The USA repeatedly shoots down [redacted] over the USA and Canada
February 13, 2023 1:47 AM Subscribe
After the downing of Big Balloon off the eastern seaboard following monitoring and riffing, the USA air force has been busy shooting down an array of [redacted] over several locations. 10th February, off north Alaska. 11th February, over the Yukon territory. 12th February, near Lake Huron. There is much uncertainty. New York Times: U.S. Destroys U.F.O.s. BBC: "'I will let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out,' Gen VanHerck said when asked if it was possible the objects are aliens or extra-terrestrials. 'I haven't ruled out anything at this point.' NPR: "'We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground...'"The UK will apparently shoot down [redacted] over its airspace, though hopefully not all.
A possible explanation: “I've just checked on Rumble and I know what is happening. The objects are 5g enhanced vaccine super spreading devices created by the WHO and Bill Gates that are being deliberately detonated in the atmosphere in order to turn us all into greeny tree hugging lizard people. Sorry I have to go now. The bells have just rung for a vote in the senate.”
posted by Wordshore at 1:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [36 favorites]
posted by Wordshore at 1:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [36 favorites]
I'm assuming every crank and japester on the North American continent is now releasing these things.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:31 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:31 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'm sorry but this was all my fault. I bought a bag of balloons in a little toy shop with the money I had, and set them free at the break of dawn. I didn't know it would lead to this.
posted by solarion at 2:36 AM on February 13, 2023 [50 favorites]
posted by solarion at 2:36 AM on February 13, 2023 [50 favorites]
Tired: shooting down weather balloons and believing they're aliens
Wired: shooting down aliens and believing they're weather balloons
posted by chavenet at 2:42 AM on February 13, 2023 [66 favorites]
Wired: shooting down aliens and believing they're weather balloons
posted by chavenet at 2:42 AM on February 13, 2023 [66 favorites]
what is a weather balloon going to achieve that a satellite could not?
It's a lot closer, and it can hang around over an area.
A satellite in low earth orbit is at a height of at least a couple of hundred kilometres. You have to wait for it to be passing over the area you want to observe, and it only gets a glimpse for minutes at a time.
And while spy satellites no doubt have the best optics that it's possible to make, distance is still a constraint.
Even if you already have optics that can read a number plate from space, imagine what you can do if you put those optics that much closer: now you can read text on a screen or documents on a desk seen through a window.
And all the same is true for antennas as it is for optics.
I have no idea what the actual aims of these things are - and indeed the aim may just be to experiment with the concept and/or rattle a sabre rather than to gather any specific intelligence - but it's not hard to come up with scenarios where balloon surveillance would be an advantage.
Just look at the effect that drone reconnaissance is having in Ukraine, and imagine having non-stop coverage of a much larger area.
posted by automatronic at 2:51 AM on February 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
It's a lot closer, and it can hang around over an area.
A satellite in low earth orbit is at a height of at least a couple of hundred kilometres. You have to wait for it to be passing over the area you want to observe, and it only gets a glimpse for minutes at a time.
And while spy satellites no doubt have the best optics that it's possible to make, distance is still a constraint.
Even if you already have optics that can read a number plate from space, imagine what you can do if you put those optics that much closer: now you can read text on a screen or documents on a desk seen through a window.
And all the same is true for antennas as it is for optics.
I have no idea what the actual aims of these things are - and indeed the aim may just be to experiment with the concept and/or rattle a sabre rather than to gather any specific intelligence - but it's not hard to come up with scenarios where balloon surveillance would be an advantage.
Just look at the effect that drone reconnaissance is having in Ukraine, and imagine having non-stop coverage of a much larger area.
posted by automatronic at 2:51 AM on February 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
What colour are these [redacted]s? Might there be about 100 of them in all? (I'm just thinking about Wordshore's previous FPP).
posted by misteraitch at 3:06 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by misteraitch at 3:06 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Surveillance balloons over the US isn’t a new thing, it’s been happening for years. They are slow and inconspicuous enough that they might get dismissed as noise by those tasked to watch US airspace. There is a journalist who has been writing about it for a long while. His Twitter thread about it is interesting and leads to some good additional articles.
I especially liked his contention that the general US pop culture ridicule of UFOs has led to underreporting of such sightings by military personnel in the past, and that this whole uproar about it now is potentially a good way to remove that stigma.
posted by gemmy at 3:28 AM on February 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
I especially liked his contention that the general US pop culture ridicule of UFOs has led to underreporting of such sightings by military personnel in the past, and that this whole uproar about it now is potentially a good way to remove that stigma.
posted by gemmy at 3:28 AM on February 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
I am as concerned about this for the likelihood of pushing the U.S. into armed conflict as any of our other current support or clandestine ops (insofar as those are readily deducible). Whether these are Chinese, Muskian, or whatever, they are clearly the sort of pretext that could be seized on for any number of purposes. The manufactured claims of WMDs that led the U.S. into Gulf War II were… manufactured. Whatever these things are, they are not fictional.
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:36 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:36 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Balloon vs. Satellite; China and Its Wayward Balloon
Why stratospheric balloons are used in era of space-based intelligence
posted by chavenet at 3:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why stratospheric balloons are used in era of space-based intelligence
posted by chavenet at 3:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
There is a journalist who has been writing about it for a long while. His Twitter thread about it is interesting and leads to some good additional articles.
Thanks for the link, gemmy — it is indeed interesting. The link at the end about a naval destroyers being swarmed by surveillance drones was jaw dropping. Does no one on these ships have a BB gun?
posted by ourobouros at 4:08 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Thanks for the link, gemmy — it is indeed interesting. The link at the end about a naval destroyers being swarmed by surveillance drones was jaw dropping. Does no one on these ships have a BB gun?
posted by ourobouros at 4:08 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was amused by the coverage on BBC radio news, which last night was carefully describing them as "flying" and "unidentified", and presumably as "objects", without stringing the words together, but by this morning had given up, thrown their metaphorical hands in the air and was calling them UFOs.
posted by Fuchsoid at 4:20 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Fuchsoid at 4:20 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I especially liked his contention that the general US pop culture ridicule of UFOs has led to underreporting of such sightings by military personnel in the past,
If there really are countries out there who are camouflaging their US-bound drones and weather balloons to look like something from Plan Nine From Outer Space - then I salute them for their ingenuity (and, of course, likewise if there are legit alien powers pulling off the same trick).
posted by rongorongo at 4:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
If there really are countries out there who are camouflaging their US-bound drones and weather balloons to look like something from Plan Nine From Outer Space - then I salute them for their ingenuity (and, of course, likewise if there are legit alien powers pulling off the same trick).
posted by rongorongo at 4:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
NPR interviewed someone from the House Intelligence Committee who is getting briefings and his opinion is that the sudden flurry is due to the military just now looking for these sorts of things. Typically radar and such are concerned with ICBMs coming over the Arctic, jet incursions, etc. and not small objects drifting along at 30 mph. They could be spy stuff or just random launches of who knows what.
posted by caviar2d2 at 4:45 AM on February 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by caviar2d2 at 4:45 AM on February 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
Ever since this started, I cannot get this song out of my head.
"they said it was a weather balloon"
posted by Kitteh at 4:45 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
"they said it was a weather balloon"
posted by Kitteh at 4:45 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Tech moves on and would have Patrick McGoohan shaking his head at the upgrades to rover.
Be Seeing You.
posted by rough ashlar at 4:47 AM on February 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
Be Seeing You.
posted by rough ashlar at 4:47 AM on February 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
What gets me is the whole idea that they're spending about $100k minimum every time they knock one of these down. You don't need a guided missile to shoot down a balloon. You know what you need? A laser.
THE US MILITARY HAS A PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR LASERS AND THEY'RE NOT USING IT. I am livid
posted by phooky at 4:51 AM on February 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
THE US MILITARY HAS A PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR LASERS AND THEY'RE NOT USING IT. I am livid
posted by phooky at 4:51 AM on February 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
The larger context is that precisely navigating a balloon using wind currents is a very old idea, but it wasn’t implemented until the past decade (Loon was first). Now you can send a balloon long distances to a specific location and have it circle there.
This navigational breakthrough drastically increases the utility of high altitude balloons, which are 10,000% cheaper to launch than satellites. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s the real programmatic assumption in space research.
The US military also has a well-developed high altitude spy balloon program (Raven Aerostar’s Thunderhead balloon system) that probably predates the PLA Air Force balloon program. Near space is now a major domain of great power competition. I wish that the US and PRC would come to a right-of-way agreement in near space, rather than militarizing the situation. I don’t want future hobby, scientific, and commercial balloon projects nixed by this escalation.
The difficult question is what are these objects being shot down at 40,000 feet (over Alaska) and 20,000 feet (over Lake Huron)? That is rather low for a free flight balloon, although you might navigate there to get below some clouds and snap photos. My uncharitable interpretation is that NORAD recalibrated it’s radar and started shooting down high school science projects. Or it could be some micro spy balloon, but I’ll stick with the former explanation until corrected by new evidence.
I did a blog post summarizing these technologies on my eponymous website.
posted by Headfullofair at 4:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [33 favorites]
This navigational breakthrough drastically increases the utility of high altitude balloons, which are 10,000% cheaper to launch than satellites. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s the real programmatic assumption in space research.
The US military also has a well-developed high altitude spy balloon program (Raven Aerostar’s Thunderhead balloon system) that probably predates the PLA Air Force balloon program. Near space is now a major domain of great power competition. I wish that the US and PRC would come to a right-of-way agreement in near space, rather than militarizing the situation. I don’t want future hobby, scientific, and commercial balloon projects nixed by this escalation.
The difficult question is what are these objects being shot down at 40,000 feet (over Alaska) and 20,000 feet (over Lake Huron)? That is rather low for a free flight balloon, although you might navigate there to get below some clouds and snap photos. My uncharitable interpretation is that NORAD recalibrated it’s radar and started shooting down high school science projects. Or it could be some micro spy balloon, but I’ll stick with the former explanation until corrected by new evidence.
I did a blog post summarizing these technologies on my eponymous website.
posted by Headfullofair at 4:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [33 favorites]
This! This is why aliens don't visit. They are sitting there saying: "Look! Look there Gary, they've done it again. Do you really want to go to Disneyland that much?!"
posted by Webbster at 5:05 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Webbster at 5:05 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
increases the utility of high altitude balloons, which are 10,000% cheaper to launch than satellites
Exactly, you can launch a DIY high altitude balloon for less than $1000 - the most expensive cost is the helium. I have been doing research on this since my dad passed away last June. Before he passed, we came up with the plan to disperse his ashes at the edge of the atmosphere (he was a hanglider pilot for a very long time, always talked about getting as much altitude as possible, dreamed of strapping on oxygen tanks and getting high enough that they would be needed). Several of his and my friends are working on a project to make this happen - there is a commerical service, but my dad would DIY it, so that's what we are going to do.
But now? I have to do some thinking - would he be mad that the military-industrial complex shoots him on his final flight? Or tickled pink that he caused them to waste their money? (We would be notifying the NacCanada about the NOTAM launch, ahead of time - but, in these trigger-happy times.. Who knows...)
posted by rozcakj at 5:31 AM on February 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
Exactly, you can launch a DIY high altitude balloon for less than $1000 - the most expensive cost is the helium. I have been doing research on this since my dad passed away last June. Before he passed, we came up with the plan to disperse his ashes at the edge of the atmosphere (he was a hanglider pilot for a very long time, always talked about getting as much altitude as possible, dreamed of strapping on oxygen tanks and getting high enough that they would be needed). Several of his and my friends are working on a project to make this happen - there is a commerical service, but my dad would DIY it, so that's what we are going to do.
But now? I have to do some thinking - would he be mad that the military-industrial complex shoots him on his final flight? Or tickled pink that he caused them to waste their money? (We would be notifying the NacCanada about the NOTAM launch, ahead of time - but, in these trigger-happy times.. Who knows...)
posted by rozcakj at 5:31 AM on February 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
Go for it, rozcakj! It’ll be a ton of fun. Put a radar corner reflector on it and stay in touch with your local air tower. They’ll likely be very supportive and will love to hear about your tribute.
posted by Headfullofair at 5:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Headfullofair at 5:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
When I was a young child and went to summer camp (bear with me), whenever it would rain too much for outdoor activities, they’d pull us all into the auditorium/gym and sit us on the floor and show a movie. We couldn’t go anywhere or play dodgeball, because some of the kids were too young, and we only had the one indoor space.
