Well I'll be........

"Suspected Chinese spy balloon found over northern U.S."
“The United States government ... is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now," said a Pentagon spokesperson.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... -rcna68879

Spy balloon flying over missile sites and building a plant near an ICBM Base. The Chinese sure are interested in the prairie states.

"Air Force opposes Chinese-owned corn plant for North Dakota"
The U.S. Air Force is telling North Dakota leaders it believes a Chinese company’s plan to build a wet corn milling plant near the Grand Forks Air Force Base poses a national security threat
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireSto ... e-96833774

well i suppose its one way to catch out anything classified as satellites have a known time and path.

wonder if it controllable or is totally reliant on the winds for direction of travel.

would have thought they could get it down where they wanted it though.

Hardly a new thing, as pointed out the US used to do this, though that was largely prior to Spysats.
(The USSR used special camera film retrieved from a US balloon for the Luna 3 probe, which first sent images of the far side of the Moon in 1959).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqtsnHr3bkY

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

When I saw this headline last night I thought on the one hand I totally believe they'd do this, while on the other hand, "Is this really where we're at as a society now? A 'spy balloon?'"

A101 wrote:

well i suppose its one way to catch out anything classified as satellites have a known time and path.
.

More importantly the Chinese are getting valuable information on how the US will react.

Watch someone 'redneck' this and figure out a way to shoot it down themselves...what a fun CNN breaking story THAT will be!

It's apparently pretty large payload - wouldn't that suck if they had a EMP device (bomb) on board?

Third story about our Asian friends - "China Is Building A Second Nuclear Missile Silo Field" https://fas.org/blogs/security/2021/07/ ... ilo-field/

Fox News reported that Biden wanted it shot down but the military (JCS?) convinced him not to at this time. Their argument that someone might be hurt by falling debris is pretty hard to buy - land on a cow maybe. How about a F-22 puts 10 rounds of 20 mm thru the ballon and let it settle down slowly - if that's possible. They stole all the stuff off the P-3 they ran into a few years back. We'd get a good look at what was onboard.

https://www.flightradar24.com/SNOOP45/2f10f457

Here's your RC-135V Rivet Joint on scene.

And the second one:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae01d0

Before we shoot it down and break much of what is in it, perhaps having the RC harvest its data might be far smarter than simply shooting it down.

Don't trust everything the news says.

I do think holing the balloon is called for. Though as I recall the material these balloons are made from is so light and delicate that it will just tear open when that happens. What would be interesting, and inform on the veracity of China's "it's a research balloon that went off course" is whether the payload then self destructs on the way down.

Tugg

There must be something on the actual size of the payload but I haven't found anything yet?

Tugg

Somewhere they said two school buses in size.

MohawkWeekend wrote:

Somewhere they said two school buses in size.

My source reports roughly 3 buses. It's size doesn't matter, what does is the fact we haven't done anything but put up a Recon airframe and a pair of F-22's to intercept. China is playing us here, and they are testing us in response time and what we do with it. China claims it's a weather balloon but I doubt it, weather balloons just don't randomly wander off, and it's not like the Chinese actually couldn't pop it and send it back to Earth if that were the case. They have known about this for a good while (China has known for over a week because of how distance works and the fact that it has been over our airspace for a week). The fact we have allowed this is a serious OpSec issue. The fact that it is hovering there should say that it is steerable to an extent quite obviously. We just need to send up an F-15 or F-16 up there to put a few holes and bring it down. Even former SecDef's are saying to put holes in it and recover it.

Helps to keep in mind this is not the first time this has happened, it's just the first time it has hit the news cycle.

Bringing down a balloon from high altitude in a controlled fashion, is not easy and has risks. The US is acting responsibly here. The balloon is most likely engaged in signal intelligence, which can be done from a variety of platforms. We do the same. Invading airspace by this method is something that needs to be addressed better in future. But it's not the end of the world.

It's not enough just to poke holes in it, as it needs gas diffusive exchange to become heavier, which takes awhile though holes. Shredding is another matter, but then you create risk below.

Bring in the Pennsylvania State Police! They have experience dealing with balloons, well, low level anyways.

dmg626 wrote:

Bring in the Pennsylvania State Police! They have experience dealing with balloons, well, low level anyways.

Four firemen and a blanket should do the trick.....

Mikenike wrote:

MohawkWeekend wrote:

Somewhere they said two school buses in size.

