Balloons And Runway Calamities: Why Wait To Panic? - AVweb

He should not be there in the first place.

Thank you, Paul, for the words of reason!

The Canadians tried that several years ago. Apparently they put around 1000 rounds into the balloon and it took 6 days before it finally came down. Not to mention that the jets shooting it down would have to get much closer to it than using a missile, which at 60,000’ would have meant an increased risk factor.

#2-4 were entirely political IMO, because of all the squawking about how the first one should have been shot down sooner.

“Lest you think conspiracy theories are a recent thing, there were claims of a cover-up meant to give coastal defense industries an excuse to move further inland.”

And judging by at least some of the comments here, it appears conspiracy theories are always ripe for picking, even when the facts show the conspiracies are out of season.

There seems to still be plenty of coverage on the recovery efforts of balloon #1. Just recently (in the past day) I saw an article about how they have managed to recover most of the remains. There was even an article about how they specifically chose the spot it was shot down because the water was only around 50 feet deep at that point.

There is only one thing that concerns me more than what it was doing, was that it was manipulated and controlled.

Google Earth offers very clear images of missile silos in Montana so why would the Chinese need balloons? Anyway what nobody realizes is that all military uniforms include fibers from China which in the event of a conflict will by remote control dissolve the uniforms. The big question is whether the US military can fight while stark naked?

In 1994 Tom Clancy wrote Debt of Honor which ended with a Japan Air 747 flying into the White House. Did nobody in the DOD read that book?

Mine was, "… why not kick paranoia to the curb and jump straight to hysteria?

Where is Frank Luke Jr. now that we need him once again.

That is correct.

If you think paranoia and hysteria are this easy to stir up, then just wait for AI-generated images, videos and news reports will get people to jump off buildings or carry out their civil war scripts. It’s just a matter of when and not if. Mark these words!

“You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop—The Twilight Zone."

“ I wish that the Chinese were still guessing about that”

I agree. Unfortunately the Epoch Times Hysteria team members could not understand that the “Guvmint” had good reason to simply let this thing float-on-by without making a big hullabaloo over it… until the “media” and the Krazies made so much panic over it … the politicos had to reveal our intelligence capabilities and gasbag-marksmanship.

Richard G—- your political B.S. is tiring.

Hey Moderators…. Are you gonna let Richard G continue his repetitive krap endlessly?

They aren’t naked, they’re wearing stealth uniforms - a variant on the emperor’s new clothes.

They might not have, but I did read that. It was better than that, or perhaps I should say more severe as it was a joint session of congress something akin to the annual president’s state of the union address with everyone from the members of congress to the supreme court present.
Tom Clancy was an excellent writer, although since the scene was near the end of the book he was wrapping everything up and didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the graphic details that might have burned it more into our collective memory.

Spy sats will give you the visuals, but not the signals intelligence that the balloon likely was being used for. Or if it wasn’t a spy balloon, then what it could have been used for.