The Pentagon said Thursday that the Chinese balloon that wound up over the US in February did not collect data while it flew over US territory.
“We believe that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States, and certainly the efforts that we made contributed, I’m sure,” said Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
Ryder made the comments when asked about a Wall Street Journal report that said the balloon contained US-made equipment. “I don’t have any specifics to provide as it pertains to the [People’s Republic of China] high altitude balloon and any potential US components,” he said.
For their part, Beijing has said the balloon was a civilian weather research device, while the Biden administration says it was a surveillance device. At this point, it has become clear that China did not intend to fly the balloon over the US, something President Biden recently acknowledged.
“That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States,” Biden said.
The Balloon incident caused a frenzy in Washington, causing Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a trip to China. Members of Congress demanded President Biden shoot down the balloon, which he eventually did when it was off the coast of South Carolina.
Following the downing of the Chinese balloon, the US downed three unidentified objects using four $400,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. At least one was likely a small hobby balloon, known as a pico balloon, which can be purchased for as little as $12, depending on the type.
The White House has acknowledged that the three objects could have been “totally benign.” President Biden said they were likely “balloons tied to private companies, recreational or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”
So, “Nevermind.” Emily Litella, on “Laugh In,” conducts our recent foreign policy.
. . . clear that China did not intend to fly the balloon over the US, something President Biden recently acknowledged. . . . “It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States,” Biden said.
It did not collect data while it flew over US territory.
Joe got the Chinese spy balloon confused with that hobby balloon he shot down when he babbled about it being off course.
We all saw the tracking data after all.
I really want to fly my Pico Balloons so they can be shut down by a F-35 jet…!
So we shot down some wayward weather balloons and hobby balloons at a cost of something like $400K a pop, just excellent.
The ballon hysteria will surely go down in history as some of the most stupid things that the hawks have led us to do…
Pentagon Says Chinese Balloon Did Not Collect Data While Over US
nonsense. Biden said “the Chinese spy-balloon was carrying 2 box-cars full of spy equipment, so i shot it down” – – so who you gonna believe?
“We believe that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States, and certainly the efforts that we made contributed, I’m sure,” said Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
So, it was blown off course and it wasn’t collecting data. Exactly then, how did the efforts we made contribute to that? Typical fucking general.
All that eletronic junk it held was simply a bluetooth speaker that forgotten by the hobbyists (who were not spies;-).
Did you read that Reuters link everyone is sharing?
As if a fed to the media story by the government to their favorite stenographers at Reuters has any veracity.
Why wouldn’t the Chinese “spy” on us?
We spy on them, they spy on us; it just what we both do…
And we both tell lies about the activities and some like this one originated with a senile old man who has been saying quite a bit of nonsence everytime he’s on camera.lately.
You missed my point. I was talking about what the general said about how whatever we did while it was floating over the US contributed to the balloon not collecting data.
I thought you were as disbelieving of the bs that there was no data collection?
Surely you saw the tracking data on that actual spy balloon circling military bases.
Joe, when he shared there was no data collection, was likely conflating several balloons into one in his addled mind and all this subsequent musings by others is the usual “covering” for Joe’s frailties.
Nope. Just an observation of a career kiss ass kissing ass.
So that balloon that was circling military bases was because it was off course and all that electronic stuff was just the crappy navigation system that screwed up?
You actually BELIEVE the security state on this one?????
Damn dude, have you set up camp at the Afroman festival (this weekend at the Briar Patch) and are higher than I am currently?
Did I say that? Jesus, I was just making a fucking snide remark about a general.
I told you I was high….
I was starting to think I did too many hitters myself.
Looking back at my original comment, it does look like I did too many hitters. I didn’t word that very well.
If you are close to Iowa, it’s Afroman (Because I got High) this Sunday at a small music festival in Bevington.
You can not do too many hitters there….
Nope. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula here. Is Iowa legal?
As our JH football shared when I questioned the legalities of a couple plays of his, “it ain’t illegal until you get caught”.
Let’s put it this way; the first festival of the season there was put on by a headshop.
I hear ya. It was illegal my first 33 years of smoking. Never came close to getting nabbed. We got medicinal in 2009. I jumped on that. Nice insurance policy. Now we have recreational and a bunch of corporate dispensaries popping up. Glad I don’t have to depend on them.
