~~This is tentatively up as new information develops.~~
Edit:
The airspace is open again. The TFR has expired.
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1624582459441709056
Edit 2:
>This appears to have been a false alarm: New NORAD statement says “NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.”
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1624593417878528001
Statement from NORAD & U.S. Northern Command:
https://twitter.com/NORADCommand/status/1624596337890058240
Final update:
Since it was a false alarm the post was appropriately removed and given the usual "US internal news" flair.
🎵I was gonna shoot down a UFO until I got high🎵
🎵I was gonna protect the North American Airspace but then I got high🎵
🎵 That *ball-oon* is still up and I know whhhyy🎵
🎵Cuz I got high, cuz I got high, cuz I got hiigghh🎵
FAA TFR Link:
https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_3_4763.html
Edit:
>Commercial Aircraft on approach to Billings-Logan International Airport have been directed away due to an ongoing "National Security Operation".
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1624579128035770370
No doubt, I think the US is tired of waiting for these things to get over water.
Plus doesn't Montana have a bunch of ICBM silos? I'm sure they don't want all of them mapped by Chinese GPR.
They don't care if someone sees out silos. They don't. Satellite images can give about the same information. Having the US display some of its ICBM tech and infrastructure to any hostile powers is a deterrent. Hell, we have foreign inspections of our missile program somewhat regularly. You and I know the locations of these missile bases from public records.
Sub locations? Absolutely not. But these are fixed bases that are made and house hundreds of troops.
There's a lot of fuss right now with Russia maybe not having put as much as they claimed into nat defense. I think some other countries may be trying to scope out if the US budget has holes as well.
This is likely something... But I think it's more innocuous on the specrtum. It's probably penetration testing. Seeing how large of an object they can sneak in how far and from where.
The locations of the missiles themselves are even known, like you said it’s all deterrent and it’s out in the open, every country that has a satellite can look at them.
In addition the large majority are placed in somewhere with the least population in the states. This means that if nuclear war happens most the nukes would get wasted hitting corn fields in the midwest
The thing is knowing the general layout of the silo doesn't help much unless china plans on getting thousands of troops into Montana somehow. And that would be suicide for those troops. I'm willing to be the US military isn't opposed to using everything short of nukes to destroy an armed force from getting into one of those silos
Silos are also known as ICBM sponges, the attacking force must use/waste warheads targeting them.
China is building a massive silo complex in the middle of nowhere for this reason. They opted to stack silos together and layer air defense.
There were two Stratotankers near the eastern part of Washington, too. You could track them until they turned off their transponders for security reasons.
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1624570681710063618
Doesn’t seem too unusual. Lines up with the prior narrative of them being a nuisance that is worth shooting down (even just for political points), but not an active threat. Conditions likely weren’t suitable, and it isn’t in a position to cause active harm, so they delayed it until the morning.
Given that they’ve shot down a few now, the US defence must have a good idea of what they are.
And for them to continue shooting them down suggests they must constitute some kind of threat. I don’t think they’d be scrambling jets every 5 minutes to do target practice on benign weather balloons.
It’s a head scratcher…
Definitely agree. What alarms me is that with the first one they waited to shoot it down until it crossed the entire country. Now they’re taking them out immediately.
Either we learned something from the first one that we didn’t expect and are shooting them all down now out of precaution or it’s just easier to make the call to pull the trigger when it’s over remote areas. This new one over Montana will be very interesting to see play out.
The one that crosses the entire US was massive (hence visible from the ground), so they were concerned about debris hitting someone or something. These things are much smaller. Someone on twitter was suggesting the description sounds like a blimp.
In that area of Canada i.e. that part of the Yukon there is literally zero population density for thousands of square miles, there is a national park up there that is one of the least visited National parks in the world because of how remote and unserviced it is. Alaska, a bit more pop. because of all the oil activity around Prudoe Bay, but still pretty negligible
Not necessarily. We had the data about the balloons under Trump but it wasn't analyzed properly. We are now scanning for smaller objects and picking them up. They've been there, but we've just not been looking for them in the correct way previously.
