U.S. FAA closes some airspace in Montana for Defense Department activities | Hacker News Reader

U.S. FAA closes some airspace in Montana for Defense Department activities

reuters.com

236 pointsmoose_man228 comments

The Montana Governor was briefed at The White House about this tonight

https://mobile.twitter.com/GovGianforte/status/1624596970491...

>I received a briefing tonight at the White House about an object in Montana airspace. I will continue to receive regular updates.

>With questions about the Chinese spy balloon still unanswered, the Biden administration must be fully forthcoming with Montanans and all Americans.

One of Montana's house reps said:

>I am in direct contact with NORCOM and monitoring the latest issue over Havre and the northern border. Airspace is closed due to an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic — the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning.

https://twitter.com/RepRosendale/status/1624579901608034306

Something is definitely happening. We shot down an object over Alaska yesterday, and then again today we shot down yet another object over Canada.

That's three objects shot down in about a week, whereas the last time we shot anything down over US airspace was arguably during WW2.

Did the Governor of Montana just happen to be in DC or was he summoned there?

He was in Washington, D.C. for the National Governors Association Winter meetup: https://mobile.twitter.com/NatlGovsAssoc/status/162447350615...

Technically the federal government has no legal authority to "summon" state governors. All they can do is request and invite.

Fun fact: governor of Montana used to run a software company, so perhaps he's reading this.

he also body slammed a reporter, so lets not give him too much credit

given the rhetoric coming out of some reporters mouths/hands i’m surprised we don’t see more attacks

> Something is definitely happening.

A social media misinformation storm?

What is the misinformation?

We know there is misinformation, because social media and mainstream media are well established at this point as platforms for disinformation, propaganda and psychological operations by various interests. We can (and should) assume for the sake of argument that we're being lied to about something, the only open questions are what about, by whom and to what end.

The issue is not that you are being lied to, but that you are spreading lies.

China has labeled the multitude of balloons as US-Japan misinformation. I haven’t heard a denial, though.

What’s misinformation about this? Honest question, I think the facts aren’t misinformation, that the US has shot down foreign aerial objects.

that’s what I’m saying, surely the government and military would never lie to the public

Could have been there's always been plenty of aerial objects floating around, but it is now politically expedient to do something about it.

Do you actually think that's the case?

I actually do. It is dirt cheap to do (on the scale of national budgets) and can provide extra intel.

Fox has latched onto the tethered surveillance balloons along the US-Mexico border as a symbol of Federal attention on the trickle of people.

There are no such thing as high altitude tethered balloon, but I'm not surprised that Fox ran with it.

They in fact said aerostatic and low altitude but it’s good to see you getting your facts before complaining about misinformation.

The government and military must be more forthcoming with information here. This is generally the case but especially so now. If these are balloons with unclear origin and purpose, be open and honest about that. Don't just let information trickle out from random sources. Establish a single and authoritative line of communication. Failing to get ahead of the narrative gives the appearance of uncertainty and confusion.

> The government and military must be more forthcoming with information here.

No, we do not need need social media arm chair quarterbacks dealing with national defense based issues....

> Establish a single and authoritative line of communication.

None of this affect most citizens they have no need to be informed unless necessary.

> Failing to get ahead of the narrative gives the appearance of uncertainty and confusion.

Politics in war time is always messy. Lets let them focus on the task at hand.

> Politics in war time is always messy. Lets let them focus on the task at hand.

Or: without "messy" politics (political censorship and manipulation of the people) you can't have wars.

In an ideal world absolutely. But war and violence is foundational bedrock of humanity, it will never go away.

In that case, maybe humans should go away then

> None of this affect most citizens they have no need to be informed unless necessary.

It's always necessary to keep citizens informed. The government and by extension the military exists to serve citizens.

This is exactly what they have said about e.g. the Alaska object. “Here is the approximate size. It didn’t appear maneuverable. We do not know what it was, who it came from, or what it was doing.” I agree that being open about what we don’t know is a good thing and builds trust.

I just got off a weekend Nightshift and am back on in 12 hours I hope to spend sleeping.

Is this aliens? I don't have time to deep dive this myself.

Of all the ways aliens might contact us, I dont think it will be launching balloons from earth.

Is that not what is happening? They may just have less information because it is night and harder to get a direct visual on the object. The whitehouse briefing suggests more but I don't think it is wrong for them to take some time to answer to the public. I'd rather a slower and thought out response than a quick one with misleading information. You can see in the public responses that people respond with stupid statements either way. Compare this thread to the one earlier today about Canada, the one yesterday, the big balloon, or even the UFO thread. Conspiracies and armchair experts abound just creating noise. The reuters article, your comment, and the tweet in the parent all seem within a few hours of the actual event. Let's take a breath before we grab pitchforks. If they don't answer in a day or two then I'll be happy to grab my pitchfork too, but some pause is good.

Edit: another user posted a twitter link to someone claiming they saw the object. This does not look like a balloon and I completely can understand why there is a slower response here (I have no reason to distrust this twitter user) https://twitter.com/0rangeandwhite/status/162460072656239001...

I have no reason to distrust this twitter user

Why would you automatically trust a random twitter user? Or was that a joke that flew over my head?

Twitter video looks like a starlink train

Based on some unconfirmed Twitter videos that claimed to be of the sky above Montana, it may have been something travelling in the upper atmosphere or even space that may have been destroyed or broken up at altitude.

https://twitter.com/0rangeandwhite/status/162460072656239001...

Interestingly, none of the reports state that the US or allies engaged or shot down the object.