Nabbed?
I’ve had the DEA Ninjas with selecter switches on their real assault weapons visiting me.
Mr. White was an actor; I wasn’t.
I only escaped Fed because they are f-ups and the lawyer that was hired for the negotiations was a gun slinger (he did not argue before them but sat at the winning table with his law partner at the US Supreme court 😉
i refused to “get on the ground!” once – because it had rained and 30 days in the hole kinda sucks when your clothes are wet and muddy
I ran one time, went down a hill into a creek and hid under the roots of a fallen tree up to my chest in water.
They did not catch me….;-) that time….
I was deemed by the popo as the best cook in the county.
I did a true birch w/sodium metal at my best using bases/ racemized bases not the crush and stir tweaker cooks.
I can tell you where B-Bad went fictional and why it was really ridiculous in regards to chemistry.
But that’s for a different site…
really, 33 years ?
that is literally an eternity and a blink of an eye at the same time
It was actually 36 years. I started in ’73. In 2009, I got my ‘get out of jail free card’. But yeah, on the eternity/blink of an eye thing.
LOL
If the balloon was “circling military bases,” it was because the wind was blowing in circles.
So all that tracking of the balloon was bogus?
Those Chinese are just misunderstood and they really do not care what we are up to on our bases?
They could care less about anything we do?
Next are you going share all those electronics were just a weather lab and our government never lies to us about such subjects?
“We tracked where a balloon was blown by the prevailing winds” /= “the balloon, which had no guidance or propulsion system, was somehow magically choosing where it went.”
There are somewhere between 450 and 500 military bases in the United States. ANYTHING that’s flying around is going to be “circling” a bunch of them.
During the first balloon they had tracking data showing it was being directed where to go.
Did you forget that or are you dismissing that?
It’s amazing what you are appearing to believe about this despite the tracking data and the acknowledge large electronic payload that they have recovered
Do you want to share what else others don’t believe but the Pentagon assures us is true?
“Did you forget that or are you dismissing that?”
I didn’t forget it because I never heard any such thing.
I’m quite interested in this technology that allows a balloon without a propulsion or guidance system to magically be “directed where to go.”
Then you forgot about the early reporting and that tracking they did while it transited the US.
Perhaps you might go the research route and read up about Chinese research balloons if you are bored?
But we are getting bogged down if you remember something, aren’t we?
Who cares if they went over those bases by complete illogical happenstance or if they used the craft’s ability to maneuver ?
What matters if they gathered intelligence or not.
Do you actually believe the Pentagon on this one?
The balloon was not collecting military information?
Remember these are the same folks that claim the Chinese are tracking us with Tik Tok for military purposes, yet a research balloon transiting the US the same Pentagon tells is completely innocent ….. just as they try to get the Chinese talking to Joe again.
“Do you actually believe the Pentagon on this one?”
I never believe the Pentagon on anything. And in the absence of them publicly revealing a propulsion/guidance system which is not visible from photos of the balloon, I don’t believe e.g. General Patrick Ryder (USAF)’s claim that “it has the ability to maneuver.”
As John Villasenor, director of the Institute for Technology, Law and Policy and a professor of electrical engineering, law, public policy and management at the University of California, Los Angeles, says in response to the claim:
“It can be controlled, but let me be careful about what I mean by that. Balloons go with the wind. And so the only control that a balloon has is: in some balloons, you can control the altitude—you can make it go higher or lower. To the extent that the wind speed and direction varies with altitude, you can change the altitude, within some limits. And that can give you some measure of control—but not anywhere near the level of control that you have [with an airplane]. You can’t turn around and go the other direction; you can never go upwind in the balloon. You’re always going to be moving with the atmosphere that surrounds it.”
“It can be controlled”
That is a quote from what you provided yet you persist with this thread as if I shared something wrong but now it appears you want to argue just how well they can control it.
Really?
Are you actually conflating what I shared with a presumption that I meant it was a maneuverable as a fixed wing craft?
How about from Scientific American, “Spy craft has unexpected manueverability.”
It really was not “loitering” as many shared?
