Looks like a ship, which may be the USS Carter Hall, a Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ship, is heading for the area under the balloon. #ChineseSpyBalloon pic.twitter.com/krGCQSRsZA

— Jason Paladino (@jason_paladino) February 4, 2023

here's a DVIDS image of the ship's crane pic.twitter.com/6FKHsye1Ug

— Jason Paladino (@jason_paladino) February 4, 2023

And people

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Wasn't there an early space program where a plane would snatch film canister out of their that was attached to a parachute?

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Yes. Corona

Truth...

You're right that was Canada.

Well the balloon was leaked. They tried to keep it a secret. So doubt it's a planned distraction. Unless it's China doinf the distraction. In which case watch the Asian sea

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Wasn't there an early space program where a plane would snatch film canister out of the air that was attached to a parachute?

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Corona program; my wife's uncle (Air Force Bird Colonel) was in charge of that out of Van den Berg in the early 60's. Family always thought he was in the procurement side of things

2wealfth Man said:

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Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Wasn't there an early space program where a plane would snatch film canister out of the air that was attached to a parachute?

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Corona program; my wife's uncle (Air Force Bird Colonel) was in charge of that out of Van den Berg in the early 60's. Family always thought he was in the procurement side of things

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Pretty cool museum and displays of the program out at SLC 10 if you're ever out here.

KC-135 in a tanker orbit off the coast of SC

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Well the balloon was leaked. They tried to keep it a secret. So doubt it's a planned distraction. Unless it's China doinf the distraction. In which case watch the Asian sea

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I mean, it's a distraction for our US military.

bmks270 said:

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This balloon has made a great distraction.
I wonder what the diversion is for.
Something so blatantly obvious couldn't be anything more than a planned distraction.

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My money is on something involving Hunter's laptop, the classified docs that FJB had squirelled away in different locations, and/or the Biden's money laundering operations in Ukraine.

How's that for a big bite conspiracy?

Live coverage

Bird Poo said:

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Yukon Cornelius said:

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FAA shutting down airspace in the carolinas now. This is an act of war by China. We have been defeated already. Art of war.

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Wow

At 60,000 ft why are they shutting down airspace?

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One would think with a username like yours, You would understand the concept of stuff falling from the sky.

JB!98 said:

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KC-135 in a tanker orbit off the coast of SC

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/

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Looks like it's on it's way out of the area, although it could have flown farther out to sea to refuel something. After circling for a while it took a straight line out over the open ocean.

Not a Bot said:

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JB!98 said:

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KC-135 in a tanker orbit off the coast of SC

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/

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Looks like it's on it's way out of the area, although it could have flown farther out to sea to refuel something. After circling for a while it took a straight line out over the open ocean.

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There were two of them there a bit ago.

https://www.youtube.com/live/nsQaM3i885A?feature=share

Running out of time to shoot down. Got to it before it's over international waters

The last one just disappeared from the site. Transponder off?

BluHorseShu said:

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redcrayon said:

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They won't fly over the South. Someone would shoot it down.

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Umm…it's 7 miles up. You get a bunch of idiots trying to shoot it done with their rifles the only thing they will bring down are a bunch of lead. That would be slightly more of an issue

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It was joke. Lighten up.

Not a Bot said:

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The last one just disappeared from the site. Transponder off?

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Probably.

why is the word "considering" being repeatedly used by the media

Sorry if already asked and answered but how do these balloons stay up for so long?

Here's an excellent look at why just shooting the balloon down (guns, missiles, lasers, etc.) isn't as simple as it seems.

REALITY

aggiehawg said:

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Sorry if already asked and answered but how do these balloons stay up for so long?

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They are made of high-quality materials that can hold the helium at high altitude under a lot of stress and temperature. It takes some good engineering, although this high-altitude balloon tech is about 100 years old.

aggiehawg said:

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Sorry if already asked and answered but how do these balloons stay up for so long?

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Surf air currents.