My source reports roughly 3 buses. It's size doesn't matter, what does is the fact we haven't done anything but put up a Recon airframe and a pair of F-22's to intercept. China is playing us here, and they are testing us in response time and what we do with it. China claims it's a weather balloon but I doubt it, weather balloons just don't randomly wander off, and it's not like the Chinese actually couldn't pop it and send it back to Earth if that were the case. They have known about this for a good while (China has known for over a week because of how distance works and the fact that it has been over our airspace for a week). The fact we have allowed this is a serious OpSec issue. The fact that it is hovering there should say that it is steerable to an extent quite obviously. We just need to send up an F-15 or F-16 up there to put a few holes and bring it down. Even former SecDef's are saying to put holes in it and recover it.

Seems like Canada has had an Aurora and CF18s up there to check out what is going on, I would assume the US did the same. They decided not to shoot it down.

Fair use excerpt:

Steffan Watkins, an Ottawa- based research consultant who tracks aircraft and ships worldwide, said based on aircraft movement data collected by ADSB Exchange, an open-source initiative, it appears Canada dispatched a CP-140 surveillance plan from Comox, B.C., to monitor the balloon Jan. 31 while it was flying over the Canadian Rockies.

He said flight tracking data also suggests Canada also intercepted the balloon with CF-18s on Jan. 31, assisted by a CC-150Polaris refuelling tanker.

Mr. Watkins said the Chinese surveillance balloon appears to have drifted from Alaska into northern B.C. and then across the Canada-U.S. border over Montana.

The balloon is manoeuvrable and has “a large payload” of surveillance equipment underneath it, Brig.-Gen. Ryder said, suggesting that the Chinese government can steer the craft to find potential targets for intelligence collection. He said the U.S. military is “continuously tracking the balloon” using “multiple means.”

Source:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-china-spy-balloon-us-canada-ambassador/ (Article behind paywall)

https://twitter.com/petemuntean/status/ ... 9981553665

JUST IN: Pilots are now reporting the Chinese spy balloon floating a few thousand feet above them.

"DERELICT BALLOON ADRIFT" at 50,000 feet was just reported by the crew of a Cessna Citation private jet cruising at 43,000 feet near Kansas City.

Any thoughts on this impacting US civilian aviation?

Relax and take a close look at it. It's actually a weather balloon that got caught up in a powerful jetstream we have at this time of year. Why would the Chinese use a balloon when they have spy sattelites that are better.

Majority of civilian planes don’t fly above 43k, so I guarantee there’ll be 0 impact.

This entire situation is blown out of proportion and just another case of fear mongering

freakyrat wrote:

Relax and take a close look at it. It's actually a weather balloon that got caught up in a powerful jetstream we have at this time of year. Why would the Chinese use a balloon when they have spy sattelites that are better.

There are a couple of things to be concerned about here:

1. Where was it launched from
2. Why was Canada, USA and other countries not notified by the Chinese that a balloon was being blown around off course and heading their way
3. If there was no ill intent, and number 2 was not purposely hidden, how on earth could the Chinese be so incompetent that they lost a balloon and it traveled half way around the world without their knowledge
4. Why did USA and Canada allow balloon to enter over their territory
5. How was this not identified over water
6. Why has it not been shot down
7. In response to #6 - shooting down something with a hazardous substance inside could cause mass casualties.
8. No one knows what is actually within the balloon. One would hope there is honesty that it’s just a balloon (but we’ve also been dealing with a pandemic that they claim came from a bat or pangolin)
9. Now folks have seen Canada and USA’s lack of urgency and response to an unauthorized vessel on the loose - whether it was done in malice or a complete accident.

Seems like this should be in the military forum

freakyrat wrote:

Relax and take a close look at it. It's actually a weather balloon that got caught up in a powerful jetstream we have at this time of year. Why would the Chinese use a balloon when they have spy sattelites that are better.

If it’s a weather balloon the USAF wouldn’t have an RC-135 on site monitoring it.

It’s really a case of nothing for commercial aviation unless it starts falling. The Canadians couldn’t even get fighters high enough to to hit it with cannons.

It could be a test to see how we react, hard to say for sure, but they are less than honest about so many things.

Dozens of weather balloons are launched everyday, nobody cares about them. They're set to self destruct at a certain altitude, though.

I very much doubt the balloon that's been tracked as the #1 on Flightradar24 right now is the supposed 'chinese spy balloon'.

freakyrat wrote:

Relax and take a close look at it. It's actually a weather balloon that got caught up in a powerful jetstream we have at this time of year. Why would the Chinese use a balloon when they have spy sattelites that are better.

If it was just an innocent, off course weather balloon why didn't China notify America and Canada sooner?