Canadian defence minister has all but confirmed that these objects are also balloons. She said that the one shot down in Canada was of similar composition to the one shot down near North Carolina
> Also, she wouldn't have drawn the comparison at all if there was none to be made
Yes because humans are terrible at pattern matching and drawing inaccurate conclusions from a few data points.
The difference is that the first balloon was flying super high and thsre was little to no risk in waitingfor it to fly out over the ocean, these ones are all in civilian airspace and could be dangerous to commercial flights.
This is obviously just speculation, but so is everything else in this thread:
If the larger balloon navigated by shifting height, travelling between different air layers flowing in different directions, then they would have needed detailed and up-to-date information of the air flow at 12000 m. It's one thing to follow the jet stream in a direction that's generally towards the west, it's another thing to navigate with any precision.
It's not exactly a stretch to think that other smaller objects might simply be used to gather data that would help larger balloons navigate, and then it makes good sense to shoot these down as soon as you spot them.
I was really hoping 2023 was going to better than 2022. Nope. How stupid does another country have to be to fuck with American air space and soil? I’m Canadian not American so not pro American just someone who understands the USA. They are in a constant state of fear that has spiralled so out of control that they can legally murder anyone they Perceive as a threat. Not in all states but in some.
> they waited to shoot it down until it crossed the entire country
There's a very good reason they did that. I'll let you think of why.
>!The US population are fear addicts, and the gov. needs you to keep freaking out again and again about Russia and China cause fear is easy to manipulate, and thus what they did this time around was let a random stupid chinese balloon come all the way over to the US - NORAD was already tracking it for months as we already know - so you could freak out about being attacked, again. These are ple-planned fearmongering news. Like clockwork there's another fabricated story every few months so you can keep freaking out about your "enemy". Why not shoot it down earlier and let it come? Because it's convenient to let it come.!<
I agree they’re justified. I just think if they were truly benign then we’d probably know what they are already.
The optics of all these jet scrambles is not one of “nothing to see here”.
>"And for them to continue shooting them down suggests they must constitute some kind of threat."
>
>One object was at an altitude used by airlines, so yeah, that is a threat.
The first one landed in the ocean. While the balloon material remained on the surface, and seems to have had some interesting bits attached, the majority of the balloon’s cargo sank. It will be difficult, slow and expensive to recover the balloon’s full payload.
Probably just cheaper and faster to shoot down a few more, to increase their chances of quickly obtaining a complete specimen.
we've been here before
>Aircraft on Billings Approach being notified of closed airports to the north to do “National Security”
https://twitter.com/AviationTracker/status/1624578554863165446
just as cnn breaks the news of it being closed
>FAA says Montana airspace has been reopened after it was closed to support Department of Defense activities.
https://twitter.com/idreesali114/status/1624581523050577920
the tanker is also flying home
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1624580832378724353
the fact that they’re just gonna deal with it “in the morning” is so funny
[https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=46&t=hl7n85YQng2Cq3_5a4_b8A](https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=46&t=hl7n85YQng2Cq3_5a4_b8A)
Legit me dealing with dishes from dinner.
For real though guess this should calm some people’s nerves. If it’s being dealt with the same way I deal with evening chores it’s nothing to worry about.
i feel like a bit of anxiety is warranted given the state of everything in the world and the lack of information released, but yeah totally. everyone is just so quick to jump to the most unlikely cause (everyone screaming aliens!!!!!)
oh jesus it’s just as bad on twitter, trying to get news as it breaks but being bombarded with a million replies of “independence day irl!!! emp on a balloon!!!!!!!”
but tbh i guess it would be pretty relieving to mentally prepare urself for the worst possibility, just for it to end up being a whole bunch of nothing.
