To be be very surprised that USA have not denied the "objects" they shot down could be alien in origin?

[Bjarnum]

Because surely they must know what they are by now. Very odd.

Good job President Trump set up Space Force. USA USA 🇺🇸 ♥

Aerial reconnaissance is not all about visual images and cameras, there's electronic intelligence gathering done from the air and space as well.

Heading for a TL;DR but anyway an example, a bit of speculation:

Lets say a major power 🤐that might get into conflict with the US wants to develop countermeasures to, say, for example, the US's leading air to air fighter, the F-22, most specifically counters to it's radar and maybe also countermeasures for the radar on it's air to air missile of choice, the AIM-120.

To develop those countermeasures the major power 🤐really needs to analyse all the characteristics of said radars such frequencies the radars use in different modes, scan patterns if any...there can be lots of useful stuff gleaned if you can get just "listen" to the raw data..

One way of gathering the info might be to equip a relatively innocuous high flying balloon with lots specialised radio receiving equipment plus the kit to transmit the received data back home live.

Fly the balloon slowly over the US and wait to be "looked" at, both visually and by radar and other means, such as fighters such as the F-22.... Potentially you've opened up an electronic intelligence old mine.

The unnamed major power 🤐would probably consider it an electronics intelligence jackpot if the US decided to use an F-22 plus AIM-120 to knock down a suitably equipped balloon..........there would be lots of lovely data to analyse, so it's interesting to note that the US has used the less complex AIM-9 missile to knock down the balloons so far - the reason for using that missile might not just be one of economics.

All that's just speculation but it's an example of why using a balloon could still have a niche use when it comes to gathering some forms of intelligence.

I find it odd that they are using such expensive missiles. The ones they are shooting to take them down cost 400k a pop. And unlike the chinese ballon,they aren’t showing us the wreckage or images from the planes. And of course they have that already.

it’s very odd. I’m sure it is man made, but it is clearly something the USA doesn’t recognise.

😂😂

Could just be peacocking @Littleloveydovey but it’s a good question

It’s going to be such an insult when they ignore us to communicate with octopuses, corvids and cats anyway.

@Littleloveydovey

I find it odd that they are using such expensive missiles. The ones they are shooting to take them down cost 400k a pop.

Well there aren't any "cheap" air to air missiles ....the AIM-9 (various iterations available) is probably as cheap as it gets if you want a fairly reliable current generation missile air to air missile compatible with something like the F-15 or F-22.

The missile will have been paid for anyway and at end of life gets scrapped, the USAF don't AFAIK get refunds, (certainly not big ones) for missiles not used....

As for not showing wreckage of whatever has been shot down in the last few days - I'd give it time, the intelligence community generally don't rush to publish anything.....nothing sinister about that.

Exactly. I'm surprised how this isnt obvious to everyone

Thanks for that very interesting. Back in the cold war days the Soviets shot down Gary Powers in a U2 spy plane over Russia that was a major global story and he lived to tell the tale. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers

This is true. Even if it was shown to be otherwise, there will always be some who doubt it and believe the narrative in their head.

I think the Alien argument is extremely unlikely so not sure why the US would entertain it.

Physics tells us that the likelihood of even an extremely advanced civilization somewhere 'out there' would be unlikely to be able to reach earth unless they travelled for millions of years - and visa versa unless our whole understanding of physics, space and time is completely wrong - in a which case Balloons are the least of our issues!

A topical short story from 1940 by John Wyndham (formatting in text a bit off but readable)

englishlanguageliterature.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/meteor-by-john-wyndham/

Oops wrong date. 1956.