> Something is definitely happening. We shot down an object over Alaska yesterday,

A balloon invasion, looks like it.

On a slightly more serious note, I had read yesterday somewhere on Twitter that that thing over Alaska might in fact have been a US meteorological balloon, which would explain the Americans not accusing the Chinese again after they had shot it.

You’re missing one of the key strategic reasons… that it was a huge embarrassment to China on the international stage.

Was it? Because a -->balloon<-- was already over US mainland. I would say the embarrassment is on US side for not shooting/detecting it down much earlier.

Why? They said in the beginning they didn’t want to shoot until it was off the coast. Biden planned shooting it down once it was off the coast again. It was planned days in advance and I’m not why they would risk hurting someone. IMHO a death would cause much more media outrage.

Shooting it down when it enter us-waters? You know before it entered land?

>IMHO a death would cause much more media outrage.

Perfect! Chinese-killer-balloon kills US-Citizen on it's on US-Ground, FOX would love that!

Not sure what you mean. The first one had already passed Alaska and a good part of Canada before it was picked up by the news. Meaning it been over land for a good amount of time.

>Meaning it been over land for a good amount of time.

That's what i mean. Why not shoot it down when it enters US-Waters...BEFORE it's over US-Land, is that so hard to understand?

(a) they wanted to shoot it down in a location in which it would be easily recoverable, and (b) they didn’t want to risk damaging persons or property.

>they didn’t want to risk damaging persons or property.

In Alaska...please shut up.

>they wanted to shoot it down in a location in which it would be easily recoverable

Like yesterday the car sized ufo in alaska?

For the same reason we'll let a suspected spy in sometimes or not expell them: by watching we can learn a lot about what they care about.

It's a balloon with instruments, not a human.

You are comparing two completely different games and you know it.

I don't really get the vibe that China cared. But we have 2 derailed trains and so far the media has given more attention to weather balloons instead.

U.S. airspace is pretty wild those last couple of days. Is this "normal" day-to-day activity that previously just never got any attention, or is something rather odd about the amount of these kinds of things in the past few days?

NOTAMs/TFRs are not particularly noteworthy, but this kind of TFR reads like something non-routine and out of the ordinary.

Yeah there is a lot of crazy things happening all at once, some at sea, some with lasers over Hawaii, some with balloons. Not sure what this adds up to. Alone, each incident seems quite manageable but together its sort of overwhelming.

I haven't seen most of these as news stories, where do you learn about what's going on?

Here

(This happened in late January, but Japanese scientists recently figured out what happened) https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-satellite-likely-shot-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-12/japan-say...

Plus the downing over Alaska and Canada

War with china will make Covid look like happy times. Really hope xi backs down a bit.

The US and China are nowhere near a state of war. The balloons have nothing to do with a state of war. Xi can keep doing exactly what Xi is doing, and there won't be a war. China would have to escalate dramatically.

You or no other person on HN is the authority on this either way. Unless you're one of like 30 people in the US.

Do you have any evidence that it's connected to a war?

I'm not an expert, but I do read them quite a bit. Zero experts are saying that these events have anything to do warfare between the US and China. Can you point one out who does say it?

10 seconds of Googling: https://www.memri.org/reports/april-2022-paper-chinas-people...

That's from April 2022. Whatever they were talking about, it wasn't the balloons.

Huh? This paper by the PLA discussed possible military applications a year before these showed up and you think they’re unrelated?

It wasn't these balloons; it's not evidence of a war. Every major country has a military with various programs.

I am not trying to throw around "fake news" accusations, but linking a Memri article as a proof of something might not be as convincing as you think.

Memri is extremely notorious for posting english translations of their articles that are often not only inaccurate, but distort what was actually said to mean something entirely different. There is a massive "Translation accuracy and controversy" section on their wikipedia page dedicated just to that.

Sidenote, they are also a source of some of the most genuinely hilarious and deranged quotes (or rather, translation of thereof) that I've ever heard on TV. A guest going on about the grand conspiracy of Spongebob (yes, the nickelodeon tv show) being the tool of Israel to turn children gay was something else[1].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Media_Research_Ins...

1. https://youtu.be/cQbNNkemR2s

Fair enough, but if the PLA wrote a paper on the military applications of high altitude balloons a year ago that's all I need to know.

I specifically said either way and I didn't imply or suggest it is or isn't to do with a war. I'm just saying that only a few people know the reality of the situation with China and it's unlikely you're one of them.

So what do you specifically say?

My point is we shouldn't insist one way or the other.

We know nothing at all unless we are experts? That is such a difficult life to live. Express an opinion and support it.

Or even more extreme: Everything is possible until we prove the negative? It goes the other way: You need to prove the positive statement for it to be credible.

No, it's fine to speculate, but not okay to assert.

> it's fine to speculate

I disagree:

1. The Internet has infinite speculation available; more speculation adds nothing.

2. Misinformation is an enormous problem, and speculation makes it worse: It is misinformation, and it drowns out real information.

3. It's bullshit. Why would you want to say things that are BS? Is it fun?

You completely lost the thread here, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

The sane thing to do here is assume this is an attack, or precursor to an attack. Don’t follow up with force, yet. However there’s no reason the balloons should’ve been here in the first place.

Telling people not to be concerned of Chinese balloons entering another countries airspace, especially the US, makes you look odd to say the least. Are you Chinese?

> The sane thing to do here is assume this is an attack, or precursor to an attack.

What makes that sane, if it's absolutely false, a waste of resources, creates panic in the public, and increases the risk of escalation?

