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US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
- moose_man 4y agoProbably not a great sign of things to come.
- bmitc 4y agoProbably didn't help that an Air Force general was openly and loudly proclaiming that war is inevitable. I looked up some speeches of his, and he is off the rails, like the German general in All Quiet Along the Western Front.
- throwbadubadu 4y agoWould be great if just more people had read this great book nowadays (and please, not watch that super bad recent movie that doesn't deserve to bear the same title (: ). And cannot belief statesman proclaiming that now everywhere :( War should always be seen as evitable, at least that belief needs to hold up til the last second.. and even further. But who am I...
- moose_man 4y agoI mean, it's nothing compared to the internal speeches that China gives its troops. Heck it's nothing compared to the speeches Xi gives internally to troops. Chinese troops are currently training on their missile corp on models of US aircraft carriers. Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-force-video-depicting-bombers-attacking-guam-steals-scenes-from-transformers https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-forc... https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-builds-mockups-us-navy-ships-area-used-missile-target-practice-2021-11-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-builds-mockups-us-...
- bmitc 4y agoChina's actions are unacceptable but so are the general's words. I would be very surprised if he wasn't reprimanded in some way.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- riku_iki 4y agomy speculation is that the main goal of Chinese covid lockdown was to train and simulate mass policing of population in case of upcoming war.
- mikewarot 4y agoMy understanding is their vaccine doesn't work at all, they don't have a strong emergency medical care system, thus it was the only real option for them.
- dfadsadsf 4y agoWhy would you need to police population in case of war for returning Taiwan? It will be very popular war and you definitely won't need to lock people down.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoDo you have a link or name of the guy? I haven't heard about this
- bagels 4y agoedit: Maybe this? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-air-force-general-predicts-war-china-2025-memo-rcna67967 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-air-fo...
- nonethewiser 4y agoI dont see anything crazy there > Minihan said in the memo that because both Taiwan and the U.S. will have presidential elections in 2024, the U.S. will be “distracted,” and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have an opportunity to move on Taiwan.
- bmitc 4y agoYou need to read the full memo, sent out as an email and watch his prior speeches. The memo appears to have been admonished by actual national security experts. Irregardless of the accuracy, there are better ways to handle these things, and he doesn't seem to have proper authority to make those statements.
- ethbr0 4y agoParent is presumably talking about recent comments by Gen. Mike Minihan (Air Mobility Command). IMHO, people/news are blowing it out of proportion. If the boss of FedEx said we're going to end up in a war with China, how much does that say about what defense contractors are doing? What it was probably actually about was shocking the troops assigned to AMC, establishing an important mission and raising morale, and declaring business as usual was no longer acceptable. Gotta be creative to make people excited about moving supplies. See also: every ridiculous statement by every startup CEO in a bubble, ever
- nostromo 4y agoThat is entirely up to China and what it decides to do with regards to Taiwan. Xi has made it very clear he would like to invade Taiwan, and soon. If Ukraine was going well for Russia, he may have already invaded.
- HillRat 4y agoYeah, he’s … a little excitable. Dude runs Air Mobility Command, he could stand to remember he’s not running ACC, he’s FedEx for things what go bang.
- krapp 4y agoWarmonger tries to sell a war. Film at eleven.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoI'd say it feels like a return to the era of cold war tensions but I wouldn't know, I was born around when the Berlin Wall fell. What say you older HNers, is this what it was like?
- moose_man 4y agoThe Cold War had expectations, guardrails, rules. Those don't exist in the current setup. China didn't even pick up the emergency hotline in the first balloon crisis.
- foobarbecue 4y agoSo... it's worse?
- LarryMullins 4y agoThe Cold War wasn't uniform of course, there were periods of greatly increased tension and periods of relative relaxation (e.g. Détente.) What we have now is somewhere in the middle, I'd say on the peaceful/Détente side of the scale.
- moose_man 4y agoHonestly, I've been watching this unfold since 2012 and the point where we are now is pretty bleak. Unless something intervenes to change the course of where things are going, we're headed for a bad place. It's bleak to the point where experts on both sides (Chinese and US) seem resigned to conflict.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- influx 4y agoIn the 80s, I resided on a US Military base in West Germany. Currently, I feel like the world is getting closer to World War III, which is the closest experience I have had in my lifetime. There is ongoing conflict in Europe involving a country that possesses nuclear weapons. Additionally, tensions are escalating with China and the economy seems unstable. I sincerely hope that reasonable minds will be able to prevent any further escalation of these conflicts, but there is always the possibility of an unintentional incident that could lead to an expansion of these wars.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PaulWaldman 4y agoIs there a reason F-22s are being used to take these balloons down? Is it to take advantage of a training opportunity? I would think less advanced aircraft may be more cost effective to operate.
- Server6 4y agoProbably to send a message to China more than anything.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThe F-22s are the most capable and are thus what are actually on-station as a reaction force, plus they have the highest flight ceiling which is relevant for taking out some of these balloons.
- willis936 4y agoTwo kills in two weeks? What an amazing 334 million USD aircraft. We should have more!
- gateorade 4y agoThe f-22 is also the US fighter with the highest combat ceiling. I believe the actual number is still classified. The f22 took the shot on the balloon last week at 58 thousand feet, which is higher than many fighters can fly. This one was considerably lower. But IIRC Alaska is a common station location for f-22s so may have just been coincidence.
- 4y ago
- Overtonwindow 4y agoPart of me thinks they wanted to shoot down the first balloon, but the president was kind of incapacitated and unable to give the order. That's the only thing I can think of for why they didn't shoot the first one down when it was over Alaska, but they shoot this one down when it is
- _whiteCaps_ 4y agoThe previous one wasn't in civilian airspace.
