China's "Weather Balloon"

[finnbow]

I suspect it is indeed a spy balloon, but we (nor anybody else) has the (known) ability to shoot down a stratospheric balloon. It's far higher than a fighter jet can fly and missiles won't explode upon hitting it and cannon-fire will pass straight through it. If we have an unknown capability of shooting it down, we may not want to reveal it to our adversaries.

[GChief]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I suspect it is indeed a spy balloon, but we (nor anybody else) has the (known) ability to shoot down a stratospheric balloon. It's far higher than a fighter jet can fly and missiles won't explode upon hitting it and cannon-fire will pass straight through it. If we have an unknown capability of shooting it down, we may not want to reveal it to our adversaries.

Easy day for a fighter jet to shoot it down even at its highest altitude, and most missiles do not hit their targets. And just a fun fact even a DDG or CG could of shot it down near the coast at its highest altitude.

This opinion is from a guy that did collection intelligence and analysis, me. I like the way they did it. We probably gleamed a lot of info about its capabilities while easily "jamming" anything it was trying to transmit back. Soon we will have the hardware to analyze.

[init4fun]

Another ?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64605447