Now back in the late 70’s / early 80’s, they didn’t have VCRs yet. Or big screen tv’s. They had a film projector. But films were expensive. So they really only had one film. Go to the same camp for enough years, you get to know that film really, really well. That stupid, basically silent film about the idiot French kid and his creepy red balloon.
Shoot them down. Shoot them all down.
posted by Mchelly at 5:42 AM on February 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
Now back in the late 70’s / early 80’s, they didn’t have VCRs yet. Or big screen tv’s. They had a film projector. But films were expensive. So they really only had one film. Go to the same camp for enough years, you get to know that film really, really well. That stupid, basically silent film about the idiot French kid and his creepy red balloon.
Shoot them down. Shoot them all down.
posted by Mchelly at 5:42 AM on February 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
Well, it will make this year's Macy's parade a lot more interesting at least.
posted by Naberius at 5:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 5:59 AM on February 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
"and it can hang around over an area."
How? Doesn't it go wherever the wind takes it? Wouldn't it need some kind of engine to move to a specific spot and stay there?
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:02 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
How? Doesn't it go wherever the wind takes it? Wouldn't it need some kind of engine to move to a specific spot and stay there?
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:02 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
THE US MILITARY HAS A PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR LASERS AND THEY'RE NOT USING IT. I am livid"
Unless we have some evidence that airplane-mounted lasers that are powerful enough to shoot a hole through moving target from a great distance actually exist, I don't think any of us have anything to be livid about.
At least not when it comes to shooting down things with lasers.
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:07 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Unless we have some evidence that airplane-mounted lasers that are powerful enough to shoot a hole through moving target from a great distance actually exist, I don't think any of us have anything to be livid about.
At least not when it comes to shooting down things with lasers.
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:07 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Even if you already have optics that can read a number plate from space,
you still need the car to be standing on its end.
posted by Beverley Westwood at 6:08 AM on February 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
you still need the car to be standing on its end.
posted by Beverley Westwood at 6:08 AM on February 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Either these things are new, or they've been around a while and we ignored them.
As for "who" maybe China, maybe Russia, maybe randos doing it for fun or science. Maybe all 3.
Would a drone/balloon combo be able to navigate better than just a balloon? Is that a thing?
posted by emjaybee at 6:09 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
As for "who" maybe China, maybe Russia, maybe randos doing it for fun or science. Maybe all 3.
Would a drone/balloon combo be able to navigate better than just a balloon? Is that a thing?
posted by emjaybee at 6:09 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Re: lasers and costs - I don’t really mind how they bring these things down, but as someone who flies on occasion, I do appreciate the common courtesy of them sending a plane up first to visually check what things are before it’s boom boom bye bye time.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:09 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 6:09 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
How? Doesn't it go wherever the wind takes it? Wouldn't it need some kind of engine to move to a specific spot and stay there?
Both the speed and direction of the wind vary with altitude. Balloons are steered by adjusting their buoyancy to go up or down, thus also changing their direction of travel.
You can't hover over one spot indefinitely, but you can hang around for a hell of a lot longer than a satellite pass.
posted by automatronic at 6:17 AM on February 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Both the speed and direction of the wind vary with altitude. Balloons are steered by adjusting their buoyancy to go up or down, thus also changing their direction of travel.
You can't hover over one spot indefinitely, but you can hang around for a hell of a lot longer than a satellite pass.
posted by automatronic at 6:17 AM on February 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
"Both the speed and direction of the wind vary with altitude. Balloons are steered by adjusting their buoyancy to go up or down, thus also changing their direction of travel."
Interesting! Thanks!
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:24 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Interesting! Thanks!
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:24 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
IMO this is starting to feel like a balloon panic. I feel bad for any science lab which is doing balloon related research right now.
A buddy of mine did US government research on spy balloons a decade ago, he has fun stories about chasing wayward balloons across AZ and New Mexico. So it's weird that they're just now looking for them.
posted by muddgirl at 6:26 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
A buddy of mine did US government research on spy balloons a decade ago, he has fun stories about chasing wayward balloons across AZ and New Mexico. So it's weird that they're just now looking for them.
posted by muddgirl at 6:26 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
Is there not a way to get close enough to give them a good look over before they are shot down? And is there no way to capture them without blowing them to pieces?
posted by cccorlew at 6:30 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by cccorlew at 6:30 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Someone's going to get trigger-happy and piss Superman off, and they won't like what follows.
posted by delfin at 6:33 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by delfin at 6:33 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Spy balloons is it? My grandfather volunteered as a "balloon observer" with the British navy in WWI. They sent him up in a tethered balloon over the North Sea in 1917 to see what he could see. A storm blew in and it was deemed unsafe to bring him down. He spent the night up there, froze a lung and was invalided back to London. One of the VAD nurses threw her cap at him and my Dad was born in October.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [60 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [60 favorites]
"We’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason,” said VanHerck who heads NORAD, but I have stumbled into the world of ham operator picoballoons.
These backyard launched balloons go around the world multiple times, which is neat.
The UFO shot down in Yukon is described as "a small cylindrical object" with no mention of a balloon, so the UFO was not a picoballoon.
From the same source, There was no APRS or WSPR telemetry from #HamRadio balloons over Lake Huron at the time. Those would likely have been higher altitude.
The internet archive's wayback machine has a cached version of the locate and track page from 2022-10-05, so it pre-dates this ufo news cycle, and not some overnight dis-info site.
posted by ecco at 6:41 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
These backyard launched balloons go around the world multiple times, which is neat.
"K9YO-15 #HamRadio "picoballoon", which was projected to be in the same area as the "unknown object" shot down by NORAD over Yukon, was launched Oct 10, 2022 from Libertyville IL north of Chicago. It circumnavigated the globe 6 times. https://nibbb.org/2022/10/11/k9yo-launched-october-10th-2022-1800-utc-2pm-cdt/ #aviation #balloon
The UFO shot down in Yukon is described as "a small cylindrical object" with no mention of a balloon, so the UFO was not a picoballoon.
From the same source, There was no APRS or WSPR telemetry from #HamRadio balloons over Lake Huron at the time. Those would likely have been higher altitude.
The internet archive's wayback machine has a cached version of the locate and track page from 2022-10-05, so it pre-dates this ufo news cycle, and not some overnight dis-info site.
posted by ecco at 6:41 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
USA spends a trillion dollars a year on the military and the best we can do is to send a 300 million dollar jet racing by at 180 knots (207 mph) to try to see what the UFO is. Then we shoot it it down with a 400K dollar missile. It's crazy to me that there's not a better surveillance / object capture / wreckage tracking solution.
posted by jabah at 6:43 AM on February 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by jabah at 6:43 AM on February 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
I am not pro-military anything, but an arms race involving anti-balloon balloons with grappleling hooks would appeal to the Miyazaki fan in me.
posted by joeyh at 6:44 AM on February 13, 2023 [37 favorites]
posted by joeyh at 6:44 AM on February 13, 2023 [37 favorites]
This reminds of Felix Baumgartner's jump in 2012. Checking the video my god I still get vertigo watching it that was from 128k feet or 39km. Hmmm. So it is possible to have a manned balloon go that high (though needing an oxygen supply for the pilot), which may complicate the issue of shooting down big balloons.
(I still think he was utterly bonkers to do that jump, and it wasn't great to, almost live, see the bit where he seemed to be spinning towards his doom)
posted by Wordshore at 6:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
(I still think he was utterly bonkers to do that jump, and it wasn't great to, almost live, see the bit where he seemed to be spinning towards his doom)
posted by Wordshore at 6:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Can anybody offer some kind informed speculation ... what is a weather balloon going to achieve that a satellite could not?
If you're willing to settle for speculation of an unspecified level of quality, then: I bet a balloon would be superior to a satellite for eavesdropping on cellular towers, wi-fi signals, and other kinds of short-range radio communications as used in industry and the military.
posted by Western Infidels at 6:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
If you're willing to settle for speculation of an unspecified level of quality, then: I bet a balloon would be superior to a satellite for eavesdropping on cellular towers, wi-fi signals, and other kinds of short-range radio communications as used in industry and the military.
posted by Western Infidels at 6:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's crazy to me that there's not a better surveillance / object capture / wreckage tracking solution.
At least with the first one, where the decision was taken to let it keep moving and study it, articles have had a lot of mention of detailed photos taken from spy aircraft, and one assumes there was also heavy use of AWACs as well. So there are options for taking a look, but not a lot of options for how to shoot them down. (Which makes sense -- decades and decades of research have focused on how to destroy objects in the sky, rather than finding ways to slightly damage them and force them to land safely. This is a new use case.)
The theory that's getting attention currently is speculation that these are deliberate tests of the NORAD system, seeing what gets through and what gets seen. That may be putting too much credit on the balloon/object senders, but certainly will be perfect justification for massive spending on new early warning and intercept systems.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:49 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
At least with the first one, where the decision was taken to let it keep moving and study it, articles have had a lot of mention of detailed photos taken from spy aircraft, and one assumes there was also heavy use of AWACs as well. So there are options for taking a look, but not a lot of options for how to shoot them down. (Which makes sense -- decades and decades of research have focused on how to destroy objects in the sky, rather than finding ways to slightly damage them and force them to land safely. This is a new use case.)
The theory that's getting attention currently is speculation that these are deliberate tests of the NORAD system, seeing what gets through and what gets seen. That may be putting too much credit on the balloon/object senders, but certainly will be perfect justification for massive spending on new early warning and intercept systems.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:49 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
The UFO shot down in Yukon is described as "a small cylindrical object" with no mention of a balloon,"Two of the three objects shot down in the past three days-- near Alaska and over northern Canada -- were flying at around 40,000 feet, US and Canadian officials said, posing a potential risk to civilian aircraft. Both of the objects also appeared to feature a balloon, with a small metal cylinder underneath, officials said. "
-- CNN live thread last night, sorry I don't have a working link for this any longer.
"Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC News that he was briefed on the object by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and that the object shot down over Canada was likely another balloon – as was the high-altitude object downed over Alaska on Friday. "
-- CNN
posted by joeyh at 6:49 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
My completely uninformed opinion is that these objects are being used to test US/NORAD detection and response capabilities. How quickly the objects were detected, how fast was the response, what detection capabilities did the fighters have, etc. The only way to know more accurately the capabilities of an enemy is to actually engage with them.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:50 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 6:50 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
The NYTimes overview today What’s Going On Up There? Theories but No Answers in Shootdowns of Mystery Craft is very well written and has some interesting new information and speculation in it. Including the idea these are tests of air defense (which seems improbable to me.) Also this perspective:
posted by Nelson at 6:51 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
After the transit of the spy balloon this month, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, adjusted its radar system to make it more sensitive. As a result, the number of objects it detected increased sharply.And this information about the weird thing over Lake Huron:
The object spotted approaching Lake Huron on Sunday was flying at 20,000 feet and presented a potential threat to civil aviation, so President Biden ordered it shot down, U.S. officials said. It had an octagonal structure with strings hanging off but had no discernible payload, they added.20,000 feet is an interesting altitude. It's high enough to be out of the way of small planes without turbocharged engines. But low enough to be well under where jets tend to fly. I have no idea how modern balloon navigation works, what altitudes they want to be at to have their pick of directions.
posted by Nelson at 6:51 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
They wouldn't dare fly one of these over Hekawi territory.
posted by delfin at 6:55 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by delfin at 6:55 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
IMO this is starting to feel like a balloon panic. I feel bad for any science lab which is doing balloon related research right now.
I also feel kind of bad for people in Ohio whose environmental disaster is getting swamped by this in the current news cycle...
Anyways, still my favorite take: https://twitter.com/CryptidOnStrike/status/1621960085907050496 (thought I fully realize that people both in this thread and Very Serious News have attempted to rationalize all of these points).
I also feel kind of bad for people in Ohio whose environmental disaster is getting swamped by this in the current news cycle...
Anyways, still my favorite take: https://twitter.com/CryptidOnStrike/status/1621960085907050496 (thought I fully realize that people both in this thread and Very Serious News have attempted to rationalize all of these points).
Can’t believe how many people are treating the Chinese spy balloon like it’s a joke. This is serious. It ticks off every box necessary for a successful espionage mission: highly visible, slow, impossible to control, defenseless, and incapable of capturing useful informationposted by advil at 6:56 AM on February 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
you still need the car to be standing on its end.
This is a good joke, but also a misconception. A satellite is hardly ever going to be directly overhead the spot you're interested in.