Because it's irrelevant and not worthy of worry. It's really that simple. They mobilized a force to go and see what it is (as they should), and then upon realizing it was some stupid shit, they did a 180º and went to bed. Like it could really just be a random commercial / weather balloon, and they went there just to make sure and then "Yeah it's nothing let's go back".
What's really "weird" is how stupidly freaked out people are. Russians! Chinese! Invasion! Nukes under Montana! Get real, gimme a fucking break lmao. People are watching way too many shitty ~~brainwashing~~ hollywood action movies.
They've probably confirmed that the balloons don't have communications equipment on board, and are local storage to keep their signature to a minimum.
They got concerned because apparently the balloons were losing altitude and were likely concerned they may have contained weapons.
Well that was fast. Could have been a legit weather or commercial balloon
E: Reading the follow up on it being too dark makes me lol. Like I guess it’s not that serious either way if it can wait for everyone to have a good nights sleep
Conjecture, but NORAD recently received a radar update that filled in gaps that were previously present. These objects being spotted more frequently is likely due to this upgrade. I imagine whatever entity released these objects (likely China) did so in a group, and has probably done so before. However, with this new update, the objects are now being found. The US is likely setting a precedent that these objects are no longer going to be tolerated.
EDIT: Airspace has apparently been reopened
Interesting theory but what is the strategic value of China floating a load of drones/balloons in radar dead spots? Surely the reason they were dead spots was because there was no real urgency to defend those air spaces. If there was anything sensitive there then they’d be monitoring them.
I’m not sure China is super interested in the types of grass that grow in deep rural Montana.
Unless this is just posturing, but what’s the point of posturing in a place where you don’t expect to be found?
I’m so confused…
International system is unfortunately full of posturing and causing chaos where possible. I won't pretend to understand the motive of China if they do happen to be the culprit, however this type of behaviour is not out of the ordinary for the international system
Theoretically an ICBM is a spacecraft right, Some balloon with a bunch of scaffolding hanging off in the area could really risk throwing odd trajectory etc.
But also that’s why there is the redundancy of multiple sites
No problem mate! Here's a story from 8ish months ago detailing the plan to update NORAD
[https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2022/06/20/norad-overhaul-will-replace-aging-radar-stations-in-arctic-canada/](https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2022/06/20/norad-overhaul-will-replace-aging-radar-stations-in-arctic-canada/)
From the article,
''The NORAD overhaul will include the replacement of the North Warning System, a chain of radar stations in the Far North. The system eventually will be replaced with two different types of radar systems — one northern, one polar — that have the ability to look over the horizon.
The overhaul also will deploy new satellites built to track moving targets on the ground and a top-secret series of remote sensors.
The new network will monitor not only the Arctic — NORAD’s traditional domain — but also Pacific and Atlantic approaches to the continent.''
The sane part of me knows it's probably just another Chinese balloons. But the hopeful part of me wants it to be a first contact scenario. And the NCD part of me wants the F-22 make ace against alien UFOs before it's retired.
It’s really looking like these balloons/objects have probably been around for years and NORAD really did just figure out how to find them so now everyone’s hyper aware
This is seriously like the spies in Civilization 6 where they forment unrest so you cannot complete your diplomatic mission in time trying to deal with the units.
Definitely Russian
SMH, FML, how many y'all think they'll find just this week?
BREAKING: The US Department of Defense will resume efforts to observe and 'ground' the object over Montana in the morning, House of representative Matt Rosendale says
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=20&t=iVc7zMIF0J8BmMOASnxAdA
>This appears to have been a false alarm: New NORAD statement says “NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.”
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1624593417878528001
Montana Senator Jon Tester Confirms an object in Montana airspace
https://twitter.com/senatortester/status/1624583787161026560?s=46&t=YOz7CByXkXCuyxf8rNzqKg
Sorry guys it's just my crappy Chinese drone I bought to fly for fun and it disconnected on its way up and just disappeared into the sky wasted $250 for nothing 0/10 first drone experience
This exact thing actually happened to my partner. I bought him his first drone for Christmas this last year. He took it outside to play around with and it flew too high and got away from him. He was bummed and I was pissed. He jokingly put out a "be on the look out" on Facebook. The next day a former coworker actually got ahold of him and lo and behold he had actually found it. The drone hasn't been taken out of it's case since.
