There has been a second U.S. Air Force shootdown ...

[Lezunto]

I don't know all the details. However, it appears the U.S. Air Force shot a grey, cylindrical object out of the sky over Alaska.

The U.S. had been tracking the object for 24 hours.

The White House said the object posed a danger to civilian aircraft because it was flying at 40,000 feet.

 

[GoPackGo]

It will be open season on these from now on.

 

[skyking]

If you are fiddlefucking around in controlled airspace you'd best expect to get shot down.
Positive control above 18000 MSL, which is Flight Level 180 (FL180) and above.
You can operate weather balloons and rockets and any manner of fun stuff but you must communicate.

 

[trenchfoot]

Every time the Chinese send stuff flying over US airspace, they learn things whether their hardware gets shot down or not.

How our intel agencies handle these intrusions in a manner that deceives the Chinese and/or hides our own capabilities is to me where the real game is played.

 

[Lezunto]

And there was a third incident.

 

[lucky luciano]

When you shoot down an extraterrestrial spacecraft...and realize even Alpha Centauri order their drones from Aliexpress..

 

[pete6032]

Anyone think this happens all the time but rarely if ever was reported about, and then someone reported about the Chinese balloon incident and it caught the attention of the entire country so now every object shot down is being reported by the media?

 

[Gardener]

@pete6032

Not surprised if this happens, occasionally, but the difference is China with its chess pieces in place and a willingness to test the opposing player's defense.

Consider everything a test.

 

[Franz316]

The car-sized cylinder description of these last two are a bit odd. I've never seen a high altitude balloon be shaped like that. Would love to see some photos of these things before they were shot down.

 

[feralkid]

The car-sized cylinder description of these last two are a bit odd. I've never seen a high altitude balloon be shaped like that. Would love to see some photos of these things before they were shot down.

Not sure about "high altitude", but these match the size and shape described.

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[Jon-T]

And there was a third incident.

The count is now up to four

 

[Shamrock]

^^ This latest one was only flying at 20k feet.

 

[trenchfoot]

Well it seems to be a nicely thought out passive-aggressive way of the Chinese tracking/discovering what the capabilities of our defense network is without starting WWIII.

Biden should send an all inclusive very expensive bill to Jinping charging him for the training exercises our aircraft have to go through every time one of their "errant" floating eyes in the skies enter our airspace. Or simply thank him for sending those free targets that our pilots can play with and charge Jinping for the cleanup.

 

[mikeymikec]

Every time the Chinese send stuff flying over US airspace, they learn things whether their hardware gets shot down or not.

<nods shrewdly with my knowledge of how a good scout in StarCraft 2 can help you>

 

[hal2kilo]

^^ This latest one was only flying at 20k feet.

Starting to wonder if someone's science project got out of hand.

 

[Lezunto]

White House National Security Adviser spokesman John Kirby said there's no evidence of extra-terrestrial involvement.

No aliens? Man, I'm bummed.

 

[sportage]

I don't get it.
Why aren't the Q's claiming this is the beginnings of an alien invasion?
Or aren't they quite there yet?

After all, the America military never had to shoot down balloons before....

 

[NWRMidnight]

White House National Security Adviser spokesman John Kirby said there's no evidence of extra-terrestrial involvement.

No aliens? Man, I'm bummed.

They don't want the public to know.. they want to hall them off to area 51 so they can dissect them without the public throwing a fit. Oh, and if they admitted they where E.T. They would have to admit to having an area 51..

 

[Lezunto]

I actually watched the Area 51 documentary a couple of days ago. I had no idea that this secret facility was used to develop stealth aircraft.

Knowing this, I have no desire to visit.

What bothers me is that NORAD supposedly had no idea that the Chinese spy balloon had entered U.S. airspace. While I don't believe radar can pick up balloons, the tech array should have showed up since it was metal.

 

[eelw]

What bothers me is that NORAD supposedly had no idea that the Chinese spy balloon had entered U.S. airspace. While I don't believe radar can pick up balloons, the tech array should have showed up since it was metal.

The sensors were only tuned to detect larger and faster moving objects. Guess too many false positives if they just sounded the alarm for every phantom signal. Only after the first larger balloon before they decided to retune and alert on smaller slower moving objects.

 

[HomerJS]

Gene Roddenberry had the vision

 

[Pens1566]

The sensors were only tuned to detect larger and faster moving objects. Guess too many false positives if they just sounded the alarm for every phantom signal. Only after the first larger balloon before they decided to retune and alert on smaller slower moving objects.

Yes, the filters were set in a way that didn't catch anything like what we're looking for now. Problem is that now we're going to be chasing EVERYTHING.

 

[mikeymikec]

Three objects shot down after Chinese spy balloon may be benign, White House says

Flying objects could be commercial- or research-linked, while US military admits first shot at object over Lake Huron missed

www.theguardian.com

TBF you wouldn't be Americans if you didn't like shooting at random shit.

 

[NWRMidnight]

Three objects shot down after Chinese spy balloon may be benign, White House says

Flying objects could be commercial- or research-linked, while US military admits first shot at object over Lake Huron missed

www.theguardian.com

TBF you wouldn't be Americans if you didn't like shooting at random shit.

when you have articles like this that say "may" have been, and other articles that claim that the US and Canada may not be able to retrieve the degree.. it's all just guessing and making shit up at this point.

 

[dawp]

Gene Roddenberry had the vision

Authur C Clark's Rama or was that Oumuamua a few year back