comment: >
  
  No big deal.  Just like the “civilian Russian fishing trawlers” with lots of antennas that followed my ship around in the 80’s.  Nothing to see here comrade.
context: “Why is the telescope pointed down”
  “…” >
  
  Because if it was pointed up, they’d just see the bottom of the balloon. >
  
  I think its time for the Canadians to send them some balloons in response
  Started has the balloon wars! >
  
  99 luftballons >
  
  red ones >
  
  Call Goldfinger >
  
  Well, that is an old one. Wasn't that the reason given about why the U2 that was shot down over the USSR with Francis Gary Powers was flying that day? >
  
  Also same reason USA gave for it balloon flights over USSR and PRC during cold war, when confronted about it. So they are just plain "oldie but goodie" excuse and also probably from China bit of "we haven't forgotten, that you used to do this to us". >
  
  Why would we believe anything they say? >
  
  It makes sense, doesn't it?
  Like who believes China would send a huge white balloon into the sky for everyone to see with the bare eye and use it for spying purpose? They have satellites to do that secretly. And the USA could take down the balloon any time they want. They simply chose not to do it.
  Another cheap spying option, like we have seen from Russia since the invasion in Ukraine started: There have been small drone sightings near military installations and military training grounds in Europe. In Norway they even caught operators.
  No one would use a huge white balloon in the sky. That's something for a Monty Python movie. >
  
  It's also 80000 to 100000..  feet up very not visible to the naked eye. It is visible to radar, but the jet stream hasn't changed much at all over the last month, they knew where it was heading.
  (our passenger jets fly about 36000 feet and are barely visible at cruising altitude) >
  
  It’s currently at 64,200 feet.  I’ve seen it as high as 67,000 on the Flightradar24 app. Passenger planes I’ve seen cruising anywhere between 35-45,000 feet. >
  
  I mentioned my source in my post, Flightradar24 app. >
  
  Could you provide I link, I highly doubt that this balloon has a transponder, are you sure you're not looking at something from project loon? >
  
  ~~flightradar24.com/***~~
  ~~It's the #1 tracked thing in the world atm via MLAT though.~~
  edit: Due to the reply, I'm not sure and removed the probably wrong link. >
  
  What a maroon … I bamboozled myself, lol. Appreciate your mythbusting on me. >
  
  Explained after they got caught? >
  
  I can't believe that thing is still in the air. >
  
  Normal citizens have no capability to take it down. >
  
  True, not normally. It seems there would be the type of people out there to figure out a way to do it. Perhaps not normal, but still civilians (non-official, non-police, non-military). >
  
  The only civilians that could do it are Bezos or Musk, for obvious reasons.  You must not comprehend just how high that is. >
  
  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe. Or a not-so-regular macgyver. Perhaps a Felix Baumgartner type only with a different mindset. >
  
  NWS has there own balloons and the NWS doesn’t have balloons that big in the atmosphere. Plus the NWS balloons don’t go halfway around the world. >
  
  Also I have a feeling NWS doesn’t keep the data they collect a big secret and they could have easily got data from them if they just asked, or looked it up online… >
  
  But then the data would be in english, and I guess they probly wanted the data in Chinese. >
  
  If they’re being honest they would allow the US to down and it analyze its contents. >
  
  I mean it's in US airspace isn't it? Why wasn't it already shot down? God knows what the Chinese are up to
  Will there be diplomatic issues if US shoots it down? >
  
  I think the only reason is they don't want to threaten the lives of the people below if it turns out to be a bomb or something. >
  
  Already in the first reports about this balloon, it was stated falling debris is too dangerous, so it's not taken down.
  You don't need a bomb, a pebble is dangerous from that height. >
  
  Ok so let’s hit you with a pebble traveling at terminal so we can check the validity of their argument. >
  
  Sure, it'd probably hurt a little but I'd be fine.
  For reference a  1cm hailstone has a terminal velocity of only a bit over 15 miles per hour.
  There's a reason golfball sized hailstorms aren't mass casualty events >
  
  And if all the components on the instruments and solar panels were made of ice you’d almost have a point! >
  
  Are you under the impression things made of ice have a lower terminal velocity than everything else?...
  Also, weren't we talking about pebbles? >
  
  You realize we don't live in a vacuum, right? Terminal velocity is affected by drag, which is in turn affected by an object's density. You conveniently picked ice, which has an extremely low density, and thus lower drag. 
  The original comment you're contesting with tErMiNaL vEloCiTy! is
  
  Already in the first reports about this balloon, it was stated falling debris is too dangerous, so it's not taken down.
  