- ksherlock 4y agoNew explanation from the Senate Appropriations subcommittee: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antennas-other-equipment-to-gather-intelligence-u-s-says-11675953033 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antenna... tl;dr - nothing important in Alaska ---- Pentagon officials, in testimony to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said that the balloon wasn’t deemed to be a threat as it crossed Alaska where it didn’t pass over sensitive sites. They added that no analysis had been done at that point on where the debris from the Chinese craft might fall. The risk to people on the ground was considerable, they said, given that the balloon was 200 feet tall and carried an equipment array the size of a small airplane. Shooting down the balloon in the waters off Alaska would likely have made recovering it more difficult due to the depth and frigid ocean temperatures, said Melissa Dalton, a senior Pentagon official with responsibilities for homeland defense. Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims II, director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, cautioned that shooting down an intruding craft not seen as an imminent threat might encourage other nations to act hastily if Western planes approached their borders. “Once you take a shot, you can’t get it back,” Gen. Sims said. “I think it’s important for us to remember that if we establish that precedent… we may meet the same precedent.” “We may create something that is to our detriment,” he added. The U.S. has conducted reconnaissance flights in international airspace close to China’s territorial limits, drawing frequent objections from Beijing. In December, a Chinese J-11 fighter flew within 20 feet of a U.S. RC-135 surveillance plane near South China Sea islands controlled by Beijing. The Pentagon testimony didn’t assuage some lawmakers, particularly Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. Ms. Murkowski said that the Pentagon appeared to be treating potential threats to her state as a secondary concern. “At what point do we say a surveillance balloon, a spy balloon coming from China is a threat to our sovereignty?” she said. “ It should be the minute it crosses the line, and that line is Alaska.
- snake_doc 4y agoF-22 entered service 2005 Air to air kills since entered service: 2005-2022: 0 2023: 2
- mjfl 4y ago2 balloons
- airstrike 4y agoBy late next month F-22s will have shot down over four dozen balloons!
- westhom 4y agoWonder how they picked who the lucky pilot is to get the first F-22 air to air kill. Draw straws?
- mikequinlan 4y agoThrow darts at a balloon.
- ascotan 4y agoDo you become an ace after 5 ballons or do the ballons need to shoot back?
- nikcub 4y agoI was also wondering if those jets now have stencil paintings of balloons on them with big X's marked across them as kill markers
- jlkuester7 4y agoIn WWI, shooting down an observation balloon was considerably more difficult (and prestigious) than another plane. In this case, though, I imagine the difficulty (and associated prestige) is considerable less... :)
- sam345 4y ago
- avgcorrection 4y agoAs your President, I promise to be tough on crime and UFOs, unlike my opponent over there.
- api 4y agoSo what’s the deal with these balloons? Provocation? Do they think nobody will notice?
- assimpleaspossi 4y agoI'm pretty sure nobody here knows.
- bitL 4y agoLaser mapping of military POIs before a war in a few years? See the recent laser rays on Mauna Kea.
- mulmen 4y agoCan you elaborate on this? My understanding of the Mauna Kea lasers is that they are used to adjust the mirrors for atmospheric conditions in real time.
- bitL 4y agoYes, those originating from (around) the telescopes. But just recently Subaru telescope captured laser beams originating from space scanning Mauna Kea in regular intervals that looked like satellite mapping. https://www.newsweek.com/mysterious-green-lasers-hawaii-chinese-satellite-nasa-1780468 https://www.newsweek.com/mysterious-green-lasers-hawaii-chin...
- elmomle 4y agoIt's boundary-pushing. They're unmanned and ambient, yet are clearly a provocation and give China an information advantage over where it would be without the balloons, and in a geopolitical sense it asserts Chinese ascendency. At the same time, it's hard for the US or other powers to figure out an appropriate response. Very similar to Russian/NK/Chinese/Israeli/American state-sponsored hacking groups--it continually forces the adversary to ask "where do we draw a line, and what consequences do we give for crossing it?"
- 4y ago
- h2odragon 4y agohttps://archive.ph/6ZYLp https://archive.ph/6ZYLp My pull quotes: > The Pentagon downed an unidentified object over Alaska on Friday at the order of President Biden, according to U.S. officials. > Mr. Kirby said the object was traveling at 40,000 feet. He said officials were describing it as an object because that was the best description they had of it. > A recovery effort on the debris will be made, Mr. Kirby said. He said the object was “roughly the size of a small car” — much smaller than the spy balloon that had a payload the size of multiple buses.
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- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- themodelplumber 4y agoI wonder if it's a drone from an HK cargo ship like the ones that flew onto / around US Navy ships in the past. - Drones can be the size of small cars - 40K feet is not a problem for a drone In such a case it'd be more about the class / properties of the drone...
- ksherlock 4y ago40,000 feet is within class A airspace and flying into Alaska means crossing the ADIZ so it has no business being there whatever it is.
- Ninjinka 4y agoI mean maybe I'm just not up to date on recent history, but when was the last time we shot down anything in our our airspace prior to last week?
- ejb999 4y ago[flagged]
- neogodless 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800_conspiracy_theo...
- leetrout 4y agoFrom that very link you can find info on the recent litigation accusing the government of an errant missile hit. There is enough evidence to bring forth the suit whether you agree it is a conspiracy or not. https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/citing-new-evidence-surviving-family-members-sue-feds-raytheon-and-lockheed-martin-over-1996-twa-crash/ https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/citing-new-evidence-survivin...
