Well the country and world has lost its collective mind over balloons.
The US has shot down several in the last week….the big one was the Chinese model and now we know(?) what it was all about….
The US has finished its efforts to recover the remnants of the large balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, and analysis of the debris so far reinforces conclusions that it was a Chinese spy balloon, US officials said Friday. Officials said Navy, Coast Guard, and FBI personnel collected all of the balloon debris off the ocean floor, which included equipment from the payload that could reveal what information it collected. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that a significant amount of debris was recovered and that it included “electronics and optics” from the payload, the AP reports. He declined to say what, if anything, the US has learned from the wreckage so far.
That is what is great about this country…the transparency….
Then there are the few other balloons that were shot down….
President Biden on Thursday acknowledged that the three unidentified objects he ordered the US military to shoot down were likely harmless weather balloons.
“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” Biden said.
Following the panic caused by the Chinese balloon that floated over the United States, US fighter jets shot down unidentified objects on February 10, 11, and 12 using heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, which are worth over $400,000 apiece.
Biden said the military was still working to collect the debris. “Our military and the Canadian military are seeking to recover the debris so we can learn more about these three objects,” he said.
According to a report from Aviation Week, at least one of the objects may have been a hobby balloon reported missing by a club in Illinois that launches small balloons with tracking devices that are capable of traveling the globe at high altitudes.
The club, the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB), said its balloon was last reported off the coast of Alaska on February 10, and tracking data projected that it would be floating over Canada’s Yukon Territory on February 11, the same day a US F-22 shot down an object in the area.
The balloon they launched is known as a “pico balloon,” a small silver-coated party-style balloon that carries a transmitter. A Pentagon memo described the object that was shot down over Canada as a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it.”
Rocky Mountain Ham Radio, another group that launches hobby balloons, describes the pico balloons as “a 3-foot mylar foil party balloon, filled partially with ultra-pure helium, and carrying a 13-gram solar-powered APRS transmitter. The balloon is intended to travel for long distances (not to achieve heights) and is not intended to be recovered. These balloons have literally circumnavigated the globe — even multiple times — before finally descending.”
News that Ukraine has shot down some balloons….jumping on the media bandwagon.
Hopefully this bit of paranoia will subside…..but not to worry we will find another.
I am sure there is another diversion waiting on the horizon to drive the imagination of the media and the public.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
It is our enemies making detailed lists from their surveillance of the placement of our defenses .. kind of like mapping out Pearl Harbor would have been if the Japs had the technology to do so in the 1940s.
Or was it a weather balloon? They already have satellites why use a balloon? Just wondering chuq
If it was just a weather balloon then why did it return to hover over the military installations once again after it had already hovered over them and moved on for awhile before return to hover over them again?
John there is a military installation everywhere so that could have been just a coincidence…..I do not believe they carried a motor so it was suppose to be on air currents. What about the other couple that were shot down. chuq
We will never know if they carried a motor or not — unless some news hack decides there is a profit to made in saying that there was a motor ….and the other couple that were shot down? I think they were just a couple of the thousands of other balloons that are always hovering over the country from scientists and hobbyists –the skies are filled with all kinds of shit.
All we got about the ‘Chinese’ balloon is that it has electronics and optics….but so do weather research…..so far I have not seen or heard proof positive. chuq
If we rely on government sources, we will never hear proof positive .. unless somebody thinks they can make money out of supplying proof positive.
There is truth out there we just to know it when it hits us in the face….I refuse to give up in my search. chuq
The most serious diversion on the horizon right now is the waning interest by some (expletive withheld) in the United States who want to decrease support for Ukraine in their war against Russia. Like all the prior commitments the U S has made to other countries in trouble, I am sure we will find a way to worm out of this one as well. It is no wonder the world in general has little or no confidence in the promises made by the USA.
Do you think it is money well spent? This is in for a long haul without some process to end it. chuq
I think it is money that is just as well being spent on Ukraine as was the money The United States spent to aid England in their fight against Hitler in the Second World War — but the catch, as I see it, is that if we continue to ramp up our support for Ukraine then Putin might well take a cue from Hitler and declare war on The United States … But then again, if we do not continue to assist Ukraine, Ukraine will fall and Russia will be free to move on the Moldova and Poland or it’s choice of any of the other NATO countries that he has his sights set on for incorporating into his expansion plan of reconstituting the defunct Soviet Empire. It is a dangerous catch 22.
Most of the monetary support is just ducky….but what will it do to the social fabric of this country? chuq
What it will do for the social fabric of this country is the same as it has always been …It will enable the population to continue their quest for the warmest possible place to defecate.
I thought was what their diapers were about….they sell enough of them on the tube these days. chuq