  The basis of your argument is effectively "well ice falling out of the sky doesn't hurt anyone, so fragments of metal won't either!" You know your argument sucks, so you're honing in on semantics of "how big is the pebble" and "what about ice!", knowing full well that metal debris falling from 60K feet can absolutely hurt someone.
  Furthermore, we can't control the weather (generally speaking), so the tolerance for hail falling on us that is caused by natural weather patterns is dramatically higher than the government having an F-22 slap  a giant balloon carrying metal components with an AIM-120 and cause the aftermath to fall all over your property. >
  
  I think a lot of folks are thinking that this is a spy balloon but the Chinese are saying it’s a weather balloon. I think that is obviously a very real possibility here. Just one question:
  What are the advantages of a balloon over a satellite? Satellites are certainly further away (duh) but with the cameras they have, they can pert near take a picture of a flea on a dog’s ass. Seeing as how china probably already has spy satellites flying over the US without incident, how detailed do they need the images to be that they’d be willing to risk the international kerfuffle? >
  
  I call bullshit. You do realize they are controlling its flight path dont you??? This thing has had a non-wind generated flight path. A satellita cannot stay on top of a land area for any length of time due to earth rotation and satellite geo-spatial alignment. They are video taping movement over nuclear silos and miltary bases in Montana.. China is gas lighting us. This is absolute spying. China would have told our govt .. Hey, we have a weather balloon flying over your air space please dont shoot it down.. But no they didnt.. If our govt doesnt shoot this thing down when it can safely and take control of it our govt is now China's bitch.. >
  
  ?
  A GEO satellite can stay over a fixed point for as long as it wants (has power and communications) >
  
  Yes geo-stationary can.. But lets think about this. Check all that have them.. China, Japan, Russia, US, UK have geo sats maybe a few others.. We all have some data on things... Lower atmosphere surveillance has its advantages, just like what we do for terrorism with planes and drones, but China cant do that over the US on a whim, but if its a "weather balloon" gone amuck.. Well all is just fine.and it just so happens to be over US areas they have bought properties in... Weather Satellites that are open source use for many countries can give them all they need for "weather". >
  
  Oh and it has been proven they are controlling it and its moving east now. >
  
  Ok 3 things
  1) if it is for weather purposes why would it be in a country other than your own
  2) as a weather device you would assume it had a GPS to verify location and weather data to help with whatever bs study they claim
  3) if it was lost why didn’t they say anything or do anything in the thousands of miles it to reach the US coastline. 
  This is obviously not a weather ballon and it’s a stupid excuse to use when you get caught. >
  
  
  
  Understanding the weather of your adversaries allows you to make better guesses as to things like crop yields. This could allow you to put compete them in the global markets. 
  
  
  Uh sure?
  
  
  Why bother? They don't care about our well-being. 
  
  
  It's probably sensing a whole lot more than the weather, so I think this is a "half" lie by them. 
  "Sure it's a weather balloon. Also 10 other things but yeah, weather." >
  
  My point is that there lie makes no sense at all. It’s a half assed lie, just like every other lie the Chinese make. >
  
  It makes a lot of sense if you understand that China is a dictatorship. >
  
  Why was it flying over a Montana missle base? >
  
  Just shoot it down already. It has no business being up there. If it was purely for scientific research they could have just asked. >
  
  riiiiight... and those islands you built in the South China Sea weren't for military uses... >
  
  Yet if it was a US baloon over China they'd be screaming bloody murder well into 2057. >
  
  If it was a balloon over China they would have televised shooting it down without a second's hesitation. >
  
  Disregarding anyone below it too. >
  
  Scientific reason or not. Get it shot down and destroyed. >
  
  Oh yeah. They just needed to know what the weather was like over the US and they forgot to pay the cable bill so they can't turn on The Weather Channel. >
  
  Let’s say it is meteorological why does china need more accurate information on air currents from Chinese mainland to U.S. the only thing I can think of is they are evaluating the amount of radiation that would head their way from a nuclear exchange. Do they know something we don’t? I doubt they would nuke us but maybe putin shared something in confidence with them. >
  
  In that case they would be more worried about radiation coming from Russia after US retaliates >
  
