Surprise!

[Windigo]

IIRC Purina, like many feed and pet food brands is owned by Nestle. A mega multi-national with a mixed bag reputation. If something happened to the feed mixture, you'd never hear about it.

[GDS_Starfury]

and that has what to do with chinese balloons?

[JasonPratt]

Well, we're getting off the thread topic, true; originally we were lightly speculating whether the balloons (which have been deploying here for more than a year, for sure, as per the articles linked above) may be responsible for the catastrophic outbreak of avian flu in our poultry.

This leads back to what I intended to be the followup question to that speculation: how effective would a drift craft (dirigible, balloon etc) or even a drone be at spreading a biological weapons (compared to chemical or nuclear). My rough expectation is, not very? -- if someone was going to do that, there are much more efficient ways? 

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, nothing really new (by our standards) from the National Security Council press conference yesterday, but here's a summary anyway (from Epoch Times again):

The White House is confirming that a spy balloon program linked to China's military targeted the United States and its allies for espionage.

Speaking at a Feb. 13 press conference, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby acknowledged the program, which the United States disclosed for the first time last week.

"China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that's connected to the People's Liberation Army," Kirby said.

Kirby said that the Chinese spy balloon program targeted the United States' "closest allies and partners," but provided "limited additive" intelligence collection capabilities. Left unchecked, he said, such continued balloon incursions could present a severe national security threat to the United States.

Since shooting down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, the United States has shot down three more unidentified flying objects, two in U.S. airspace and one in Canadian airspace.

Kirby said that the three new objects were much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon and that the United States was still not sure what they might be.

"There is no question in our minds that that system was designed to surveil, that it was an intelligence asset," Kirby said of the Chinese spy balloon.

"We knew exactly what that thing was. These other three didn't have propulsion, they weren't being maneuvered, they were basically being driven by the wind. We don't know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them but we can't rule it out."

Kirby said that the United States' apparent difficulty in tracking all four objects was owed to the nature of how radar is typically used, and that the nation was enhancing its capabilities based on newly gathered intelligence.

"Slow-moving objects at high altitude with a small radar cross section are difficult to detect on radar, even objects as large as the Chinese spy balloon," Kirby said.

He added that the United States would continue to learn from the events including by collecting the debris of the objects for examination, saying that some of the structure and electronics from the Chinese spy balloon had been recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic over the weekend.

China's balloon surveillance program was first publicly acknowledged by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Feb. 8, when he also acknowledged that the United States was working to provide intelligence to dozens of other countries affected by the regime's espionage efforts.

"We're doing so because the United States is not the only target of the balloon program, which has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents," Blinken said at the time.

"As to who is responsible for that, China is. It doesn't matter on some level which individuals may or may not have been responsible. The fact is China engaged in this irresponsible action in violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity and international law."

I should point out that other official analysts (I may have linked to them upthread, or someone did), have stressed that while we suspect that the most recent three shot-down objects came from China, we have no positive evidence for that yet.

Blinken isn't denying that, I think, in his statements; he's appealing to other incidents where we can be more sure the craft came from China as part of a Chinese military program.

Relatedly, I don't think I've seen an indication yet that portions of the other three craft have been found? Maybe the Yukon one, not sure.

[Sir Slash]

I for one found it very reassuring yesterday that Admiral Kirby told us it was definitely NOT Aliens or Extraterrestrials they were shooting down. 

[W8taminute]

I saw an article as well stating that the debris from any of the wreckages has been recovered.  Are they just saying they shot something down or did they really shoot something down?

 

[GDS_Starfury]

whatever happened to the balloon over England?

[Windigo]

and that has what to do with chinese balloons?

I squirreled in response to Pratt's post .... not my fault 

[FarAway Sooner]

I bet this is related to the family where the little boy was trapped up in the hot air balloon and the media followed it live for hours, and when the balloon came down, he was nowhere to be found, and then we found out he'd been hiding in the attic, and then we found out that his mom and dad had told him to hide in the attic so they could get a bunch of news coverage!

I'm sure that the Chinese were behind that, even if I haven't been able to pinpoint the exact chain of causes and effects that made it happen! 