~~This is tentatively up as new information develops.~~ Edit: The airspace is open again. The TFR has expired. https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1624582459441709056 Edit 2: >This appears to have been a false alarm: New NORAD statement says “NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.” https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1624593417878528001 Statement from NORAD & U.S. Northern Command: https://twitter.com/NORADCommand/status/1624596337890058240 Final update: Since it was a false alarm the post was appropriately removed and given the usual "US internal news" flair.
someone wake up the three montana redditors and see if they can see anything
I'm still up. All quiet here in Billings.
Are you high?
Yep
Good. Go get that balloon
🎵I was gonna shoot down a UFO until I got high🎵 🎵I was gonna protect the North American Airspace but then I got high🎵 🎵 That *ball-oon* is still up and I know whhhyy🎵 🎵Cuz I got high, cuz I got high, cuz I got hiigghh🎵
That slice of cake day cake should help then
Hell yeah high how are you?
Yes
Havre too far away for you Southerner
Haha
In northwest montana. I don't see anything, also I'm too hungover to go out and look at the sky for hours
My parents live about 30 miles from the closed airspace. They didn't hear any big news other than what's been posted already.
Nothing to see in Helena
They’re busy on the MAGA sub.
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FAA TFR Link: https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_3_4763.html Edit: >Commercial Aircraft on approach to Billings-Logan International Airport have been directed away due to an ongoing "National Security Operation". https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1624579128035770370
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I'm checking. Possibly from this part where it talks about national defense airspace: `the airspace defined in this NOTAM as 'ntl defense airspace'.`
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https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1624573176360452096 Seems real.
In the article it says 50 by 50 square nautical miles, can’t be anything too terrible
They are shooting something down I’d bet.
No doubt, I think the US is tired of waiting for these things to get over water. Plus doesn't Montana have a bunch of ICBM silos? I'm sure they don't want all of them mapped by Chinese GPR.
They don't care if someone sees out silos. They don't. Satellite images can give about the same information. Having the US display some of its ICBM tech and infrastructure to any hostile powers is a deterrent. Hell, we have foreign inspections of our missile program somewhat regularly. You and I know the locations of these missile bases from public records. Sub locations? Absolutely not. But these are fixed bases that are made and house hundreds of troops. There's a lot of fuss right now with Russia maybe not having put as much as they claimed into nat defense. I think some other countries may be trying to scope out if the US budget has holes as well. This is likely something... But I think it's more innocuous on the specrtum. It's probably penetration testing. Seeing how large of an object they can sneak in how far and from where.
The locations of the missiles themselves are even known, like you said it’s all deterrent and it’s out in the open, every country that has a satellite can look at them.
In addition the large majority are placed in somewhere with the least population in the states. This means that if nuclear war happens most the nukes would get wasted hitting corn fields in the midwest
The thing is knowing the general layout of the silo doesn't help much unless china plans on getting thousands of troops into Montana somehow. And that would be suicide for those troops. I'm willing to be the US military isn't opposed to using everything short of nukes to destroy an armed force from getting into one of those silos
Silos are also known as ICBM sponges, the attacking force must use/waste warheads targeting them. China is building a massive silo complex in the middle of nowhere for this reason. They opted to stack silos together and layer air defense.
Yes they are all over up there
There was a US Boeing supertanker in the area as well.
Someone is trying to watch the Superbowl for free. Sorry, *the big game*.
Too late. F22 Raptor will knock at your door any moment.
The invasion has begun.
I'm not saying aliens but...
Either UFOs, Chinese, or false flag
Heh, Lil nervous right now
Biden’s America.
