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Is it a Chinese weather balloon or spy balloon?


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I tend to think it is a weather balloon for a few reasons.

1.  So far all we have heard is speculation from the politicians and media that it is a spy balloon without any evidence at all.  They are outraged over China using a ballioon to spy on the west.

2.  They claim is was "hoovering" over sensitive areas.  But its movement is entirely controlled by the wind currents which exist at the high altitude it is flying.  It was first discovered over Alaska, then over Canada and finally over the U.S.  It cannot control its path and is entirely dependent on where the wind currents take it.   

3.  It is almost funny how it is on the CTV news at this moment.  The host called it a "suspected balloon".  Of course it is a balloon.  CTV is very careless with their words.

4.  One reason why I believe it is not a spy balloon is it is completely obvious it would be observed and be shot down as it was.  It would be an extremely amateurish to use a balloon to spy in this modern age of the vast amounts of digital technology, the internet, spy satellites, and the probable number of spies and groups working for the CCP in north America.  

5.  Canada had a weathership fifty years ago in the north Pacific ocean which launched weather balloons every six hours although they may have been smaller than this one.  They carried a small transmitter with weather sensors below the balloon and transmitted the information back to the weathership as they rose around 100,000 feet.   Then somewhere up that altitude they would burst and fall into the ocean and be lost.  My job was to track the balloon on a computer-controlled radar system, not to recover it, but to record its altitude, speed, and direction.  I believe the sensors sent back the temperature and humidity and different altitudes as it went up.  After it burst, that was the end of it.  Nobody cared about it because it disappeared into the ocean.  The reason this one from China is still up there is probably because of its weight, the strong material it is made of, and inability to go any higher.  It is floating at a balance point and strong enough to withstand bursting.

6.  It just does not seem like a sensible way to spy on the west when there are countless other methods of spying, including satellites that can take fairly detailed photographs of things on the earth and the equipment can photograph anything they wish with the technology they have today.  A balloon which just floats randomly without any control of its movement just doesn't make sense as an instrument to spy.

    Now that it has been shot down after all the hype about it being a spy balloon, the question is will they tell us the truth about what they found if it is not a spy balloon?  It would require a big climb down by the politicians and media after all the assumptions and hype.

There has been incredible hype about this balloon.

"Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the Biden administration’s response to the balloon an “embarrassing display of weakness.”

“The [administration] should have taken care of this before it became a national security threat,” McCaul said in a statement posted to Twitter on Saturday."

Why the US waited to shoot down the China balloon (msn.com)

 

Edited by blackbird
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5 hours ago, blackbird said:

I tend to think it is a weather balloon for a few reasons.

1.  So far all we have heard is speculation from the politicians and media that it is a spy balloon without any evidence at all.

here's some evidence

look at the size of the gondola in relation to the F-22

if you zoom in, you can see it has four engines with propellers

the F-22's were at 58,000 feet, the balloon was at 65,000 ft

so the balloon is over a mile above the F-22

that's way too large to be a weather balloon, a weather balloon payload is a hundred pounds

that thing must weigh tons

no wonder they didn't want to shoot it down over land

if that thing came down in a populated area, it would be like an airplane crashing into your house

2576.webp

Edited by Dougie93
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9 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

here's some evidence

look at the size of the gondola in relation to the F-22

if you zoom in, you can see it has four engines with propellers

that's way too large to be a weather balloon, a weather balloon payload is a hundred pounds

that thing must weigh tons

no wonder they didn't want to shoot it down over land

if that thing came down in a populated area, it would be like an airplane crashing into your house

2576.webp

I heard on the news today they figured it was the size of four buses.  I admit it is very large.  That doesn't mean it weighs tons.  Even a large balloon would not weigh much.   It requires a large balloon filled with helium gas to lift a small weight.  They are made of very light material, just strong enough to hold the gas without bursting, so they will go up.   We don't know what the weight of the equipment it is carrying is.  Might be just a few pounds.  In any case, there is no evidence it is a surveillance or spy balloon.  Could still be just some sort of weather balloon.  I am hoping they recovered it with any electronics so they can determine what it is.  Will they tell the public though?

Lots of drama on the news.

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4 minutes ago, blackbird said:

I heard on the news today they figured it was the size of four buses.  I admit it is very large.  That doesn't mean it weighs tons.  Even a large balloon would not weigh much.   It requires a large balloon filled with helium gas to lift a small weight.  They are made of very light material, just strong enough to hold the gas without bursting, so they will go up.   We don't know what the weight of the equipment it is carrying is.  Might be just a few pounds.  In any case, there is no evidence it is a surveillance or spy balloon.  Could still be just some sort of weather balloon.  I am hoping they recovered it with any electronics so they can determine what it is.  Will they tell the public though?

Lots of drama on the news.

here is a photo of a large weather balloon

you will note : it does not have solar panels, nor any sort of propulsion

because weather balloons don't need those things

j6c9cj.jpg

Edited by Dougie93
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20 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

here is a photo of a large weather balloon

you will note : it does not have solar panels, nor any sort of propulsion

because weather balloons need those

j6c9cj.jpg

The weather balloons which were launched from the weather ship had no propulsion and no solar panels.  Weather balloons don't need propulsion.  They just drift with the wind.  There was no indication this balloon spotted drifting over north America had any propulsion.  The media and politicians claiming it was a spy balloon are really making a bizarre claim in my opinion.  There are countless other ways they could spy.  A drifting balloon would not be one of them.

