Ok - what are these flying objects the US keeps shooting down

[fissty]

First the ballon

Then a mysterious object the size of a car

now another BBC alert they are tracking another “ufo” across Canada…..

Chinese?

Aliens?

@JaneJeffer never you mind you and your sensible position on this. I like the dafter theories more

OK,

Well we obviously haven't been to the moon before, so maybe all this talk of sending a manned mission to the moon has spooked our neighbours and they are now trolling us to put us off going to the moon.

OK @Thesystemonlydreamsintotaldarkness it's the Clangers who are behind all this. As long as you don't make soup you will be safe from alien abduction. Better?

Shit!!! I made soup for lunch today

Uh oh

The Clangers only ate green soup. So you may be okay.

He makes a good point...

Lol.

President Biden will make additional remarks about the situation, likely today.

www.cnbc.com/2023/02/16/biden-planning-to-deliver-most-extensive-remarks-yet-on-aerial-objects-military-shot-down.html

well, now we know what we needed distracting from...

Yup.
Journalists are getting arrested apparently.

Cockpit audio from the Lake Huron shoot down has been released.

nypost.com/2023/02/14/cockpit-audio-shows-pilots-struggling-to-id-lake-huron-object/

Journalists are getting arrested apparently.

Do you mean the ones in Iran?

Iran protests: Female journalists targeted in spate of arrests

If you're referring to journalists covering the story in Ohio, please provide a source reporting the arrests.

www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/us/newsnation-reporter-charges-dropped.html
Here you go @MissConductUS

The NYT article is paywalled, but I found coverage elsewhere. He disrupted a press conference when he was arrested, and the charges were dropped a few hours later.

There is abundant coverage of the situation in the national and local press, so the idea that it's all being covered up is pretty far fetched.

Hmm it’s interesting he described it like a balloon too

Interesting thanks.

Being in an F-16 or 15 and trying to investigate and provide a detailed description of a stationary object at altitude would be tough.

I'm not surprised they were struggling to come up with much to say other than balloon like.

I’ve just got in from work. Has anything of note been said?

Biden said they were privately owned objects and didn't come from outside the US @Teaandtoast3

Say what?? A million dollars to down a privately owned object? And that is all A OK?

Because satellites have to be told where to look and it’s expensive to direct them.

Balloons are good at evading radar.

www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1157530528/biden-remarks-unidentified-aerial-objects-balloon

He said the three aerial objects shot down by U.S. military were most likely tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions.

He did not say anything about where they came from.

He said there is no evidence they are surveillance vehicles from any other country.

https://www.youtube.com/live/vaxxFWg03uE?feature=share

The mostly likely culprits are state actors or 'deniable' private agents working for state actors but that there is a desire to ramp down the rhetoric and draw a line under the spat which after all in the world of spying everyone does anyway.

I'll never forget the sight of the then secretary of state for defence , Colin Powell speaking at the UN jutsifying the invasion of Iraq holding a vial of white powder. He was basically asked to lie to the UN about the basis for the US invasion. Colin Powell knew his name would be forever tied to the ill-fated U.S. 2003 invasion of Iraq, and that the lending of his reputation and personal prestige to the faulty intelligence used to justify the ensuing war was an indelible stain and led to the deaths of 100s of thousands of people as a result.

“I didn’t lie. I didn’t know it was not true. I was secretary of state, not the director of intelligence,” he said in a 2005 interview, just months after he was asked to resign from the administration of President George W. Bush.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/colin-powell-iraq-war/2021/10/18/179d66bc-3023-11ec-a880-a9d8c009a0b1_story.html

The mostly likely culprits are state actors or 'deniable' private agents working for state actors but that there is a desire to ramp down the rhetoric and draw a line under the spat which after all in the world of spying everyone does anyway.

To say the least no, not really, they are not the most likely, not for the smaller objects.

The Chinese have fessed up to the first (big) balloon, though not what it was doing. As for the smaller objects it is worth being aware that some schools, some hobby interest groups and even individuals have been having genuine fun and games flying balloons to high altitude..it's relatively easy to do...couple of it being done legitimately here:

www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1306422636052488

All fine if done in a approved manner ( there are rules on payload size and if and who needs to be notified). However not so fine if it's not done in the approved manner.

@RecoIIectionsMayVary

A million dollars to down a privately owned object? And that is all A OK?

Yep...OK in my book in certain circumstances...

Send something reasonably sizeable but hard to detect up to linger, drifting around, in what is known as controlled airspace at civil aviation cruising altitudes (which the smaller objects were) without notifying anyone and I'd say you're vulnerable to it all ending with a roughly 400k dollar solution.