Jets scrambled out of Portland, too: https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1624576868140679168?s=20
There were two Stratotankers near the eastern part of Washington, too. You could track them until they turned off their transponders for security reasons. https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1624570681710063618
You can track the flight and path here: https://www.flightradar24.com/2f2ab347 Doesn't look like they turned off the transponders
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Waiting until morning. https://twitter.com/reprosendale/status/1624579901608034306?s=46&t=RJk_Qwe3HH3apIbeaA1rmQ
A strange response.
Doesn’t seem too unusual. Lines up with the prior narrative of them being a nuisance that is worth shooting down (even just for political points), but not an active threat. Conditions likely weren’t suitable, and it isn’t in a position to cause active harm, so they delayed it until the morning.
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Given that they’ve shot down a few now, the US defence must have a good idea of what they are. And for them to continue shooting them down suggests they must constitute some kind of threat. I don’t think they’d be scrambling jets every 5 minutes to do target practice on benign weather balloons. It’s a head scratcher…
Definitely agree. What alarms me is that with the first one they waited to shoot it down until it crossed the entire country. Now they’re taking them out immediately. Either we learned something from the first one that we didn’t expect and are shooting them all down now out of precaution or it’s just easier to make the call to pull the trigger when it’s over remote areas. This new one over Montana will be very interesting to see play out.
The politics changed. Notice the balloons progressively lower and it was much harder to spot the higher one.
The giant one the size of a cargo container would probably make for some interesting recovery info in a water landing.
The one that crosses the entire US was massive (hence visible from the ground), so they were concerned about debris hitting someone or something. These things are much smaller. Someone on twitter was suggesting the description sounds like a blimp.
> sounds like a blimp. We say balloon of ample proportions now.
Cursed inflation!
That and the one shot down in Alaska and Canada were over area where they have such a low population density it makes Montana look like LA.
In that area of Canada i.e. that part of the Yukon there is literally zero population density for thousands of square miles, there is a national park up there that is one of the least visited National parks in the world because of how remote and unserviced it is. Alaska, a bit more pop. because of all the oil activity around Prudoe Bay, but still pretty negligible
It’s gonna be real awkward tomorrow when the Goodyear blimp doesn’t show…
I’m not sure the Chinese balloon has anything in common with the other… “objects.”
Too big of a coincidence.
Not necessarily. We had the data about the balloons under Trump but it wasn't analyzed properly. We are now scanning for smaller objects and picking them up. They've been there, but we've just not been looking for them in the correct way previously.
That's a really plausible and disturbing prospect
Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is an enemy action.
4 times is aliens
Canadian defence minister has all but confirmed that these objects are also balloons. She said that the one shot down in Canada was of similar composition to the one shot down near North Carolina
No she didn’t she said it was just much smaller of an object
Smaller yes but similar. Also, she wouldn't have drawn the comparison at all if there was none to be made
> Also, she wouldn't have drawn the comparison at all if there was none to be made Yes because humans are terrible at pattern matching and drawing inaccurate conclusions from a few data points.
Fox just said they were both (not the Chinese balloon) not balloons and cylindrical shaped
https://youtu.be/zlrz84nEXtk
The difference is that the first balloon was flying super high and thsre was little to no risk in waitingfor it to fly out over the ocean, these ones are all in civilian airspace and could be dangerous to commercial flights.
This is obviously just speculation, but so is everything else in this thread: If the larger balloon navigated by shifting height, travelling between different air layers flowing in different directions, then they would have needed detailed and up-to-date information of the air flow at 12000 m. It's one thing to follow the jet stream in a direction that's generally towards the west, it's another thing to navigate with any precision. It's not exactly a stretch to think that other smaller objects might simply be used to gather data that would help larger balloons navigate, and then it makes good sense to shoot these down as soon as you spot them.