- partiallypro 4y agoCivil suits are incredibly easy to push through (which is why there are various civil suits from assassinations and murders, even if the underlaying accused person/entity was found innocent), it doesn't mean it happened.
- pasquinelli 4y agoyeah, but false stuff also gets reported all the time, so how does one decide what to believe?
- WesolyKubeczek 4y agoYou in the US need a law that orders whoever loses a civil lawsuits pay all the expenses to the winning side.
- xqcgrek2 4y agoImagine if this is how first contact is made.
- h2odragon 4y agoSome think it happened in Roswell NM. in 1947. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident I've got a fanciful notion that the "foo fighters" are living creatures. The Air Force supposedly gave someone some of the excretions to examine and they found "unearthly isotopes" or some such. I figure something that lives, say, a couple hundred miles down inside a planet might only even notice the surface phenomenon that are the most dense, energetic, and anomalous (certainly at first), and pay more attention to those things. How might such beings interact with us and could we discern their efforts as such if we wanted?
- sys32768 4y agoThey didn't let this one hang for a few days to finish its torrent seeding?
- snerbles 4y agoTheir private tracker ratio is at an acceptable level now.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Ninjinka 4y agoBriefing happening now: https://www.c-span.org/video/?525994-1/pentagon-briefs-downing-high-altitude-object-alaskan-airspace&live= https://www.c-span.org/video/?525994-1/pentagon-briefs-downi...
- sschueller 4y agoWould be hilarious if they shutdown some high school project with a Go-Pro attached to it.
- dtx1 4y agoEven more hilarious if it's a UAP.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago> The object, which the U.S. learned about on Thursday evening, was described as "roughly the size of a small car," Kirby said.
- flangola7 4y agoA high school project could definitely launch a car sized balloon.
- pvaldes 4y agoWorking hypothese 1: High school achieved the impossible. Not a single student taking a selfie while doing <big cool thing that will ignite my instagram> Working hypothese 2: The Chinese shaped the balloon as a d*ck so it appears blurred in all videos and nobody can figure out what is that, or describe its shape. Invisible ninja genius move.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoThat would probably make it some of the best non-armed forces footage of an F-22 in action, wouldn't it?
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoIn northern Alaska? How are they getting this level of helium in the region as consumers?
- lamontcg 4y ago
- throwaway4good 4y agoI like how the measurement unit seems to be either small cars or school busses.
- ncr100 4y ago/s If that unit causes you any pain, @throwaway4good, here is a translator perhaps to more native units: https://www.converttobananas.com/ https://www.converttobananas.com/ 1 car == about 26 bananas. Improvement?
- mynameishere 4y ago"The US announced today that it destroyed a balloon the size of a traditional Islamic wedding feast."
- thinking001001 4y agoI dread to think of all the state-funded technology companies with backdoor-ed firmware/software coming out of China
- sschueller 4y agoI don't see much difference between Chinese routers having back-doors and what Cisco has peddled to its customers all these years either willfully or just incompetence.
- horsawlarway 4y agoYeah... I would say a large part of why I'm skeptical of Chinese made computing devices is because I understand what the US has been doing with ours over the last 50 years. That said... from a national security perspective - it is still the right call to be wary of devices that are likely compromised by another nation. You should just be assuming that if you didn't make them locally (as in under your own territorial control) they are compromised during production. For everyone. Everyone should be acting with that as the default.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kazmerb 4y agoI'd rather my own government spy on me than China. I'd rather Hannibal fucking Lecter be able to see me through my webcam than China.
- sschueller 4y agoI would too but Europe sold all its companies to the US and China.
- ginko 4y agoYou know Nokia and Ericsson are still huge players in telecom technology right?
- larrywright 4y agoThe F-22 has gone from zero kills to two in under a week.
- themodelplumber 4y agoIndeed. If you charted those it'd be likely show as a breakout event vs. relevant moving averages at this point. So from that POV, one may start to think about a quick buildup of momentum in the general direction of F-22s shooting things down, or air combat, or just combat, etc. Not so much to predict the future, as to ideate and prepare frames of mind for potential changes in circumstance.
- adversaryIdiot 4y agoTechnical analysis is astrology!
- harles 4y agoExtrapolating from here, expect 2^52 objects shot down by F22s this time next year.
- ralusek 4y agoI'm seeing Fibonacci so far, not doubling.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tshaddox 4y agoNow even with the number of fatalities in the F-22's flight history, I believe.
- larrywright 4y agoAnd now three.
- ALittleLight 4y agoWhy are they calling it an object. It seems like a huge deal what kind of "object" this was. Was it another balloon? Missile? Private plane? How could they not know, and if they do know, why would they not say? Edit - this video isn't loading for me, but I've just watched what I assume is the same briefing on Twitter. They have a pilot assessment that the object was unmanned - but they can't tell us balloon, missile, drone? I'm not understanding how a pilot could see the thing, communicate ("I'm looking at an unmanned object, should I shoot?") and somehow not convey what the object was. I appreciate the speed of this briefing, but I would prefer they wait at least until they know what they are saying. In the briefing below the guy says NORAD has been tracking it for a day - and they still don't know what it is? I guess that rules out missile, at least.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LinuxBender 4y ago"Object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight" and "Object the size of a small car" [1] according to General Ryder No details beyond this yet due to classification restrictions. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544hoprTeTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544hoprTeTw
- sammalloy 4y agoJohn Kirby of the National Security Council said he would not call it a balloon, according to NBC News. What was it then?
