>

To be fair, pretty much everywhere in the world is "near US bases"
So now they were observed at the time and they appeared to have radar jamming abilities.
Those are two noteworthy pieces of news. >

I imagine we have some type of jamming capability we were shooting at the things each time. They were testing their jamming while we test our jamming they're jamming We're jamming,  I hope you like jammin', too.
To think that jammin' was a thing of the past
But seriously there's a jamming war. >

What’s your background? >

Veterinarian. >

Hmmmp. It’s amazing what you can learn by shoving your arm up a cow’s arse these days. >

The Chinese are probably the only people more thin skinned than trump supporters. >

Could I introduce you to /r/steroids >

Those solar panels were capable of generating over 10kW. That's a lot of wind, temperature and humidity data ..... >

free solar panels and we just dumped them in the ocean. Thanks, OBiden. >

I like Chinese spy balloons that weren't captured.  - Donald J. Trump >

This deserves a round of applause. >

Fifth time now, according to BBC. >

Probably had Trump advertising on them….”Come to Mar-a-Lago, where the sun is as orange as your hair!” >

You sure it wasn’t the Trump Baby Blimp? >

It's a good test case for China to send these and see how many go unnoticed or stopped. When the war starts, they won't fire rockets. They'll launch 99 red balloons. >

But you always left with whether they didn't catch them or they didn't publicize catching them >

fuking traitor terrorist >

If he was a traitor he'd be a hero. The problem with Trump is that he was quintessentially American. >

wtf is wrong with u?  even if the latter was true he'd never be a hero >

Trump is trash and a traitor, he needs to be imprisoned and the fact he isn't makes me feel violated. >

If he was a traitor he'd be a hero. How can you pretend to hate white people if you don't want to see America burn? >

Serious question. How was it possible to launch balloons in another country and know it would reach the US mainland, and better yet, know it would reach specific sites to gather data? >

At certain points the Pentagon was saying they thought it was being guided.  Wouldn't take too much to attach a little motor to it for steering purposes. Maybe running on the solar arrays we can see in the photos. >

I have heard it has rudders that guide it. 
I normally would be skeptical of Pentagon claims but here they're probably right. I am calling BS on China saying it was a weather balloon that went off course. 
Blinken was going there to patch relations. Why would China endanger that? So say it was a weather balloon. If they knew it went off course and entered American airspace why wouldn't they just call Washington and tell them that they screwed up and one of their weather balloons entered our airspace, so we don't get suspicious and it causes an incident? The Americans wouldn't get mad things happen. 
They waited until it was spotted. 
Their claim that it can't steer is obviously ridiculous. It made a U shaped course across the country. It just magically happened to fly over major military bases. What is the probability of that? How stupid do the Chinese think we are? 
Biden was right to shoot it down. Beijing can go pound sand. They're upset that we shot down a soy balloon in our own airspace? Like they wouldn't have done the same lol. >

All accurate!  It was clearly a spy balloon, as you said, bc it didn't just take prevailing wind currents, it glided over our airbases. >

I saw the map it took on the news the other day. It entered Alaska and curved downward then upward. If it drifted over  just one or maybe even two if I am being generous maybe I could see it being a weather balloon. 
But the so called "weather balloon" magically happened too perfectly pass pver a series of military bases. Like I said before what is the probability that something like that could happen? I don't know mathematically but if I had to bet cllse to zero. 
Its interesting hearing that the Trump administration didn't know about spy balloons in their territory. Trump says its disinformation. But even the conservative news outlet Fox News is reporting that spy balloons were spotted over Florida and Texas during his administration. 
I know its Fox News but to be fair not all their reporters are bad. They do actually have some good national security reporters like Jennifer Griffin and Licas Tomlinson. 
I actually like Jennifer Griffin a lot. She's a good Pentagon reporter. She calls BS on people no matter who the person is Democrat or Republican. I think she probably is conservative but she still is good. She actually spent time in the places she reports on like Afghanistan snd Pakistan. 
Under Trump she was calling BS on Mike Pompeo when he said Iran funded the Taliban. She was there when the Taliban came to power. She called BS on some people at her network promoting Russian talking points. She lived in Russia too. 
Many national security reporters are Pentagon stenographers. The national security reporters who are actually good tend to be people who have lived in the regions being discussed and know about them. >

Agreed!! The whole "trump wasn't told" isn't the gotcha the right wants it to be, either.  
So either they don't trust trump to make the right decision so they held off telling him, or it isn't the big deal the right is making it out to be so they didn't bother telling Trump.  Or maybe its both.  Either way, biden did the right thing.  Imagine if the balloon had been shot down and landed on some Mt ranch family and hurt/killed someone. The right would have had a field day. >


Do the balloons really give them more information than their low altitude satellites? 

Yes and no. There's a lot of subtext going on here with this kind of stuff. 
For example, if China releases the balloon and they're tracking it, how long did it take the US to see it? That's good data. That gives an indication of how quick the US is to see those types of things. 
How the US responds is also a good indication. I assume it's quite easy to track the path the balloon will take. So let's say they shoot it down before it reached, IDK, the middle of Montana. Does that mean there is an area there that is of interest? Should they focus their satellites on that area?
How the US takes it down is also of good interest. It shows how they respond to such things and with what weapons. How long did it take for the jet that is scrambled to make it to the balloon. What type of weapon was used?
In some cases you can learn things that you didn't know because you've forced your opponent to do something.
The Pentagon said that there was nothing that the balloon could learn of anyway. Which is also a power move with subtext. And we proved that by letting it fly over the entire US without shooting it down. That also sends signals to the Chinese. 
And on the flip side of that, the Chinese can compare and contrast satellite pictures from before and after the balloons launch to see what changed in areas of interest. >

All of your examples appear to only be "good data" if China one day decides to attack the US via balloons slowly floating across the country.
The real benefit of balloons over satellites is their cost and their ability to remain stationary over precise locations >

It depends on what your purpose is.
If, for example, you are contemplating a war in the future, u may want to get some baseline data from a balloon now. To see what you can measure about US defense infrastructure, response time, etc. Before the war.
If a war with China happens, the first casualty is going to be the satellites. It might even be so bad (Kessler syndrome) that nobody can put new satellites up again soon (or ever, eek!).
But you could fly a balloon over the USA if you still could. And, given your baseline data you got from the early overflights, you could compare and contrast to learn quite a bit, when the USA is essentially satellite-blind.
If you think about it this way, it's a cheap and potentially effective strategy for surveillance. >

The always reliable “people familiar with the matter”. That guy always has the scoop!!! >

I guess they could always ID them, they'll lose their security clearance and probably their job. The reporter will probably never get a tip about something illegal or what others do not want you to know about. >

Usually the reporters know exactly who this person is and have vetted them. They are keeping them anonymous because otherwise they will lose their job.