It's far, far out of the realm of possibility. China doesn't have nearly the resources to attack the continental US. They generally aren't believed to have the resources yet to attack Taiwan, 100 miles away. If they had the resources, an attack would require a massive buildup and positioning of those resources; it could not be missed. Major wars don't start by surprise. Look at the buildup required by Russia to attack Ukraine, a much smaller country right on its border. China has shown zero interest in attacking the US.

Anyone who is saying otherwise, you've learned something about: They are full of crap.

> Telling people not to be concerned of Chinese balloons entering another countries airspace, especially the US, makes you look odd to say the least.

Maybe odd to you, but not to most people, nor to anyone who knows what they are talking about. But if you say I'm odd, you're the expert!

> Are you Chinese?

This violates HN's guidelines. Calling people names demonstrates that you have nothing better to say.

> What makes that sane, if it's absolutely false, a waste of resources, creates panic in the public, and increases the risk of escalation?

Because it will not lead to an escalation, retaliation or public panic in this case. Do you realize how many times per day the DEFCON level is raised on various bases within US soil? The public does not know, therefore will not panic. Do you also believe there is not an aircraft carrier within close proximity of China currently? Would this not lead to an escalation? That's SOP, put a ship off the coast of any country doing questionable things to the mainland. Would that not lead to an escalation?

> China doesn't have nearly the resources to attack the continental US.

You say this but then you contradict yourself. If they don't have the resources to attack, then right now is the perfect time to show we mean business.

> If they had the resources, an attack would require a massive buildup and positioning of those resources; it could not be missed.

This is ignorant. North Korea hides an entire nuclear testing facility inside a mountain and you don't believe China has the resources to hide their national security interests?

> Major wars don't start by surprise. Look at the buildup required by Russia to attack Ukraine, a much smaller country right on its border.

Nobody has said such a thing. A precursor to an attack does not mean an attack is imminent. It means instead they are checking current defenses to keep up to date for a future attack.

> China has shown zero interest in attacking the US.

They've only threatened to march on the US with the largest standing army the world has ever seen. Additionally why check US defenses? What's the point of a country checking the defenses of another if they have no intent on attacking ever? You don't probe an attacking countries mainland defenses when planning to defend.

> Maybe odd to you, but not to most people, nor to anyone who knows what they are talking about. But if you say I'm odd, you're the expert!

You claim I'm not the expert, does this mean you believe you are? We both know that anybody actually involved in the planning and discussion of these events that will have any effect on its outcome would not be on HN discussing it. So you're not an expert either. What I am, however, is ex-military. They certainly do train military on such things. What are your credentials?

Have you polled people to determine their position on these events? How did you come up with the non-number "most people"?

> This violates HN's guidelines. Calling people names demonstrates that you have nothing better to say.

Hardly, point to the rule where asking someone's ethnicity is against the rules. The fact is there are Chinese operatives all over American social media and forums attempting to sway public interest, and you sound exactly like one. So again, are you Chinese?

It's sort of everywhere, by the time you find out there's already memes even: https://imgur.com/gallery/tBc4adN

Not OP, but I tend to use multiple sources via RSS. Iirc, Live Science covered the laser Hawaii one, and then the balloon stuff I either see on [there], here, or on social media elsewhere (or through friends).

RSS is the primary candidate through it all, though. Keeps everything relatively organized.

NOTAMs and TFRs are easy to find online and not too hard to learn how to read.

Are these all Chinese balloons? Are we going to war with the aliens?

Based on no information whatsoever, it's obviously the latter!

Sure. It's not as weird an assumption when the White House spokespersons are having to repeatedly state that these aren't aliens, while other officials clarify that they're not balloons.

I live near enough to PDX to hear the fighter sorties take off. It's normally pretty infrequent that you'll hear a whole series of them. The ones that hunted the object over Montana took off from here on Friday. Heard them again today around noon.

Based on no information whatsoever, anything might be true.

> Based on no information whatsoever, anything might be true.

Agreed, that's the problem right there. An absence of information breeds all sorts of crackpot theories, rarely generated according to Occam's razor. The most prosaic explanations of all of these are that we're looking at balloons, released to study weather, winds etc.

However, unless the government releases some images of what they saw, the new-age fringe will immediately jump to the conclusion of little green men from zeta reticuli.

To some extent, these kinds of things are always going on, though rarely reported, but everyone is just now paying attention so it seems really unusual. What is unusual is that the US is starting to be public about these incursion incidents and taking a more obviously aggressive posture against them.

I would view this more as a change of policy by the US government in how they manage these events rather than a change in the number and type of events.

While I generally agree that if say, some substation attacks on our power grid throughout the country have been hush hush (not saying it was an attack from a foreign adversary, but given the number of them recently it’s noteworthy), the aerial objects being shot down I think is vastly different, given last time this happened in US airspace was Pearl Harbor

> last time this happened in US airspace was Pearl Harbor

Didn't this happen in 9/11 with one of the planes?

>Didn't this happen in 9/11 with one of the planes?

No, they scrambled F-16's I believe and were given orders to engage compromised aircraft, but they didn't shoot any down. 3 of the 4 planes crashed into buildings and 1 crashed in a field as the passengers attempted to retain control of the aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Beamer

The WW2 Japanese balloon bombs were later (1944-1945). Some were shot down.

Or at least seems that way in terms of coverage now suggesting it's statistically significant.

I'm personally more worried about the Southwest not being able to agree to a way to not run out of water. Strange that it stopped being in the news around when that balloon showed up. I honestly think a coincidence, but says something about our priorities.