If you go and look up, for instance, the next few times that the ISS will be visible from London, many of those passes it's not getting more than 20 or 30 degrees above the horizon. If I had a spy camera on the ISS and wanted to take a picture of London from straight above, I'd have to skip the next 11 passes, and wait for February 25th when it finally goes nearly directly overhead.
posted by automatronic at 7:04 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is a good joke, but also a misconception. A satellite is hardly ever going to be directly overhead the spot you're interested in.
If you go and look up, for instance, the next few times that the ISS will be visible from London, many of those passes it's not getting more than 20 or 30 degrees above the horizon. If I had a spy camera on the ISS and wanted to take a picture of London from straight above, I'd have to skip the next 11 passes, and wait for February 25th when it finally goes nearly directly overhead.
posted by automatronic at 7:04 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I can't help but reflect over the only civilian deaths by enemy combatants on US soil during WWII, victims of the Japanese fire balloon campaign in late 1944/early 1945. My grandpa found one of these bombs playing hooky on the Yakama reservation, and only found out what it was 40 years later. Another balloon temporarily took out power at the plutonium processing plant at Hanford.
posted by St. Oops at 7:05 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 7:05 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful …. Go BOOM!
posted by terrapin at 7:12 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
My beautiful, my beautiful …. Go BOOM!
posted by terrapin at 7:12 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
jonathanhughes: “Unless we have some evidence that airplane-mounted lasers that are powerful enough to shoot a hole through moving target from a great distance actually exist, I don't think any of us have anything to be livid about.”The United States in fact did have this. They defunded it a decade or so ago.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:21 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Next up: Nena does a remake of their 1983 hit, now titled "99 Chinese Baloons."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm so sick of boring, realistic fucking weather balloons and no aliens, ever. I'm so disappointed about something super weird happening that freaks out the military a bit and it's never aliens, just stupid fucking spy weather balloons.
You know what? I'm just gonna go around saying it's fairies. FAIRIES FLYING AROUND IN SPACESHIPS.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:24 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
You know what? I'm just gonna go around saying it's fairies. FAIRIES FLYING AROUND IN SPACESHIPS.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:24 AM on February 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
Tired: shooting down weather balloons and believing they're aliens
Wired: shooting down aliens and believing they're weather balloons
Inspired: befriend aliens, get superpowers from them, throw The Man off their trail by releasing weather balloons for the air force to shoot down.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:33 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Wired: shooting down aliens and believing they're weather balloons
Inspired: befriend aliens, get superpowers from them, throw The Man off their trail by releasing weather balloons for the air force to shoot down.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:33 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
The idea that balloons could take more and better pictures than a satellite makes sense. But don't they have Google Earth in China?
The idea that they would get useful sigint (interception of communications) seems improbable to me, compared to what you can get from the ground. With an RTL-SDR stick from Aliexpress.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:41 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
The idea that they would get useful sigint (interception of communications) seems improbable to me, compared to what you can get from the ground. With an RTL-SDR stick from Aliexpress.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:41 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
The idea that balloons could take more and better pictures than a satellite makes sense. But don't they have Google Earth in China?
We don't know what kind of cameras were in that balloon. But the military does, I hope.
posted by Melismata at 7:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
We don't know what kind of cameras were in that balloon. But the military does, I hope.
posted by Melismata at 7:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
What gets me is the whole idea that they're spending about $100k minimum every time they knock one of these down.
You can read this as a commentary on the obscenity of the US military budget but, as a fraction of a $700+ billion defense budget, dropping a few million every time we intercept a potential surveillance balloon is like the average tax payer blowing less than 50¢. The taxpayer has probably spent more on toilet paper and coffee for the Pentagon than we've spent taking out these balloons.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
You can read this as a commentary on the obscenity of the US military budget but, as a fraction of a $700+ billion defense budget, dropping a few million every time we intercept a potential surveillance balloon is like the average tax payer blowing less than 50¢. The taxpayer has probably spent more on toilet paper and coffee for the Pentagon than we've spent taking out these balloons.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
IMO this is starting to feel like a balloon panic.
2016: clowns.
2023: balloons.
2030: giant ferris wheels tumbling across the landscape.
posted by nobody at 7:53 AM on February 13, 2023 [18 favorites]
2016: clowns.
2023: balloons.
2030: giant ferris wheels tumbling across the landscape.
posted by nobody at 7:53 AM on February 13, 2023 [18 favorites]
BREAKING: U.S. Shoots Down Object the Size of Three Raccoons in a Trenchcoat, Reportedly Wearing a Trenchcoat Reading “Not Three Raccoons in a Trenchcoat”
posted by briank at 8:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by briank at 8:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon? You'd expect that an effectively stationary balloon would be an easy target, and a burst of gunfire is cheaper than a missile, isn't it?
posted by Dysk at 8:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 8:39 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I don't fully understand the relative secrecy around 3/4ths of the objects the US military shot down last week in US airspace. The US government said the first one was a Chinese spy balloon, and China countered with ABSOLUTELY IT WAS DEFINITELY OURS, but just a weather balloon we promise. (Of course it wasn't just a weather balloon.) Why haven't there been similar declarations about the three other objects?
I have a theory that might explain it: It's embarrassing enough for the US to admit that it's China that keeps doing it. But perhaps China is doing it with tech they stole or copied from US tech. Even if it's incorporated into a piece of Chinese tech, the US tech is classified as far as the US is concerned, and they're not going to spill the beans about classified US tech.
I'm not completely satisfied by my own theory, though. "It was a Chinese spy balloon" is a thing the US government is comfortable with disclosing, so it's weird they did not say the same thing about the three objects after that.
And the explanation for the uptick in sightings now is basically, "Oh, turns out we forgot to take the lens cap off." What an odd thing to disclose.
posted by emelenjr at 8:44 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have a theory that might explain it: It's embarrassing enough for the US to admit that it's China that keeps doing it. But perhaps China is doing it with tech they stole or copied from US tech. Even if it's incorporated into a piece of Chinese tech, the US tech is classified as far as the US is concerned, and they're not going to spill the beans about classified US tech.
I'm not completely satisfied by my own theory, though. "It was a Chinese spy balloon" is a thing the US government is comfortable with disclosing, so it's weird they did not say the same thing about the three objects after that.
And the explanation for the uptick in sightings now is basically, "Oh, turns out we forgot to take the lens cap off." What an odd thing to disclose.
posted by emelenjr at 8:44 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon? You'd expect that an effectively stationary balloon would be an easy target, and a burst of gunfire is cheaper than a missile, isn't it?
Yeah, but you gotta a find an excuse to use those missiles sometimes, otherwise you don't need to order more.
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:45 AM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
I wonder if there is a connection to these mysterious substations the Forest Service keeps finding and dismantling. Something to do with the Helium network. They seem to be hot spots for crypto mining, the antenna owner getting a cut of the proceeds, I would assume.
posted by Brian B. at 8:47 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 8:47 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
You don't need a guided missile to shoot down a balloon. You know what you need? A laser.
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon?
Me, I vote for a teeny tiny high-velocity dart that can send the balloons down over as long and audible a time as possible
posted by Mchelly at 8:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon?
Me, I vote for a teeny tiny high-velocity dart that can send the balloons down over as long and audible a time as possible
posted by Mchelly at 8:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Damnit, Kitteh, now that’s going to be stuck in my head for at least the next week and every time this makes the news!
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:53 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:53 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I blame The Fifth Dimension for all of this.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:54 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:54 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
So if balloons are so cheap and maneuverable, why don't they send up a balloon to identify these flying objects? Pull up alongside and get a good look? Send out a drone to bring the balloon gently to earth? Why send such a huge hammer and then go looking for the shattered pieces? (I know the answer, which is "because no one has had the chance to shoot a missile in a while and it's $%^ awesome." But come on, wouldn't you really rather have the chance to look at the intact object ??).
posted by sophrontic at 9:00 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sophrontic at 9:00 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
the best we can do is to send a 300 million dollar jet racing by at 180 knots (207 mph) to try to see what the UFO is. Then we shoot it it down with a 400K dollar missile. It's crazy to me that there's not a better surveillance / object capture / wreckage tracking solution.
Even 20000 feet is high enough to be annoyingly difficult and/or expensive; I don't think any major power has fielded anti-aircraft cannon outside low altitude in a very long time. Too high for (most?) man-portable missiles. You could lob a proper SAM at it, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that a Standard / Patriot / Hawk costs more than a couple of fighter flight hours + a Sidewinder. And you'd need to get the missile battery in the right place.
Still if time permitted it might make a good training opportunity for them.
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon?
The first one anyway was around 60000 feet, which is outside the flight envelope of most fighters and (I'm told) high enough to make F-22 pilots unhappy about losing control authority.
Elsewhere folks were saying that the problem with a cannon burst is that all you'd do is punch a few 20mm holes in a balloon that was probably already kinda leaky, so the balloon could compensate by just flowing more helium from its tanks until it ran out. Which is to say you'd have no control over where it came down. And, again, the whole exercise is probably great training from the weird mission planning to doing live fire.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:04 AM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Even 20000 feet is high enough to be annoyingly difficult and/or expensive; I don't think any major power has fielded anti-aircraft cannon outside low altitude in a very long time. Too high for (most?) man-portable missiles. You could lob a proper SAM at it, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that a Standard / Patriot / Hawk costs more than a couple of fighter flight hours + a Sidewinder. And you'd need to get the missile battery in the right place.
Still if time permitted it might make a good training opportunity for them.
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon?
The first one anyway was around 60000 feet, which is outside the flight envelope of most fighters and (I'm told) high enough to make F-22 pilots unhappy about losing control authority.
Elsewhere folks were saying that the problem with a cannon burst is that all you'd do is punch a few 20mm holes in a balloon that was probably already kinda leaky, so the balloon could compensate by just flowing more helium from its tanks until it ran out. Which is to say you'd have no control over where it came down. And, again, the whole exercise is probably great training from the weird mission planning to doing live fire.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:04 AM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
As someone who lives close to the 148th and their air base, I'm sure they were damn excited to get to chase and shoot something instead of just flying around very loudly every day, which is what they generally do. This is how they justify their existence. So if you think they're "wasting money," you should see what they do on the daily to keep up their fly times/practice.
posted by RedEmma at 9:16 AM on February 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by RedEmma at 9:16 AM on February 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
This really does seem like a joke that some folks, or government, are playing. Balloons aren’t exactly stealthy and difficult to take down. Whatever happened to those very fast and submersible UFOs the Air Force reported a couple of years ago?
posted by waving at 9:16 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by waving at 9:16 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Say what you like about national security but this is a dark day for Great Plains-based snake oil salesman who are just trying to get over their rainbow to become wizard despots.
posted by thivaia at 9:20 AM on February 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
posted by thivaia at 9:20 AM on February 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
I know nothing about air combat, but if I was a pilot taking down an unidentified object with no real intel on what it is, and which could have say compressed gas tanks onboard that may explode and send shrapnel at me if I was at short range etc., I’d be looking to take it down from a standoff range if I reasonably could. I can see some logic in a $400k missile versus risking damage to a $360m F-22.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:21 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:21 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
(As much as having $360m fighter planes and $400k missiles is logical)
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:24 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:24 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon?
Missiles can be guided accurately to the target from a safe standoff distance. For cannon to be reliably accurate, the pilot must get far closer to the target, risking damage should the target have some sort of proximity detonation capacity, or otherwise have some unknown way of endangering the pilot/plane.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:26 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Missiles can be guided accurately to the target from a safe standoff distance. For cannon to be reliably accurate, the pilot must get far closer to the target, risking damage should the target have some sort of proximity detonation capacity, or otherwise have some unknown way of endangering the pilot/plane.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:26 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
If I had a spy camera on the ISS and wanted to take a picture of London from straight above, I'd have to skip the next 11 passes, and wait for February 25th when it finally goes nearly directly overhead.
Real, no-joke spy satellites—as opposed to commercial imaging satellites that are frequently used by both government and non-government consumers—are "retaskable". When someone wants imagery in an area, the people who handle that sort of thing will look at the various satellites that are available, how close they are in terms of orbital path, and how quickly the imagery is needed, and they will shift the satellites around if necessary (hopefully not by much, since the fuel is a limited resource) to put them where they need to be.
I haven't looked in a while, but years ago you could pretty easily tell what areas the US was interested in by where all the imagery satellites orbits' tended to converge. To get near-24/7 coverage over an area you need a whole bunch of satellites, and even then the passes are predictable, so a reasonably-intelligent adversary can keep whatever they want to hide under cover while your satellites are overhead, if they're so inclined.
