Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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