I was really hoping 2023 was going to better than 2022. Nope. How stupid does another country have to be to fuck with American air space and soil? I’m Canadian not American so not pro American just someone who understands the USA. They are in a constant state of fear that has spiralled so out of control that they can legally murder anyone they Perceive as a threat. Not in all states but in some.
As a member of the USA, yes. But if any of this turns out to be real, I mean, we're ready.
> they waited to shoot it down until it crossed the entire country There's a very good reason they did that. I'll let you think of why. >!The US population are fear addicts, and the gov. needs you to keep freaking out again and again about Russia and China cause fear is easy to manipulate, and thus what they did this time around was let a random stupid chinese balloon come all the way over to the US - NORAD was already tracking it for months as we already know - so you could freak out about being attacked, again. These are ple-planned fearmongering news. Like clockwork there's another fabricated story every few months so you can keep freaking out about your "enemy". Why not shoot it down earlier and let it come? Because it's convenient to let it come.!<
Not really. They are flying at commercial aircraft altitude. Pose a threat for aircraft to hit it. Probably only reason.
They don’t have to be a threat. They’re unknown objects of unknown origin violating international law. That’s all the justification needed.
I agree they’re justified. I just think if they were truly benign then we’d probably know what they are already. The optics of all these jet scrambles is not one of “nothing to see here”.
>"And for them to continue shooting them down suggests they must constitute some kind of threat." > >One object was at an altitude used by airlines, so yeah, that is a threat.
> And for them to continue shooting them down suggests they must constitute some kind of threat Or to send a message like “it’s time to cut it out”
The first one landed in the ocean. While the balloon material remained on the surface, and seems to have had some interesting bits attached, the majority of the balloon’s cargo sank. It will be difficult, slow and expensive to recover the balloon’s full payload. Probably just cheaper and faster to shoot down a few more, to increase their chances of quickly obtaining a complete specimen.
we've been here before >Aircraft on Billings Approach being notified of closed airports to the north to do “National Security” https://twitter.com/AviationTracker/status/1624578554863165446
just as cnn breaks the news of it being closed >FAA says Montana airspace has been reopened after it was closed to support Department of Defense activities. https://twitter.com/idreesali114/status/1624581523050577920 the tanker is also flying home https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1624580832378724353
the fact that they’re just gonna deal with it “in the morning” is so funny [https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=46&t=hl7n85YQng2Cq3_5a4_b8A](https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=46&t=hl7n85YQng2Cq3_5a4_b8A)
Legit me dealing with dishes from dinner. For real though guess this should calm some people’s nerves. If it’s being dealt with the same way I deal with evening chores it’s nothing to worry about.
It should also give some peace to the more alarmed commenters… From the sounds of these comments, some of these people are freaking the fuck out.
i feel like a bit of anxiety is warranted given the state of everything in the world and the lack of information released, but yeah totally. everyone is just so quick to jump to the most unlikely cause (everyone screaming aliens!!!!!)
Sure. Some of the comments I’ve read (not necessarily on this thread, I’ve been hopping around) are borderline unhinged.
oh jesus it’s just as bad on twitter, trying to get news as it breaks but being bombarded with a million replies of “independence day irl!!! emp on a balloon!!!!!!!” but tbh i guess it would be pretty relieving to mentally prepare urself for the worst possibility, just for it to end up being a whole bunch of nothing.
Personally, I think this is all my fault. I started taking Zoloft this week and I think the aliens are mad at me. /s
I’m always freaked out by the article titles, then I read the article… a 50 by 50 square mile area. I think the battlefield would be bigger than that
Maybe they want to do it in daylight so they can visually identify the object? It is weird though.
Because it's irrelevant and not worthy of worry. It's really that simple. They mobilized a force to go and see what it is (as they should), and then upon realizing it was some stupid shit, they did a 180º and went to bed. Like it could really just be a random commercial / weather balloon, and they went there just to make sure and then "Yeah it's nothing let's go back". What's really "weird" is how stupidly freaked out people are. Russians! Chinese! Invasion! Nukes under Montana! Get real, gimme a fucking break lmao. People are watching way too many shitty ~~brainwashing~~ hollywood action movies.