From an old google project:

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Balloons, with all their effortless elegance, present some challenges. Many projects have looked at high-altitude platforms to provide Internet access to fixed areas on the ground, but trying to stay in one place like this requires a system with major cost and complexity. So the idea we pursued was based on freeing the balloons and letting them sail freely on the winds. All we had to do was figure out how to control their path through the sky. We've now found a way to do that, using just wind and solar power: we can move the balloons up or down to catch the winds we want them to travel in.

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https://blog.google/alphabet/introducing-project-loon/

Yesterday it was being reported his initial thought was to shoot it down but he was advised against it. Fox reporter just mentioned that Biden wanted to shoot it down yesterday but was convinced by advisors not to.

bmks270 said:

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This balloon has made a great distraction.
I wonder what the diversion is for.
Something so blatantly obvious couldn't be anything more than a planned distraction.

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What's most amazing to me about all this is we sitting here watching play-by-play of this admin fumbling around, confusion and general stepping on dick trying to deal with this situation.

Thanks folks.

Per guy on Fox, Biden wanted to shoot it down over Montana, DoD and other military advised Biden not to attempt a shoot down. There's a Twitter thread a few pages back that explains why it would have been tricky over land.

The guns on fighter jets use cannon rounds, not bullets. They are designed to explode on impact and the balloon surface wouldn't allow for that, and those rounds would have to come down somewhere. Using a proximity warhead on a missile would have the same issue. It's also flying at a high enough altitude that F-22 would be operating near it's upper limit. Even though it looks like an easy target it actually isn't.

This is one area the new laser pods being developed could really help. It's a shame we couldn't conduct a real-world test yet.

agent-maroon said:

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bmks270 said:

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This balloon has made a great distraction.
I wonder what the diversion is for.
Something so blatantly obvious couldn't be anything more than a planned distraction.

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My money is on something involving Hunter's laptop, the classified docs that FJB had squirelled away in different locations, and/or the Biden's money laundering operations in Ukraine.

How's that for a big bite conspiracy?

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I mean it's the Chinese using the balloon to distract our military and government. "Hey look over here!"


Sure the media is making a circus out of it too, making it worse.

Not a Bot said:

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Per guy on Fox, Biden wanted to shoot it down over Montana, DoD and other military advised Biden not to attempt a shoot down. There's a Twitter thread a few pages back that explains why it would have been tricky over land.

The guns on fighter jets use cannon rounds, not bullets. They are designed to explode on impact and the balloon surface wouldn't allow for that, and those rounds would have to come down somewhere. Using a proximity warhead on a missile would have the same issue. It's also flying at a high enough altitude that F-22 would be operating near it's upper limit. Even though it looks like an easy target it actually isn't.

This is one area the new laser pods being developed could really help. It's a shame we couldn't conduct a real-world test yet.

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So the government wants us to believe that there's no way that we can take out a BALLOON? We can take out a terrorist with pinpoint accuracy from miles away, but a BALLOON just baffles all our technology.

BS.

Not a Bot said:

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Per guy on Fox, Biden wanted to shoot it down over Montana, DoD and other military advised Biden not to attempt a shoot down. There's a Twitter thread a few pages back that explains why it would have been tricky over land.

The guns on fighter jets use cannon rounds, not bullets. They are designed to explode on impact and the balloon surface wouldn't allow for that, and those rounds would have to come down somewhere. Using a proximity warhead on a missile would have the same issue. It's also flying at a high enough altitude that F-22 would be operating near it's upper limit. Even though it looks like an easy target it actually isn't.

This is one area the new laser pods being developed could really help. It's a shame we couldn't conduct a real-world test yet.

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Should be able to design a special rocket just for these balloons within a year. Really we should just fly our own up there, hook on parachute, and pop it.

Quote:

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Should be able to design a special rocket just for these balloons within a year. Really we should just fly our own up there, hook on parachute, and pop it.

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Has anyone asked Elon?