But yes, in general, it's rare to get a direct overhead shot of an area. However, there are lots of image processing tricks that can be used to combine multiple images taken at various times and at varying angles to construct what are basically 3D models of static objects (buildings, trees, etc.) using shadows, and then let you look at it from any angle you want. It's pretty neat; you can see the trickle-down version in Google Maps / Google Earth.
What gets me is the whole idea that they're spending about $100k minimum every time they knock one of these down.
On one hand, yes, this is dumb. The Chinese could very well see forcing the US to expend a few million bucks in jet fuel, airframe time, pilot time, and air-to-air missiles to shoot down a $10k balloon as a win. That said, missiles have a finite lifespan and they've already been built, and are (hopefully) unlikely to be fired otherwise, so the hit to the national budget is probably smaller than you'd think at first glance. The pilots and planes were probably going to be flown anyway, now they'll do one less training flight this quarter, probably. The real impact is likely just that Raytheon (or whoever, but if I had to guess without bothering to check, it's probably Raytheon) gets its order for a new batch of Sidewinders slightly earlier than otherwise.
However, the general argument that the US military's "cost per kill" is enormously too high to be sustainable in a real conflict remains. I could get on a soapbox about this for a long time but I'll pass for now; it's a serious structural problem in our defense posture, IMO.
You don't need a guided missile to shoot down a balloon. You know what you need? A laser.
Maybe? A mylar balloon envelope might actually be a hard target for a laser. Metallized foil is pretty reflective, and if the balloon is spinning in the wind it could distribute the energy by moving under the beam. Also I think there are only a couple of airborne lasers and they're all test setups run by the missile defense and research agencies. Moving them into position to shoot down random balloons might take longer and cost more than sending up whatever F-18 or F-22 happens to be closest to blow a bunch of holes in it.
Why haven't there been similar declarations about the three other objects?
Lot of possible explanations there. Maybe it's just that the US Government works slowly and hasn't actually figured out where the objects came from, because whoever works at the lab where they do such things was off this weekend and is about to have a really shitty Monday. Maybe it wasn't the Chinese who launched the small balloons, but actually someone else—maybe someone who technically isn't a US adversary but notionally an ally, and there are geopolitical reasons not to embarrass them publicly. Maybe it was something the US government launched, but someone forgot to file the right paperwork with the FAA. Maybe they are Chinese, but the USG is playing coy because they don't want to reveal how long it takes to shoot something down, recover it, analyze it, and determine its origin. Maybe it's Chinese but it actually is a weather balloon, or at least some of them are. Maybe it's Chinese but it lacks a satellite uplink, and therefore implies there are Chinese agents listening on the ground in the UP of Michigan and the FBI is busy rounding them up. Who knows, really?
It's interesting, though; I honestly didn't know that free-flying spy balloons were a thing in 2023, and it doesn't seem like NORAD necessarily thought so (or at least, thought they were responsible for tracking them) either.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:35 AM on February 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Real, no-joke spy satellites—as opposed to commercial imaging satellites that are frequently used by both government and non-government consumers—are "retaskable". When someone wants imagery in an area, the people who handle that sort of thing will look at the various satellites that are available, how close they are in terms of orbital path, and how quickly the imagery is needed, and they will shift the satellites around if necessary (hopefully not by much, since the fuel is a limited resource) to put them where they need to be.
I haven't looked in a while, but years ago you could pretty easily tell what areas the US was interested in by where all the imagery satellites orbits' tended to converge. To get near-24/7 coverage over an area you need a whole bunch of satellites, and even then the passes are predictable, so a reasonably-intelligent adversary can keep whatever they want to hide under cover while your satellites are overhead, if they're so inclined.
But yes, in general, it's rare to get a direct overhead shot of an area. However, there are lots of image processing tricks that can be used to combine multiple images taken at various times and at varying angles to construct what are basically 3D models of static objects (buildings, trees, etc.) using shadows, and then let you look at it from any angle you want. It's pretty neat; you can see the trickle-down version in Google Maps / Google Earth.
What gets me is the whole idea that they're spending about $100k minimum every time they knock one of these down.
On one hand, yes, this is dumb. The Chinese could very well see forcing the US to expend a few million bucks in jet fuel, airframe time, pilot time, and air-to-air missiles to shoot down a $10k balloon as a win. That said, missiles have a finite lifespan and they've already been built, and are (hopefully) unlikely to be fired otherwise, so the hit to the national budget is probably smaller than you'd think at first glance. The pilots and planes were probably going to be flown anyway, now they'll do one less training flight this quarter, probably. The real impact is likely just that Raytheon (or whoever, but if I had to guess without bothering to check, it's probably Raytheon) gets its order for a new batch of Sidewinders slightly earlier than otherwise.
However, the general argument that the US military's "cost per kill" is enormously too high to be sustainable in a real conflict remains. I could get on a soapbox about this for a long time but I'll pass for now; it's a serious structural problem in our defense posture, IMO.
You don't need a guided missile to shoot down a balloon. You know what you need? A laser.
Maybe? A mylar balloon envelope might actually be a hard target for a laser. Metallized foil is pretty reflective, and if the balloon is spinning in the wind it could distribute the energy by moving under the beam. Also I think there are only a couple of airborne lasers and they're all test setups run by the missile defense and research agencies. Moving them into position to shoot down random balloons might take longer and cost more than sending up whatever F-18 or F-22 happens to be closest to blow a bunch of holes in it.
Why haven't there been similar declarations about the three other objects?
Lot of possible explanations there. Maybe it's just that the US Government works slowly and hasn't actually figured out where the objects came from, because whoever works at the lab where they do such things was off this weekend and is about to have a really shitty Monday. Maybe it wasn't the Chinese who launched the small balloons, but actually someone else—maybe someone who technically isn't a US adversary but notionally an ally, and there are geopolitical reasons not to embarrass them publicly. Maybe it was something the US government launched, but someone forgot to file the right paperwork with the FAA. Maybe they are Chinese, but the USG is playing coy because they don't want to reveal how long it takes to shoot something down, recover it, analyze it, and determine its origin. Maybe it's Chinese but it actually is a weather balloon, or at least some of them are. Maybe it's Chinese but it lacks a satellite uplink, and therefore implies there are Chinese agents listening on the ground in the UP of Michigan and the FBI is busy rounding them up. Who knows, really?
It's interesting, though; I honestly didn't know that free-flying spy balloons were a thing in 2023, and it doesn't seem like NORAD necessarily thought so (or at least, thought they were responsible for tracking them) either.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:35 AM on February 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
I remember when the atmospheric physics group at the University of Toronto last control of a weather balloon and disrupted commercial air traffic. At least two different air forces attempted to shoot it down by gun fire rather than missiles. Shooting the balloon itself would have been ineffective since it was extremely large and not pressurized (there was already a large hole in the bottom like a hot air balloon). So they attempted to shoot the cable between the balloon and the gondola. This was unsuccessful, leading to headlines in the tabloids like 'Canadian air force tries to shoot down 20 story balloon and misses'.
posted by Prof. Danger at 9:38 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Prof. Danger at 9:38 AM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Have there been quietly-reported near-hits of commercial airliners with balloons or other objects at the elevations at which these items have been discovered?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:40 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:40 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Waiting for the great “shot down balloon wreckage hits Evergreen cargo ship navigating a canal and disrupts global trade” crossover. Bonus points if the balloon’s metallic surface looks white and gold to same people and blue and black to others.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:47 AM on February 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:47 AM on February 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
Why haven't there been similar declarations about the three other objects?
I don't think they know yet. Or the folks who do know don't see any reason to share classified military information with the public.
It's worth noting that the first the Chinese balloon we shot down last week after it crossed the US first became a big deal because it was easily visible from the ground all over the middle of the US, with many images posted by civilians on social media. The embarrassment of that was a major part of the story. These three objects are all reported to be smaller than. And not typical balloon shape. (A cylinder and an octagon). Also at least two were shot down before they crossed heavily populated parts of North America. Easier to keep it secret.
NPR had some good reporting this morning, including this interview with former presidential advisor David Gompert. He put this in an interesting context. He didn't exactly say this but I came away with the impression that historically we tolerate all sorts of odd objects flying in our airspace and don't even notice them. (See also: high school weather projects, random civilian drones, etc.)
posted by Nelson at 9:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I don't think they know yet. Or the folks who do know don't see any reason to share classified military information with the public.
It's worth noting that the first the Chinese balloon we shot down last week after it crossed the US first became a big deal because it was easily visible from the ground all over the middle of the US, with many images posted by civilians on social media. The embarrassment of that was a major part of the story. These three objects are all reported to be smaller than. And not typical balloon shape. (A cylinder and an octagon). Also at least two were shot down before they crossed heavily populated parts of North America. Easier to keep it secret.
NPR had some good reporting this morning, including this interview with former presidential advisor David Gompert. He put this in an interesting context. He didn't exactly say this but I came away with the impression that historically we tolerate all sorts of odd objects flying in our airspace and don't even notice them. (See also: high school weather projects, random civilian drones, etc.)
posted by Nelson at 9:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
You can't hover over one spot indefinitely, but you can hang around for a hell of a lot longer than a satellite pass.
One of the linked articles said they can sometimes dwell for months.
posted by Mitheral at 10:28 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
One of the linked articles said they can sometimes dwell for months.
posted by Mitheral at 10:28 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
It sounds like the official line for now (at least from the Air Force) is that since the first balloon was shot down, NORAD radars (and other sensors presumably) have been operating at increased sensitivity and that explains how these other, (implied smaller?) objects have been detected so much in the past few days.
So I imagine the more of these that are detected, the more likely that they blow up a legit ham radio balloon or some kid's science project.
It is kind of interesting that balloons are suddenly floating around when there is work being done to use high altitude balloons for temporary field communications relays replacing satcoms in the event of anti-satellite attack on US C&C satellite assets
posted by some loser at 11:00 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
So I imagine the more of these that are detected, the more likely that they blow up a legit ham radio balloon or some kid's science project.
It is kind of interesting that balloons are suddenly floating around when there is work being done to use high altitude balloons for temporary field communications relays replacing satcoms in the event of anti-satellite attack on US C&C satellite assets
posted by some loser at 11:00 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Why fire expensive missiles at the balloon? Do modern fighters not have cannon?
In addition to the fact that you have to get close to the object to fire a cannon at it as previously mentioned, there's also the issue that the cannon probably won't take the balloon down. These aren't latex party balloons, remember - they're not just going to pop. Putting a bunch of holes in it means that it might take days for it to come back to earth. Counterintuitively, a missile will take it down in a controlled manner, and you have a better chance of recovering the wreckage for analysis.
calling them UFOs
Because that's what they are! Literally flying and unidentified. We use that term quite a lot when we're doing star sightings and something unexpected is in the picture; there's nothing nefarious or conspiratorial behind it.
Is there not a way to get close enough to give them a good look over before they are shot down?
Honestly, probably not. The higher altitude ones are beyond the service ceiling of most aircraft, military or civilian. And regardless of altitude, they're moving much slower than aircraft are capable at those altitudes. You're approaching "coffin corner" attitudes here where stall speed increases with increasing altitude, so there's not much room to slow down and rubberneck.
why don't they send up a balloon to identify these flying objects?
Yeah, we can say "har har missiles go boom" but there are legitimate reasons for choosing the current path. Launching a properly equipped balloon to overtake something like this takes time, and depending on the weather patterns maybe impossible or impractical. It's not like overtaking someone on the highway. Plus, you have a limited window of time while the object is in US/Canada airspace. And who knows if/what it's transmitting? Lots of valid reasons to put it on the ground quickly and sort the mess out later.
Balloons aren’t exactly stealthy
Couple of points here. First, there's something known as the "big sky theory" and the fact that it's difficult to surveil the airspace without gaps. This has been used effectively before when, for example, a pilot landed in Red Square in Moscow without getting caught (I mean, he got arrested on the ground, but they didn't get him in the air). Also, radar isn't foolproof, and a balloon envelope with little reflectivity may not show up easily on a scope. So maybe the best you can do is hope that someone's got a Mark 1 Eyeball trained at just the right patch of sky to catch a glimpse of it.
Have there been quietly-reported near-hits of commercial airliners with balloons or other objects at the elevations at which these items have been discovered?
