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Balloon With 3 Hypersonic Missiles Tested by China in 2018
The Epoch Times ^ | February 6, 2023 | Andrew Thornebrooke

Posted on 02/06/2023 10:14:55 PM PST by george76

Chinese state-owned television aired footage of a high-altitude balloon dropping hypersonic weapons in 2018.

The stunning footage displays a high-altitude balloon, not dissimilar from the one that traversed over the United States last week, carrying three hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) into high altitude and dropping them for testing.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on the weapons test in September 2018. The footage has since been deleted from Chinese media, but photographs and short clips can still be found online.

In one post from 2018, a Twitter user shared footage from Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, which shows the balloon lifting the three HGVs from the ground.

HGVs are generally launched by rockets in a similar manner to traditional missiles. Upon reaching orbit, however, HGVs detach from the rocket and fly through the atmosphere using their own momentum.

Such weapons are much faster than other missiles while they are in low orbit, but become much slower upon hitting the dense air of the atmosphere as they have no jets to power them. The three HGVs dropped by the balloon in the footage appear to have been designed to test this phenomenon.

The balloon-dropped HGVs were part of an effort to develop precision warheads for hypersonic weapons, which would give the Chinese military an “unstoppable nuclear-capable weapon,” according to the South China Morning Post.

Balloons One Part of China’s War Preparations..

Paul Crespo, president of the Center for American Defense Studies, said that the balloon which traversed U.S. airspace this week could “absolutely” be a dry run for an attack using a balloon-mounted weapon, but that hypersonic missiles would likely not be a first choice for China’s communist regime.

“While China has tested hypersonic missiles launched from balloons in the past, that isn’t a likely use for these airships,” Crespo told The Epoch Times in an email. “The biggest threat is sending one or more of these high altitude balloons over the U.S. with a small nuclear EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) device.”

“Detonated at extremely high altitude, they could knock out power and communications across the US, wreaking widespread havoc for a year or more without firing a shot on the ground.”

Though Crespo did not believe that balloon-dropped hypersonics would be the next big thing in a nuclear conflict, the HGVs dropped in the footage may well have contributed to the development of the hypersonic weapon system secretly tested by China in 2021.

That system, then-Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten said, appeared to be intended for a “first-use” nuclear strike against the United States.

“They look like a first-use weapon,” Hyten said.

“The pace [China is] moving and the trajectory that they’re on will surpass Russia and the United States if we don’t do something to change it.”

Communist China is not alone in developing novel ways to use high-altitude balloons as weapons of war.

The United States has researched and tested the use of such balloons for deploying swarms of explosive-laden suicide drones since at least 2018.

The Pentagon is also investing tens of millions of dollars into high-altitude balloons that it intends to use for surveillance and, notably, hopes to use to track the CCP’s hypersonic arsenal.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Florida; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 2018; 201809; balloon; balloons; china; chineseballoon; emp; hgvs; high; hypersonicmissiles; missiles
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1 posted on 02/06/2023 10:14:55 PM PST by george76
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To: george76

Is anyone else thinking uncharitable thoughts about the many Chinese now in the US? What more of an enemy do we need to get our juices flowing?

Wuhan deadly virus and the lockdowns to destroy Trump and the economy and teacher people to cower.

Infrastructure weaknesses and passwords and codes sent to China daily by Chinese employees in tech companies and universities.

342,000 Chinese citizen college students in the US currently.

Chinese investors took over companies in every state.

The book Trump Vs. China synopsis:

Newt Gingrich sounds the warning bell that communist-ruled China poses the biggest threat to the United States that we have seen in our lifetime. The United States is currently engaged in a competition with the Chinese government unlike any other that we have witnessed before. This is a competition between the American system—which is governed by freedom and the rule of law—and a totalitarian dictatorship that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. These are two different visions for the future; one will succeed, and one will fail.


2 posted on 02/06/2023 10:29:02 PM PST by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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To: frank ballenger

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) says current Pentagon officials briefed him over the weekend and said Chinese spy balloons crossed over Texas and Florida during the Trump years..

General Mattis was Secretary of Defense at the time and decided not to inform President Trump because the Pentagon thought Trump was “too provocative and aggressive!”

This is a treason if true. Mattis put the US in danger, offered comfort to the enemy, allowed Chinese spying on US installations, and then hid this from his superiors, including the President of the United States.

