Another balloon object shot down over Alaska

[Foosters 17889]

I'm all for the simulation introducing alien contact and us Bruckheimering them out of the sky at first sight.

Beats what they've been giving us the last half decade or so.

[Pato del Muerto 52618]

20 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I'm all for the simulation introducing alien contact and us Bruckheimering them out of the sky at first sight.

Beats what they've been giving us the last half decade or so.

6 months from now, Ukrainian piloting an F16:  dammit if I only had 2 more sidewinders I could end this war right now!

[wild_turkey 3185]

I'm all for the simulation introducing alien contact and us Bruckheimering them out of the sky at first sight.

Imagine traveling light years to establish friendly contact with an alien species and then they shoot you out of the sky without even realizing what you are and what you had to accomplish to get there.

We must look insane to them.

Don’t visit Earth. Its inhabitants are crazy and hostile.

[Telegraph_it 3359]

Damn filters. 
 

 

 

[Aqua Buddha 14624]

 

[Homercles 10206]

8 hours ago, Telegraph_it said:

Damn filters. 
 

 

 

Well yeah.  If you don’t have any filtering in place on radar, especially long range OTH stuff, it’ll be a cluttered mess where you end up seeing nothing useful…birds, spurious returns, the ionosphere, etc.  Fighter pilots use that to their advantage in a BVR dogfight, lookup ‘notching’. 
 

Rogoway is a pretty good source and has had a lot of great scoops on TheWarzone.  What I think he’s leaving out here is just how much more manpower likely has to be dedicated to watching radar scopes, in peacetime, to identify/track/investigate returns that are not part of the traditional aircraft/ICBM threat vector. 
 

Of course the same people who were bitching about not shooting down the first balloon are now bitching about the costs of shooting down balloons…so who knows.  It’s not only F22 flight hours and AIM9x, but tankers and maintenance just to get them there.  
 

Curious where this all leads.  

[JesusSweatDuck 17814]

I just think it's funny how much bitching Canada does about the US but they can't shoot down a balloon on their own

[Nivek 16992]

14 hours ago, mdmost said:

 

Compliance! 

[Captainant 27833]

19 minutes ago, Homercles said:

Of course the same people who were bitching about not shooting down the first balloon are now bitching about the costs of shooting down balloons…so who knows.  

It's almost like there's a large chunk of people in the general discourse (not really in this thread though thankfully) that aren't participating in good faith and will complain about whatever they've been told to complain about lol

 

It is pretty funny that for all the trillions we've sunk into air defense, that we're playing Bloons tower defense IRL lol

[Guest]

This is all Lockheed seeding balloons to keep the F-22 contracts coming. For some $100 Mylar balloon, they get $100 billion in contracts. It's basic business. 

[Kennythetiger 9481]

2 hours ago, Aqua Buddha said:

 

Well, yeah. We don’t want to show them the good stuff yet. 

[locodos 5397]

Aliens intercepting Earth coms have to go back to slightly turning knobs

[JesusSweatDuck 17814]

27 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

This is all Lockheed seeding balloons to keep the F-22 contracts coming. For some $100 Mylar balloon, they get $100 billion in contracts. It's basic business. 

They're developing new missiles as we speak that look like this

[hayden_horn 11365]

11 hours ago, Foosters said:

I'm all for the simulation introducing alien contact and us Bruckheimering them out of the sky at first sight.

Beats what they've been giving us the last half decade or so.

 

10 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

 

Imagine traveling light years to establish friendly contact with an alien species and then they shoot you out of the sky without even realizing what you are and what you had to accomplish to get there.

We must look insane to them.

Don’t visit Earth. Its inhabitants are crazy and hostile.

 

the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

[ChickenSandwich 9855]

[Stella Link 534]

Don't understand why they are shooting these things down.  We should just go up and capture them.  

I mean....this is 1960s technology.....

 

[Telegraph_it 3359]

And another one. Do we see a balloon over the Super Bowl!?