The Southwest being out of water is not news, unfortunately.

All states (except one county in California) agreeing to cut usage is, though.

Similarly, the GOP agreeing to take bipartisan action now that the Salt Lake is set to disappear in 5 years is new (if it dries out, the resulting dust will poison 1.5-2 million people in Salt Lake City).

> coverage now suggesting it's statistically significant.

Where is this?

Overwhelming to who? Do you have some evidence that anyone is overwhelmed? I don't see it's at all overwhelming to the US Defense Department.

It seems to me like a plan to overwhelm the public by the US defense department.

Is it hard to puncture a balloon and examine something forced to descend or is finding something harmless a worse result than a bunch of debris?

I think that at the height they are at the answer to that question actually is "yes". You're outside of the fighter jet ceiling. I don't think the military has invested much effort into building munitions that can reach 60,000 and don't attempt to destroy their target, not to mention create a controlled puncture that will allow the safe landing of any number of inflated objects.

Seems to you? Do you have evidence? What is the difference between this claim and a fabrication?

Don't forget the Ohio derailment. Few days ago a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Crews have since been burning off the toxic chemicals. Claims that air/water quality are safe are turning out to be false. Evacuation orders are even being lifted as people return to the area.

This may also be an asymmetric attack on critical infrastructure by foreign agents in country.

Occam's razor suggests scumbag management at the rail company is more likely of a cause.

The other one was the recent crashing of the NOTAM system and the grounding of commercial air traffic. I’m going out on a limb and guessing there is more to the story we aren’t being told about.

I mentioned in another reply (1), part of it is that they've reduced the filtering of radar signals, resulting in more objects being spotted, but also more false positives.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34759149

Looks like a policy change to me...

Previously flying balloons over the US was ignored. Now you're gonna be shot down if you don't have overflight permission.

There are plenty of balloons that fly multiple laps of the earth, weather balloons, spy balloons, school project balloons. Some of them are untracked, and most are uncontrollable. Some are house-size, while others are as small as a party balloon.

Apparently, nothing was found at the reported site. The airspace is now open again.

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1624595395635474433

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/16245934178785280...

"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."

Interesting, maybe it was a stealth aircraft? NORAD could probably detect a stealth aircraft like the Serbs did in the 1990s, but getting a precise location would be difficult.

More likely an anomaly mixed with an already cautious NORAD due to the past week of incidents.

Other articles have reported they've changed how they're filtering radar signals, which could partially explain why more real objects are being found now, but would also result in additional false positives.

> The incursions in the past week have changed how analysts receive and interpret information from radars and sensors, a U.S. official said Saturday, partly addressing a key question of why so many objects have recently surfaced.

> The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that sensory equipment absorbs a lot of raw data, and filters are used so humans and machines can make sense of what is collected. But that process always runs the risk of leaving out something important, the official said.

> “We basically opened the filters,” the official added

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/11/...

I wonder if this means that there is a greater concern over stealth aircraft flying into US airspace, hence the need for greater sensitivity at the cost of losing precision and/or specificity.

I suspect that when the Commander-in-Chief starts asking why things aren't being detected sooner than after penetrating the coastline, then any previous filtering for "quality", as in meeting certain velocity parameters, whether being not too slow, or not "too fast" - i.e. a momentary reflection in two spots now gets interpreted as a high velocity paint instead of the previous two indeterminate and fleeting radar returns that would have been ignored - well, that filter gets turned way down and we end up chasing a lot of ghosts.

Additionally it explains why a balloon made it as far as it did. Extra work, but we're on alert.

More likely a small dense cloud or something.

Do you have any evidence of a stealth aircraft? Is that just wild speculation? Who would fly a stealth aircraft over Montana (other than the US)? Where would it refuel without being noticed?

> NORAD could probably detect a stealth aircraft like the Serbs did in the 1990s

I'll bet NORAD has better sensors than the Serbs did 25 years ago.

>>other than the US

Would not be the first time that the US left hand did not know what the US right hand was doing with a Top Secret Test of some kind

When else has that happened?

Quite regularly. For top secret info / missions it’s strictly need to know. If you don’t need to know then you don’t know.

China has stealth aircraft.

They may but the GP question was, why would they fly them over Montana and where would they refuel them?

Why do you believe it needs to be refueled over the US? International waters ends 200 miles off the coast and China is less than 8000 miles away. There are jets with that range. Do you believe you’d know if Chinese refuelers were sitting off the coast?

There are military jets with a 16,000 mile range without refueling (assuming your 8,000 mile estimate is correct, and they need to fly back)? Which ones?

US stealth fighters have a ~500 mile range IIRC. I don't know about the B-2 bomber, but it isn't 16,000 miles!

Are you sure about that? Unclassified range of many is 8000 miles. Do you think they’ll tell us the actual range? There’s also in flight refueling. Which means that 8k range puts them right at the coast and just needing a refuel to go home.

> getting a precise location would be difficult.

(slightly tangent) and even more difficult to lock on the target. This is actually one of the primary purposes of stealth technologies: enemy can clearly see you on their radar but just can't instruct a SAM or air-to-air missile to shoot you down

Yeah and I’m the Queen of England. I know there is no conclusive evidence here, but something stinks.

If you guys take a look at this from 3 years ago, you'll see that this doesn't seem like an uptick, but rather it seems like it's being publicized a lot more as of recent as well as some good target practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Midn_UNnj5I

That seems pretty focused on the border with Russia over Alaska. The incident in Montana seems pretty far inland for that to apply. I'm sure there are organizations testing the waters all the time, though, be that with bombers or balloons.