- post_break 4y agoA drone of some sort, something with an engine if they used a heat seeking missile.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
- mancerayder 4y agoSpying happens all the time, even between allies. From what I read/understood about past spying incidents, it's only when someone starts mentioning it to the press that they want the rest of the population to be up an arms about it. Why that might be true: there are probably tons of Chinese spy events (and American spy events on China) that never made it. Was the balloon the first? Come on. If the above hypothesis is true, it means the U.S. is trying to rile up / ready / etc. the population to view China as a threat. Kind of ironic given the intense scrutiny and fears prior to Trump getting elected that he would trigger a depression or war because of his isolationist attitude about China specifically. But more importantly what does that mean now? Will it justify laws passed to further isolate China?
- death_to_satan 4y ago[dead]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- justinclift 4y ago> If the above hypothesis is true, it means ... In your comment, you say "it means the US is trying to rile up / ready /etc" the population. That's not the only plausible (or even most likely) scenario though. The publishing of this info could indeed be for that purpose. Or it could be for something else, such as to influence the currently-ongoing negotiations with other players (eg European) at a critical time. Or it could be for some other purpose again, that's neither of those. :)
- mancerayder 4y agoYou mean influence the population of European allies or their leaders? The hypothesis above is roughly connected to this wider idea about international relations that the 'big ideas' happen behind closed doors, and there is a second 'public' face. Here the balloon type incidents leak to the public strategically while other incidents go unmentioned except in private or in some esoteric place. If true, why would the US press and mainstream media be headlining it when of course it'll enrage the population. It was a choice to publicize it and a choice for our political parties to point fingers at each other over it, as part of the typical spin cycle.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoWe need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. Send over the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) to protect the west coast.
- Waterluvian 4y agoDon’t necessarily disagree and I don’t know sufficient details to form a responsible opinion, but I imagine there’s expenditure for training, whether they hit actual stuff or not?
- lazyeye 4y agoWhat would be ideal would be some kind of anti-balloon weaponry/recovery system. Some kind of balloon-based counter-balloon technology that could take control of the balloon and bring it to the ground intact. Would be a fun project to say the least.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jabroni_salad 4y agoYou must be an eve online player.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoThe laser is real. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373672
- jabroni_salad 4y agoI've read about those but I'm more referring to the cost comment. In eve it is common to hedge a loss as "ISK Positive" if the value of the ammo that blew you up costed more than your ship, as tallied up on the killmail.
- petre 4y ago> An F-22 fighter jet shot down the object using an A9X missile What a waste if $200k, shooting Chinese baloons. These shold be zapped using lasers.
- horsawlarway 4y agoDon't most f-22s come with a 20mil cannon? Wonder we we're preferring the missiles to just plain old lead?
- durandal1 4y agoAt those altitudes the combination of a very high closing speed (air is thin) and the short range of the gun creates a real risk of flying into the target you're trying to hit.
- Eduard 4y agoThis sounds paradoxical to me. Using the same reasoning, a gun bullet should also be faster with higher altitude, hence have a longer range.
- Nimitz14 4y agoThe high speed is necessary so the plane doesn’t fall out of the sky. A bullet is going to have a different friction coefficient than a plane so is not as affected by the altitude.
- msandford 4y agoIt's not that the bullets won't fly a long ways. It's that the range where the gun is accurate is fairly small. Sure you could theoretically shoot it from 20 miles away as long as you're 15 miles above the target and can successfully plot the ballistic arc, windage, etc. But fighter jets aren't flying artillery pieces so their computers don't do that kind of targeting.
- davidmr 4y ago
- exabrial 4y ago"Not sure what the object was" "Shot Down using an Aim9x" That actually narrows it down a bit. Heat seeking warhead.
- themodelplumber 4y agoIt's considered a "system-guided" missile, not heat-seeking. It's much more advanced than the original heat-seeking concept and integrates additional optical technology in the fuse.
- snerbles 4y agoUnlike previous Sidewinder iterations with a single-sensor thermal seeker, the AIM-9X has a thermal imaging seeker - it was used to shoot down the much larger balloon last week. https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/AIM-9X-Sidewinder https://www.navair.navy.mil/product/AIM-9X-Sidewinder
- jollyllama 4y agoSo it doesn't really narrow it down that much, then. Could be a plane, could be a balloon.
- themodelplumber 4y agoCould also be a flying promotional bearskin bladder from a local hunting lodge. Which I have to say is where we may start to see a tragic lack of creativity unfolding on China's part.
- exabrial 4y agoDang, you're correct. It still had a thermal signature, but it wasn't as definitive as what I thought.
- jnurmine 4y agoIf it was not a drone, and "not a balloon", what could it be? Assuming this was a drone, the "car-sized", "unmanned", "not a balloon", "not maneuverable" (!?), the operating altitude (40k feet / 13 km), and use of AIM9X (IR/heat seeking) should narrow down the possible drones. Also, one thing I pondered: why F22 instead of F35 to shoot it down? Maybe a question of availability. But, at least publically the F35 operating ceiling is lower than F22, so I was thinking whether the object was in reality higher than the publically known F35 operating ceiling.
- consumer451 4y ago> Officials said the object was far smaller than the previous balloon, did not appear to be maneuverable and was traveling at a much lower altitude. "Not maneuverable" and "previous balloon" so is it fair to assume that it's a balloon as well?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y agoThat's an interesting catch. Still, it's known that the previous object was a balloon, so I'd say it makes more sense to expect those words are shorthand for "previous object (which was a balloon)". This new object may still be a balloon, but those words aren't admission of that.
