U.S. shoots down "high-altitude object" over Alaska

[confused2]

If your basic balloon costs (say) $500 and your sidewinder missile costs (say) $500,000 .. there's considerable advantage in being the one with the balloons when compared to the one with the sidewinder missile.

[Yazata]

Just announced by the Pentagon and by Congressmen that were briefed: an F-16 just shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron.

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If your basic balloon costs (say) $500 and your sidewinder missile costs (say) $500,000 .. there's considerable advantage in being the one with the balloons when compared to the one with the sidewinder missile.

That's true. In addition to air-to-air missiles, the F-22 also carries the M-61A2 Vulcan rotary 20mm cannon. I believe that F-16s carry a variant on the same gun. So it seems more cost efficient to shoot down balloons WW-II style with the cannon than to expend expensive missiles on them.

[C C]

Just announced by the Pentagon and by Congressmen that were briefed: an F-16 just shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron.

Maybe the one they declared a false alarm, that slipped through to go on.

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If your basic balloon costs (say) $500 and your sidewinder missile costs (say) $500,000 .. there's considerable advantage in being the one with the balloons when compared to the one with the sidewinder missile.

Yah, it's crazy to be downing [real spy] balloons that way instead of capturing them or puncturing them down to a softer landing, somehow. Since the whole point is to appropriate the information and technology attached to them so that China won't risk sending them anymore.

Xi Jinping: "If no secrets lost, then it's worth the cost!" ... "If America got Joe, no need to end the show!"

EDIT: Well, I'm forgetting the self-destruct explosives that a spy-ball is probably armed with. Maybe there is no option for an intact recovery.

Chinese ‘spy’ balloon: With payload of jetliner, it carried explosives to detonate, self-destruct
https://www.firstpost.com/world/chinese-...17912.html

[Zinjanthropos]

Delivering the latest Covid mutation?

[Kornee]

Mixed signalling by FirstPost.com article:
"Chinese ‘spy’ balloon: With payload of jetliner, it carried explosives to detonate, self-destruct, says Pentagon"

At least the headline cautiously used quote marks around the spy word, but then said 'it carried explosives'. Yet even the Pentagon spokesman merely used the suggestive 'potentially carried explosives' to 'detonate and destroy itself'.
Well yeah, probably to safely deflate the balloon and simultaneously detach the payload for a safe parachute to the surface when mission done. Something pretty standard one would think.

Then follows freely mixing 'Chinese spy balloon' and 'alleged Chinese spy balloon'. No quote marks around spy in those instances. A case of being consistently inconsistent.

[Yazata]

Hey, government! Here's a balloon seen over the Super bowl!

But please don't shoot it down.

[Image: FozWghhWIAEjhfV?format=jpg&name=small]

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[Image: FovQcroaQAEJUob?format=jpg&name=small]

NORAD Commanding General Glen Vanherck said at a briefing today that he has yet to rule out aliens or extraterrestrials for the three latest incidents. The Pentagon also stated that these are considered "objects" and not "balloons" and that as yet, it is still unknown how they stay airborne.

After the briefing, Pentagon officials scrambled to insist that there currently is "no indication of aliens or extraterrestial activity".

In my view, both might be perfectly true and there's a big space in the middle: namely that the nature of these objects is currently unknown. There's currently no evidence that they were extraterrestrial (true) and currently no evidence that they weren't extraterrestrial (true). I'm pleasantly surprised by their care not to jump to conclusions and by the NORAD Commander's unwillingness to dismiss the possibility until the nature of the objects is better known.

Reading between the lines, they seem to be saying that crashed remains of whatever was shot down over Alaska, the Yukon or Lake Huron hasn't yet been recovered. This contrasts with the initial shootdown, which everyone acknowledges was a Chinese balloon (even the Chinese admit it was a balloon and that it was theirs).

[C C]

NORAD Commanding General Glen Vanherck said at a briefing today that he has yet to rule out aliens or extraterrestrials for the three latest incidents. The Pentagon also stated that these are considered "objects" and not "balloons" and that as yet, it is still unknown how they stay airborne.

After the briefing, Pentagon officials scrambled to insist that there currently is "no indication of aliens or extraterrestial activity".

In my view, both might be perfectly true and there's a big space in the middle: namely that the nature of these objects is currently unknown. There's currently no evidence that they were extraterrestrial (true) and currently no evidence that they weren't extraterrestrial (true).  I'm pleasantly surprised by their care not to jump to conclusions and by the NORAD  Commander's unwillingness to dismiss the possibility until the nature of the objects is better known.

Reading between the lines, they seem to be saying that crashed remains of whatever was shot down over Alaska, the Yukon or Lake Huron hasn't yet been recovered. This contrasts with the initial shootdown, which everyone acknowledges was a Chinese balloon (even the Chinese admit it was a balloon and that it was theirs).

Not wanting to miss out on the attention, the Chinese themselves are now trying to jump on the shoot'em down bandwagon. Guess they can't mock Biden anymore for being trigger-happy, if they do nail it eventually.

2023 Shandong high-altitude object
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Shand...ude_object

Below adds the Lake Huron entry, though it's obviously going to be threadbare at this point. Plus the collective list of HAOs in 2023.

List of high-altitude object events in 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hi...ts_in_2023

2023 Lake Huron high-altitude object
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lake_...ude_object

2023 Yukon high-altitude object
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Yukon...ude_object

2023 Alaska high-altitude object
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Alask...ude_object

[Kornee]

Given this thread has crossed over into UFO/UAP speculation, I will stick my neck out and make a blanket claim.
In every case an actual recent shoot down transpired, described by the military as having no visible propulsion or steering capacity, it will turn out to be a balloon and nothing but a balloon.
Plus any perfectly terrestrial origin payload of course. Zero chance of a nonmundane UFO wreckage recovery.
'Tic tacs' etc. have a track record of perfect resistance to that sort of vulnerability. Roswell and such were pure sciop disinfo.

[Yazata]

Possible ID of the "object" shot down over the Canadian Yukon. An Illinois amateur radio club says that a balloon of theirs called K9YO that was launched in October 10, 2022 and has already circled the Earth six times, has gone missing. It carried a radio and a GPS tracker. They say that it last communicated on Saturday Feb 11 as it approached the coast of Alaska.

https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/ufo-shot-d...y-balloon/

https://nibbb.org/links-to-locate-and-track/

Last verified position

[Image: 2.10.23-ao87ro-23.00z.png]

Projected path after last verified position

[Image: 2.14.23-0600z.png]

[C C]

Possible ID of the "object" shot down over the Canadian Yukon. An Illinois amateur radio club says that a balloon of theirs called K9YO that was launched in October 10, 2022 and has already circled the Earth six times, has gone missing. It carried a radio and a GPS tracker. They say that it last communicated on Saturday Feb 11 as it approached the coast of Alaska.

I'm a little surprised somebody finally came forward. There must not be any penalties for launching balloons that eventually deteriorate into commercial flight elevations or take up residence there at the very start.

The difficulty and expense in recovering enough wreckage from these things to confirm anything about their nature/purpose is probably why the establishment is so dodgy about their identities. It may take more parties to sheepishly raise their hands as "culprits", to make progress. ("Dave Coulier admits Alanis Morissette's 1995 song You Oughta Know is about him.")