I’m sure a lot of stuff happens all the time that we don’t hear about. I’m not sure though that we keep actual live-fire intercepts over our own territory secret, largely because I don’t think that would be all that feasible. People run open-source tracking of a ton of US military movements and flying activity, for instance, not to mention that some of this stuff is probably visible in one form or another (even if only debris) by folks on the ground or maybe in the air.
So the question for me is, why are we now shooting these things, because either they are new things, or they have been around and we only now have changed the rules of engagement.
Tman
3258
guys guys guys, this was a larp all along and the US air force foiled it!
now the alienz are sending projectiles
abrandt
3260
I think it’s a little bit of doing it now because people found out and freaked out that we’d just let balloons go over like that. But the briefing about the one shot down over Lake Huron today mentioned that they are picking up these smaller objects now because of radar adjustments. The fact that they are all seemingly different shapes makes me think it’s likely something for testing what we can actually detect.
Wait until they find out how hard it is to track hundreds of thousands of microsatellites.
vyshka
3262
Today’s shot was taken by an F-16. Are we running out of F-22s? /s
Skipper
3263
A very plausible take on this, excellent point.
MikeJ
3264
Maybe we can rename this to “The US Military Catch All Balloons Thread”?
JonRowe
3265
Exactly my thinking as well. The Chinese are working on surveillance technology and seeing basically what they can get by/through the USA. Could there be dozens more we didn’t shoot down?
Djscman
3266
We hope that they catch all balloons – what about the balloons they miss?
What about ones that we saw but decided not to shoot down so that they don’t know that we know that they sent them there? Huh?!
Inception Gong
The real journey was the balloons we missed along the way.
I suspect that, given the long history of and massive investment in national technical means (i.e., satellites), the USA is less likely to need balloons for surveillance. They could definitely be good supplements to other means, but for a country like the PRC they probably have a lot more immediate value than they would to us.
I’m not sure though what China or anyone else would gain by flying these things over CONUS. Our strategic capabilities, the offensive ones, aren’t going to be revealed that way, and the only interesting bits about defensive capabilities one might glean aren’t terribly useful unless you are planning an invasion, which is sort of laughable. I guess some basic info on air intercepts, radar, missiles, and what-not might be in the offing, but you would think that monitoring what goes on around a carrier battle group or a US base in the WESTPAC might be a lot more useful.
Aleck
3273
I suspect it’s possible that there are balloons out there fielded by the National Weather Service or other non-DOD entities that do weather monitoring and the like. Maybe that’s what the Chinese are referring to?
I seriously doubt there are many DOD surveillance balloons out there. I mean, why use a balloon when you can launch a satellite at 10x the price?!?
Possible US balloon design to piss off China.:
Timex
3275
An I the only one bothered by the fact that it says “Winnie the Pooh’s”?
Where’s the end of the sentence?
