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?
(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
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?
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...
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.
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?
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?
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.
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?
RSS is the primary candidate through it all, though. Keeps everything relatively organized.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Where is this?
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?
This may also be an asymmetric attack on critical infrastructure by foreign agents in country.
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.