Either the current Pentagon is lying or the former Pentagon officials were treasonous bastards. Americans deserve the truth.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/treason-rep-waltz-says-dod-told-china-spy-balloons-crossed-us-trump-years-gen-mattis-not-tell-trump-thought/


3 posted on 02/06/2023 10:35:24 PM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

But Milley and Mattis said this was no threat to our Country.

Odd?


4 posted on 02/06/2023 11:18:45 PM PST by R0CK3T
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To: frank ballenger

I have many uncharitable thoughts about the domestic commie Rats that have forced us into this emerging dystopia.


5 posted on 02/06/2023 11:49:22 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: george76

He is lying. People in several states on the ground saw the communist Chinese balloon floating by yet we are to believe NORAD did not?!!

General Says NORAD Missed Previous Chinese Spy Balloon Incursions During the Trump Administration
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/06/general-says-norad-missed-previous-chinese-spy-balloon-incursions-during-the-trump-administration/


6 posted on 02/07/2023 1:13:58 AM PST by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: minnesota_bound

Fire NORAD and hire Nena. She saw this coming back in the 1980s and even wrote a song about it.


7 posted on 02/07/2023 1:31:17 AM PST by Joe 6-pack
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To: george76
I saw two jet contrails, and I've watched a ton of Afghan/Iran (etc) military clips of us taking out the enemy and I almost always see the missile path/strike.

Did anyone actually see a missile ?

Me neither.

China bent us over and completed itself inside of us . . .

. . . and self destructed it.

WE (biden et al) didn't do a phuquin' THING !

8 posted on 02/07/2023 3:22:23 AM PST by knarf (I say things that are true . . . I have no proof, but they're true.)
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To: R0CK3T

Milley and Mattis: two Democrat jerks.


9 posted on 02/07/2023 3:32:25 AM PST by popdonnelly (All the enormous crimes in history have been committed by governments.)
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To: frank ballenger
Newt Gingrich sounds the warning bell that communist-ruled China poses the biggest threat to the United States that we have seen in our lifetime.

Too bad he wasn't thinking about this when he supported MFN for China.

There is no doubt about it, both sides sold us out.

10 posted on 02/07/2023 3:33:38 AM PST by TwelveOfTwenty (Will whoever keeps asking if this country can get any more insane please stop?)
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To: george76

If you drop them from balloons, they’re not hypersonic.


11 posted on 02/07/2023 4:46:02 AM PST by FarCenter
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To: knarf

My husband and a neighbor saw the trail/missile.


12 posted on 02/07/2023 5:05:32 AM PST by NeverTyranny
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To: george76

bkmk


13 posted on 02/07/2023 5:52:28 AM PST by sauropod (“If they don’t believe our lies, well, that’s just conspiracy theorist stuff, there.”)
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To: george76

As for the US testing balloons, a Maryland base had a balloon hovering over it for awhile. They would raise and lower it periodically, which gave a lot of material for jokes among the locals. My husband would regularly text me, “up” or “down” as he passed by on his daily commute. However, one day it pulled loose from its anchor and ended up creating a trail of destruction up into PA. Since then no other balloons have appeared over the base.

https://abc7.com/defense-department-balloon-pa-news-lancaster/1055854/


14 posted on 02/07/2023 8:06:26 AM PST by Madam Theophilus
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To: nutmeg

.


15 posted on 02/07/2023 8:38:56 AM PST by nutmeg
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To: george76

100% they used those balloon flights in 2019 to spread Covid! They were even over Mar a Lago with those balloons.

Never made sense to me that they contained their outbreak while it went crazy in the US, these balloons were likely in our skies all of late 2019. And it was a trial run for something really a lot more dangerous than Covid.


16 posted on 02/07/2023 8:40:30 AM PST by JohnnyFiveRed
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To: george76

“Chinese spy balloons crossed over Texas and Florida during the Trump years..”

I would love to see the ground track of the one that “crossed over” only Texas.


17 posted on 02/07/2023 9:17:54 AM PST by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too." - Robert Conquest )
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To: Joe 6-pack

Dan Bongino just said something similar.


18 posted on 02/07/2023 9:19:00 AM PST by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too." - Robert Conquest )
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To: null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; bitt; ...

p


19 posted on 02/07/2023 9:25:16 AM PST by bitt (<img src=' 'width=50%>)
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To: TwelveOfTwenty

True.


20 posted on 02/07/2023 10:37:46 AM PST by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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