I have not heard about that through the aviation channels I listen in on. I will say that at much lower altitudes, I've had several near misses over the past couple of years with drones, (party) balloons, and one time a dude in a powered parachute.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:08 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
In addition to the fact that you have to get close to the object to fire a cannon at it as previously mentioned, there's also the issue that the cannon probably won't take the balloon down. These aren't latex party balloons, remember - they're not just going to pop. Putting a bunch of holes in it means that it might take days for it to come back to earth. Counterintuitively, a missile will take it down in a controlled manner, and you have a better chance of recovering the wreckage for analysis.
calling them UFOs
Because that's what they are! Literally flying and unidentified. We use that term quite a lot when we're doing star sightings and something unexpected is in the picture; there's nothing nefarious or conspiratorial behind it.
Is there not a way to get close enough to give them a good look over before they are shot down?
Honestly, probably not. The higher altitude ones are beyond the service ceiling of most aircraft, military or civilian. And regardless of altitude, they're moving much slower than aircraft are capable at those altitudes. You're approaching "coffin corner" attitudes here where stall speed increases with increasing altitude, so there's not much room to slow down and rubberneck.
why don't they send up a balloon to identify these flying objects?
Yeah, we can say "har har missiles go boom" but there are legitimate reasons for choosing the current path. Launching a properly equipped balloon to overtake something like this takes time, and depending on the weather patterns maybe impossible or impractical. It's not like overtaking someone on the highway. Plus, you have a limited window of time while the object is in US/Canada airspace. And who knows if/what it's transmitting? Lots of valid reasons to put it on the ground quickly and sort the mess out later.
Balloons aren’t exactly stealthy
Couple of points here. First, there's something known as the "big sky theory" and the fact that it's difficult to surveil the airspace without gaps. This has been used effectively before when, for example, a pilot landed in Red Square in Moscow without getting caught (I mean, he got arrested on the ground, but they didn't get him in the air). Also, radar isn't foolproof, and a balloon envelope with little reflectivity may not show up easily on a scope. So maybe the best you can do is hope that someone's got a Mark 1 Eyeball trained at just the right patch of sky to catch a glimpse of it.
Have there been quietly-reported near-hits of commercial airliners with balloons or other objects at the elevations at which these items have been discovered?
I have not heard about that through the aviation channels I listen in on. I will say that at much lower altitudes, I've had several near misses over the past couple of years with drones, (party) balloons, and one time a dude in a powered parachute.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:08 AM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'm choosing to believe that it just latest strain of covid-19 that has mutated into a harmless very large form as a result of exposure to the overly rich readily available junk food like hosting environment we have provided for it. It is airborne after all.
posted by srboisvert at 11:12 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 11:12 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
In 1988 a research balloon went rogue in Canada, and they sent fighter jets to down it using their cannons -- it did not work. The balloon continued on a nine-day driftabout before landing in Finland.
posted by credulous at 11:25 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by credulous at 11:25 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Waiting for the great “shot down balloon wreckage hits Evergreen cargo ship navigating a canal and disrupts global trade” crossover. Bonus points if the balloon’s metallic surface looks white and gold to same people and blue and black to others.
Yeah but is there someone's kid on the balloon or not?
We don't know what kind of cameras were in that balloon. But the military does, I hope.
There is (or was) an optical surveillance program in the US that was basically super high def camera arrays on a long loiter platform like a tethered blimp, balloon, UAV or drone that was effectively designed to monitor entire cities in real time with optical resolutions good enough to read license plates, track vehicles and individual people.
The main idea being not only was it real time and static but you could also go back and look at and analyze movements all over a large city and connect the dots because the entire area is under constant surveillance at resolutions that exceed spy satellites focused on small areas of interest.
I'm pretty sure it's been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And possibly has been quietly used in the US as well.
It would be just the sort of panopticon tool to be able track the movements of dissidents and protesters going about their daily business as well as seeing where they lived and returned to after a protest or demonstration.
I'm assuming every crank and japester on the North American continent is now releasing these things.
Back in the 60s or so my cool, weird uncle used to make his own hydrogen balloons or blimps and float them over Jet Propulsion Laboratories from his childhood home in the La Canada - Flintridge hills above JPL, and they'd have small payloads of aluminum powder or foil strips that were effectively the same thing as anti-RADAR chaff that would be deployed and dropped using a basic CB or amateur radio signal and a solenoid actuator.
Every so often they would see a local newspaper article about a large unidentified object appearing on radar and then mysteriously vanishing, and I remember seeing a couple of these newspaper clippings.
And many years later as an adult of course he ended up working at Lockheed Martin working in aircraft assembly and manufacturing, and then later ended up with some kind of major security clearance doing aerial photography of new, still classified or experimental aircraft.
One of which included the B2 Stealth Bomber. Shortly after the B2 became public and was generally declassified, during one holiday season family gathering he brought a foot-tall stack of large 8x10" photo prints of the B2 and other aircraft in flight that I'm not entirely sure if I should have been seeing yet or not, because it was way, way better detail than anything I'd seen on the news or in print at that point.
I do remember asking a bunch of questions about some unusual visible [redacted] features on the surface of the B2 that I guessed that might be for some kind of [redacted] purpose and he just smiled and said something like "Hey, that's a really good question and guess but I can't talk about that" but was obviously pleased by my leaps of intuition and knowledge of modern warfare even though he had to do the "I can neither confirm nor deny" song and dance of those kinds of people with security clearances.
But I distinctly remember during that family holiday visit he said "Yeah, you're probably going to see some shit in the skies in the next 20 years that you wish was just science fiction! Watch the skies!" and refused to say anything more.
Between stuff Starlink launches and satellite trains, the recent incident with lasers appearing to beam down from space over Hawaii, ongoing incidents and reports of UAP/UFOs and ongoing attempts at disclosure as well as the current state of modern asymmetrical warfare - and, well, now these balloons - he's been right about that.
Something to remember is that the UFO phenomenon was definitely used as a cover story by the US to fog up and fuzz and otherwise discredit the issue of sightings of advanced research aircraft programs like Oxcart and the A-12 and SR-71, which a lot of people don't realize was flying and operational as early as the late 1950s to very early 1960s.
Considering that history and timeline I'm not going to be at all surprised to learn that the US has long had aircraft that don't even resemble what we know as aircraft or conventional aircraft propulsion systems or flight characteristics.
On the much more fantastic side of things I'm also not going to be at all shocked or surprised if extraterrestrial or extradimensional UAP/UFOs have been a thing all this time or that all of these things are related. And I don't automatically mean interstellar travelers or anything that breaks General or Special Relativity. If anything time travel or interdimensional travel or projections are equally (if also very remotely) plausible due to energy and time constraints and Relativity.
Watch the skies. Shit's going to get real weird.
posted by loquacious at 11:35 AM on February 13, 2023 [18 favorites]
Yeah but is there someone's kid on the balloon or not?
We don't know what kind of cameras were in that balloon. But the military does, I hope.
There is (or was) an optical surveillance program in the US that was basically super high def camera arrays on a long loiter platform like a tethered blimp, balloon, UAV or drone that was effectively designed to monitor entire cities in real time with optical resolutions good enough to read license plates, track vehicles and individual people.
The main idea being not only was it real time and static but you could also go back and look at and analyze movements all over a large city and connect the dots because the entire area is under constant surveillance at resolutions that exceed spy satellites focused on small areas of interest.
I'm pretty sure it's been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And possibly has been quietly used in the US as well.
It would be just the sort of panopticon tool to be able track the movements of dissidents and protesters going about their daily business as well as seeing where they lived and returned to after a protest or demonstration.
I'm assuming every crank and japester on the North American continent is now releasing these things.
Back in the 60s or so my cool, weird uncle used to make his own hydrogen balloons or blimps and float them over Jet Propulsion Laboratories from his childhood home in the La Canada - Flintridge hills above JPL, and they'd have small payloads of aluminum powder or foil strips that were effectively the same thing as anti-RADAR chaff that would be deployed and dropped using a basic CB or amateur radio signal and a solenoid actuator.
Every so often they would see a local newspaper article about a large unidentified object appearing on radar and then mysteriously vanishing, and I remember seeing a couple of these newspaper clippings.
And many years later as an adult of course he ended up working at Lockheed Martin working in aircraft assembly and manufacturing, and then later ended up with some kind of major security clearance doing aerial photography of new, still classified or experimental aircraft.
One of which included the B2 Stealth Bomber. Shortly after the B2 became public and was generally declassified, during one holiday season family gathering he brought a foot-tall stack of large 8x10" photo prints of the B2 and other aircraft in flight that I'm not entirely sure if I should have been seeing yet or not, because it was way, way better detail than anything I'd seen on the news or in print at that point.
I do remember asking a bunch of questions about some unusual visible [redacted] features on the surface of the B2 that I guessed that might be for some kind of [redacted] purpose and he just smiled and said something like "Hey, that's a really good question and guess but I can't talk about that" but was obviously pleased by my leaps of intuition and knowledge of modern warfare even though he had to do the "I can neither confirm nor deny" song and dance of those kinds of people with security clearances.
But I distinctly remember during that family holiday visit he said "Yeah, you're probably going to see some shit in the skies in the next 20 years that you wish was just science fiction! Watch the skies!" and refused to say anything more.
Between stuff Starlink launches and satellite trains, the recent incident with lasers appearing to beam down from space over Hawaii, ongoing incidents and reports of UAP/UFOs and ongoing attempts at disclosure as well as the current state of modern asymmetrical warfare - and, well, now these balloons - he's been right about that.
Something to remember is that the UFO phenomenon was definitely used as a cover story by the US to fog up and fuzz and otherwise discredit the issue of sightings of advanced research aircraft programs like Oxcart and the A-12 and SR-71, which a lot of people don't realize was flying and operational as early as the late 1950s to very early 1960s.
Considering that history and timeline I'm not going to be at all surprised to learn that the US has long had aircraft that don't even resemble what we know as aircraft or conventional aircraft propulsion systems or flight characteristics.
On the much more fantastic side of things I'm also not going to be at all shocked or surprised if extraterrestrial or extradimensional UAP/UFOs have been a thing all this time or that all of these things are related. And I don't automatically mean interstellar travelers or anything that breaks General or Special Relativity. If anything time travel or interdimensional travel or projections are equally (if also very remotely) plausible due to energy and time constraints and Relativity.
Watch the skies. Shit's going to get real weird.
posted by loquacious at 11:35 AM on February 13, 2023 [18 favorites]
In 1988 a research balloon went rogue in Canada, and they sent fighter jets to down it using their cannons -- it did not work. The balloon continued on a nine-day driftabout before landing in Finland.
This sounds like a fantastic movie plot, can you get a spec treatment done by COB today?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:36 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
This sounds like a fantastic movie plot, can you get a spec treatment done by COB today?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:36 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I am primarily known here for the scabrous portraits I do of scabrous people. But I do draw other things. One of those things are strange organic shapes that seem to hover very mildly.
I refer to them as Weather Balloons for want of a better term.
Here's an older piece that seems oddly appropriate for The Great Balloon War of 2023.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 11:37 AM on February 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
I refer to them as Weather Balloons for want of a better term.
Here's an older piece that seems oddly appropriate for The Great Balloon War of 2023.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 11:37 AM on February 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
This sounds like a fantastic movie plot, can you get a spec treatment done by COB today?
At a risk of being gauche, I will repeat something I posted elsewhere. In '98, I was working down the hall from the atmospheric physics group at U. Toronto. Most of this is from a talk the P.I. gave later, which was the most memorable colloquium I ever attended. They were measuring gasses in the upper atmosphere with a weather balloon over the Saskatchewan when they lost control.
There was 3 independent mechanisms for lowering the balloon, all of which failed. The balloon ended up drifting (quickly) eastward and (slowly) downward. By the time it had reached the east coast, it had descended to the altitude of commercial air traffic. So the Royal Canadian Air Force sent up a couple of fighter jets. I was told that since the balloon was very large and not pressurized, shooting holes in it would be ineffective. So the jets tried to shoot the cable connecting the gondola and balloon. They failed and were much mocked in the tabloid press, especially the UK press. The balloon then continue drifting across the Atlantic, casually disrupting commercial air traffic. When it reached UK air space, the Royal Air Force also sent up a couple of jets and also failed in shooting it down. The UK press was subdued on this point.
The balloon continued drifting eastward and downward until it went below commercial air traffic. At this point, everyone ignored it except for the Canadian physicists who wanted their equipment back and were afraid that they would never see it again if it went into Russian airspace. The balloon ended up landing at the last possible moment in a farmer's field on an island off the coast of Finland. Apparently, the jolt of landing finally allowed the mechanism to separate the gondola and balloon to activate. The physicists eventually got their equipment back, complete with bullet holes.
posted by Prof. Danger at 11:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
At a risk of being gauche, I will repeat something I posted elsewhere. In '98, I was working down the hall from the atmospheric physics group at U. Toronto. Most of this is from a talk the P.I. gave later, which was the most memorable colloquium I ever attended. They were measuring gasses in the upper atmosphere with a weather balloon over the Saskatchewan when they lost control.