The Pentagon's Spokesperson, Gen Patrick S Ryder was adamant it was a surveillance balloon.

Reason #182 Twitter needs to die.

This thing isn't even at the proper altitude to be a threat to commercial flights.

You can’t shoot it, the projectiles will land somewhere and small holes in a balloon this size won’t bring it down.

freakyrat wrote:

Relax and take a close look at it. It's actually a weather balloon that got caught up in a powerful jetstream we have at this time of year. Why would the Chinese use a balloon when they have spy sattelites that are better.

Some possible answers here: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/asia/us- ... index.html

Yes, China, sent over a Balloon.......which flew over Canadian airspace (Who did not engage or shoot it down) to America. SMH.

So where is it now?

We're probably not shooting it down because we don't know what's in it. The Pentagon feels very strongly it is a surveillance balloon and not a weather balloon, so it would be valuable to recover it intact and analyze its contents. If it makes it over the ocean, intact and at altitude, I guarantee it will be shot down over US waters and recovered by the Navy.

AllNippon767 wrote:

So where is it now?

A Citation X PIREP reported a ‘Derelict Ballon’ estimating it around 50K outside of MCI before noon today. Some high altitude contrails displaying 180 degree turns also noted in the area.

Nothing new. Project Genetrix, also known as WS-119L, was a United States Air Force program designed to launch General Mills manufactured surveillance balloons over China, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to take aerial photographs and collect intelligence.

Many hundreds of them were launched in the 50'es, mainly from Western Europe, Norway, West Germany, Turkey depending on wind conditions. Only about 5% of them were recovered so film could be developed and analized by CIA. Many were shot down by MiG fighters over Russia and Eastern Europe. During nighttime they cooled down, shrunk, and sunk to some 50,000 feet where the MiG fighters could pick them as aples on a tree.

Special film was produced to work in the extreme cold temperature, and also radiation at the high altitude. The Russians learned from downed Genetrix balloons how to make such hardened film, and it was actually used when when the Russian space ship Luna 3 first time photographed the back side of the Moon. Unlike the Genetrix balloons the Luna 3 space ship had onboard film development and scanning, and radio transmission of pictures, like some later spy satellites. Other spy satellites had small re-entry capsules to return undeveloped film to ground.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

You can’t shoot it, the projectiles will land somewhere and small holes in a balloon this size won’t bring it down.

Yep.

Not many fighters can get up to the height of where the balloon is fly; the F-22 barely makes it, if it's relatively low.

Firing at it with the internal gun does nothing, since there is nothing hard in the balloon that would cause the round to detonate.

If you are shooting from any lower or shallow aspect, then the rounds will fly for miles over a ballistic arch and impact over a wide area — basically, you'll be spreading 20mm cannon rounds over a massive area. These are live cannon rounds, so when they hit the ground, they will explode. Maybe if they were firing inert training rounds it would be safer, but I do not want to be anywhere near where those rounds will be falling, regardless.

Even if you do get it to descend, it can travel over great distances on its way down, so you have no real clear idea where it will land until it gets much closer to the ground. And there is major intelligence value in making sure it lands relatively intact.

Shooting at missile at poses other problems; for one, there really isn't anything there for a radar guided missile to really lock on, except for maybe the payload. And I suspect we want the payload intact, not in a million pieces spread out over tens of miles. An IR guided missile has the same issues; there really isn't anything there for the missile to lock on with.

Balloon warfare is not new. The Japanese Army's Fu-Go balloon bomb program launched approximately 9,300 balloon bombs at the west coasts of the US and Canada from bases in Japan between November 1944 and April 1945. In March 1945 one of the balloon bombs damaged a power line near Toppenish, WA that serviced the plutonium manufacturing facility for the Manhattan Project's Hanford Engineer Works. The bomb only caused a minor, 3-day slowdown in the progress of the making the Fat Man atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.

Also, in May 1945, 6 civilians on a Sunday School picnic in the Fremont National Forest near Bly, Oregon were killed after accidentally discovering an unexploded, but armed Fu-Go balloon bomb in a forest clearing. These 6 victims were the only recorded civilian casualties in CONUS during WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb

ThePointblank wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

You can’t shoot it, the projectiles will land somewhere and small holes in a balloon this size won’t bring it down.

Yep.

Not many fighters can get up to the height of where the balloon is fly; the F-22 barely makes it, if it's relatively low.

Firing at it with the internal gun does nothing, since there is nothing hard in the balloon that would cause the round to detonate.