Correct, that video was focused on that area, but remember, there's these all up and down the coastlines

These things happen very often and there could be many explanations. Every time the President moves one is declared. There is a permanent one at Beale AFB, CA. And there are permanent ones at Disneyland and Disney World. Any aviation mapping source and many weather apps with aviation data (MyRadar is my choice) shows these come and go.

Now China has announced they're shooting one down:

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/16247347660578037...

(Separate post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34762443 )

This would be a useful information operation to push the "UFO" angle being pushed on social media. Rather than the NATO countries broadening their radar search to look for smaller objects, generating plenty of false positives and detection of things they missed before.

Although it might not be related to the Chinese balloon, does the US have the technology to capture it intact vs shooting it down? It seems like they are going through a lot of trouble now to recover the pieces after it was shot down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-air_retrieval

I'd imagine that there's enough of a possibility of an ability to self-destruct that it may not be worth the risk.

I feel if the balloon was carrying an explosive payload this would definitely be an act of war. Would it be worth it for the Chinese to do that?

The payload doesn’t have to be explosive to be self destructive. Spy gear and weather gear can be the same hardware, I assume the ROM on the hardware and the data collected would be the real evidence. Some well-placed magnesium strips or maybe even deleting the data as a failsafe would be effective. Wouldn’t surprise me if shooting it down was the least risky idea. It’ll probably be 40 years until we know what the real reasoning is though!

It would absolutely be bad, and there would—I hope—be consequences, but if they clearly didn't intend to bomb anything, it would probably not be considered any more of an act of war than if their balloon fell out of the sky and hurt someone.

Could you tell a lithium battery apart from an intentional self-destruct?

the first big balloon was described as 'as large as three buses' .. I'm not sure you are going to do any midair retrieval on something like that.

Actually the Chinese balloon payload is thought to be only about 900kg or about 2000lbs:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2358955-chinese-spy-bal...

A US Military Cargo Helicopter can lift up to 36,000lbs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_CH-53K_King_Stallion

It has a 16,000 ft ceiling though. The balloon was at 60,000 ft.

Helos can't get up that far, and 900kg is about the size of a small car. That's pretty heavy for some "weather sensors".

Really i think the only way they could have done to gather any intelligence on the thing would have been to get a man on it somehow. Every way I figure it would have been a crazy nightmare of failures though.

Also no telling if the thing wasn't stuffed with explosives, if it was for intelligence gathering I'd imagine that it would have some kind of self destruct system for at least the portions that handle uplink.

Well one way to do it would be to shoot holes in the balloon so it leaks and descends slowly. Of course can’t wait for it to be over the sea to do that.

I wonder if a heavily weighted net (or rope/lasso) would work.

The difficulty is attaching a net. Would need a blimp or something to do it, since fighter airplanes aren't exactly suited for this kind of work.

Not really, except for the U2 spy plan the US has no (known) aircraft that can fly anything close to that high

F22 service ceiling (declassified) is 65k feet. It’s almost certainly much higher.

Both the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 can fly higher than the Alaska object's altitude.

Update: The airspace has been reopened. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-faa-closes-some-airspace...

Is this a common occurrence, or just being watched and reported on more actively due to recent events?

Havre is just north of the Hays MOA (Military Operations Area, meaning check with controlling authority before flying because there may be military operations) but this is outside the MOA.

http://vfrmap.com/?type=vfrc&lat=48.543&lon=-109.762&zoom=9

I remember this anime Jormungand in which they used an EMP for the purpose of disabling all flights & satellites, that forces the world to be fully dependent on sea shipping (far fetched but was the story). On the flight point, I'd find it disappointing if nations uses a cheaper version trolling airspace with balloons.