What is that a picture of and the thing hanging under the balloon?  Not a weather balloon

The weather balloons that were launched on the weather ship had a small radio transmitter and sensors hanging from the balloon and were powered by a small battery.  No need for any solar panels.  A small battery can run a low-powered transmitter for days.  The electronics package weighed perhaps half of a kilogram and perhaps four inches by four inches.  It was much smaller that the balloon that's been on the news.  Weather balloons don't need any sort of propulsion.   They just drift with the wind and rise because of the helium in them.

Edited by blackbird
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11 minutes ago, blackbird said:

The weather balloons that were launched on the weather ship had a small radio transmitter and sensors hanging from the balloon and were powered by a small battery.  No need for any solar panels.  A small battery can run a low-powered transmitter for days.  The electronics package weighed perhaps half of a kilogram and perhaps four inches by four inches.  It was much smaller that the balloon that's been on the news.  Weather balloons don't need any sort of propulsion.   They just drift with the wind and rise because of the helium in them.

so you agree, the Chinese are lying, this is not a weather baloon

the large payload gondola the solar panels & propellers indicate it is some sort of persistent surveillance platform

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1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

so you agree, the Chinese are lying, this is not a weather baloon

the large payload gondola the solar panels & propellers indicate it is some sort of persistent surveillance platform

No I never agreed.   Where did you find the picture you posted?  I have not seen that kind of thing on the media of the balloon from China we are talking about.   Can you give the link where you got the photo?  

Even the picture you posted does not prove it is not a weather balloon and does not prove it is a spy balloon.

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5 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

so you agree, the Chinese are lying, this is not a weather baloon

the large payload gondola the solar panels & propellers indicate it is some sort of persistent surveillance platform

Where did you get the idea it has propellers?    The photo you showed could be the one from China but there is nothing there to indicate it was a spy balloon.  It could still be a weather balloon.  I think making assumptions without knowing what it actually was is not too bright.

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4 minutes ago, blackbird said:

No I never agreed.   Where did you find the picture you posted?  I have not seen that kind of thing on the media of the balloon from China we are talking about.   Can you give the link where you got the photo?  

Even the picture you posted does not prove it is not a weather balloon and does not prove it is a spy balloon.

what does it matter ?

here's another picture of a weather balloon from the University of Albany

you said yourself, the Chinese balloon is not one of these

1200x0.jpg

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Just now, Dougie93 said:

what does it matter ?

here's another picture of a weather balloon from the University of Albany

you said yourself, the Chinese balloon is not one of these

1200x0.jpg

No.  I said there is no proof it was a spy balloon.  That was my point.  While I don't know for sure what it is, I don't claim it was a spy balloon just because the mainstream media says it is.

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Just now, blackbird said:

No.  I said there is no proof it was a spy balloon.  That was my point.  While I don't know for sure what it is, I don't claim it was a spy balloon just because the mainstream media says it is.

this is not court

I don't need proof

based on the preponderance of evidence, it does appear to be a military grade surveillance platform

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1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

if you zoom on the photo of the Chinese balloon, you can see the propellers around the centre of the gondola

I was unable to zoom in on your photo.  Not zoomable.  So I can't propellers.  I am not saying there are none but I can't see them.  However, again that would not prove anything.

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1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

this is not court

I don't need proof

based on the preponderance of evidence, it does appear to be a military grade surveillance platform

OK you go with that.  I will still say there is no proof until I see some real evidence.   We know China is a big adversary in the world between the U.S. and China, but that is not proof everything that happens is some sort of hostile act such as spying.

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2 minutes ago, blackbird said:

I was unable to zoom in on your photo.  Not zoomable.  So I can't propellers.  I am not saying there are none but I can't see them.  However, again that would not prove anything.

again, proof is not required to see that the Chinese are lying

this is a huge solar powered gondola which obviously has nothing to do with weather research

 

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The media says the U.S. has a recovery operation under way which could take a few days.  They say it is in about 47 feet of water.  I am not sure why they did not have a ship right there when they shot it down to catch it right when it hit the water.  Doesn't make much sense.  Now they must look for it.   Whether they will tell the public what it is if it turns out not to be spy equipment is hard to say since their highest officials in the U.S. and media have been calling it a spy balloon all along.  It would mean a big climb down and admission of error.

Meanwhile, when a Canadian minister was asked why it was not told to the public for a week after it was over Canada, all he would keep saying is certain things are under national security precaution.  They treat the public like a bunch of toddlers or school children.  Very condescending.  Also, why didn't Canada shoot it down since there are few populated areas?  Could have recovered it and determined what it is.  

Edited by blackbird
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Its too bad Canada didn't shoot it down when they had the chance to do it.  Now Canada will never know what kind of balloon it really was.  The U.S. government, military,  Canadian politicians, and mainstream media throughout north America have already decided it was definitely a spy balloon and told the public.

Guess Canada didn't want to offend China by shooting it down.  Leave it to the Americans.

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3 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

I believe China on this since they are super trustworthy. 

The interesting thing for me is that I don't even want to peek at the conspiracy folks posts.  Their opinions will be set by offshore content mills soon enough.

 

I personally love the few days' pause that happens when these events occur, as the propaganda mills figure out how to spin it...

 

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