- dTal 4y agoNot many other types of non-maneuverable flying craft.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y agoFair point; I doubt it's anything like a bottle rocket or whatever else. I guess it doesn't really matter either way since it's likely to be revealed what it was.
- nonethewiser 4y agoWould a smaller balloon fly lower? Seems likely.
- andirk 4y agoI think the main issue of an object being really high up in the air is the lack of air density which, to achieve equilibrium, will get pulled apart (think: the opposite of being smashed). It's also extremely cold. I assume a weather balloon can handle those issues though. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/jaUgTwKu6vs https://youtu.be/jaUgTwKu6vs
- anigbrowl 4y ago
- perihelions 4y agoHopefully this isn't on that kind of hair-trigger that shoots down civilian airliners by mistake. It's happened literally dozens of times [0], so it's hard to believe any kind of blanket "this can't possibly happen because..." logic. Seems to be particularly likely to happen in panicky situations, or when someone has something to prove. E.g., the Soviet-American tensions surrounding an American spy plane, a RC-135, were a factor in the Soviets shooting down KAL-007 (they thought it was the RC-135) [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- whateverman23 4y agoIt wasn't a hair-trigger decision. From the AP article [0]: "U.S. pilots who flew up to observe it determined it didn’t appear to be manned" [0] https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-shoots-down-unknown-flying-object-175f9078d1df36e392b2956ba771001e https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-shoots-down-unknown-flyi...
- kayodelycaon 4y agoProtocol is to visually identify the target. In the case of an airliner, they try to make visual contact with the pilots if they don’t respond by radio. There are visual verification methods commercial pilots are trained on. And airliners have transponders and flight plans. If a civilian plane stopped talking to ATC, the Air Force is likely already involved. Additionally, we’re not on a high-alert war footing like during the Cold War. As far as I know, we don’t have hostile military aircraft routinely flying with transponders off on our coasts. Even if we did, I’m pretty sure the larger military radar systems that would be used to track this stuff can read transponders and separate out which plane is which.
- TheAdamist 4y agoCheap balloon vs expensive missile, seems a good way to bankrupt us by sending continuous balloons.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoA government that spends more money on their military than the rest of the world combined isn't at risk of bankruptcy from firing a couple missiles. We're at risk of bankruptcy because our debt is 31 trillion dollars and in June we won't even be able to issue securities to continue bullshitting ourselves out of cutting spending. Welcome to America, we're broke because we spent all our money on guns rather than infrastructure, healthcare and education.
- pixl97 4y agoWe spend more on Healthcare and education per capital than almost any other country. Don't let people bullshit you on the amount spent. Now results on dollars spent is a different question with a different answer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- it_citizen 4y agoInteresting, didn't know that. I imagine it includes private/public spending as well?
- yamtaddle 4y agoWe spend more per capita just in public money than some peer states do to provide universal healthcare, while ours isn't universal. It makes more sense when you consider how many programs we have—a pretty high percentage of our population is covered by public spending, and—crucially—the ones who are are in some cases among the most expensive to care for. 1) Medicare (old or disabled) 2) Medicaid (poor) 3) Tricare or whatever they call it now, since I think the name changed (active and IIRC retired-with-full-benefits military and their spouses and kids, at least for the active-duty ones, can't recall if that part carries over in retirement) 4) VA (military veterans, including those with short terms of service) 5) Federal employees 6) State employees 7) County employees 8) City employees 9) Cops and firefighters and such, if not covered under any of the above. 10) School district employees (there are lots of these) Not all of these are cases in which all the spending is covered by public money, but some of them are, and in other cases a great deal of it is. Also I've probably missed some programs. [EDIT] Oh and that's not counting public money that goes to private companies but ends up paying for healthcare for those companies' employees and families, who are employed expressly to work on those publicly-funded projects—I can see arguments either way for counting that, depends on what you're trying to understand.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 4y agoPot calling kettle black. The US has been sending armed drones into several countries without coordination with local ATC or consent of the local government. Soleimani and a number of Iraqi military officers were taken out by a US drone.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoAnd it works because almost no one else on earth can gang radar to missile systems. So they can't shoot ours down. And we can shoot theirs down.
- areyousure 4y agoIn case anyone else was unfamiliar, the usage of "gang" here appears to be the following: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gang#Verb_2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gang#Verb_2
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- nonethewiser 4y ago> Soleimani and a number of Iraqi military officers were taken out by a US drone. Good. Right?
- pvaldes 4y agoNot, in fact is bad, because what is good for the geese is good for the gander. This increases the risk of being killed by a drone for everybody, even if is as collateral damage. If international laws can be so easily violated for free, why do we need them? Do we really want a world without rules?
- mardifoufs 4y agoSure, but that was still a violation of sovreign airspace. It would be like having a foreign drone targeting George W.Bush. Both are war criminals, but I'm not sure it suddenly makes violating foreign countries ok.
- r3trohack3r 4y agoThere was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently. The general premise is this: U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd occasionally get caught (perhaps on purpose) and cause a base to scramble to intercept. The proposed theory on why they'd get caught on purpose was to gather up intelligence on what a response would be flying through the airspace. It's possible they've been doing this for more than a decade and the military has gotten caught with egg on it's face having ignored the reports for so long.
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- nostromo 4y agoThose UFOs were lens flares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs Turns out we like to spend gobs of money even when we're just chasing our shadow.
- united893 4y agoThat video helps explain one property one of the UFO videos (the rotation) but doesn't explain the rest. Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos. It does not explain why these were observed on radar as well. While some of the videos have explanation, I would kindly encourage you to look at this with more curiosity.