This is happening now

Edit: NOTAM : 3/4763 FDC 3/4763 ZLC PART 1 OF 3 MT..AIRSPACE HAVRE, MT..TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS. PURSUANT TO 49 USC 40103(B)(3), THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA) CLASSIFIES THE AIRSPACE DEFINED IN THIS NOTAM AS 'NTL DEFENSE AIRSPACE'. PILOTS WHO DO NOT ADHERE TO THE FOLLOWING PROC MAY BE INTERCEPTED, DETAINED AND INTERVIEWED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT/ SECURITY PERSONNEL. ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ADDITIONAL ACTIONS MAY ALSO BE TAKEN AGAINST A PILOT WHO DOES NOT COMPLY WITH THE RQMNTS OR ANY SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS OR PROC ANNOUNCED IN THIS NOTAM: A) THE FAA MAY TAKE ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION, INCLUDING IMPOSING CIVIL PENALTIES AND THE SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION OF AIRMEN CERTIFICATES; OR B) THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT MAY PURSUE CRIMINAL CHARGES, INCLUDING CHARGES UNDER 49 USC SECTION 46307; C) THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT MAY USE DEADLY FORCE AGAINST THE AIRBORNE ACFT, IF IT IS DETERMINED THAT THE ACFT POSES AN IMMINENT SECURITY THREAT; OR D) UAS OPERATORS WHO DO NOT COMPLY WITH APPLICABLE AIRSPACE RESTRICTIONS ARE WARNED THAT PURSUANT TO 10 U.S.C. SECTION 130I AND 2302120020-PERM END PART 1 OF 3 FDC 3/4763 ZLC PART 2 OF 3 MT..AIRSPACE HAVRE, MT..TEMPORARY FLIGHT 6 U.S.C. SECTION 124N, THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD), THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS) OR THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (DOJ) MAY TAKE SECURITY ACTION THAT RESULTS IN THE INTERFERENCE, DISRUPTION, SEIZURE, DAMAGING, OR DESTRUCTION OF UNMANNED AIRCRAFT DEEMED TO POSE A CREDIBLE SAFETY OR SECURITY THREAT TO PROTECTED PERSONNEL, FACILITIES, OR ASSETS. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR 99.7, SPECIAL SECURITY INSTRUCTIONS, ALL ACFT FLT OPS ARE PROHIBITED: WI AN AREA DEFINED AS 485411N1101823W TO 481105N1101922W TO 481145N1091337W TO 485516N1091407W TO THE POINT OF ORIGIN. SFC-34,000' MSL EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. EXCEPTIONS: A) NATIONAL SECURITY ACFT OPS UNDER DIRECTION OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND B) LAW ENFORCEMENT, AIR AMBULANCE, AND OTHER URGENT GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSE ACFT OPS WITH AUTHORIZATION FROM ATC (ATC MUST SECURE PRE-APPROVAL BY THE ON DUTY NATIONAL TACTICAL SECURITY OPERATIONS AIR TRAFFIC SECURITY COORDINATOR). 2302120020-PERM END PART 2 OF 3 FDC 3/4763 ZLC PART 3 OF 3 MT..AIRSPACE HAVRE, MT..TEMPORARY FLIGHT ALL AIRCRAFT, WHICH ARE ALREADY AIRBORNE WITHIN THE DEFINED AIRSPACE WHEN THIS TFR BECOMES EFFECTIVE, MUST EXIT THE AREA USING THE MOST EXPEDITIOUS ROUTE CONSISTENT WITH SAFETY AND IN COORDINATION WITH ATC AS APPROPRIATE. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TEL 850-283-5242 IS THE CDN FACILITY. 2302120020-PERM END PART 3 OF 3

F15s launched out of Portland airbase https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1624576868140679168?...

Billings airport is closed due to national security activity - https://twitter.com/AviationTracker/status/16245785548631654...

Two tankers tasked to the area -https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1624570681710063618

F15 Scramble Audio - https://twitter.com/airplaneian/status/1624572671911424000

About 12 years ago, I created a tool called IntelliCAPS, which intelligently converts ALL CAPS to mixed case. Basically, if the word is not in the dictionary, it assumes it's a proper noun and capitalizes it. It also recognizes some common acronyms and preserves them as all-caps. It's not perfect, but it's arguably more readable than the original.

Here's its output:

Notam : 3/4763 FDC 3/4763 ZLC part 1 of 3 mt..airspace Havre, mt..temporary flight restrictions. Pursuant to 49 USC 40103(b)(3), the federal aviation administration (FAA) classifies the airspace defined in this Notam as 'NTL defense airspace'. Pilots who do not adhere to the following Proc may be intercepted, detained and interviewed by law enforcement/ security personnel. Any of the following additional actions may also be taken against a pilot who does not comply with the Rqmnts or any special instructions or Proc announced in this Notam: a) the FAA may take administrative action, including imposing civil penalties and the suspension or revocation of airmen certificates; or b) the united states government may pursue criminal charges, including charges under 49 USC section 46307; c) the united states government may use deadly force against the airborne Acft, if it is determined that the Acft poses an imminent security threat; or d) UAS operators who do not comply with applicable airspace restrictions are warned that pursuant to 10 u.s.c. Section 130i and 2302120020-perm end part 1 of 3 FDC 3/4763 ZLC part 2 of 3 mt..airspace Havre, mt..temporary flight 6 u.s.c. Section 124n, the department of defense (DOD), the department of homeland security (DHS) or the department of justice (DOJ) may take security action that results in the interference, disruption, seizure, damaging, or destruction of unmanned aircraft deemed to pose a credible safety or security threat to protected personnel, facilities, or assets. Pursuant to 14 CFR 99.7, special security instructions, all Acft flt ops are prohibited: WI an area defined as 485411n1101823w to 481105n1101922w to 481145n1091337w to 485516n1091407w to the point of origin. SFC-34,000' MSL effective immediately until further notice. Exceptions: a) national security Acft ops under direction of department of defense; and b) law enforcement, air ambulance, and other urgent governmental response Acft ops with authorization from ATC (ATC must secure PRE-approval by the on duty national tactical security operations air traffic security coordinator). 2302120020-perm end part 2 of 3 FDC 3/4763 ZLC part 3 of 3 mt..airspace Havre, mt..temporary flight all aircraft, which are already airborne within the defined airspace when this TFR becomes effective, must exit the area using the most expeditious route consistent with safety and in coordination with ATC as appropriate. Department of defense tel 850-283-5242 is the CDN facility. 2302120020-perm end part 3 of 3

Now make the tool add paragraphs and it could generate some readable text

Notam 3/4763 FDC: Temporary Flight Restrictions in airspace around Havre, MT. Classified as 'NTL defense airspace'. Pilots must adhere to the Requirements or face potential administrative action, civil penalties, revocation of airmen certificates, criminal charges, use of deadly force against the aircraft, or interference, disruption, seizure, damaging, or destruction of UAS.

All aircraft flight operations are prohibited within an area defined as 485411n1101823w to 481105n1101922w to 481145n1091337w to 485516n1091407w to the point of origin. SFC-34,000' MSL. Exceptions: National security aircraft operations under direction of Department of Defense, law enforcement, air ambulance, and other urgent governmental response aircraft operations with authorization from ATC.