Also don’t down the United 772 I am on tomorrow please.  

 

 

[Guest]

So are we all in agreement that the entire "we didn't want to down the balloon due to the risk of people on the ground" was BS? Seemed spurious to me at the start as there is hardly anyone in the Montana/Wyoming, western Nebraska region. Figured they just wanted to study it before popping it.

[babysdaddy 2728]

Well, either it’s aliens (which is fucked up) or the Chinese just keep sending shit over (which is also fucked up)

[Dahobbs 17699]

6 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

So are we all in agreement that the entire "we didn't want to down the balloon due to the risk of people on the ground" was BS? Seemed spurious to me at the start as there is hardly anyone in the Montana/Wyoming, western Nebraska region. Figured they just wanted to study it before popping it.

Haven't they said both of those reasons? 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

Haven't they said both of those reasons? 

I never heard them say they wanted to study it and that's why they let it fly. I heard them say they didn't want to risk people/property on the ground. 

I'd understand that over the eastern half of the country, but not in Montana, etc.

[Kennythetiger 9481]

24 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

there is hardly anyone in the Montana/Wyoming, western Nebraska region. Figured they just wanted to study it before popping it.

Listen here goddamn it. 

[Mother mopar 3324]

This is all Lockheed seeding balloons to keep the F-22 contracts coming. For some $100 Mylar balloon, they get $100 billion in contracts. It's basic business. 

Too bad the assembly line shut down over a decade ago and the last jet rolled off in 2011.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Mother mopar said:

5 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

This is all Lockheed seeding balloons to keep the F-22 contracts coming. For some $100 Mylar balloon, they get $100 billion in contracts. It's basic business. 

Too bad the assembly line shut down over a decade ago and the last jet rolled off in 2011.

Just all the more obvious then... 

[Neonmoon 38130]

It makes sense that aliens are studying people from Michigan 

[bolverk 29734]

52 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

So are we all in agreement that the entire "we didn't want to down the balloon due to the risk of people on the ground" was BS? Seemed spurious to me at the start as there is hardly anyone in the Montana/Wyoming, western Nebraska region. Figured they just wanted to study it before popping it.

Three objects have been shot down over US territorial waters. One shot down over the virtually uninhabited Yukon territory of Canada with its population density of 0.2 persons per square mile. It's a territory whose land area is somewhere between Texas and California with a total population of 44,000 people. Plus, that was Canada's call to shoot it down over their own land.

[Hook1997 5404]

So they are just fucking with us not saying what the last three objects were right?  Its balloons of some sort but they are like let’s make them wonder a bit.  

[SquishMitten 10444]

49 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I never heard them say they wanted to study it and that's why they let it fly. I heard them say they didn't want to risk people/property on the ground. 

I'd understand that over the eastern half of the country, but not in Montana, etc.

They said the first ballon was at a high enough altitude that it wasn’t worth the risk of shooting down because there was basically zero risk in letting it do it’s thing. They did briefly mention that they were using the opportunity to study the balloon.

The last few have been in the same zone that commercial air traffic flies so it’s a pretty different situation that warrants a risk analysis. That being said, I think the admin is kind of forced to shoot anything down now that everyone is watching.

[mdmost 43056]

Maybe they're testing our defenses for weaknesses systematically. They remember!

Edited February 12, 2023 by mdmost

[Francisco 2.0 32432]

Crossposting this from the Super Bowl thread:

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Francisco 2.0

[Nicole44 22078]

[DDD Dad 14352]

1 hour ago, babysdaddy said:

Well, either it’s aliens (which is fucked up) or the Chinese just keep sending shit over (which is also fucked up)

 

[tbone_ 14188]

Wtff?

[staboner 4988]

3 hours ago, babysdaddy said:

Well, either it’s aliens (which is fucked up) or the Chinese just keep sending shit over (which is also fucked up)

Chinese Aliens

[Bevo 13601]

The first one wasn't shot down early because of the planned Blinkin trip. The public outcry has made it more important to shoot down the others more quickly.