- herbstein 4y ago> Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos He covers the "Tic-Tac" and "Go Fast" videos too, just not in that specific video. Like in this one, where he explains how the "Go Fast" video isn't actually even a fast object zipping just above the water, but rather an object flying at roughly wind-speed at about 12000 feet. https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M
- jshzglr 4y agoOther countries are trying to spy on the US’s super advanced “UAPs”. Pet theory of mine.
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoWhat are UAPs?
- nonethewiser 4y agoUnidentified Aerial Phenomenon
- tromp 4y agoI've also seen Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena but Aerial makes more sense.
- toomanyrichies 4y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=What+are+UAPs%3F&ei=6L_mY7_5F4vR1sQPjdKK4Ao&ved=0ahUKEwi_jZ-u-4v9AhWLqJUCHQ2pAqwQ4dUDCA8&uact=5&oq=What+are+UAPs%3F&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQAzIFCAAQgAQyDggAEBYQHhDxBBDHAxAKMggIABAWEB4QCjIJCAAQFhAeEPEEMgkIABAWEB4Q8QQyCQgAEBYQHhDxBDIJCAAQFhAeEPEEMgkIABAWEB4Q8QQyCQgAEBYQHhDxBDIJCAAQFhAeEPEESgQIQRgASgQIRhgAUABYAGCvAmgAcAB4AIABVogBVpIBATGYAQCgAQKgAQHAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz-serp https://www.google.com/search?q=What+are+UAPs%3F&ei=6L_mY7_5...
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoRude. And ineffective. Most acronyms are ambiguous. How would I be sure the answer there is what OP was referring to?
- lotsoweiners 4y agoGoogle search plus context of the thread?
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- brindidrip 4y agoI noticed some odd things while watching the press conference. Pat Ryder had a potential Freudian slip and said that it was taken down because it "posed a threat to civili..." and he enunciated the "li" as if he were going to say "civilization," but he then paused and corrected himself to say "civilian." Another odd thing was when Pat Ryder answered a question about why the President's decision to take down the object was necessary. Pat mentioned something like, "Presidents usually make decisions when certain threats in our airspace pose a danger to civilians on the ground." It's extremely odd to me that they were able to identify the object by sending our own airmen to visually confirm it, but if that's the case, wouldn't they be able to definitively conclude that it wasn't a balloon? Pat kept it ambiguous and kept insisting that it was some sort of object.
- next_xibalba 4y agoI've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part of the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to airborne (and beyond) surveillance. "They shoot down our surveillance balloons, giving us precedent to shoot down their high altitude drone planes or satellites in the future."
- dTal 4y agoThis is a very reasonable explanation for the otherwise mysterious question of why even use an (obvious, provocative) balloon in the first place, when China has perfectly good satellites. It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's the right way to think about the question - they are engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outraged. US leaves them alone? US looks weak.
- hughw 4y agoObvious, provocative.... and unsteerable.
- dTal 4y agoThe previous balloon was steerable, as it could control its altitude to catch different currents. I don't think we know enough about this "unknown object" to definitively say what it could and couldn't do.
- Osyris 4y agoNot unsteerable if you have altitude control + a good model of wind patterns. This is what Project Loon[1] did and I think it's fair to assume the technology might be similar. [1]: https://x.company/projects/loon/ https://x.company/projects/loon/
- nonethewiser 4y agoPresumably if not shooting them down looks weak, then shooting them down looks competent. And playing outraged confers no advantage to China.
- motohagiography 4y agoIt doesn't matter what the object was, it's that America's adversaries know they can do it without consequences, and what makes them believe this is what matters about this story. That is the irreversible change it signifies, imo.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoIf other reports are to be believed this has been happening for a while, and isn't some sort of new irreversible change. This is just the first time the public has become aware of it. The difference here seems to be that it was shot down (possibly because it had become so infamous).
- password11 4y ago> it's that America's adversaries know they can do it without consequences There was a consequence -- we shot it down. > That is the irreversible change it signifies, imo. It's not irreversible. Additional consequences can be initiated at any time.
- motohagiography 4y agoYou don't need to convince me, convince the people who keep sending the ballons, invading allies, and using NATO countries as rocket flyover paths.
- password11 4y ago[flagged]
- jasmer 4y agoHaving it shot down is not a consequence. Diplomatic or economic retribution of some kind would be a consequence.
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- mikeyouse 4y agoThere's a weird set of specifications with this one since they seem to be making a distinction between the balloon last week and whatever this is; * Flying at 40k feet altitude * Size of a small car * Not manned * Didn't appear to be maneuverable * Shot down with an AIM-9X heatseaking missile What could that be? Also, seems premature to assume China again when Russia is far closer to the Alaskan coast and just as antagonistic.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agothe equivalent of a satellite being hung from a balloon. "Non maneuverable" is still sort of ambiguous because these types of vehicles navigate by selecting the altitude with the most favorable winds and using controls to attain that altitude, either with a more advanced gas fill/release system or dropping ballast. It sounds like the previous balloon had a good amount of these systems so it could be aimed and this one likely had a more rudimentary version?
- leucineleprec0n 4y agoYes. The whole “non-maneuverable” line is kind of a blurry one with modern algorithms/comms and the altitude adjustments possible
- dang 4y agoWe merged all the threads into this one, since it seems to have been first. We changed the url from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-object-shot-down-alaska.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-... to what appears to be the article with most recent updates (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34745940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34745940 - thanks yabones!).
- flurdy 4y agoIn other news - a Richard Branson type balloon enthusiast has just gone missing in Alaska...
