Chinese spy balloon

What do we all make of the Chinese spy balloon incident?

I'm sure we've all seen the news, but in summary, the Americans spotted an air ship that they believe was a Chinese surveillance balloon over the USA. They shot it down with a deliberately great show of military prowess, with a load of F22 and F35 fighter jets, and now their navy is searching for the wreckage with the goal of proving beyond doubt that it was a surveillance balloon.

Meanwhile in China, their government is crying about the US having shot down their civilian weather balloon that blew off course and are pretending to be furious at the Americans for being heavy handed.

The story as I see it can be condensed thusly:

The Chinese are crying because the Americans popped their balloon.

When news broke of the internationally fallout over a balloon, the financial markets globally took a dive. They're creeping back up now.

The Americans are saying that the balloon wouldn't have seen anything that you can't see from satellites anyway, and it's no longer even a secret these days that all countries spy on each other.

To me it feels like small kids arguing over something trivial. An example of such being when my two kids had a full on argument over a football they both wanted for themselves, while there was an identical football literally two foot away.

 

I think you just have to ask "why", why let a weather balloon drift right across another land mass that isn't yours or a "friendly" country.

Its just the Chinese trying something out and see what response they get.
I believe there is another one somewhere over S. America, might have moved on by now.

If it was purely an out of control weather balloon a quick phone call to point that out would have been the best way of sorting it out I would have thought.

 

That's why you're not the leader of a global super power. You're thinking like a grown up. I think to be a world leader you have to think and act like a toddler.

 

Does that come complete with an Oomm pah band.

 

There is every chance it was a weather balloon. There was a report of a similar Canadian incident a few years back. Seemingly weather balloons are sent up then automatically or by control from the ground are supposed to slowly deflate and return safely to terra firma. The Canadian one didn't deflate.

"We asked the Canadian military if they would consider shooting it down, sending somebody out for target practice," Mr Sommerfeldt said.
A fighter jet had a ceiling of about 60,000 feet, he recalled and "the balloon, of course, was a lot higher than that".
Hoping to save the research, he asked them to shoot upwards and aim for the suspension point, where the release mechanism was for the package of scientific instruments, which were attached to a parachute.
According to news reports from the time, the Canadian CF-18s fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition at the balloon - the pilots refrained from using air-to-air missiles.
The volleys of ammo did not work.
"It wasn't enough to shake loose the release mechanism. They probably hit the balloon too. But those small bullet holes and a balloon that size would have almost no effect," Mr Sommerfeldt said.
It was also shadowed by British and US fighter jets. The rogue balloon continued on towards Iceland before drifting into Russian airspace.
It then drifted back towards Norway before finally landing on Finland's Mariehamn Island after what the Tribune News Service dubbed a "nine-day odyssey".

 

I agree, but that doesn't fit the current narrative. The US government has decided that we should all hate China, so popping their balloon and crying foul serves them well. If/when the divers recover the instruments, we'll get to hear all about it if there's even a hint of evidence that it was spying, but I suspect we'll have heard the last of it if it turns out it was just a weather balloon. We've already been prepped for that eventually by the Americans saying that it's data will have already been remotely wiped.

But one thing that springs to my mind is, even if it was a weather balloon, I'm pretty sure the Americans will have their evidence that it was a spy balloon. So what instruments might a weather balloon carry? Well, given the altitude they fly at, way above the clouds, it will need to look down. It might carry radar and optical instruments to see the weather. I wonder what instruments a spy balloon would need.

 

Well, if we try to empty it, let's use a spigot!!

 

I reckon its the media making a mountain out of a mole hill - slow news day. Any one with the cash can hire a commercial satellite to take pics.

 

Just look on Google Maps!

 

And just like that, the Americans launch their own spy balloon.