An excerpt follows.
U.S. officials first detected the balloon and its payload on January 28 when it entered U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands. The balloon traversed Alaska, Canada and re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho. "President Biden asked the military to present options and on Wednesday President Biden gave his authorization to take down the Chinese surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to us civilians under the balloon's path," said a senior defense official speaking on background. "Military commanders determined that there was undue risk of debris causing harm to civilians while the balloon was overland."
An F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon.
The balloon fell approximately six miles off the coast in about 47 feet of water. No one was hurt.
Why didn’t they shoot it down over the Aleutians? Or over Montana? Why did they let it accumulate intelligence all the frikken way across the country?
As long as it was done “safely”. Why are military spokesmen sounding so gay lately?
I agree. I worked for Air Force NRO programs 62 to 94 off and on
The biggest problem Americans have right now is not being able to believe anything that we are told by our own government.
I can do the same thing. Give me a lounge chair, 100 balloons, a .22 rifle and a 5th of Woodford Reserve. Save a few million.
That’s FOUR days.
If the balloon was 200 ft tall like reported, there’s no way it wasn’t detected until Jan 28th.
We are told it was a surveillance balloon, but the Chinese have tested balloons as weapons platforms. Could this balloon have also been a weapons test? The balloon covered the agricultural heartland of the United States and easily could have been spreading bio weapons aimed at the nations food supply.
It took thousands of Chinamen to blow it up but only one AMERICAN F-22 Raptor to knock it down.