Chinese Spy balloon?

irjO

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
Because now every day the news couldn’t get a bit weirder. The last news that’s getting attention now it’s regarding this supposedly Chinese Spy balloon that entered the US air space from the west coast and China claimed is theirs.


According to sites like the avionist:

A suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon was spotted hovering for several days over northwestern United States. The Pentagon confirmed it is tracking the object on February 2, 2023, a day after two F-22s were scrambled from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, to intercept the balloon as it was flying over Montana, resulting also in a ground stop at Billings Logan International Airport for a “special mission over Livingston area” which lasted around two hours.

This is the official statement from Brigadier General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, released during a background briefing on the balloon yesterday:


“The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now. The U.S. government, to include NORAD, continues to track and monitor it closely. The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic, and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”
Link: Let's Recap Everything We Know About The Chinese Spy Balloon Detected Over The U.S.

Also:

So they don’t shoot it down because the impact can “harm civilians” AS IF the balloon hasn’t flied through wider and open country areas on its path. This seems strange nevertheless.
 
Last edited:
China just spoke about it:

The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday that an unmanned airship that appeared in the US is a civilian airship from China that deviated far from its planned course, and said China will continue communicating with the US to properly handle the unexpected situation caused by force majeure.

On Friday, US media cited Pentagon officials as saying that a "Chinese spy balloon" hovering over Montana this week had a flight path that took it over several sensitive US military sites.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a release on Friday night that the "balloon" is a civilian airship used for meteorological research purposes.

"Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into the US airspace due to force majeure," said the spokesperson.

 
D'après ce que j'ai entendu, les américains ont peur des retombées s'ils abattent le ballon...
J'ai entendu ce matin qu'il y en avait un autre en Amérique du sud

From what I've heard, the Americans are afraid of the fallout if they shoot the balloon down...
I heard this morning that there is another one in South America

Second Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over South America
The Pentagon announced late Friday the presence of a second balloon, after the first aircraft spotted Thursday. China has not yet reacted. The first balloon is believed to be a weather probe that was accidentally pushed towards North American soil.
The first balloon, spotted on Thursday, was seen in the skies over Montana, a US state that is home to nuclear missile silos. Chase Doak/via REUTERS
The first balloon, spotted on Thursday, was seen in the skies over Montana, a US state that is home to nuclear missile silos. Chase Doak/via REUTERS
5
By J.Cl.
February 4, 2023 at 08:05, modified February 4, 2023 at 08:16
The US Pentagon confirmed overnight on Friday that a second Chinese surveillance balloon was flying over South America, a new twist in the affair that has thrown the US and China into a tailspin.

"We have reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We are now assessing that it is another Chinese surveillance balloon," Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said in a statement. Neither its location nor direction was specified, but there were earlier reports of it flying over Colombia and Venezuela. A US official told CNN on condition of anonymity that the large moon does not appear to be heading towards the United States.
 
This is ingenious. Why exspensive satelites and planes when you can just send a balloon. And they cant shoot it down from the height of 18km?
Sure they can. When it comes to that, they can literaly drag it down if they so choose. The technology and means are available. Question is why they haven`t yet. Is there something flying over China we don`t know about too?

Now with the second baloon, they ran out of "coincidences and chances " let`s see what the response will be. Show must go on, no?
 
So it is a balloon. How do they know it's a "spy" balloon? What data can it acquire? How does it transmit data? It seems there is no need for any evidence to freak-out a populace that doesn't know how to differentiate reality from fiction. Maybe they'll come up with a science-fiction scenario similar to the James Bond-style Tora Bora caves. After all, we all died in 2010 from global warming, and we all died in 2020 from covid.
 
'The "spy balloon case" could be "justification" for US preparations to start war with China.'

I doubt it, at least not start a war, but maybe increase perception of worse relations.

The Pentagon itself said that “the payload wouldn’t offer much in the way of surveillance that China couldn’t collect through spy satellites” and that “the balloon posed no serious physical or intelligence threat”.

A piece in WaPo seems to confirm this, quoting “experts in national security and aerospace [who] said the craft appears to share characteristics with high-altitude balloons used by developed countries around the world for weather forecasting”wapo.png

So they all know it's just a weather balloon, of which there have been others in recent years that no one made any fuss about. So why get their knickers in a twist over this one? Some specific reason, like putting Blinken in a position where he was forced to cancel his trip that was perhaps designed to further detente with China? If so, then maybe "dark forces" in the USA (deep state) are behind this move.

Alternatively, maybe the Biden WH wanted to nix the trip anyway, and just used this as an excuse. If the balloon isn't Chinese, why are the Chinese admitting it is? Maybe they also are playing along with the set up because it serves their own interests in the sense that they didn't really want Blinken to come anyway?

A recent article in Chinese suggests this may be the case:

China may have no intention of allowing Blinken to visit China, as the US scratches its head to find its own reasons for the change in tone at the Foreign Ministry

For some time now, the United States has been deliberately suppressing Huawei and planning to set up a military base in the Philippines, pressing China harder and harder. Under such circumstances, the US still wants to send its Secretary of State Blinken to China, and even announced that it would discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict with China when Blinken comes to China, not knowing that China is afraid that it has no intention to let him come to China.

Not long ago, China and the United States actually announced that Secretary of State Blinken would visit China on February 5 and 6 this year, and the attitude of our Foreign Ministry was still relatively clear at that time. My Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that China welcomed Secretary Blinken's visit to China, and that the two sides were already holding specific consultations on the matter and would maintain communication on the relevant arrangements.

And today, half a month later, when our Foreign Ministry held another regular briefing, a reporter from the US media asked, "What is the spokesman's comment on Blinken's visit to China on February 5 and 6?"

Instead, spokesman Mao Ning replied, "China has nothing to release." Within half a month, the attitude of the Foreign Ministry has changed from "welcoming" and "maintaining communication" to "no news to be released", which is a 180-degree change in attitude. It seems very likely that the Chinese side will not allow Blinken to come.

The U.S. side should look for its own reasons why China's attitude has made such a U-turn.



Another scenario, and IMO the most likely, is that it IS a Chinese research balloon but they deliberately let it drift over the US to test the response of the Biden admin/Washington Establishment/US Media, i.e. hysterical anti-China rhetoric, or something more reasonable? This could have been in concert with the aim of nixing Blinken's visit.

Whatever the case, it's all game playing and rather stupid.
 
Last edited:
It's also possible the the balloon (or balloons) was lost by mistake, and then they decided to take advantage of the situation, and see how the americans would react. Stratospheric balloons are lost all the time, especially if they are caught in the jet streams:
1675518714657.png
jet streams today
 
This whole thing reminds me of this good ol' song about war hysteria:


You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got
Set them free at the break of dawn
'Til one by one, they were gone
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message, "Something's out there!"
Floating in the summer sky
Ninety-nine red balloons go by

Ninety-nine red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert!
There's something here from somewhere else!
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
When ninety-nine red balloons go by

99 Decision Street
Ninety-nine ministers meet
To worry, worry, super-scurry
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it, boys, this is war
The president is on the line
As ninety-nine red balloons go by

Ninety-nine knights of the air
Ride super high-tech jet fighters
Everyone's a superhero
Everyone's a "Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify and classify
Scramble in the summer sky
Ninety-nine red balloons go by
As ninety-nine red balloons go by

Ninety-nine dreams I have had
In every one, a red balloon
It's all over and I'm standin' pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
And here is a red balloon
I think of you, and let it go...
 
Back
Top Bottom