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- pengaru 4y ago"unknown object flying" Pretty sure we have a well-known acronym for that...
- justinator 4y agoYeah: "UOF"
- dustractor 4y agoWe should figure out a way to harvest the helium.
- yummybear 4y agoActual weather balloon?
- pcmaffey 4y agoShoot first ask questions later? Why not intercept it, disable it, and then dismantle it to figure out what and why it is?
- pvaldes 4y agoSo we finally have our explanation for all the strange attempts to resurrect UFO interest in the last years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23942463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10970609 You could fly a flashing cow in this times and nobody would stop looking down at their phones.
- thedorkknight 4y agoThe director of national intelligence explicitly said in a Congressional hearing last may that they want to destigmatize UAP sightings so that pilots will actually report them when they happen. It hasn't really been a big mystery why some people in the government have been trying to change the attitude around UFOs recently - that's why they use the term UAP instead, less cultural baggage
- pvaldes 4y agoSo either they have info about an imminent alien arrival, or will have to admit that this is happening since several years ago, in at least three waves (probably), and that they knew about it.
- somat 4y agoYou are making the very error that lead to UFO sightings being stigmatized in the first place. The trick is to remember that it is like the sql NULL. No unidentified object matches any other unidentified object. It is only once you identify the object can you claim that it is of extra terrestrial origin not before. And once you identify the object it is no longer a UFO.
- pvaldes 4y agoOr maybe the real trick is having a lot of fans hunting UFOs like "is 1980 again", while you keep the secret for yourself and build a plausible denial way out. Who knows?
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- Overtonwindow 4y agoPart of me thinks they wanted to shoot down the first balloon, but the president was kind of incapacitated and unable to give the order. That's the only thing I can think of for why they didn't shoot the first one down when it was over Alaska, but they shoot this one down when it is.
- andybak 4y agoWhich part of you thinks this?
- georgeg23 4y agoGiven the Chinese have been complaining to the UN for the last year about American Low Earth Orbit satellites spying on them (Starshield, Space Development Agency, etc..) this balloon thing is pretty clever.
- georgeg23 4y agoAlso maybe gives China cover/justification to start shooting down these low satellites.
- meepmorp 4y agoNo. Shooting down satellites is a very different thing.
- postalrat 4y agoBecause they fly a bit higher?
- rfrey 4y agoYes. Sovereign airspace versus not.
- blendergeek 4y agoAlso Kessler syndrome.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoI wouldn’t put it past the Chinese to deploy islands of atmosphere and release air in low earth orbit, and then declare that it is now part of the Chinese atmosphere before they start shooting down satellites.
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- Overtonwindow 4y agoWhy was it faster this time?
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- asimpletune 4y agobecause it was a danger to air traffic
- V__ 4y agoMy out-there pet theory: Russia made some weird looking (but non-threatening) drone and mimicked some Chinese flight path. Thus, hoping to stoke a bit more drama between the US and China after the balloon affair.
- JoshTko 4y agoThis is a pretty cheap way for foreign adversary to test our detection capabilities.
- maxerickson 4y agoHow soon after identification are they shooting them down? Like if they are watching the launch and then waiting 2 days, the adversary isn't learning the whole story.
- panza 4y agoBest to assume the US also knows this and is revealing (or not revealing) its capabilities accordingly.
- willis936 4y agoThose are advertised as a "don't even bother" signal. There's a reason NORAD is a relatively vocal agency. The full capabilities of satellite and sonar are hidden, but they're easily past the "good enough" line for any relevant military activities.
- O__________O 4y agoAs reminder, Pentagon has been testing mass surveillance balloons across the US for long time. Here’s story from back in 2019, but these have been flying around much longer and would not surprise me if China got the idea from the US. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34727444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34727444
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- jacobsenscott 4y agoI'm trying to think of anything valuable you can learn from a balloon flyover that isn't already public domain, and I'm coming up blank. Anyone have any examples?
- ithkuil 4y agoNobody knows because it's a secret. If you knew that secret you'd understand what to look for in order to unveil the next secret.
- thepasswordis 4y agoBalloons can linger over an area and gather a time series of events. So can geosynchronous satellites, but they're much further away from earth.
- vorpalhex 4y agoI mean, I'd geolocate and sample comms traffic. Capture and send back what I can.
- tastyfreeze 4y agoMy first thought was maybe it was something like an unmanned survey drone owned by an oil company or some resident's experimental aircraft. But... The Air Force chases off manned Russian aircraft with some regularity. Maybe Russia decided to go unmanned to see how far they could push into our airspace instead of flying something like a Tupolev Tu-95 like they normally do.
- packetslave 4y agoA Tu-95 Bear coming anywhere close to a U.S. ADIZ is very likely to get an introduction to Mr. Sidewinder or Mr. AMRAAM, considering their primary role is to deliver nuclear ordnance.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoI feel like I’m reading a very upsetting children’s book.
- vorpalhex 4y ago"My First F-22 Air Attack Pattern"
- chinathrow 4y ago"The raptor and the bear"
- LeonB 4y agoSuddenly discovering new subtext to—- i am sam. i am sam. sam i am. that sam-i-am! that sam-i-am! i do not like that sam-i-am!
- biesnecker 4y agoHappens all the time. Here was one last October: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-f-16s-intercept-two-russian-bombers-near-alaska/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-f-16s-intercept-two-russian-...
- Velc 4y agoI’m releasing a high altitude balloon soon for a prize competition. Whoever guesses the closest landing zone of the balloon wins a new cybertruck. Just a silly promotion for my startup. I really hope my balloon gets shot down by a US jet, the free pr would be great for us. Unlikely my balloon will cross the pond though.