[Herbie Hancock 7376]

Or, our government isn’t as smart as everyone thinks and the day the first one made the news was the same day they found out about it, and now they’re actually looking for them.

[Hate 20146]

Or, our government isn’t as smart as everyone thinks and the day the first one made the news was the same day they found out about it, and now they’re actually looking for them.

Oh, now you’ve done it.

[Armybrat 40920]

What’s next?

 

[Bevo 13601]

1 hour ago, Herbie Hancock said:

Or, our government isn’t as smart as everyone thinks and the day the first one made the news was the same day they found out about it, and now they’re actually looking for them.

Our government is only as smart as our people.

[atomheartbevo 89834]

10 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

This is all Lockheed seeding balloons to keep the F-22 contracts coming. For some $100 Mylar balloon, they get $100 billion in contracts. It's basic business. 

Seeding the balloons is some variation of this, but I haven’t figured it out yet

 

[CooterBrown 18033]

Why are they using missiles instead of the 20mm gun to takeout balloons? Unless they’re not balloons.

[SmokeyTheBear 5568]

Ffs, I think this whole balloon thing is just a guerilla marketing campaign by U2. 

[Pato del Muerto 52618]

Anyone else see that Super Bowl commercial with U2 and giant balloons?

[Dahobbs 17699]

49 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Why are they using missiles instead of the 20mm gun to takeout balloons? Unless they’re not balloons.

Guns actually don't work well on balloons like this. It isn't like they pop and go down. Instead, they get tattered but keep floating. And, given that these are low speed objects, getting within gun range doesn't leave much maneuver room, meaning your expensive fighter could be taken down by the balloon or debis from it. 

[Telegraph_it 3359]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Guns actually don't work well on balloons like this. It isn't like they pop and go down. Instead, they get tattered but keep floating. And, given that these are low speed objects, getting within gun range doesn't leave much maneuver room, meaning your expensive fighter could be taken down by the balloon or debis from it. 

You sure know a lot about balloons…🤨

[GoPokes83 2240]

Is there no way to capture them without letting them fall 40-60 thousand feet?

[hookemATL 11925]

1 hour ago, GoPokes83 said:

Is there no way to capture them without letting them fall 40-60 thousand feet?

The Balloon Scoop program is decades behind schedule at this point.

[Trey3216 15376]

On 2/11/2023 at 8:17 PM, atomheartbevo said:

Oh fuck, we've time-traveled back to the 1920s

 

No ticket 

[956 Worldwide 34796]

On 2/12/2023 at 6:39 AM, wild_turkey said:

 

Imagine traveling light years to establish friendly contact with an alien species and then they shoot you out of the sky without even realizing what you are and what you had to accomplish to get there.

We must look insane to them.

Don’t visit Earth. Its inhabitants are crazy and hostile.

 

On our earth, at least— first contact between entirely different cultures and/or species almost always ends up really badly for at least one of the parties involved. We haven’t evolved that much.

So the Sentinel Islander strategy of just straight up murdering anything that’s on your turf is not a terrible one. It’s worked out for them and for us. 

[YGIFS 19452]

8 hours ago, GoPokes83 said:

Is there no way to capture them without letting them fall 40-60 thousand feet?

I heard one brilliant weapons system analyst who "does his own research" say if the excuse of "studying the balloon" over Montana was valid, instead of shooting the thing down like this guy wanted immediately;  They could have used the jet's drag parachute to "scoop" the balloon and fly it down to be dropped safely and picked up by military/intel personnel.  I'm trying to picture what this guy was picturing in his mind but it makes my head hurt.  

Also, how many air-to-air missiles does our Air Force have?  I bet not as many balloons as exist in the world.  

I do like the "shoot first" mentality on these last three.  We can always claim the balloon was trying to grab our missiles first so we had to fire.  Self defense.