>

I doubt our intelligence service are limited to the stuff thats available to you and me. Anyway, they have certainly access to the latest and greatest. Anything across completely new ( which is doubtful since China still hasn’t caught up to the latest semiconductor tech yet) would indicate military purpose. That stuff doesn’t go into weather balloons. I guess we’ll find out soon enough
You can observe a lot just by looking - Yogi Berra. >

“Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

other balloons probably >

Republicans treat national security as a joke, and play politics with it. America will fall because of enemies from within. >

My little rural town is going nuts on Facebook taking pictures of the moon during the day and claiming it’s not the moon because of this balloon. Spoiler alert, they are looking at the moon. What did all the morons do before social media? >

Improved surveillance is great, but people were taking pictures of it with their phones.  It was, like, right there. >

Because they knew it was there.
It made it all the way to Montana unnoticed (from China) and it only was spotted because it was near a sensitive facility. 
I'd also really be interested in evidence that it was photographable with a cell phone at the height it operated at. Once the Chinese government was contacted telling them we knew about it I'm pretty sure they changed it's altitude to comply with our demands regarding it. >

I'm just responding to the photos I saw all over the internet.  Maybe they were taken with extreme lenses?  I could be full of shit.  It happens sometimes.
Something I do find myself wondering though is why, if US intelligence has been aware of the passing of these balloons on a more or less routine basis, they decided to make a public spectacle of this one at this time?
I wonder whether there's a strategy behind that.  Blinken cancels his trip and China has been embarrassed in front of the world.  It certainly seems to put them on their back foot. >


if US intelligence has been aware of the passing of these balloons on a more or less routine basis, they decided to make a public spectacle of this one at this time?

Well it's been officially stated that they weren't aware of the previous flyovers. They've only discovered that they happened by going back through the data and finding movement that matches what they've seen from last week's balloon. 
Once we step into the speculative possibility that exposing what they found was strategic, it gets interesting.  I certainly think the defense community could have kept this event under wraps (though I haven't head the official story on how it became public) if it wanted to. I mean it's a spy program, their whole design is to be secret so unless something's gone really wrong they typically remain secret even when counterintelligence detects them. 
I do think negotiations with China will probably be more fruitful and productive because of this. Both parties can set aside the pretension and walk into the situation seeking to regain face. It's counter intuitive but the less secrets you have to pretend you don't know someone is keeping the easier it is to trust them or at least be less suspicious. >

It's all a lot more complex than face value.  I think it's a shame that the only thing most of the public seems to be processing about this event is that it's some kind of Biden versus Trump narrative.
Everything gets reduced to the tribalism. >

I'm cool with biden defending himself against needless attacks from mtg and co, particularly when he did the correct thing. >

You need to respond to those attacks, yeah.
But NORAD is saying that although they can go back and look at the data now to determine that 3 balloons passed during the Trump administration, there was no awareness of the craft at the time.
Donald Trump committed a nearly uncountable number of failures (and crimes) as President, but this isn't one of them. >

I'm not sure they would have told him anyway.  The pentagon unanimously told Biden not to shoot the balloon down until it was safe.  I wouldn't trust Trump to make the same well reasoned decision, would you?  
If they say the technology was improved under Biden, and Trump admin couldn't see it b.c he didn't bother to do that, it covers the Pentagon for not briefing Trump, if that was a thing, and still get a shot in at Trump.  I'm just glad it was Biden dealing with it and not the former guy. >

There was no point in telling him anything he didn't absolutely have to know >

FYI. r/sino did not like the following comment:

I've never seen a weather balloon that needed solar panels the length of 3 busses in order to operate. >

Three of these Chinese surveillance crossed over the U.S. during the Trump Presidency.  Trump and his horrible Administration did nothing to combat these balloons, which encouraged China to try it again on Joe Biden's watch.  Biden protected U.S. national security by shooting down the balloon.  A huge win for American.  Biden strong, Trump weak. >

Some people are saying that those spy balloons are how they spread the China virus over here. Dispersed them in the balloon's chemtrails.
Edit: balloon chemtrails? Y'all are idiots. >

its not, though. 
​
you shouldnt listen to crackpot conspiracies or repeat them. >

It flew over red states, so limited intelligence was collected.  The balloon also converted to evangelicalism prior to it falling to the ground. >

Bringing a whole new meaning to flyover states >

So it flew all the way down thru British Columbia, Canada. Looks like they can stand some upgrades in security and air defense too. >

I like the direct shot at Trump admin lack of interest in Nat security.  Zing! >

Why didn’t we shoot it down when crossed into US airspace in the Aleutian Islands? >

I assume they were interested in collecting the instrumentation. If shot down around the Aleutians retrieval would far mor challenging >


I assume they were interested in collecting the instrumentation

Then maybe we shouldn't have blasted the thing with a missile? >

They don’t need functional equipment to discern its purpose >

Well no. 
It’s purpose was pretty easy to guess, the point was to ascertain it’s capabilities. >

Which also can be easily done with the wreckage >

lol the thing is the size of a commercial airliner. Even crashing into the water it’s debris field is being reported as covering over seven miles. I’m just going to chalk that suggestion up in the column of things that are easy to claim and hard to do. >

Ok, than its hard to do, nonetheless its very doable ( its not like intelligence service would share their capabilities with you or me in the first place). Purpose of sensors, cameras etc can be deduced from parts. >

Possibly. If they're not novel, which they could be for all we know and that's kind of the specific question we'd most like to have answered. 
I highly doubt it's made entirely out of stuff you can buy online.