There was 3 independent mechanisms for lowering the balloon, all of which failed. The balloon ended up drifting (quickly) eastward and (slowly) downward. By the time it had reached the east coast, it had descended to the altitude of commercial air traffic. So the Royal Canadian Air Force sent up a couple of fighter jets. I was told that since the balloon was very large and not pressurized, shooting holes in it would be ineffective. So the jets tried to shoot the cable connecting the gondola and balloon. They failed and were much mocked in the tabloid press, especially the UK press. The balloon then continue drifting across the Atlantic, casually disrupting commercial air traffic. When it reached UK air space, the Royal Air Force also sent up a couple of jets and also failed in shooting it down. The UK press was subdued on this point.
The balloon continued drifting eastward and downward until it went below commercial air traffic. At this point, everyone ignored it except for the Canadian physicists who wanted their equipment back and were afraid that they would never see it again if it went into Russian airspace. The balloon ended up landing at the last possible moment in a farmer's field on an island off the coast of Finland. Apparently, the jolt of landing finally allowed the mechanism to separate the gondola and balloon to activate. The physicists eventually got their equipment back, complete with bullet holes.
posted by Prof. Danger at 11:48 AM on February 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
Watch the skies. Shit's going to get real weird.
“Going to”? Damn!
posted by TedW at 11:56 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
“Going to”? Damn!
posted by TedW at 11:56 AM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
"I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens, with respect to these craft. Period. I don't think there's any more than needs to be said there." - John KIrby, White House National Security Council.
(That's not actually saying there are/were no aliens. Just that there's no need to worry about [redacted], and no further comment is necessary. Hmmm.)
@flyersjunkie: Tonight on Fox News: Biden’s Extraterrestrial Border Crisis.
posted by Wordshore at 12:08 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
(That's not actually saying there are/were no aliens. Just that there's no need to worry about [redacted], and no further comment is necessary. Hmmm.)
@flyersjunkie: Tonight on Fox News: Biden’s Extraterrestrial Border Crisis.
posted by Wordshore at 12:08 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
> There is (or was) an optical surveillance program in the US that was basically super high def camera arrays on a long loiter platform like a tethered blimp, balloon, UAV or drone that was effectively designed to monitor entire cities in real time with optical resolutions good enough to read license plates, track vehicles and individual people.
GORGON STARE and/or ARGUS-IS?
posted by genpfault at 12:12 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
GORGON STARE and/or ARGUS-IS?
posted by genpfault at 12:12 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
This sounds like a fantastic movie plot, can you get a spec treatment done by COB today?
Imaging a movie where only WWII vintage panes can take out one of these objects out as they are the only fighter planes that are slow enough to really see the near stationary target and engage them with cannons (hand waving about the objects being too small for missile lock and being modern radar avoidant etc.). I mean the P38 Lightning can hit 40,000 feet (and would pair nicely with a modern F-35 Lightning II for contrast). Something something Clint Eastwood, something something redemption for a failed raid in the war, something something the twist is when the balloons start fighting back. Tentatively titled Inflation of Fear
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:24 PM on February 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
Imaging a movie where only WWII vintage panes can take out one of these objects out as they are the only fighter planes that are slow enough to really see the near stationary target and engage them with cannons (hand waving about the objects being too small for missile lock and being modern radar avoidant etc.). I mean the P38 Lightning can hit 40,000 feet (and would pair nicely with a modern F-35 Lightning II for contrast). Something something Clint Eastwood, something something redemption for a failed raid in the war, something something the twist is when the balloons start fighting back. Tentatively titled Inflation of Fear
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:24 PM on February 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
There is (or was) an optical surveillance program in the US that was basically super high def camera arrays on a long loiter platform like a tethered blimp, balloon, UAV or drone that was effectively designed to monitor entire cities in real time with optical resolutions good enough to read license plates, track vehicles and individual people.
I'm pretty sure it's been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And possibly has been quietly used in the US as well.--Kadin2048
Not so quietly. The US has used tethered blimps along the south Florida coast to monitor drug trafficking for decades.
posted by eye of newt at 12:24 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty sure it's been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And possibly has been quietly used in the US as well.--Kadin2048
Not so quietly. The US has used tethered blimps along the south Florida coast to monitor drug trafficking for decades.
posted by eye of newt at 12:24 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Clearly we need to commission a fleet of high-altitude Zeppelins to deal with the Balloon Crisis.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:32 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:32 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Clearly we need to commission a fleet of high-altitude Zeppelins to deal with the Balloon Crisis.
It is a pity that the Airlander 10 - which was originally developed as a surveillance aircraft for the US army’s Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle programme - is no longer flying. Just for the calls the military would receive from people seeing it booty its way across the sky.
posted by Wordshore at 12:37 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
It is a pity that the Airlander 10 - which was originally developed as a surveillance aircraft for the US army’s Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle programme - is no longer flying. Just for the calls the military would receive from people seeing it booty its way across the sky.
posted by Wordshore at 12:37 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh - could they rebuild the Moffett Field hangers for those Zeppelins? I’m here for that. And clearly they need little biplanes that can launched from beneath them with wing walkers who will attempt to snare the objects
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:42 PM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:42 PM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
GORGON STARE and/or ARGUS-IS?
Right, Gorgon Stare is the real one, Scorpion Stare is the fake one.
I do so dislike that this timeline confuses me about what's real and what's from one of Charlie Stross's dystopian worlds.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:48 PM on February 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
Right, Gorgon Stare is the real one, Scorpion Stare is the fake one.
I do so dislike that this timeline confuses me about what's real and what's from one of Charlie Stross's dystopian worlds.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:48 PM on February 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
Looks at Airlander scale model:
What is this? A dirigible for ants? How are they supposed to fly when they can’t fit inside?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
What is this? A dirigible for ants? How are they supposed to fly when they can’t fit inside?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
"in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring...."
no, no.
I have downed
the balloons
that were in
the air
and which
you were probably
saving
for weather
Forgive me
they were pernicious
so sweet
and so told.
posted by clavdivs at 2:18 PM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring...."
no, no.
I have downed
the balloons
that were in
the air
and which
you were probably
saving
for weather
Forgive me
they were pernicious
so sweet
and so told.
posted by clavdivs at 2:18 PM on February 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Interesting, quick read: Here's why mysterious flying objects are suddenly popping up all over the place, according to the general leading the commands shooting them down
Short answer: after the first one, they tweaked their radar settings to look for smaller, slower objects, so they wouldn't sneak by.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:38 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Short answer: after the first one, they tweaked their radar settings to look for smaller, slower objects, so they wouldn't sneak by.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:38 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
mr president we must fill the balloon gap NOW!!
posted by pyramid termite at 2:39 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 2:39 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I also feel kind of bad for people in Ohio whose environmental disaster is getting swamped by this in the current news cycle...
Yeah, I didn't used to go in for conspiracy theories but...isn't it interesting how shooting down objects in the sky is dominating the news when There were more toxic chemicals on train that derailed in Ohio than originally reported, data shows
posted by hydropsyche at 2:43 PM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Yeah, I didn't used to go in for conspiracy theories but...isn't it interesting how shooting down objects in the sky is dominating the news when There were more toxic chemicals on train that derailed in Ohio than originally reported, data shows
posted by hydropsyche at 2:43 PM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
"I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens, with respect to these craft. Period. I don't think there's any more than needs to be said there." - John KIrby, White House National Security Council.
STOP DISAPPOINTING ME WITH BRUTAL REALITY ALREADY!!!!!
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:53 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
STOP DISAPPOINTING ME WITH BRUTAL REALITY ALREADY!!!!!
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:53 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
“This business will get out of control. It’ll get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.”
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:05 PM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:05 PM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
iirc (from playing 'Red Baron' as a child) that there were special incendiary anti-balloon rounds. A quick google suggests the .303 Buckingham was a British munition with elemental phosphorus in the tip - after firing, the protective lead solder would melt exposing the phosphorous to air, which then combusts.
It was useful as balloons then were hydrogen-filled. These rounds would be not much better than a non-incendiary munitions as balloons tend to be helium-filled these days.
posted by porpoise at 3:08 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
It was useful as balloons then were hydrogen-filled. These rounds would be not much better than a non-incendiary munitions as balloons tend to be helium-filled these days.
posted by porpoise at 3:08 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is there really not yet a reference to this fine book?
Clearly, they are vegetables, y'all.
posted by lab.beetle at 3:15 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Clearly, they are vegetables, y'all.
posted by lab.beetle at 3:15 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I haven't seen any offerings of the airstreams to move these floaters seemingly over the north pole area. Not familiar with it, but find the absence of this odd.
posted by Goofyy at 3:45 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Goofyy at 3:45 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
My script for Cocaine Bear 2: Siberian Surprise is a work in progress but I think it's going to be fire!
The Russian mafia are trying to smuggle their new super formulated cocaine into the US. Subject to strict embargoes that prevent hiding the cocaine on ships, they hatch a plan to use high altitude balloons. To protect the parcels, they are using specially trained Kamchatka Bears (insert a back story about soviet KGB training program for bears) as ballast/guards for when the balloons land. One of the bears goes off course and, running out of food, eats the cocaine package....before eventually landing in....the South Dakota Governors' Mansion at night. Can the Governor survive the night, or will the Bear find love and acceptance (and even more Cocaine!) in an unexpected place?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:59 PM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
The Russian mafia are trying to smuggle their new super formulated cocaine into the US. Subject to strict embargoes that prevent hiding the cocaine on ships, they hatch a plan to use high altitude balloons. To protect the parcels, they are using specially trained Kamchatka Bears (insert a back story about soviet KGB training program for bears) as ballast/guards for when the balloons land. One of the bears goes off course and, running out of food, eats the cocaine package....before eventually landing in....the South Dakota Governors' Mansion at night. Can the Governor survive the night, or will the Bear find love and acceptance (and even more Cocaine!) in an unexpected place?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:59 PM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Frankly, I agree with Weird Al Yankovic that, when it comes to balloons, there are far more... terrestrial concerns.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:16 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:16 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I get the sneaky suspicion that both sides are laughing for the first time in years.
posted by clavdivs at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 5:29 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I can hear right this second that the 148th is on standby. There is a constant drone while they wait to be called up to the sky. It's the most excitement they've had in years. I have a hard time taking it all that seriously. But then, that's probably what they said at the beginning of X war.
posted by RedEmma at 6:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by RedEmma at 6:54 PM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I guess it's good they aren't aliens since I don't want our reflexive response to aliens to be... killing them?
But I guess if someone some alien did drop by and didn't know how to communicate "hi, I'm not a threat," the first response is to shoot their craft down.
Which also isn't great?
But since this is all probably spy stuff I guess it doesn't matter?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:40 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
But I guess if someone some alien did drop by and didn't know how to communicate "hi, I'm not a threat," the first response is to shoot their craft down.
Which also isn't great?
But since this is all probably spy stuff I guess it doesn't matter?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:40 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
The US has used tethered blimps along the south Florida coast to monitor drug trafficking for decades.
The technical term is "aerostat", a word I only know because of that time the very expensive one that you could see from the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis went on walkabout and eventually got shot up by some local police in Pennsylvania.
It was part of a now-cancelled Army program called JLENS, related to inbound strategic cruise missile (i.e. nuclear standoff missile) detection. Apparently the low altitude (relative to a satellite) was necessary to get the right angle to detect cruise missiles in particular. However this really only makes sense in a static, defensive role, so it doesn't shed much light on the Chinese (and/or whoever) balloon situation.
The best explanation I have heard so far, is that at least some parts of the US defense apparatus were probably aware of the Chinese balloons, and decided that they weren't something worth expending missiles on. Maybe they were able to jam or lase their sensors when over sensitive locations, or maybe they just shut the doors of the flying-saucer factories when they were flying over. Either way, the situation become untenable when the payload got big enough for people to literally see from the ground. (Bad form, that.) Now, mainly for political reasons (so the Republicans can't make hay from it), stuff that might have been ignored or used for more subtle intelligence-falsification purposes is getting shot down.
Seems plausible to me, anyway.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:17 PM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
The technical term is "aerostat", a word I only know because of that time the very expensive one that you could see from the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis went on walkabout and eventually got shot up by some local police in Pennsylvania.