I kind of wonder how much "sky trash" there is floating up in the sky?  I mean, if we have millions of tons of plastic floating in the ocean, might we also just have some old weather balloons floating up in the sky or something?  I have no idea how weather balloons work, really.  This is all pure speculation.  But that seems to be mostly what the media is doing too.

[FarAway Sooner]

Or maybe this all just a huge advertising campaign for Bloons TD 6 gone horribly wrong?

Bloons TD 6 on Steam

[JasonPratt]

So far the only wreckage recovered seems to be from the South Carolina impact.

Key electronics have been recovered from China's surveillance balloon that was shot down off the east coast by the U.S. military on Feb. 4, including sensors that are believed to have been used to gather intelligence, U.S. officials have said.

"Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified as well as large sections of the structure," the U.S. Northern Command said in a statement.

I haven't seen more than that yet, but economic sanctions have been thrown onto five Chinese businesses, and one research institute, believed to be providing tech for the craft, preventing U.S. companies from selling products and technologies to the firms without first getting government approval.

The blacklisted companies are: Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology; China Electronics Technology Group Corp. 48th Research Institute; Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology; Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group and its Shanxi branch; Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group; and Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology.

Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology is a unit of Shanghai-based developer Deluxe Family, which in 2015 signed a contract with state-owned Beihang University, dedicating 480 million yuan ($70.5 million) to making near-space airships. A state brokerage firm at the time praised it as a "classic example of deep civil-military fusion"—the regime's aggressive national strategy compelling civilian Chinese companies to support its military goals—and expressed optimism for the "wide potential for future military application" coming out of the project.

The partnership yielded the country's first military-civilian stratospheric airship, named "Yuanmeng," roughly meaning "a dream fulfilled," in October 2015.

Headquartered in Beijing, Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group makes stealth aircraft, virtual reality training simulators, and autonomous drones and has taken part in about a dozen state military and aerospace projects. Its products have contributed to the security of the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit held in China, as well as a grand military parade in 2015 marking the 70th anniversary of the Sino–Japanese war victory, according to its website.

Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology, founded by a Chinese veteran who served in the antiaircraft artillery unit, produces armored scout vehicles and aircraft for civilian and military use. It has participated in a naval military drill upon invitation of armed police, deploying military drones to assist coast guard personnel to locate and arrest target ships, its website states.

Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology, which has been linked to Beihang University, develops stratospheric airships, public registration information shows.

Meanwhile, Kirby has declared the US is absolutely not flying our own balloons into Chinese airspace: https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/john-kirby-the-u-s-is-not-flying-balloons-over-china-163226181899

Ditto NCS spokesperson Adrienne Watson:

https://twitter.com/NSC_Spox/status/1625105603583418370

https://twitter.com/NSC_Spox/status/1625105964239056897


It should be noted that while China mocks the harmlessness of such balloons, in the CCP's own strategic plans such craft are intended to someday bring "silent terror": https://apnews.com/article/china-us-balloon-political-tensions-house-resolution-73a656c522f96fae20d89a1850dcb721

Quotes above courtesy of Epoch Times again.

[Gusington]

This story gets bigger and more bizarre each day.

[Sir Slash]

True. I expect to wake-up any second now because...I mean how much weirder can this dream get? Never again lick toads and chase it with vodka before going to bed.      BTW, 'Sky Trash' is my username for my United Airlines account. I probably ought to change this.

[JasonPratt]

Sir Slash: Sky Trash sounds like the name of a film designed as a salute to 1930s serials but infused with a punk rock soundtrack!

Reminder to self: haven't watched Sky Captain or the 80s Flash Gordon recently...

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, Newsweek confirms this morning that the other three objects after the Chinese balloon have not been recovered yet -- and that one official leading theory is that "these could be tied to commercial or research entities and benign".

https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/idRCV00BTLZ

The Newsweek roundup this morning: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/senator-warns-people-to-lock-your-doors-after-classified-hearing-on-ufos/ar-AA17vkFx?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=2586c2ff36cd4f8896d3e3a175663450