The Pentagon on Thursday claimed that it is tracking a spy balloon that has been spotted over the US for several days.
A senior Pentagon official told reporters that the US has “high confidence” the surveillance balloon belongs to China, but the claim hasn’t been confirmed, and Beijing has yet to respond to the accusation.
Like the US, China has sophisticated satellite capabilities that make deploying something like a spy balloon over US territory redundant, something the senior Pentagon official who spoke to reporters acknowledged.
“First, our best assessment at the moment is that whatever the surveillance payload is on this balloon, it does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit,” the official said.
The Pentagon decided not to shoot the balloon down due to the risk of harming people on the ground. Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement that the balloon was “currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.”
Ryder claimed the US has tracked similar balloons in recent years. The senior Pentagon official said the balloon was over Montana at one point, a state that houses nuclear weapons silos.
The claim about the alleged Chinese spy balloon comes amid heightened tensions with Beijing and as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is preparing to visit China, where he is due to arrive on February 5. In recent weeks, the US has been announcing a series of steps it’s taking to increase its presence in the Asia Pacific as part of a military buildup aimed at China.
Clearly those devious Chicoms have learned to control high-altitude winds. We’re in trouble now. 🙄
If you want closeup photos of Minuteman silos, it would be easier to send a couple of tourists in rental cars. No doubt they’re all pinpointed by satellite surveillance and, if your tourists are having trouble finding them, they could just ask the locals. They aren’t all that exciting or revealing, of course.
https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3428/3784772055_b2803cbeea.jpg
Here comes the false flags to drag us into a war with China. They can’t at least invent something more believable than a *balloon*? And they are too scared to shoot down a balloon because of debris over middle of nowhere Montana? Keep your eyes open and don’t believe the Pentagon’s lies!
There is infact a balloon, you conspiracy fueled moron, only what’s it’s purposes is in question, though most likely a wayward whether balloon.
There is no lie, that only you are smart enough to see.
Only one red ballon? What happened to the other 98?
Maybe its a…weather balloon?
Yup, it’s a weather balloon that drifted off course…
Yup, it’s a weather balloon that drifted off course…
“The Pentagon decided not to shoot the balloon down due to the risk of harming people on the ground.” In Montana? I did a little research about Montana (okay, not much I just googled). “It is the fourth-largest state by area, the eighth-least populous state, and the third-least densely populated state.” How absurd. How many are going to fall for this? …Okay, forget the stupid question.
Did you ever think that Pentagon wants to get the instrumentation package? Getting it spread all over Montana may not be the best way. So they may be working on a plan to bring it down slowly. We will see over next few days what will happen.
Fall for what? That they don’t want to shoot it down needlessly, not everything is conspiracy, you nut case
“A military buildup aimed at China?” It sounds way more onmous than a baloon.
This nation cannot allow a balloon gap.
But seriously, if there actually is a balloon drifting somewhere over Montana, and I’m as worried about that as anybody, but is there actually a reason to suppose it came from China, other than the fact that China is the current enemy #1 and most everything comes from China anyway? Personally, my money is on Chinese engineering students just messing with the foreign white devils.
There’s a picture of the thing up on RT and it’s apparently got solar panels arrayed like the ISS so my first thought is American design but then maybe it’s Chinese engineers copycatting, maybe as a joke, but whatever keeps the bureaucrats chasing their tails around. And maybe they haven’t shot it down because they can’t get a weapon radar lock on a Dacron envelope with a few kilos of hardware dangling from it, and besides which SAMs and air to air missiles aren’t designed for targets with essentially zero velocity so that could be a problem. No telling how much funding is going to gush from this.
Beijing supposedly owned up to it being their balloon, said it was a research balloon that got carried off course (makes sense since balloons go where the wind takes them).
It probably happens all the time. Why notice it it this time? Because the State Department was looking for something to throw a tantrum and cancel Blinken’s trip to China over.
Ah. One of those devious inscrutable Chinese “surveillance balloons”, blown by the wind (which the Chinese I guess now control) over sensitive US military sites to image whatever all their spy satellites somehow missed, proving once again there’s no such thing as too preposterous for the government and their MSM. Still … spy balloons? Really? Were they at Roswell too?
LOL 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Brilliant 🙂 🙂
Dude! I started uncontrollably laughing and coughing. I spilled my coffee, popped my hernia out, and peed on myself. China attacked us with a spy balloon?
You don’t attack with a spy balloon, you use it to spy, its in name, no need to piss yourself.