All aircraft already airborne within the defined airspace must exit the area using the most expeditious route consistent with safety and in coordination with ATC as appropriate. Department of Defense tel 850-283-5242 is the CDN facility.

Summary: The FAA has classified airspace around Havre, MT as "national defense airspace" and all aircraft flight operations are prohibited within this area. Exceptions are made for national security and law enforcement aircraft, as well as air ambulance and other urgent government response aircraft. All aircraft already airborne when the restriction is enacted must exit the area as quickly and safely as possible.

There's a lot of, to my read, stupid bureaucratic stuff in there, like about the penalties. Are all of the notams like this? I would have expected that they were effectively mandatory by virtue of being issued and didn't need all the stupid warnings

There are many different reasons a TFR can be issued, with varying levels of restrictions and penalties.

Some you can fly through if you follow the right procedures, others are effectively off limits.

Some you'll get your license suspended for flying through, others you risk being shot down.

The formatting could definitely be improved, but they do indeed need to clarify the nature of the restrictions since every TFR is unique.

America does not follow the law. Americans do not follow the law. They may decide to risk it and the punishments are clearly laid out for the enterprising lawbreaker or journalist.

True, but this approach of posting things in exhaustive detail everywhere from city parks to the sky is (imho) part of why people don't follow the laws. There are too many of them, and only austistic nerds like myself read all of that shit.

The actual information here could be summarized as 'WARNING: AS OF (time), ALL AVIATORS MUST KEEP OUT OF (zone) DUE TO A NATIONAL DEFENSE ALERT, INCIDENT #####. WE WILL SHOOT YOUR DUMB ASS.'

I don’t disagree. Guessing it’s their logic because they’re bureaucratic, but you’re right. Nobody can follow the law if they don’t understand the law.

If you're a pilot, you read all of this (or at least skim it for the important details, then decide if the rest is relevant). It's part of the training.

Compared to what you have to memorize from the FARs to get even the most basic pilot license, it's not that bad.

Yes, it could be formatted better, but the details matter. Some TFRs you can fly through with special procedures, some you can't. Even this one has a carveout for air ambulance flights, for example.

I presume anything after "Pursuant" is boiler plate legalise text that goes with every notam message?

I do not spend much time looking at NOTAMs but I do not believe this type of wording is found with every NOTAM message. From what I have seen it is usually attached to NOTAMs pertaining to TFRs or security, as a way to establish authority. 49 USC is U.S. Code Title 49 (Transportation) and 14 CFR Chapter I is Code of Federal Regulations, Aeronautics and Space, FAA, DOT.

That's a lot of text obscuring "we might decide to kill you, and that will be just fine". I might have even moved that up above "we might fine you".

Is intellicaps to be found anywhere, like a tarball or code repository?

Neat tool, this looked like a perfect ChatGPT task; gave it a prompt to make it readable and less confusing, and then the original notice, and got this:

NOTAM (Notice to Airmen): 3/4763 FDC 3/4763 ZLC

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a temporary flight restriction in the airspace of Havre, Montana. This area is classified as "National Defense Airspace" by the FAA and is subject to the following restrictions:

- Pilots who do not follow the procedures outlined in this notice may be intercepted, detained, and interviewed by law enforcement or security personnel.

- The FAA may take administrative action against a pilot who does not comply with the requirements, such as imposing civil penalties and revoking airmen certificates. The United States government may pursue criminal charges, including charges under 49 USC Section 46307.

- The United States government may use deadly force against an aircraft if it poses an imminent security threat.

- Unmanned aircraft operators who do not comply with airspace restrictions are warned that the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Department of Justice may take security action that results in interference, disruption, seizure, damaging, or destruction of the unmanned aircraft deemed to pose a credible safety or security threat.

- All aircraft operations are prohibited within an area defined as 485411N1101823W to 481105N1101922W to 481145N1091337W to 485516N1091407W to the point of origin, from the surface to 34,000 feet MSL (Mean Sea Level), effective immediately until further notice. - Exceptions:

A) National security aircraft operations under the direction of the Department of Defense.

B) Law enforcement, air ambulance, and other urgent government response aircraft operations with authorization from air traffic control (ATC). ATC must secure pre-approval by the on-duty National Tactical Security Operations Air Traffic Security Coordinator.

All aircraft already airborne within the defined airspace when this restriction becomes effective must exit the area using the most expeditious route consistent with safety and in coordination with air traffic control as appropriate.

For questions or further information, please contact the Department of Defense at 850-283-5242

Yeah, but now I'm wondering if the text is editorialized in some odd way. So it went from unreadable to unreliable.

Quick scan and of course it already randomly omitted words. ChatGPT is really just designed to bedazzle people who don't realize whats going on.

Chatgpt is awful if you need accuracy which is vital here. Don't use it for stuff like this, please.

You're totally right, but we both know someone is going to build this into some tool tomorrow, and it will mostly work. I think we might actually need legislators to step in to say that any use of ML would require review prior to use in life-critical applications...

Thank you, this is much more readable. If you wanted, you could use nltk for tagging the proper nouns, although your method works really well.

Did the Chinese "weather balloon" seed or drop some objects/material while passing over the USA?

Looks like they're monitoring it before recovery:

> A second U.S official also told ABC News that while the main reconnaissance section of the balloon has been found, recovery operations have been suspended until Monday because of rough waters. The official said the rough weather was outside the window under which Navy divers could safely conduct operations.

> Because of harsh conditions, measures have been taken to ensure that the debris underwater doesn't move with the currents. Among those measures, the official said, was the addition of weights and acoustic-pinging devices so they can be easily located once operations resume.

