Posted on 02/06/2023 7:01:03 PM PST by bitt
NORAD, the Pentagon‘s command defending North America, was tracking the Chinese surveillance balloon well before it entered U.S. or Canadian airspace, its commander said Monday, noting that at about 200 feet tall and carrying a payload the size of a jet airliner, it would have been hard for trackers to miss.
But Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of NORAD, said that as the suspected spy surveillance craft made its way across Alaska and Canada before crossing back into U.S. territory last week, there wasn’t much the military could do without a presidential order to act, given there was no imminent threat seen to the homeland.
“The domain awareness was there as it approached Alaska. It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical or military threat to North America,” Gen. VanHerck told Pentagon reporters on Monday. “I could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating a hostile act or hostile intent.”
After the large, white balloon drifted across the U.S. for several days, including over a number of sensitive military sites, a US F-22 jet fighter shot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast. The Navy sent the USS Carter Hall, a dock landing ship, and the USNS Pathfinder, an oceanographic survey ship, to search an area of a little under a square mile for any debris.
Conditions were too rough on Sunday but the search effort was well underway on Monday, Gen. VanHerck said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
RE: decide UFO or weather balloon then act....
The famous Roswell incident was later detailed on several unsolved mystery shows even before Ancient Aliens.
Funny thing is the government said it was a weather balloon and described it but then it turned out that type was not used until a year after the incident. They forced the guy in the pictures looking at aluminum foil on the floor to lie or he would be declared mentally unstable, lose his military pension and be labeled unfit to serve.
An adult woman interviewed was his daughter. She said “I remember it so well because I was a little girl and it upset me when I came in and saw my father crying. I didn’t like to see my father cry. He was saying “I either lie about it or they’re taking away everything from us.” He said there was no UFO and the debris was just from a balloon.
Lordy what an idiot. He had zero clue if this was a danger or not. All he knew was it was a baloon. He’s leap to it’s not danger is shocking
This general should be fired.
Nope, the US Cuck Force folds like their cheap bus driver uniform . Sob needs to be court martialed. . Who has NOT beeen compromised by the Changs ? 🇨🇳💩🤡☠️🇨🇳
“I could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating a hostile act or hostile intent.”“
This guy is just making believe it’s not any threat . All he knows is that a hostile government sent an airliner sized thing over our territory. How can he conclude anything about it other than that? He’s stating unsupported assumptions as facts.
What is the use of our military if they don’t sound an alarm about things like this? I believe we may be headed to annihilation.
Well, it could have been worse.
Instead of balloons with a large surveillance payload, they could have been TU-22 backfire bombers.....
the Pentagon has declared over and over
that it hated Pres. Trump because he PROTECTED the
Republic and its border.
THEY love China, and gladly allow fentanyl and
spy satellites in, to murder the very Americans
they themselves want dead - as they
have sworn to Obama to do.
Ok, let me get this. A surveillance balloon does not pose a threat to national security? You need to be relieved of command.
What a pathetic explanation.
incompetence
Not long after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., Condoleeza Rice testified before Congress, saying that she did not know [in advance,] the “time and place” of the pending attacks by Al-Qaeda / Taliban upon the United States (terra firma).
Report of the Joint [Congressional] Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001:
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CRPT-107srpt351-5.pdf
Pg. 118 of the report, aka pg. 150 of that PDF file:
17. Finding: Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001 indicating that Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network intended to strike inside the United States, the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive effort to implement defensive measures in the United States.
[Further down that page:]
“The intelligence that was acquired and shared by the Intelligence Community was not specific as to time and place, but should have been sufficient to prompt action to insure a heightened sense of alert and implementation of additional defensive measures.”
This general should be fired.
How low we have sunk. A general with integrity would resign rather than agree to lie like this.
“Instead of balloons with a large surveillance payload, they could have been TU-22 backfire bombers...”
Instead, it could have been a balloon with a EPB, and we’d be no threat at all...
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