Chinese high altitude balloons

[Carrier]

About a week ago a Chinese balloon crossed Alaska and Canada between Alaska and Montana either without being detected or someone was withholding information. As you know it was finally shot down off South Carolina.

It apparently became public knowledge when the Billings Gazette published photos. https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-sp ... 0DVg%3D%3D

There are all sorts of unanswered questions. Here's a start:

Why was it not detected well offshore as it approached Alaska and shot down as soon as it entered territorial waters? There should have been plenty of time to investigate it before it crossed into USA waters.

How effective is NORAD? Are they unable to find an invading alien balloon with a non-stealth cargo pod the size of a regional jet or two buses (according to reports)?

How big a sleigh does Father Christmas use? I assumed it is a standard nine reindeer power model. As such it must be considerably smaller than the Chinese balloon. How come NORAD can reliably track a small sleigh but fails to find or mention the gigantic Chinese balloon?

Why shoot it down with a half million dollar missile instead of a few cheap cannon shells?

Even then it was left alone until it had passed from land in case it fell on any property or person below. What is happening in Ukraine? What happened in the Battle of Britain?

With Chairman Jacinda Trudeau and Chinese Biden in charge would nothing have been said if it had not become public knowledge?

[Inverted2]

Weather barroon onry. Totary not for spying.

[TG]

Why shoot it down with a half million dollar missile instead of a few cheap cannon shells?

Read on PPrune:
"Apparently, the gun port on the F-22 cannot be opened above 50k & the shot was taken at 58k which explains why an AIM-9 was used"

So there is that. As for your other questions I'm sure they also have proper explanations somewhere. It's just that you, me, anyone here are not privy of them.

[7ECA]

Actually the one that drifted across North America earlier in the month, clearly was detected - especially due to there being CADORS reports from airliners about it. But, for reasons that seem difficult to comprehend for large swaths of the outrage mentality crowd, it was not reported on broadly as it is an intelligence coup to be able to track and observe an item like this while your adversary believes it has gone undetected...

[ogopogo]

China must be laughing at the US.
Did not detect , freaked out for a few days debating what to do, full-on media frenzy, then shoot it down and lose the all-important payload. Full-on speculation about what the payload was, maneuverability of ’balloons’. Oh, and doesn’t their beloved Airspace top out at 60K?

[7ECA]

CADORS site was down earlier... here's the report from BC:

An Air Canada Airbus A320-211 (C-FNVU/ACA292) from Vancouver, BC (CYVR) to Winnipeg/James Armstrong Richardson, MB (CYWG) at FL350 reported a large balloon about 4 000 feet above them with something hanging from it. The North American Aeropsace Defence Command (NORAD) was advised.

https://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/ ... d2023P0164

[Reinhard]

[goldeneagle]

Actually the one that drifted across North America earlier in the month, clearly was detected

After it became a bit of a hoopla in the press, it's entire track history was made available. I'd like the conspiracy folks claiming 'undetected' to explain how that track information was available if it had not been detected, and tracked for the entire trip.

The press is going on and on about a 'chinese' balloon. I seriously doubt it was chinese, they have plenty of satellites for doing clandestine stuff. A balloon is a low tech, low budget, relatively unreliable way of gathering info. It was more likely lofted by an actor without the resources to do satellite surveillance.

But these days it's trendy to get the public all in a tither about 'bad china'.

[C-GGGQ]

I’m under the the understanding that many countries actually do exactly this because its a political grey area vs satellites or spy planes because these are not only unmanned but unguided. So we track them they track us, everyone says “sorry it got away from us” and its just an “understanding”

[Carrier]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... g-off.html

Someone in the US/Canada/NORAD was tracking the balloon from when it first took off over the South China Sea. Are those who watched this enemy surveillance craft approach and said nothing, let alone intercepted it on first entering US airspace over US water, traitors or enemy fifth columnists deliberately facilitating enemy espionage over US and Canadian territory?

Worse, there has been much reporting about possible payloads a vehicle of this size could have been carrying. How could anyone with any duty to the US and Canada permit such a possibly deadly enemy craft to proceed unmolested across the continent, where it could have been activated in a Pearl Harbor type surprise attack at any moment when in position to cause maximum damage with no prior warning??

The culprits need to be identified and held accountable.

[broken_slinky]

Really don't get all the media outrage. Countries have been sending up balloons for spying purposes since the invention of balloons and spying. The US used balloons in WW1 against the Germans. Since the cold war, the US has a base in Germany that did/does send up balloons. They would pass over the USSR and through China and be retrieved once they hit North America. I remember hearing about one that got "lost" in the 1960s and was eventually found by a guy in the Maritimes. He took it home and started telling the locals. Once the newspapers got ahold of the story, the guy got a visit from the military and requested to turn it over.
There's a balloon launching facility in Palestine TX that's run by NASA, https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/contact.html They even state on their site having balloons going up to 120,000ft for "scientific experiments".

[No Smoke, No Fire]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... g-off.html

Someone in the US/Canada/NORAD was tracking the balloon from when it first took off over the South China Sea. Are those who watched this enemy surveillance craft approach and said nothing, let alone intercepted it on first entering US airspace over US water, traitors or enemy fifth columnists deliberately facilitating enemy espionage over US and Canadian territory?

Worse, there has been much reporting about possible payloads a vehicle of this size could have been carrying. How could anyone with any duty to the US and Canada permit such a possibly deadly enemy craft to proceed unmolested across the continent, where it could have been activated in a Pearl Harbor type surprise attack at any moment when in position to cause maximum damage with no prior warning??

The culprits need to be identified and held accountable.

You know what they say about making assumptions…

Also, so they pull a “Pearl Harbor”, and then what? Go out on the porch to get one last look at the Beijing skyline before one or more branches of the US Nuclear triad makes climate change look like child’s play?