It was part of a now-cancelled Army program called JLENS, related to inbound strategic cruise missile (i.e. nuclear standoff missile) detection. Apparently the low altitude (relative to a satellite) was necessary to get the right angle to detect cruise missiles in particular. However this really only makes sense in a static, defensive role, so it doesn't shed much light on the Chinese (and/or whoever) balloon situation.
The best explanation I have heard so far, is that at least some parts of the US defense apparatus were probably aware of the Chinese balloons, and decided that they weren't something worth expending missiles on. Maybe they were able to jam or lase their sensors when over sensitive locations, or maybe they just shut the doors of the flying-saucer factories when they were flying over. Either way, the situation become untenable when the payload got big enough for people to literally see from the ground. (Bad form, that.) Now, mainly for political reasons (so the Republicans can't make hay from it), stuff that might have been ignored or used for more subtle intelligence-falsification purposes is getting shot down.
Seems plausible to me, anyway.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:17 PM on February 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I guess it's good they aren't aliens since I don't want our reflexive response to aliens to be... killing them?
Well, if it was actually interstellar aliens capable of that kind of travel I hope everyone is very reassured that they could easily sterilize if not completely vaporize every planet, asteroid and grain of sand in our entire solar system, because there's not really any such thing as an interstellar spacecraft that isn't also a very effective directed energy weapon.
Because you just don't get interstellar amounts of energy and thrust without also having enough concentrated energy on hand to flambe at least a few planets like s'mores marshmallows.
Even theoretical spacetime and gravity warping drives like the Alcubierre Drive imply energy levels and scales along the lines of being able create and manipulate black holes with masses on the order of a brown dwarf (or dozens of them) and otherwise truly appalling amounts of energy or mass or both at their disposal.
Which is to say if aliens do show up and we manage to shoot them out of the sky with a sixty seven year old (!!) AIM-9 Sidewinder missile or even a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead...
...well, they were either remarkably stupid and silly aliens, or they weren't interstellar traveling aliens at all, or something went horribly wrong.
Or maybe we just shot down one of their own weather balloons.
posted by loquacious at 8:27 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, if it was actually interstellar aliens capable of that kind of travel I hope everyone is very reassured that they could easily sterilize if not completely vaporize every planet, asteroid and grain of sand in our entire solar system, because there's not really any such thing as an interstellar spacecraft that isn't also a very effective directed energy weapon.
Because you just don't get interstellar amounts of energy and thrust without also having enough concentrated energy on hand to flambe at least a few planets like s'mores marshmallows.
Even theoretical spacetime and gravity warping drives like the Alcubierre Drive imply energy levels and scales along the lines of being able create and manipulate black holes with masses on the order of a brown dwarf (or dozens of them) and otherwise truly appalling amounts of energy or mass or both at their disposal.
Which is to say if aliens do show up and we manage to shoot them out of the sky with a sixty seven year old (!!) AIM-9 Sidewinder missile or even a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead...
...well, they were either remarkably stupid and silly aliens, or they weren't interstellar traveling aliens at all, or something went horribly wrong.
Or maybe we just shot down one of their own weather balloons.
posted by loquacious at 8:27 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
As a civilian looking at the remains, I'm suspecting that there might have been a bit more finesse than the operations have been given credit for. There's actually stuff to recover. Targeting just the balloon (and only just enough so the remains can act like a parachute) to recover the payload is a win.
Smithereens is cool, but unhelpful.
posted by porpoise at 9:56 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Smithereens is cool, but unhelpful.
posted by porpoise at 9:56 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
> A mylar balloon envelope might actually be a hard target for a laser. Metallized foil is pretty reflective, and if the balloon is spinning in the wind it could distribute the energy by moving under the beam. Also I think there are only a couple of airborne lasers and they're all test setups run by the missile defense and research agencies.
all the better to pop the popcorn! :P
posted by kliuless at 10:23 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
all the better to pop the popcorn! :P
posted by kliuless at 10:23 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Short answer: after the first one, they tweaked their radar settings to look for smaller, slower objects, so they wouldn't sneak by.
As the Washington Post put it, “‘We basically opened the filters,’ the official said, much like a car buyer unchecking boxes on a website to broaden the parameters of what can be searched.“
posted by bendy at 1:03 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
As the Washington Post put it, “‘We basically opened the filters,’ the official said, much like a car buyer unchecking boxes on a website to broaden the parameters of what can be searched.“
posted by bendy at 1:03 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Which is to say if aliens do show up and we manage to shoot them out of the sky with a sixty seven year old (!!) AIM-9 Sidewinder missile or even a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead...
...well, they were either remarkably stupid and silly aliens, or they weren't interstellar traveling aliens at all, or something went horribly wrong.
Or they're just not as cynical and warlike as us, and don't plan for unprovoked aggression.
posted by Dysk at 4:34 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
...well, they were either remarkably stupid and silly aliens, or they weren't interstellar traveling aliens at all, or something went horribly wrong.
Or they're just not as cynical and warlike as us, and don't plan for unprovoked aggression.
posted by Dysk at 4:34 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Or they're just not as cynical and warlike as us, and don't plan for unprovoked aggression.“Exiting warp in 5 minutes! Time to see if the humans have matured enough to join the galactic federation!”
posted by adamsc at 5:20 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Or they're just not as cynical and warlike as us, and don't plan for unprovoked aggression.
This is a nice thought but if a species was capable of interstellar flight they probably know what war is and that they should be careful about contacting new species and just showing up in their skies.
The other part of it is that the mastery of energy use and density needed for interstellar travel is so high that detecting, taking out, eliminating or otherwise dealing with a chemical rocket in flight should be trivial to them.
This isn't even about cynicism or war or violence. The energy scales needed are really just so vast that if you managed to survive crossing dozens or thousands of light years to intentionally visit a new star system and planet only to arrive and get taken out by a rocket would be really and truly silly.
Because to get here moving at any useful fraction of the speed of light also means they just spent all that time either actively defending against debris smaller than grains of sand or simply absorbing the kinetic impact energy through sheer engineering and bulk at relative velocities so large that every grain of sand and flake of dust had more potential kinetic energy that it would be equal to large nuclear warheads or even entire planetary arsenals because that's just how e=mc2 works.
It would be like flying somewhere in a 747, A380 or C17 and then blowing up on arrival because someone launched a bottle rocket at a giant aircraft, or ran into a moth or fly.
It should barely even notice someone aimed a bottle rocket at it or that it collided with a small moth or fly *at all*.
Because it just spent however much time dealing with things involving kinetic impact energy levels so ridiculously high that getting taken out by a chemically powered, conventional explosive air to air missile would be just as silly as a human going for a walk through their kitchen and exploding because they ran into a fruit fly.
posted by loquacious at 6:28 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is a nice thought but if a species was capable of interstellar flight they probably know what war is and that they should be careful about contacting new species and just showing up in their skies.
The other part of it is that the mastery of energy use and density needed for interstellar travel is so high that detecting, taking out, eliminating or otherwise dealing with a chemical rocket in flight should be trivial to them.
This isn't even about cynicism or war or violence. The energy scales needed are really just so vast that if you managed to survive crossing dozens or thousands of light years to intentionally visit a new star system and planet only to arrive and get taken out by a rocket would be really and truly silly.
Because to get here moving at any useful fraction of the speed of light also means they just spent all that time either actively defending against debris smaller than grains of sand or simply absorbing the kinetic impact energy through sheer engineering and bulk at relative velocities so large that every grain of sand and flake of dust had more potential kinetic energy that it would be equal to large nuclear warheads or even entire planetary arsenals because that's just how e=mc2 works.
It would be like flying somewhere in a 747, A380 or C17 and then blowing up on arrival because someone launched a bottle rocket at a giant aircraft, or ran into a moth or fly.
It should barely even notice someone aimed a bottle rocket at it or that it collided with a small moth or fly *at all*.
Because it just spent however much time dealing with things involving kinetic impact energy levels so ridiculously high that getting taken out by a chemically powered, conventional explosive air to air missile would be just as silly as a human going for a walk through their kitchen and exploding because they ran into a fruit fly.
posted by loquacious at 6:28 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Sounds like something an advance scout from an interstellar species would post on a small discussion forum, just to distract us.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:36 AM on February 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:36 AM on February 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
"“At any given moment, thousands of balloons” are above the Earth" (NYTimes).
My buddy makes and sells GPS/APRS trackers. He originally developed them for hobby rocketeers, but sells a tons of them to folks who put up unmanned balloons. Some people buy dozens of them at a time.
posted by neuron at 8:33 AM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
My buddy makes and sells GPS/APRS trackers. He originally developed them for hobby rocketeers, but sells a tons of them to folks who put up unmanned balloons. Some people buy dozens of them at a time.
posted by neuron at 8:33 AM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am sadly absolutely convinced that if aliens show up, we will nuke them. Maybe not so much under Biden than under Trump, but overall I think trying to kill them would be the default reflex action. Hell, we can't even deal with our own species having slightly different skin colors--we're not gonna cope with tentacles.
(I wanna root for aliens, but ethically you can't, because of this....)
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:06 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
(I wanna root for aliens, but ethically you can't, because of this....)
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:06 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
as silly as a human going for a walk through their kitchen and exploding because they ran into a fruit fly.
I mean they fly right at your FACE!
posted by mittens at 9:28 AM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I mean they fly right at your FACE!
posted by mittens at 9:28 AM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
“At any given moment, thousands of balloons” are above the Earth" (NYTimes).
My buddy makes and sells GPS/APRS trackers. He originally developed them for hobby rocketeers, but sells a tons of them to folks who put up unmanned balloons. Some people buy dozens of them at a time.
This is exactly why I said this feels like a panic. They're being cautious and shooting down balloons near restricted airspace. But it does not correlate that those balloons were a threat, or were anything more than air garbage, which is how it seems to be interpreted.
posted by muddgirl at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
My buddy makes and sells GPS/APRS trackers. He originally developed them for hobby rocketeers, but sells a tons of them to folks who put up unmanned balloons. Some people buy dozens of them at a time.
This is exactly why I said this feels like a panic. They're being cautious and shooting down balloons near restricted airspace. But it does not correlate that those balloons were a threat, or were anything more than air garbage, which is how it seems to be interpreted.
posted by muddgirl at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yous are all assuming that aliens know and think like us at all, which is not a given. They might not dodge an incoming rocket because it looks nothing like the objects you're dodging in interstellar space. They might not dodge it because they think it's a message. Because their sensors don't work well in thick atmosphere. Etc, etc. Because the concept of "dodging" and "travel" is alien (and they got here by folding spacetime out some shit). Like, there are a million and one ways they could not be similar or recognisable to us in a way that undermines the assumptions about what capabilities they must have rely on.
posted by Dysk at 11:41 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 11:41 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Because it just spent however much time dealing with things involving kinetic impact energy levels so ridiculously high that getting taken out by a chemically powered, conventional explosive air to air missile would be just as silly as a human going for a walk through their kitchen and exploding because they ran into a fruit fly.
A (hypothetical) self-driving Tesla spends all day dodging multiton explosive powered death machines. It can still be felled by a well-placed tack in a parking space.
posted by Dysk at 11:43 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
A (hypothetical) self-driving Tesla spends all day dodging multiton explosive powered death machines. It can still be felled by a well-placed tack in a parking space.
posted by Dysk at 11:43 AM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
If a given intelligence somehow managed to learn enough about the universe to travel interstellar distances by any means whether it's reactionary propulsion or folding space time and they somehow missed the part of the universal cosmological classroom about concepts like kinetic energy and collision avoidance, well, that would probably fit under the concept and yardstick I'm proposing of "very silly aliens", no matter how peaceful or warmongering they are or how differently they think about things.
Extending the metaphor and paralleling your Tesla analogy, it would be more like if I learned how to ride a bicycle but failed to also learn that gravity exists and it hurts if I fall down... or rode my bike right off a cliff. Especially when the knowledge and use of of gravity is effectively essential to learn how to ride a bicycle.
Sure, random flukes and accidents happen. Sure, different ways of thinking about things like war definitely exist.
But it's a pretty safe bet to assume that a species capable of interstellar travel by any means has achieved a knowledge of the universe and mastery of energy levels so large and vast that they would have intimate knowledge that any vehicle is also potentially a weapon, or has physical limitations and weaknesses that need mitigating, or that large amounts of energy are also potentially destructive if misapplied or not well mastered.
