Posted on 02/06/2023 12:57:48 PM PST by BenLurkin
The Chinese spy balloon that traversed US airspace before being shot down over the weekend was roughly 200 feet tall, weighed thousands of pounds — and may have carried explosives meant for self-destruction, a top US general revealed Monday.
The since-obliterated spy craft’s payload was approximately the size of a regional jet airliner, Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of US North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Northern Command (NORCOM), said as he disclosed fresh details about the surveillance device.
“Of the payload itself, I would categorize that as a jet-airliner type of size, maybe a regional jet such as a ERJ [Embraer Regional Jet] or something like that. [It] probably weighed in excess of a couple thousand pounds.” [???]
Asked about the potential hazards if the balloon had been shot down over land, VanHerck said the device had “glass off of [its] solar panels; potentially hazardous material, such as material that is required for batteries to operate in such an environment as this; and even the potential for explosives to detonate and destroy the balloon that could have been present.”
He stopped short of confirming that the balloon was, in fact, carrying explosives.
China tried to claim the balloon was just a weather research “airship” that had blown off course...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Then if they did this 3 times before, why didn’t we know about it?
And what else didn’t they tell POTUS Trump?..................
Can’t have them stealing our weather data!
“Why didn’t Biden stop them while they were over the Pacific?”
????????????????????????
Because: it flew at an extremely high altitude (50,000+ feet), doesn’t have much of a radar signature, and it was problematic as to exactly how to shoot it down. Plus, you have to consider: Does China have the right to fly a balloon over international waters? Is it that much different than a cargo ship being in international waters?
Plus, it was likely moving at over 100 mph for much of its journey, not just wafting around like some kid’s toy balloon:
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=33;-99;1&l=wind-200hpa
“ And what else didn’t they tell POTUS Trump?‘
How much they were getting paid by the Chinese. Just like this time.
Don’t want the Chinese horning in on our climate change scam.
Or worse. Kudzu. Spread those seeds and it will take over everything.
Exactly, the treasonous prick let it go across the entire US and now he intends to brag about it at the SOTU address.
Do you know? 🙂
I'm merely passing along a story that was debunked, but this is a new story, and it also makes accusations against General Mattis.
If America is so concerned about what the spy balloon actually observed, fly a similar balloon with spy equipment at the same height and drift path and record the results. We should have done it years ago at the time that our confidential ICBM silos and other sensitive equipment sites were built. We would not be playing a guessing game as we do today.
It doesn’t have much of a radar signature out over the middle of the ocean, sure, but it was surely detected and tracked. Using sequential photographs taken in various wavelengths by spy satellites, AI systems pour over the the images pixel by pixel looking for changed aspects caused by floating or airborne objects moving from one frame to the next. They might not have known what it was at first but surely knew about it.
Was that 200 feet tall, or 200 feet in diameter. Journalists. English language. Education in college. Something went terribly wrong.
SecDef is a civilian.
“Nobody knows this, but, it was secretly manned.”
If nobody knows this ... then how do you know it?
I’m just glad President Retard took care of that before it snuck up on us
Wow. Sounds like a real stealthy device that must have been real hard to spot… not.
“I’m just thankful it didn’t contain an EMP”.
That’s for certain. And it’s guaranteed the Chinese will do so if they can. They want to literally destroy the United States.
We will soon find out. When cattle and pigs start dying off.
Not good thinking since we sell a lot of pork to the Chinese.
loooooooooool
Looking at the payload truss structure and attached solar panels, I'll bet it looks like a flaming barn door on radar.
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