If you are shooting from any lower or shallow aspect, then the rounds will fly for miles over a ballistic arch and impact over a wide area — basically, you'll be spreading 20mm cannon rounds over a massive area. These are live cannon rounds, so when they hit the ground, they will explode. Maybe if they were firing inert training rounds it would be safer, but I do not want to be anywhere near where those rounds will be falling, regardless.

Even if you do get it to descend, it can travel over great distances on its way down, so you have no real clear idea where it will land until it gets much closer to the ground. And there is major intelligence value in making sure it lands relatively intact.

Shooting at missile at poses other problems; for one, there really isn't anything there for a radar guided missile to really lock on, except for maybe the payload. And I suspect we want the payload intact, not in a million pieces spread out over tens of miles. An IR guided missile has the same issues; there really isn't anything there for the missile to lock on with.

In 1985, 38 years ago, an F15 shot down a satellite 345 miles above earth. 345 miles is 1,822,000 feet. In 2023 there is no doubt that the Air Force could shoot down a ballon at 60,000 feet via multiple different methods. They haven’t shot it down yet either because of political reasons, or they don’t want to. Maybe the Air Force is learning more about the electronics in the balloon than the balloon is learning from us.

blooc350 wrote:

Yes, China, sent over a Balloon.......which flew over Canadian airspace (Who did not engage or shoot it down) to America. SMH.

NORAD tracks every object heading towards North America from Eurasia for obvious reasons. They would’ve seen it the minute it lifted off, an ICBM launched from Eurasia can impact a target in CONUS in 30 minutes, so the US military needs to be able to detect a launch, transfer that information to the President and be able to launch a counter attack within that time. It’s the principle of “Mutually Assured Destruction”. It demands high quality sensing and tracking of airborne objects in that airspace.

I doubt it’s a “spy balloon”. A high altitude balloon would be one of the worst platform for reconnaissance. Very hard to navigate as it just travels with the wind. Very non stealthy so it can be identified on radar very easily.

And also useless. The level of imagery from commercial satellite imagery every person on the world can view on Google maps is already expansive. Have a go, it’s fairly easy to spot ICBM silos amongst farmland in Montana and Nebraska. You can even get a good look at the supposed top secret “Area 51” base in Nevada. No doubt the Americans have multiple satellites overhead China doing the same thing.

I think there’s some behind the scenes politics at play given the reaction to this “spy balloon”.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

blooc350 wrote:

Yes, China, sent over a Balloon.......which flew over Canadian airspace (Who did not engage or shoot it down) to America. SMH.

NORAD tracks every object heading towards North America from Eurasia for obvious reasons. They would’ve seen it the minute it lifted off, an ICBM launched from Eurasia can impact a target in CONUS in 30 minutes, so the US military needs to be able to detect a launch, transfer that information to the President and be able to launch a counter attack within that time. It’s the principle of “Mutually Assured Destruction”. It demands high quality sensing and tracking of airborne objects in that airspace.

I doubt it’s a “spy balloon”. A high altitude balloon would be one of the worst platform for reconnaissance. Very hard to navigate as it just travels with the wind. Very non stealthy so it can be identified on radar very easily.

And also useless. The level of imagery from commercial satellite imagery every person on the world can view on Google maps is already expansive. Have a go, it’s fairly easy to spot ICBM silos amongst farmland in Montana and Nebraska. You can even get a good look at the supposed top secret “Area 51” base in Nevada. No doubt the Americans have multiple satellites overhead China doing the same thing.

I think there’s some behind the scenes politics at play given the reaction to this “spy balloon”.

I think there is more to this that you think. The payload package that is clearly seen in these images: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/chinese ... d=96860718 is significant. It includes what looks like large solar panels as well as a central node. Doesn't look like your standard weather balloon to me.

Id like hear about your experience as to the value of the intelligence that this thing might gather. I can imagine that imagery collected off schedule from known satellite orbits might be very valuable, and I'd imagine that signals intelligence as well as measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) could be very valuable from a platform like this.

The President felt that this is a serious enough incident to cancel Secretary of State Blinkin's trip to China that was set for tomorrow. https://apnews.com/article/politics-ant ... 6ed5b35ec6.

Definitely not just an insignificant event.

Geomap

Aspen71 wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

You can’t shoot it, the projectiles will land somewhere and small holes in a balloon this size won’t bring it down.

Yep.

Not many fighters can get up to the height of where the balloon is fly; the F-22 barely makes it, if it's relatively low.

Firing at it with the internal gun does nothing, since there is nothing hard in the balloon that would cause the round to detonate.