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- jonplackett 4y agoWhere can I enter? I want a cyber truck
- Velc 4y agohttps://moby.finance/app/competition https://moby.finance/app/competition Funnily enough I just launched this competition about 2 hours ago so nobody has entered yet. To get a free entry you need to get 5 likes on a post.
- MonkeyClub 4y agoKeep'em monkeys jumpin' through'em hooks if they wanna join the club, that's what I always say :)
- xur17 4y agoI'm not sure if you're serious, but some friends and I launched weather balloons with a payload (aprs broadcasting location) twice. Tons of fun, and there is a bunch of software out there you can use to estimate the crash location. On the first balloon we failed to acquire enough helium, and ended up "floating" the balloon in the upper atmosphere overnight. Our prediction system kept indicating it was going to land in Africa.
- analog31 4y agoI wonder if hydrogen would be a better choice. It's an application where the device is unlikely to endanger anybody if it catches on fire.
- gnabgib 4y ago> Daytime temperatures Friday were about minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius). Oops.. minus 27 degrees Celsius. Yes, you might assume the `minus` applies to both, you only have to go up 17 degrees Fahrenheit for the signs not to match (better to be specific).
- KingLancelot 4y ago[dead]
- mzs 4y agolatest: https://www.voanews.com/a/us-shoots-down-mysterious-high-altitude-object-over-alaska-/6958106.html https://www.voanews.com/a/us-shoots-down-mysterious-high-alt... >According to the Pentagon, the object first moved into U.S. airspace late Thursday and was tracked by U.S. Northern Command as it moved over the skies of northeastern Alaska, staying consistently at about 12,000 meters (40,000 feet). >Pentagon and White House officials said U.S. planes approached the object, said to be the size of a small car, and determined that no human was in it before one of two F-22 fighter jets sent on an intercept course shot it from the skies with an AIM-9x Sidewinder missile. … >"This was an object ... it wasn't an aircraft per se,” Ryder said, briefing Pentagon reporters. “We have no further details about the object at this time, including any description of its capabilities, purpose or origin.” … >“We do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell on our territorial space but on what we believe is frozen water,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during a separate White House briefing. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it."
- derbOac 4y agoI'm curious what the definition of an aircraft is, because I'd think anything manmade that is meant to traverse the atmosphere would qualify.
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- WestCoastJustin 4y agoI feel sorry for the pool soul who decided to send up their DIY weather balloon with gopro to get that space shot. Who knows he might even have a video of a F-22 sending a missile over.
- poly_morphis 4y agoThat’s funny, because this was my exact thought. How can they distinguish the difference when they say ‘unknown’ object…
- luxuryballs 4y agoHe would be in trouble but if it turns out that he had notified the FAA and some wires got crossed then that would be pretty wild.
- godelski 4y agoThey flew a F35 next to the object. "Unknown" is an overloaded term and it isn't binary (known vs unknown). Plus, they said it was the size of a small car (remember the other balloon's payload was the size of a bus). So while you don't know what exactly that payload is and is doing, you do know it isn't just a go pro. You also know it isn't a velociraptor or Felix Baumgartner.
- wongarsu 4y agoThe ballon in this youtube video is about the size of a (very) small car, and likely reached the size of a large car as it gained altitude (same gas in ballon, but less air pressure around it equals larger ballon). Granted, that ballon had not just a gopro but also a tray of garlic bread, and went higher up. But using a ballon the size of a small car to launch just a gopro seems incredibly reasonable. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8W-auqg024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8W-auqg024
- godelski 4y agoI assumed they were talking about the payload. FWIW the Chinese balloon's "van size" was specifically the payload size. I think the vast majority of people on this site understand that balloons get "bigger" when rising in altitude. (quotes because the balloon is the same size but looks deflated closer to the ground)
- hnthrowaway0315 4y agoMy first thought: wow is that an X-COM operation? Make sure you have some brave souls, and don't overload them... Research med kit and laser too.
- mountainb 4y agoDamn, I guess everyone's job from here on out will be down at the laser cannon factory from here on out, but at least it will mean the government will finally pay off the national debt with the proceeds.
- partiallypro 4y agoI saw a joke that the CCP has trolled us into shooting down an alien space craft.
- bandyaboot 4y agoHaving shot down the Centaurian ambassador, the humans had inadvertently started the first of the great galactic wars. Sadly, they would not be around long enough to take part.
- krapp 4y agoAt least it wasn't the Minbari.
- SauciestGNU 4y agoThat would be a boneheaded maneuver for sure.
- Jalad 4y agoOnly excessive pride would make someone do something like that
- hyperific 4y agoIf it's a balloon why waste an AIM-9X when the F-22's cannon will get the job done?
- westhom 4y agoAt what altitude does something stop being geographic territory and start being a plane in the atmosphere?
- mey 4y agoThere is no agreed upon height where territory boundaries end. Legal Eagle actually covers that detail a bit in their coverage of the prior balloon. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P43wVDiZs8k https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P43wVDiZs8k
- idlewords 4y agoFingers crossed it's not a Korean airliner
- hyperthesis 4y ago> similar balloons passed over U.S. territory on four occasions during the Trump and Biden administrations from linked article https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-south-carolina-china-dfa08f4f47a58a638d4ef1d3a34b2a8b https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government...
- 11235813213455 4y ago> reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flights Aren't civilian flights more a threat for the planet? Not suggesting to shoot them, just to stop them
- numlock86 4y agoSo the Raptor is all about shooting down balloons?
- magwa101 4y ago[dead]