’t it being shot down?” “Hopefully it goes over the White House”. “Biden is in on it and is being paid”. FFS. People are so stupid.

[jlt19]

It was over the St. Louis area about 30 minutes ago, per my neighborhood FB group. So moving SE from Montana. Flyover country indeed…

[ksun]

A civilian airship? Like a group was just out there in their hot air balloon over Shanghai and a big gust of wind took them to Montana? Insert another "sure, Jan".

[basilosaurus]

Feb 3, 2023 16:39:50 GMT -5 @villainv said:

Lol. The only thing about this that surprises me is that they aren’t just hacking into our aerial imagery databases, or hell, even our cell phones, instead of sending some kind of balloon. Maybe a red herring?

Yeah, I assume that there are much better ways to spy with higher quality data than anything from a balloon. It reminds me of the old open skies in a way. Not useable data, just a facade for diplomacy. Of course this is antithesis of diplomacy. Did they think no one would notice?

[georgeglass]

Read somewhere last night that someone (how is this for accuracy - ha! great sources) believed it would be very ineffective spying, so more of a psyops activity (like - look what we can do?) and we aren't shooting it down because it's better if we look like we don't care.

[Deleted]

Feb 4, 2023 6:35:35 GMT -5 georgeglass said:

Read somewhere last night that someone (how is this for accuracy - ha! great sources) believed it would be very ineffective spying, so more of a psyops activity (like - look what we can do?) and we aren't shooting it down because it's better if we look like we don't care.

I’m no expert, but I’m inclined to agree. A balloon where they can’t control its flight path or trajectory? I can’t imagine this is going to provide any kind of beneficial intelligence. It seems kind of like a stunt.

[klee23]

Per CNN, a second balloon has been spotted over Latin America.

Also, in the same thread of "live updates" a steering component has been theorized because the path "changed course" (?not following wind patterns?)

www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/suspected-chinese-balloon-over-us-02-04-23/index.html

[spinnaker5]

Feb 3, 2023 16:39:50 GMT -5 @villainv said:

Lol. The only thing about this that surprises me is that they aren’t just hacking into our aerial imagery databases, or hell, even our cell phones

See: TikTok “privacy policy terms and conditions.” Per pixy’s post/link at the top of the thread, do they even need to hack?  

(full disclosure, I do not use TikTok)

[cous0226]

CNN is reporting the U.S. military shot it down.

[Poeticxpassion]

www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/suspected-chinese-balloon-over-us-02-04-23/index.html

The US military has downed the suspected Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean, a US official says.

Prior to the balloon being shot down, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for airports in Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The FAA also restricted airspace near Myrtle Beach “to support the Defense Department in a national security effort.”

[pixy0stix]

If it was nothing, they sure used a lot of force to get it down.

[Deleted]

Feb 4, 2023 15:24:21 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

If it was nothing, they sure used a lot of force to get it down.

A big part of shooting it down is so that we can recover whatever the payload was, and exploit it for intelligence purposes. Not necessarily because it was a threat to us (though it might have been) but because once it moved more than 12 miles past the coasts line, it would be over international water, and we would not longer have the right to shoot it down. Small window where it wouldn’t endanger anyone else, and was in range of the few airplanes we have that could actually bring it down (and having it come down over the water means it was less likely to be damaged).

I also have to assume that our intelligence community knows a WHOLE lot more about this thing than is available in the media.

[lilac05]

@villainv, yes to your last sentence! It cracks me up when people think that all we know about things is what is covered in the news. If that’s the case, then we’re in really big trouble!

[basilosaurus]

I assume they're not just recovering whatever data was collected but also reverse engineering the tech