So they were lying then?
The Chinese were also lying about their capabilities?
No propellers despite them sharing about them?
just accept the fact that it was a magic balloon
This one originated with a senile old man with his finger on the nuclear end button. Is this where our vaunted democracy has taken us. If so it is a failed experiment and we can attempt to make the adjustment of terminating authority of liars & releasing imprisoned TRUTHTELLER J.A.
More LIES to obfuscate the truth of what happened or did not happen. Welcome to Lies of leaders & Truthtellers in Prison America under senile Biden.
bitter,are we not?
No.
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/u2-spy-incident
So much more sophisticated compared to the senile Biden administration and the weather balloon panicked incompetent joke response.
Astounding news! I feel so much safer………………………..
Pentagon Says Chinese Balloon Did Not Collect Data While Over US
nonsense. Biden said “Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it” – – so who you gonna believe?
Yeah, Xi got upset because of the hysteria over a metereological balloon and the cancelling of a high level meeting, not because Biden shot it down.
really? oh. my real point was that Biden actually said that “the balloon was carrying two box-cars of spy equipment”.
Reuters actually said “The Chinese Spy Balloon,” while they were telling us it turned out not to do any “spying” at all, but still called it a “Chinese Spy Balloon” while describing it and used confusing language to mislead idiots into thinking the balloon was made for spying. No, I’m not kidding. …No. I’m no comedian and I have no sense of humor. I swear. Look for yourself! …What’s that? How do I know it was not a “Chinese Spy Balloon?” (Ridiculous and stupid but 100% true)
https://www.reuters.com/world/chinese-spy-balloon-did-not-collect-information-over-us-pentagon-2023-06-29/
The purpose of this and other lies about China was to raise tension with China, so that a war can be prepared/started!
Exactly
The wamongering media still refers to it as “the Spy Balloon”.
“Blown off course”?
Sure….
That balloon was off course as it circled those military bases.
I know the guy is senile but do they have to spin every garbled thing out of his mouth?
Just say he misspoked and change the subject to Trump.
“Sure….
That balloon was off course as it circled those military bases.”
That balloon didn’t “circle” military bases or anything else. It couldn’t. Nor could any balloon, except perhaps in some half-assed way involving very cooperative wind patterns and a complex series of altitude changes.
That it was blown off course is indeed the most likely explanation for the event. Balloons go where the winds take them.
All it had to do was float anywhere NEAR a military base, and our reliably dishonest politicians and compliant media would say it was “circling”, or otherwise spying on them.
And like Thomas Knapp pointed out elsewhere, there are 450 to 500 military bases in the US. It would be hard not to float around at least some of them.
Or maybe the balloon was made in US and released to make it look like it was Chinese, just to create an incident and cancel Blinken’s trip. After all,what a coincidence that the baloon was where it was detected one week before Blinken’s trip. Furthermore, we have not seen any close-ups of the equipment on board the balloon. Please dont tell me its due to National Security.
So does that mean that certain U.S. PARTIES HAVEB TOLD ITS CITIZENS lies that probably make them Falsely believe that CHINA was conducting hostile acts when what occurred was really only a weather prediction effort. If this is what actually happened while TRUTH TELLERS are imprisoned & tortured (e. g. Jullian Aaassange) then the whole democracy experiment knows as AMERICA has been corrupted beyond any hope of repair. Lies told by our political leaders which seem to be done to create hate and tension are crimes of hate whether or not they are codified in criminal law. When tthe ruth is criminalized and lies that create hate are legal or legalized, all truth is lost. Lies WILL rule supreme, hope of good intentions are endangered and good people have been silenced by bad people, all of us are forced to live a life of lies and violence to promote and profit liars.
If someone snaps your ear with his fingers,it may not injure,but it is an aggression.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5201724d1c3e173f35631c1fbba6423e29eecf32f2ce08baf8378c706cb1f71.jpg
you’ll shoot yer eye out!
That’s the usa and israel
oh LOL i was wondering WTF did he post those guys for
It is all old news, there was and is no evidence to prove otherwise. Senile Biden only confirmed the panic or simple propaganda of the US’s incompetent leadership.
Which set of pathological liars do you want to believe?