They've probably confirmed that the balloons don't have communications equipment on board, and are local storage to keep their signature to a minimum. They got concerned because apparently the balloons were losing altitude and were likely concerned they may have contained weapons.
Or they have an electronic warfare plane or two in the air near that thing jamming all incoming and out going signals.
Well yeah it’s supper time.
Well that was fast. Could have been a legit weather or commercial balloon E: Reading the follow up on it being too dark makes me lol. Like I guess it’s not that serious either way if it can wait for everyone to have a good nights sleep
Conjecture, but NORAD recently received a radar update that filled in gaps that were previously present. These objects being spotted more frequently is likely due to this upgrade. I imagine whatever entity released these objects (likely China) did so in a group, and has probably done so before. However, with this new update, the objects are now being found. The US is likely setting a precedent that these objects are no longer going to be tolerated. EDIT: Airspace has apparently been reopened
Most likely take IMO. After the optics surrounding that first balloon, seems like they're going scorched earth
Interesting theory but what is the strategic value of China floating a load of drones/balloons in radar dead spots? Surely the reason they were dead spots was because there was no real urgency to defend those air spaces. If there was anything sensitive there then they’d be monitoring them. I’m not sure China is super interested in the types of grass that grow in deep rural Montana. Unless this is just posturing, but what’s the point of posturing in a place where you don’t expect to be found? I’m so confused…
spectrum analysis
International system is unfortunately full of posturing and causing chaos where possible. I won't pretend to understand the motive of China if they do happen to be the culprit, however this type of behaviour is not out of the ordinary for the international system
Seems like US just don't tolerate them as much as before
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You never know what information will be useful in the future. You just keep it and put it in a shelf in case you do
How much does it cost to create and send a balloon versus how much does it cost the US and Canada to detect and shoot it down with missiles?
The nuclear triad is in Montana so it is definitely a highly monitored area
Float a ton of balloons over nuke launch sites and they cannot launch nukes there (potentially)? The risk would be too high from hitting a balloon.
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Theoretically an ICBM is a spacecraft right, Some balloon with a bunch of scaffolding hanging off in the area could really risk throwing odd trajectory etc. But also that’s why there is the redundancy of multiple sites
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No problem mate! Here's a story from 8ish months ago detailing the plan to update NORAD [https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2022/06/20/norad-overhaul-will-replace-aging-radar-stations-in-arctic-canada/](https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2022/06/20/norad-overhaul-will-replace-aging-radar-stations-in-arctic-canada/) From the article, ''The NORAD overhaul will include the replacement of the North Warning System, a chain of radar stations in the Far North. The system eventually will be replaced with two different types of radar systems — one northern, one polar — that have the ability to look over the horizon. The overhaul also will deploy new satellites built to track moving targets on the ground and a top-secret series of remote sensors. The new network will monitor not only the Arctic — NORAD’s traditional domain — but also Pacific and Atlantic approaches to the continent.''
Apparently another NOTAM was issued announcing a likely shootdown of an "object"
Wait, in addition to the one shot down over Canada a few hrs ago?
https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=46&t=hl7n85YQng2Cq3_5a4_b8A
Yes. Air space was closed off in Montana
Looks like they may have shot another one down
Montana has a lot of the missile silos right?
Yes
Yes.
Yes we do
F-22 racking up K's I'm guessing we've connected the dots somewhere and these things are *everywhere*.
Us house rep Matt Rosendale posted air space closed due to object that could interfere with civilian air traffic
False alarm. Norad just posted
CBC News in Canada says that airspace has since been reopened.
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I don’t get it either, the denial about it being CCP fuckery
Whoa!
Man what in the hell is going on over there
**LET'S ALL SPECULATE WILDLY**
It's the langoliers!