If you are shooting from any lower or shallow aspect, then the rounds will fly for miles over a ballistic arch and impact over a wide area — basically, you'll be spreading 20mm cannon rounds over a massive area. These are live cannon rounds, so when they hit the ground, they will explode. Maybe if they were firing inert training rounds it would be safer, but I do not want to be anywhere near where those rounds will be falling, regardless.

Even if you do get it to descend, it can travel over great distances on its way down, so you have no real clear idea where it will land until it gets much closer to the ground. And there is major intelligence value in making sure it lands relatively intact.

Shooting at missile at poses other problems; for one, there really isn't anything there for a radar guided missile to really lock on, except for maybe the payload. And I suspect we want the payload intact, not in a million pieces spread out over tens of miles. An IR guided missile has the same issues; there really isn't anything there for the missile to lock on with.

In 1985, 38 years ago, an F15 shot down a satellite 345 miles above earth. 345 miles is 1,822,000 feet. In 2023 there is no doubt that the Air Force could shoot down a ballon at 60,000 feet via multiple different methods. They haven’t shot it down yet either because of political reasons, or they don’t want to. Maybe the Air Force is learning more about the electronics in the balloon than the balloon is learning from us.

Yeah, because there was a specific weapon that could reach that high and could target a satellite (ASM-135 ASAT).

We don't today. And I suspect that we want this thing intact if we do bring this down so we can tear it apart for analysis, not turn it into a debris field covering half a state.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

blooc350 wrote:

Yes, China, sent over a Balloon.......which flew over Canadian airspace (Who did not engage or shoot it down) to America. SMH.

NORAD tracks every object heading towards North America from Eurasia for obvious reasons. They would’ve seen it the minute it lifted off, an ICBM launched from Eurasia can impact a target in CONUS in 30 minutes, so the US military needs to be able to detect a launch, transfer that information to the President and be able to launch a counter attack within that time. It’s the principle of “Mutually Assured Destruction”. It demands high quality sensing and tracking of airborne objects in that airspace.

I doubt it’s a “spy balloon”. A high altitude balloon would be one of the worst platform for reconnaissance. Very hard to navigate as it just travels with the wind. Very non stealthy so it can be identified on radar very easily.

And also useless. The level of imagery from commercial satellite imagery every person on the world can view on Google maps is already expansive. Have a go, it’s fairly easy to spot ICBM silos amongst farmland in Montana and Nebraska. You can even get a good look at the supposed top secret “Area 51” base in Nevada. No doubt the Americans have multiple satellites overhead China doing the same thing.

I think there’s some behind the scenes politics at play given the reaction to this “spy balloon”.

The fact that China apparently had zero idea that a balloon was launched thousands of miles away and months ago wasn’t noticed to be off track (assuming no malice ) nor the fact this wasn’t intercepted / a plan to safely down it before it even crossed into the North American continent is what’s concerning.
Now there is a second rogue balloon in Latin America.

A second balloon has been spotted over-flying Latin America.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... -rcna69052

YouGeeElWhy wrote:

https://twitter.com/petemuntean/status/1621602779981553665

JUST IN: Pilots are now reporting the Chinese spy balloon floating a few thousand feet above them.

"DERELICT BALLOON ADRIFT" at 50,000 feet was just reported by the crew of a Cessna Citation private jet cruising at 43,000 feet near Kansas City.

Any thoughts on this impacting US civilian aviation?

I read earlier that it was reportedly at 60,000ft. If it is now 10,000ft lower it is in danger of dropping to an altitude where it presents a danger to civil aviation. Would CAS systems in airliners pick it up? If not, why not destroy it over a sparsely populated area with an A2A missiile rather than puncturing the envelope with cannon fire.? It would come down with little drift if destroyed with a missile rather than puncturing the envelope with cannon fire.

Why would it present a danger to aviation at any altitude, now that it is being tracked? Unless it explodes it’s a balloon and is not going to make any sudden moves. ATC has plenty of notice about its flight path and plenty of ability to move traffic out of its way.

QF7 wrote:

Why would it present a danger to aviation at any altitude, now that it is being tracked? Unless it explodes it’s a balloon and is not going to make any sudden moves. ATC has plenty of notice about its flight path and plenty of ability to move traffic out of its way.

OK, no real danger to aviation but if it is losing altitude, can its landfall be predicted with sufficient accuracy? Isn't it better to get it down on the ground where it presents little risk of damage or injury?

Jshank83 wrote:

Seems like this should be in the military forum

Exactly...it's the US Defense Dept. that is answering/not answering questions about it, and not the FAA.

Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.