It would be extremely unlikely - really silly if you will - that any intelligent species that learned enough about the physical laws of the local universe to achieve interstellar (or interdimensional, or whatever) travel and yet somehow skipped right over some really basic, universal and fundamental lessons about how the universe works, how dangerous and high energy high velocities are and other basic physics.
We can even apply this to some really wild ideas about extraterrestrial life, like the far out idea that mushrooms engage in panspermia and are actually intrasolar or interstellar travelers borne on solar winds, and, well, if they are they've evolved some tactics that work for them, like the hardiness of spores or the sheer number of them being released and how easily mushrooms reproduce.
And if they are visiting us on a mission of peace and exploration to look for intelligent life, well, they've probably thought about being shot at and how to peacefully deal with that.
And if they're some kind of totally alien warfaring hive mind that thinks differently than us and they're here to exploit us, our planet or simply want to eradicate us like an infection it's not really going to matter if we shoot first or not because they're going to do it anyway and there's probably very little we can do to stop them.
It doesn't really matter if they have different ways of thinking or not because they would effectively be - at a minimum - functionally Karashev scale Type I to Type II+ gods to us, and they would have had to learn the same basic, fundamental rules and laws of physics that we're learning right now to get to that point.
Those laws and rules of physics needed to master the amount of energy required for interstellar flight are agnostic and uncaring about philosophies, logic or different modes of thought.
Sure, maybe everything we know about the universe is wrong, the speed of light and special or general relativity isn't the constant we think it is, atomic hydrogen doesn't have a specific universal constant and atomic resonance of 1,420,405,752 hz.
But we don't have any evidence that those constants aren't constants and if we discard that then, sure, we could suppose and imagine all kinds of things but now we're just playing Pathfinder, GURPS or RIFTS with less rules.
And this is something that most science fiction usually gets totally wrong about interstellar space travel, space warfare and ships in general, even relatively plausible hard-ish SF like the Expanse, where the author readily admits that the drive systems they use are fictional magic.
If you have a drive capable of doing what the ships in the Expanse can do, carrying around the extra mass of point defense chain gun autocannons with kinetic projectile weapons or rail guns is just silly. If you have that kind of massless or low mass Delta V your whole ship and drive system is effectively a directed energy weapon. You'd just aim the business end your ship at your enemy and try to blast it out of the sky while accelerating away from it at the same time like a squid squirting defensive ink.
And let's imagine if they had a craft that could fold space time or do dimensional jumping? They could also plausibly just jump out of the way of anything coming at them, or fold the space they're in to make them go somewhere else. Because the same physics and energy levels they're using to make whatever that is happen can easily be re-purposed into offensive or defensive weapons.
And if anything, any species that's capable of interdimensional travel or spacetime folding or manipulating gravity or inertia is even more immune to whatever primitive weapons we could throw at them because it logically implies that not only are they capable of manipulating time and space itself but they can do it with such alarming accuracy that they can arrive in the atmospheric envelope of our tiny little planet over some vast, empty spaces even though our planet is moving through space and time along many different vectors ranging from rotation, to its orbit around the sun, and the spiraling wobble of our entire solar system swept along by galactic tides, the relative vector and velocity of our galaxy in its cluster of galaxies in it's thread of superclusters, and even accounting for the relativistic velocities of the expansion of space and time itself, because they're going to need a lot more points of reference of not just where but when to get there than simply "Oh, 60,000 feet somewhere above Alaska!" like the planet Earth is holding still and it isn't wobbling around drunkenly through an empty sea of nothingness.
I'm not saying it's a good thing that we could be randomly shooting at UAPs or other "extraterrestrial" phenomenon at all.
I'm just pointing out that if UAP are interstellar extraterrestrials then the chances are really good that they have such a deep mastery of both basic and high energy physics and the basic concepts of kinetic or explosive weapons that they wouldn't likely to be vulnerable to whatever we could throw at them, and, moreover, they would think it was amusingly primitive after all they had been through to get there because the energy levels and math needed for interstellar travel of any kind is really and truly that appalling and absolutely implies certain things about their capabilities, and those capabilities aren't defined by philosophies but by the laws of physics themselves.
Apologies if anyone out there has the sudden urge to go get a drink and a snack. I've been watching way, way too many videos from Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur who gets really deep into all of this, including in depth explorations of extraterrestrial intelligence and the physics of space travel of all kinds.
posted by loquacious at 2:41 PM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Extending the metaphor and paralleling your Tesla analogy, it would be more like if I learned how to ride a bicycle but failed to also learn that gravity exists and it hurts if I fall down... or rode my bike right off a cliff. Especially when the knowledge and use of of gravity is effectively essential to learn how to ride a bicycle.
Sure, random flukes and accidents happen. Sure, different ways of thinking about things like war definitely exist.
But it's a pretty safe bet to assume that a species capable of interstellar travel by any means has achieved a knowledge of the universe and mastery of energy levels so large and vast that they would have intimate knowledge that any vehicle is also potentially a weapon, or has physical limitations and weaknesses that need mitigating, or that large amounts of energy are also potentially destructive if misapplied or not well mastered.
It would be extremely unlikely - really silly if you will - that any intelligent species that learned enough about the physical laws of the local universe to achieve interstellar (or interdimensional, or whatever) travel and yet somehow skipped right over some really basic, universal and fundamental lessons about how the universe works, how dangerous and high energy high velocities are and other basic physics.
We can even apply this to some really wild ideas about extraterrestrial life, like the far out idea that mushrooms engage in panspermia and are actually intrasolar or interstellar travelers borne on solar winds, and, well, if they are they've evolved some tactics that work for them, like the hardiness of spores or the sheer number of them being released and how easily mushrooms reproduce.
And if they are visiting us on a mission of peace and exploration to look for intelligent life, well, they've probably thought about being shot at and how to peacefully deal with that.
And if they're some kind of totally alien warfaring hive mind that thinks differently than us and they're here to exploit us, our planet or simply want to eradicate us like an infection it's not really going to matter if we shoot first or not because they're going to do it anyway and there's probably very little we can do to stop them.
It doesn't really matter if they have different ways of thinking or not because they would effectively be - at a minimum - functionally Karashev scale Type I to Type II+ gods to us, and they would have had to learn the same basic, fundamental rules and laws of physics that we're learning right now to get to that point.
Those laws and rules of physics needed to master the amount of energy required for interstellar flight are agnostic and uncaring about philosophies, logic or different modes of thought.
Sure, maybe everything we know about the universe is wrong, the speed of light and special or general relativity isn't the constant we think it is, atomic hydrogen doesn't have a specific universal constant and atomic resonance of 1,420,405,752 hz.
But we don't have any evidence that those constants aren't constants and if we discard that then, sure, we could suppose and imagine all kinds of things but now we're just playing Pathfinder, GURPS or RIFTS with less rules.
And this is something that most science fiction usually gets totally wrong about interstellar space travel, space warfare and ships in general, even relatively plausible hard-ish SF like the Expanse, where the author readily admits that the drive systems they use are fictional magic.
If you have a drive capable of doing what the ships in the Expanse can do, carrying around the extra mass of point defense chain gun autocannons with kinetic projectile weapons or rail guns is just silly. If you have that kind of massless or low mass Delta V your whole ship and drive system is effectively a directed energy weapon. You'd just aim the business end your ship at your enemy and try to blast it out of the sky while accelerating away from it at the same time like a squid squirting defensive ink.
And let's imagine if they had a craft that could fold space time or do dimensional jumping? They could also plausibly just jump out of the way of anything coming at them, or fold the space they're in to make them go somewhere else. Because the same physics and energy levels they're using to make whatever that is happen can easily be re-purposed into offensive or defensive weapons.
And if anything, any species that's capable of interdimensional travel or spacetime folding or manipulating gravity or inertia is even more immune to whatever primitive weapons we could throw at them because it logically implies that not only are they capable of manipulating time and space itself but they can do it with such alarming accuracy that they can arrive in the atmospheric envelope of our tiny little planet over some vast, empty spaces even though our planet is moving through space and time along many different vectors ranging from rotation, to its orbit around the sun, and the spiraling wobble of our entire solar system swept along by galactic tides, the relative vector and velocity of our galaxy in its cluster of galaxies in it's thread of superclusters, and even accounting for the relativistic velocities of the expansion of space and time itself, because they're going to need a lot more points of reference of not just where but when to get there than simply "Oh, 60,000 feet somewhere above Alaska!" like the planet Earth is holding still and it isn't wobbling around drunkenly through an empty sea of nothingness.
I'm not saying it's a good thing that we could be randomly shooting at UAPs or other "extraterrestrial" phenomenon at all.
I'm just pointing out that if UAP are interstellar extraterrestrials then the chances are really good that they have such a deep mastery of both basic and high energy physics and the basic concepts of kinetic or explosive weapons that they wouldn't likely to be vulnerable to whatever we could throw at them, and, moreover, they would think it was amusingly primitive after all they had been through to get there because the energy levels and math needed for interstellar travel of any kind is really and truly that appalling and absolutely implies certain things about their capabilities, and those capabilities aren't defined by philosophies but by the laws of physics themselves.
Apologies if anyone out there has the sudden urge to go get a drink and a snack. I've been watching way, way too many videos from Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur who gets really deep into all of this, including in depth explorations of extraterrestrial intelligence and the physics of space travel of all kinds.
posted by loquacious at 2:41 PM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
There are like a hundred new sets of assumptions about how aliens are like us and would have solved interstellar space travel like us in that comment.
Maybe they didn't travel fast. Maybe they didn't use technology. Maybe they just flew. Maybe we wouldn't even recognise them as life. Maybe they wouldn't recognise us as life.
posted by Dysk at 3:10 PM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Maybe they didn't travel fast. Maybe they didn't use technology. Maybe they just flew. Maybe we wouldn't even recognise them as life. Maybe they wouldn't recognise us as life.
posted by Dysk at 3:10 PM on February 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I hope they would at least begrudgingly recognize us as Bags of mostly water?
posted by some loser at 4:47 PM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by some loser at 4:47 PM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Talking meat!? Disgusting!
posted by loquacious at 4:50 PM on February 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 4:50 PM on February 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
I always like to pay attention to what people didn't say. Here's Maro Rubio (CSPAN) answering questions after coming out of yesterday's senators-only classified briefing. At one point, he was asked if he ruled out anything extraterrestrial, but the answer he gave was not an answer to that question.
He revealed that everyone got to ask only one question. The former journalist assumes the answer he receieved would have been classified, but I'd like to know what question he asked.
posted by emelenjr at 6:18 AM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
He revealed that everyone got to ask only one question. The former journalist assumes the answer he receieved would have been classified, but I'd like to know what question he asked.
posted by emelenjr at 6:18 AM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Object downed by US missile may have been amateur hobbyists’ $12 balloon
"A group of amateur balloon enthusiasts in Illinois might have solved the mystery of one of the unknown flying objects shot down by the US military last week, a saga that had captivated the nation.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade says one of its hobby craft went “missing in action” over Alaska on 11 February, the same day a US F-22 jet downed an unidentified airborne entity not far away above Canada’s Yukon territory.
In a blogpost, the group did not link the two events. But the trajectory of the pico balloon before its last recorded electronic check-in at 12.48am that day suggests a connection – as well as a fiery demise at the hands of a sidewinder missile on the 124th day of its journey, three days before it was set to complete its seventh circumnavigation.
If that is what happened, it would mean the US military expended a missile costing $439,000 (£365,000) to fell an innocuous hobby balloon worth about $12 (£10)..."
posted by Wordshore at 2:04 PM on February 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
"A group of amateur balloon enthusiasts in Illinois might have solved the mystery of one of the unknown flying objects shot down by the US military last week, a saga that had captivated the nation.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade says one of its hobby craft went “missing in action” over Alaska on 11 February, the same day a US F-22 jet downed an unidentified airborne entity not far away above Canada’s Yukon territory.
In a blogpost, the group did not link the two events. But the trajectory of the pico balloon before its last recorded electronic check-in at 12.48am that day suggests a connection – as well as a fiery demise at the hands of a sidewinder missile on the 124th day of its journey, three days before it was set to complete its seventh circumnavigation.
If that is what happened, it would mean the US military expended a missile costing $439,000 (£365,000) to fell an innocuous hobby balloon worth about $12 (£10)..."
posted by Wordshore at 2:04 PM on February 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Here’s a video explaining ham radio and balloons. This is especially amusing, because I am finally studying to get my technicians license, so I am back in this world again after many years.
posted by PussKillian at 6:57 PM on February 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 6:57 PM on February 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by rongorongo at 1:58 AM on February 13, 2023 [3 favorites]