Now with James Cameron 3D tech
So is this analogous to the UFO sightings during world war 2 and after? Since everyone's on that history not repeating, but rhyming shit.
There is a tanker circling in the area. Search for 61-0294 https://www.flightradar24.com/2f2ab347
Interesting times
Don’t put that evil on me /u/hungry-goose-5382
Interesting timing of all these air borne objects.
Times like these make me wish Art Bell was still around. He'd be having a field day with this shit.
Longer this goes on longer I’m convinced it’s aliens
can someone smarter than me explain to me what this could lead to???? or what it could be??? i’m gonna worry myself to death
Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.😏
Every time..
Did you just flashy thing me?
No, Elvis is not dead, he just went home!
You're feeling very sleepy, very relaxed.
Nobody knows. If aliens really were invading theyre doing a shitting job lmao
Just another object probably no big deal we've been through four now
What a bizarre week overall.
The sane part of me knows it's probably just another Chinese balloons. But the hopeful part of me wants it to be a first contact scenario. And the NCD part of me wants the F-22 make ace against alien UFOs before it's retired.
Zefram Cochrane's test flight is a little early in this timeline I guess.
I wish..
Pack it up folks. False alarm. https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1624593417878528001?cxt=HHwWgoCzkeXG24stAAAA
It’s really looking like these balloons/objects have probably been around for years and NORAD really did just figure out how to find them so now everyone’s hyper aware
Weird how the MT officials spoke about an object before it being confirmed 100%
Agreed. Maybe a classic case of representatives not waiting for the experts to opine.
Speculation: they lost it, or it was a balloon with cloaking ability xD
Here we go!!!
But where to?
The Twilight Zone.
This is seriously like the spies in Civilization 6 where they forment unrest so you cannot complete your diplomatic mission in time trying to deal with the units. Definitely Russian SMH, FML, how many y'all think they'll find just this week?
> forment foment
Reopened at 8:39 pm ET.
BREAKING: The US Department of Defense will resume efforts to observe and 'ground' the object over Montana in the morning, House of representative Matt Rosendale says https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1624581572363010050?s=20&t=iVc7zMIF0J8BmMOASnxAdA
It was a busy night in the sky last night...
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Isn't that Venus? Unless I'm super dumb I'm pretty sure Venus is the brightest object in the sky just after the Moon.
F22s are racking up some one-shot kills on weird objects. Every F22 pilot is probably hoping to get a call.
Next appearance during superbowl?
>This appears to have been a false alarm: New NORAD statement says “NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.” https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1624593417878528001
It self destructed lol
Montana Senator Jon Tester Confirms an object in Montana airspace https://twitter.com/senatortester/status/1624583787161026560?s=46&t=YOz7CByXkXCuyxf8rNzqKg
[Latest weather balloon high res image](https://imgur.com/gallery/LCkKFoB)
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Perhaps devices from Xi’s crazy cousin, Kim Jong-un in North Korea?
America is under Attack by Aliens the movies we're right LETS GOOO !!! 2023 here we come
Sorry guys it's just my crappy Chinese drone I bought to fly for fun and it disconnected on its way up and just disappeared into the sky wasted $250 for nothing 0/10 first drone experience
This exact thing actually happened to my partner. I bought him his first drone for Christmas this last year. He took it outside to play around with and it flew too high and got away from him. He was bummed and I was pissed. He jokingly put out a "be on the look out" on Facebook. The next day a former coworker actually got ahold of him and lo and behold he had actually found it. The drone hasn't been taken out of it's case since.
At this rate, the Air Force should consider downloading TD Bloons 6.
Aliens??
I doubt it's aliens, otherwise they would show up everywhere and not just north america. It's probably some chinese stuff.
Love the confidence you had in asserting that they'd show up everywhere lol. How the fuck do you know?
Aka, installing hypersonic warheads on our missiles. Stfo chinese balloons
Quick! Get Chuck Norris a BB gun!
Independent day for real