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U.S. Only Recently Developed Secret Balloon Tracking Tech, Explaining Why Trump Had No Idea Flights Occurred During His Tenure
Red State. ^ | February 11, 2023 | Bob Hoge

Posted on 02/12/2023 7:01:14 AM PST by george76

The US intelligence community developed a secret technology to track China’s fleet of surveillance balloons only in the last year

...

Although they won’t say how we’re doing it, the sources claim that the US can now even track past balloon flights—which is why the news only recently came out that the lighter-than-air craft crossed American airspace during the Trump administration. Like a scene out of “Back to the Future,” the Pentagon only recently realized that these intrusions had occurred.

Despite the Biden administration’s insinuation that somehow Trump knew about these flights and did nothing about them, the truth is that our intel community did not know about them at the time, and so could not have informed the former president.

...

Shouldn’t it inflame everybody that Biden allowed our number one geopolitical and economic foe to fly a surveillance aircraft over our sovereign territory for over a week? But I digress.

...

Biden let a Chinese spy balloon fly over our sensitive military sites before shooting it down after it completed its mission.

And then tried to claim last night that he protected our sovereignty from China.

What a joke.

No serious American is falling for that.

~Steve Scalise

...

The new methods indicate that Chinese balloons crossed US airspace at least three times during Trump’s tenure. As I’ve previously written, balloons are cute at birthday parties, and can be effective information gatherers about the weather—but military balloons could also be used to drop munitions, conduct high-level surveillance, and even launch drone armies and EMP attacks. They’re no joke.

You’d think they wouldn’t be that hard to track—but they’re flying at heights well above the altitude of commercial aircraft.

...

the balloons are extremely difficult to track .. the National Weather Service indicates the highest we can go is 20 miles], and can evade the more traditional radars that are oriented toward detecting fast-moving missiles and counterterrorism threats…

...

China has developed an entire fleet of these military balloons—which have been seen in other countries besides the United States—and hopefully, the autopsy of the one the US recently shot down will help us understand just what the heck the CCP is up to.

None of this excuses Biden for his failure to take out the balloon much sooner than he did, but it could explain why Trump and members of his administration basically said, “what the hell are you talking about?” when news broke that flights had occurred under his command.


TOPICS: Canada; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Alaska; US: District of Columbia; US: North Dakota; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: balloon; balloons; china; surveillance
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To: Paladin2

Yes but the media will milk the story for some cover for the Biden’s.


41 posted on 02/12/2023 8:12:40 AM PST by Vaduz (LAWYERS )
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To: george76

The large Sack of Defense let it out the other day that US bases under the balloon’s path had been ordered to “button up” and curtail communications to thwart the balloon’s mission.

So the Biden administration accommodated the Chinese rather than confronting it, likely on the typical government folly of surveilling the threat discretely, so the perpetrator wouldn’t know that we know. Simply brilliant — that has never gone wrong before. The only reason two balloons have been shot down now is because the public knows.


42 posted on 02/12/2023 8:13:18 AM PST by Chewbarkah
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To: Skywise

Radar!!!
It’s been around since WWII tracking balloons


43 posted on 02/12/2023 8:16:33 AM PST by Pete Dovgan
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To: george76

“Yeah, DAT’S da ticket!!”


44 posted on 02/12/2023 8:18:15 AM PST by jagusafr ( )
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To: george76

US intelligence community.

Is that the 50 traitors who signed the lying Hunter Biden laptop letter?


45 posted on 02/12/2023 8:52:29 AM PST by FlyingEagle
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To: Chewbarkah
The large Sack of Defense let it out the other day that US bases under the balloon’s path had been ordered to “button up” and curtail communications to thwart the balloon’s mission.

And yet an F-22 painted it with its radar and then launched a (presumably) radar guided missile to take it down. If I was a smart Chicom, I'd have anticipated this and ensured all those signals were recorded and transmitted to a satellite before shootdown.
46 posted on 02/12/2023 9:12:31 AM PST by BikerJoe
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To: george76
Strange how radar detects water, snow, ice, birds, smoke, metal aircraft and wooden aircraft but cannot detect a balloon and gondola.
47 posted on 02/12/2023 9:20:32 AM PST by fso301
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To: Skywise

The story would not have changed all these times if it was something like this.


48 posted on 02/12/2023 9:24:07 AM PST by pas
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To: george76

No.


49 posted on 02/12/2023 9:51:14 AM PST by GrumpyOldGuy
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To: Skywise

Sigh. There is a huge difference between modern radar and WWII radar which could not see things at 40,000 feet, between looking for fast moving objects and looking for slow moving objects.

No, we were not tracking high altitude balloons during the Cold War.


50 posted on 02/12/2023 9:55:59 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: george76

Does FR have a committed, MI6-paid cadre of supporters of FedGov efforts to persuade us that this BS is true?

Asking for a gassy friend. And a friend who’s lost precisely half his mojo.


51 posted on 02/12/2023 10:08:36 AM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: PIF

Sigh.

Yes, we were looking for any and all things entering the airspace during the cold war. No, WW2 radar couldn’t see that far up as it was a recent innovation but it was used for the same purpose - to track for any and all entry into the airspace and to serve as an early warning.

Funny how, this weekend, we don’t seem to be having problems “finding” objects with radar and tracking system technology we don’t have, hmmm?


52 posted on 02/12/2023 10:24:00 AM PST by Skywise
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To: george76

Sending F-22’s up. Where are our super-duper lasers?
And why can’t Canada send their F-18’s after their balloons?
These whole episodes are beginning to stink.

Punch a couple holes in them and they will deflate,slowly.


53 posted on 02/12/2023 10:24:24 AM PST by Vinnie ( L g Brandon)
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To: Skywise

Sigh.They just rewrote some of the software so they could pick those things out both in real time and from past recordings. There was no apparent need before.

stop with the tinfoil.


54 posted on 02/12/2023 10:42:22 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Skywise
BS! UTTER BS!

YES! Absolute Smelly Bull Excrement. i.e. LIES!

55 posted on 02/12/2023 10:42:36 AM PST by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: PIF

Sigh. In 72 hours? For government work?

The more OBVIOUS and LOGICAL rationale is that they knew about AND ALLOWED the balloons to pass through and only did something after it became a political boondoggle.

But you keep shilling for the Biden admin and Chinese.


56 posted on 02/12/2023 10:53:13 AM PST by Skywise
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To: one guy in new jersey

See post 50


57 posted on 02/12/2023 10:53:37 AM PST by Skywise
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To: Skywise

Condescension, gaslighting...they are really giving MI6 it’s money’s worth!


58 posted on 02/12/2023 12:15:50 PM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: Skywise

BS! UTTER BS!

There’s this thing we’ve had since before WW2 called.. RADAR and it’s perfectly capable of detecting weather balloons because it was used to track such things post WW2 when we were tracking the Russians and the cold war.

The thing had huge solar panels and was supposedly as big as a bus. Had to have had a huge radar profile.


59 posted on 02/12/2023 1:25:16 PM PST by rxh4n1
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