> The USS Carter Hall has returned to shore with the balloon remnants recovered so far and a contracted crane ship has arrived at the location offshore and will remain there until salvage operations resume.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-believes-chinese-surveill...

Are the balloons red?

Maybe we’ll get to the 99th in a month or so at this rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons

It's funny. Meteorological departments in so many countries around the world release balloons every day. Why is it aimed at China? Are Chinese balloons different?

What if this balloon is carrying a small yield nuclear payload or dirty bomb?

What would the purpose be of a small, slow and non-precision first strike?

Then it’ll be found and the consequences of having launched a nuclear weapon at the United States will be incurred for no gain whatsoever. That is to say, 0% chance. That would be unfathomably dumb.

How would they know who launched it quickly if it was detected so late?

>How would they know who launched it quickly if it was detected so late?

In order:

Signals intelligence proximate to the plan's inception that'd likely thwart things before the situation escalated

Monitoring of the incoming track and its electromagnetic emissions

Observation of the blast from a variety of sensor platforms

A WC-135 flying near the atmospheric blast area to determine isotope composition

I would think a balloon is too inaccurate.

This doesn’t make game theoretic sense. There is a ladder of escalation but nuclear surprise attacks are at the end. A single surprise nuclear strike makes little sense because it would preempt an immediate counterforce strike. In that case it makes more sense to just do a full counterforce strike yourself.

Let me be clear it doesn’t make sense for USA or PRC to use nuclear weapons at this time. There’s simply no need to escalate all the way.

It does make sense to completely cripple critical infrastructure initially with plausible deniability.

Combine this with the Ohio derailment and the uncaught substation snipers which knew an awful lot about what equipment to take out.

Derailment is a powerful sabotage tool. Americans were caught attempting it in Russia years ago. https://tass.com/politics/1313063

They are trying to weaken infrastructure by making taxpayers bleed time, money, and effort.

A nuke isn’t plausible deniability. They, and the balloon, can be tracked back to source.

Someone in another post was worried about balloons dropping bombs. Guided glide bomb would be pretty effective. But the balloon isn’t stealth. As we’re seeing, even small objects can be tracked by radar. Also, bombs are heavy and that means a large balloon. Something the size of the ground visible spy balloon.

Infrastructure is more resilient than you think. I doubt there is a spot where a single bomb could cripple things. If there was, a ground bomb would be effective and easier.

> can be tracked back to source

Not sure I believe that it can be done beyond a reasonable doubt. I still don't see what evidence there is that these things are Chinese. It's probably speculation and nothing more. It might still be true, but the attribution is likely highly speculative.

Balloons move with wind and can track the winds back to origin. I guess we can’t figure how far back the origin was but can make a guess.

Another thing is that other countries have radar. They likely tracked the balloon but ignored it. Russia probably won’t help but Japan might have seen it. Also, US is tracking balloons from before they enter Alaska.

We know the balloon is Chinese because they claimed. We don’t know what the other objects were.

The continuous monitoring today makes even underground tests attributable to certain counties. We can tell when the North Korean announcement of a nuclear test happened to not coincide with even vanishingly small amounts of radioxenon.

And, forensically, what’s left behind after an explosion tells the design and mix of fissile material, which tells you the level of resources available to the maker.

What about North Korea? They might be crazy enough to do something like that, especially if they are pretty sure it could not be tracked back to them.

Actually, looking at current high altitude wind patterns [1] it looks like launching a high altitude balloon anywhere in a large chunk of the Northern Hemisphere will get it to the Northern US, including most of the Mideast, which includes many of the places with people that would love to do a terrorist attack on the US. If one of those places did it, though, their balloon would have to pass over Russia and/or China so probably wouldn't go undetected like a North Korea launch might. Russia and/or China might not be happy to be used that way.

[1] https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/or...

After the first balloon, there was post about think tank worried about balloons carrying nuclear weapons that could produce EMP which would knock out electrical grid.

The problem with that scenario is that the US would respond as if nuke was used on the ground.

The balloon is just delivery mechanism for their fears. Could be equally worried about private jets.

Is this unusual? Serious qn.

The only truthful answer to this is that the media reporting on it this much is unusual.

Nothing to see here.

Balloons may be many things, but "rapid" is not exactly their strong suit.

I like how we have here at least 5 posts within few hours about smokescr... sorry unidentified flying objects, yet I don't see a single post about Ohio train explosion with giant cloud of polyvinyl chloride and a ton of other bad chemicals and there is media blackout about it

https://twitter.com/falconryfinance/status/16240875037866311...

So, first you throw in some conspiracy stuff, and then appeal to some sense of injustice by adding some unrelated incident, as if that proves anything? The latter is widely reported, and probably not of the HN's crowd's interest.

Send 100 over china for each one they send here. Problem will be solved quick.

We'd probably buy our 100 on Alibaba

With next day air shipping

They found an object which has now been shot down by a US fighter jet over Canadian territory:

https://apnews.com/article/united-states-government-canada-o...

That's different from the situation noted in linked article. That happened before the airspace was closed.

I'm very curious to hear more about this. All we know so far is that it was apparently cylindrical and the size of a small car.

I'm wondering if it was a small zeppelin. The shape would be more suitable for piloting, but it could stay aloft longer than a drone; would not surprise me at all if the Chinese were experimenting with those.

My prediction seems to be coming true - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34196705

“We'll get a message from aliens, but no one will understand what it means.”

Unclear how it’s related.

Isn't there some board for out there conspiracies?

Time for the Rapture soon.

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