Pentagon tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US

Dragon Lady altitude 70K. Blackbird altitude 85K Mach 3.3. We have been doing it for years. Gary Powers was not a weather balloon.;) NORAD probably knew when the thing was half way across the Pacific. We report they decide how far up it goes.
 

Attachments

  • 35.jpg
    35.jpg
    11.6 KB · Views: 1
Last edited:
I'm not thinking this mission had a lot of stealth in its design. They didn't even color it blue so it was visible to the naked eye from the ground. It was likely as much a message sent as observations taken, given the timing of this with the Sec of State visit. Most likely there's both more and less going on than meets the eye and stories will emerge later about the parts not public today.
 
I think it goes without saying that China has been spying on us for decades. And that we spy on them.
It’s also common knowledge that we have been flying survsliance flights over our enemy’s since the 50’s or 60’s. And those fly over countries routinely have attempted to shoot us down.

I’m not seeing your point in stating this.

Interesting article.

www.foxnews.com

Spy balloon likely sent extensive intelligence to China, experts say

The Chinese spy balloon was likely able to send sensitive data to China before it was shot down by the U.S. military Saturday, foreign policy experts told Fox News Digital.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
 
OldRetSWO said:
What makes you think that NORAD didn't know this was there all along?
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that NORAD was tracking long before you ever heard about the balloon.
As for the reporting lines and procedures? They are clearly prescribed but I'm not going to be the one to publicize them.
There are watch centers with 24/7 watch teams that monitor our airspace and other things that are considered important
and you won't hear about the vast majority of stuff that they watch and yes, report up the line.
Click to expand...
We have the ability to jam all kinds of electromagnetic communications gear. Would we have the ability to jam communications to and from the balloon?
 
Try some of those experimental high powered lasers and fry the package, Prescribed or Proscribed? My security clearance expired a long time ago. Let me tell you about.....Oh never mind it was fifty years ago but those Blackbirds were amazing,
 
I watched them fly out of Mildenhall and Kadena in the end when that's the only 2 places you could see them.
Blackbirds were indeed amazing.
 
Question: who has responsibility for air defense over CONUS? Regular Air Force or National Guard?
 
cb7893 said:
We have the ability to jam all kinds of electromagnetic communications gear. Would we have the ability to jam communications to and from the balloon?
Click to expand...
Based on what I did in the Navy and what/who I worked for in industry, I'll give you a decided No COMMENT.
 
AF6872 said:
Try some of those experimental high powered lasers and fry the package, Prescribed or Proscribed? My security clearance expired a long time ago. Let me tell you about.....Oh never mind it was fifty years ago but those Blackbirds were amazing,
Click to expand...
Experimental?

Been tested/deployed against much more challenging targets like Ballistic Missiles
 
USMCGrunt said:
Question: who has responsibility for air defense over CONUS? Regular Air Force or National Guard?
Click to expand...
This guy claims to:

CNN —
The American military had a “domain awareness gap” that allowed three other suspected Chinese spy balloons to transit the continental United States undetected under the Trump administration, the Pentagon general responsible for providing air and missile defense over North America said on Monday.

“Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command said when asked about the three other balloons.

“And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out, but I don’t want to go into further detail.”


VanHerck added that the intelligence community after the fact was able to gather intelligence “from additional means that made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America.”
 
OldRetSWO said:
Based on what I did in the Navy and what/who I worked for in industry, I'll give you a decided No COMMENT.
Click to expand...
If, in fact, we do have such capability, would you have recommended immediately shooting it down or would you have recommended letting it fly for a while, and trying to collect intelligence--signal or otherwise--given its up close proximity and the fact that its transmission and collection systems would be jammed.

Hypothetically, of course.
 
I ( sincerely ) hope that’s the case.
But if it is why make it public at all…

I say we fire up a Blackbird or two and send them on a little PR trip.
Taking some video along the way of the missiles as they rise to meet it but then inevitably fall short.
 
U-tapao to Guam and back again. We never saw them and they were never on the plot board. Loved those guys that could write backwards :rockon:
 
Mdm26 said:
I ( sincerely ) hope that’s the case.
But if it is why make it public at all…

I say we fire up a Blackbird or two and send them on a little PR trip.
Taking some video along the way of the missiles as they rise to meet it but then inevitably fall short.
Click to expand...
Hard to do unless you pull them out of museums, find some engines that weren't "rendered unusable" and then find a lot more support...

Also, and folks won't like me saying this; you don't overfly a country with an air-breathing asset that can shoot that asset down. And yes, the Sled could be shot down today.
 
Korab said:
Wow you’re so much better a person and patriot than others on this forum. Keep believing everything in the everything the govt tells you. Can’t get go wrong with that approach.
Click to expand...

I definitely don't believe everything the government tells me, we have decades of dodgy dealings internally and in the affairs of countries around the world to tell us that our govt is capable of dishonesty, neither though do I believe nothing that the government tells me. That is where we transition from the cautious to the crazy.

So for example if told by the govt that we identified the balloon on Wednesday and X, Y and Z are the reasons we decided to wait to shoot it down and your response is neither to accept nor critique those reasons but rather insist that it is all a big lie, that they never intended to shoot it down until pressured to do so, Hunter Biden probably launched the balloon, there were definitely no Chinese spy balloons until this week and anyone who doesn't believe this is a brainwashed sheep, then you have moved entirely outside of the realm of rational debate and are making your judgements based on nothing but your pre-held beliefs about the world. You are entitled to live in this tin foil universe but don't demand that the rest of us join you in it.
 
Emsa said:
I definitely don't believe everything the government tells me, we have decades of dodgy dealings internally and in the affairs of countries around the world to tell us that our govt is capable of dishonesty, neither though do I believe nothing that the government tells me. That is where we transition from the cautious to the crazy.

So for example if told by the govt that we identified the balloon on Wednesday and X, Y and Z are the reasons we decided to wait to shoot it down and your response is neither to accept nor critique those reasons but rather insist that it is all a big lie, that they never intended to shoot it down until pressured to do so, Hunter Biden probably launched the balloon, there were definitely no Chinese spy balloons until this week and anyone who doesn't believe this is a brainwashed sheep, then you have moved entirely outside of the realm of rational debate and are making your judgements based on nothing but your pre-held beliefs about the world. You are entitled to live in this tin foil universe but don't demand that the rest of us join you in it.
Click to expand...
Emsa said:
Equally many of us believe that the previous incumbent exposed us to 4 years of incoherent shambolic lunacy and international ridicule and feel horrible for all the graduates of service academies who had to be presided over by a B grade reality show host but that is how it works.
Click to expand...
Well, this previous post of yours is certainly instructive.
 
Last edited:
cb7893 said:
This guy claims to:

CNN —
The American military had a “domain awareness gap” that allowed three other suspected Chinese spy balloons to transit the continental United States undetected under the Trump administration, the Pentagon general responsible for providing air and missile defense over North America said on Monday.

“Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command said when asked about the three other balloons.

“And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out, but I don’t want to go into further detail.”


VanHerck added that the intelligence community after the fact was able to gather intelligence “from additional means that made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America.”
Click to expand...
You may choose to believe that public statement.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top