  Can’t we just shoot it down with those Jewish space lasers? >
  
  This is probably a stupid question…but is there a way for the US to capture and study tech attached to the balloon to see if China’s reasoning are true or not? It being in the US’s airspace makes it fair game, no? >
  
  Can we do balloon wars instead of betacuck Russia-style wars from now on? >
  
  They probably should have asked for permission if that were true. >
  
  Sure, espionage is part of political science >
  
  it's not but okay >
  
  Those Nuclear densiometers in the balloon are for weather surveillance >
  
  Bring that fucker down over the ocean and we’ll just see about that. >
  
  Who really believes the  CCP? >
  
  They could be telling the truth. Assuming that they're lying is just another form of trust. You trust that they're lying to you. >
  
  They are not telling the truth >
  
  I'm not saying they are. I don't have any reason to believe them.
  But do you have any evidence they're lying? >
  
  It wasn't a weather balloon >
  
  Have we found out what it is yet? >
  
  Did you read the story? I am guessing not >
  
  No. I'm waiting for a decent quality report on it. A day or two I assume. >
  
  So why was there no “heads up U.S. and Canada we lost our balloon”? >
  
  Of course it is, what else could it be, right?
  And that Russian boat off the cost of the US a few weeks ago was just studying marine animals. >
  
  Easy way for them to drop the seeds of invasive plants across the country. >
  
  100% looking at the effects of the Tonga volcano... they (China) have been in a severe drought ever since that thing blew and it's well know that volcanos change the climate temporarily due to stratospheric  changes.
  Volcanos emit actual tons of sulfur dioxide that turn into sulfuric acid in the stratosphere.  These microscopic droplets actually reflect radiation from the sun back into space and this loss of energy produces weather patterns changes that are poorly understood... this is where the term volcanic winter comes from. Volcanos that produce significant sulfur dioxide releases can cause temporary global cooling due to this sulfuric acid "shield" for 2-5 years post eruption. 
  1815 saw the eruption of Mt. Tambora that was responsible for the global cooling event known as "the year without summer." 
  Then there's the water droplets at all levels of the atmosphere that don't usually contain water... the polar regions have seen an explosion in very rare and very colorful polar stratospheric clouds. These are the most colorful clouds known and only show up a few days on a normal year... They have been a daily occurrence for the last few weeks... so there's definitely a lot of extra moisture in the stratosphere and or other abnormal conditions producing this rare phenomenon. 
  Basically the big Earth pimple yeeted actual tons of all sorts of things into low level orbit and the Chinese are probably trying to figure out how to make it rain in China again. >
  
  Did you type this as you did your research ? Was this something you already knew? Are you into volcanoes? Are you a meteorologist? 
  I have so many questions >
  
  Veteran storm chaser and disaster enthusiast.
  I basically keep an eye on most of the possible major natural disaster scenarios like the sun, geological activity, and general atmospheric conditions that might impact the continental US.
  I've been keeping an eye out for Tonga info since it happened and saw the Polar Stratospheric Clouds on Spaceweather.com which I check daily for current space weather conditions. They pretty much keep me updated on everything going on above the "normal" weather. 
  Honestly it is pretty wild how far my fascination with Texas severe weather has taken me... but even the major solar flares can enhance severe weather days so I keep an eye on it all. >
  
  So then they should have zero issues with us shooting it down.. >
  
  Blow that fucker out of the sky >
  
  I'd say bring it down in one piece so you can study it, and potentially embarrass China further. >
  
  Bullshit! Above all else China is known for its lies. >
  
  That would be easy to verify: just show us the datastream that comes from its sensors. >
  
  I'm pretty sure we're already monitoring that. >
  
  That's the media story. I wonder what the real story is? Can't tell until the electronics are investigated... >
  
  sure it is. >
  
  But seriously, has anybody seen any launch codes… >
  
  You left out the part where that's according to China. That's what china said they are. 
  China lies. Like all the time. >
  
  China's govt are nothing but liars >
  
  I don't believe that shit. If it is for scientific research it would not be in US airspace. >
  
  Everyday, meteorologists around the world release thousands of weather balloons to gather data on the atmosphere. They have no control over where it goes.
  Maybe the smart money is to bet that the U.S. military accurately identified the object and truthfully communicated their conclusions to the public. But sometimes big government institutions make mistakes (gasp, shock!), sometimes they lie for political purposes (no way!), and sometimes they lie as part of the intricate game of espionage and geopolitics (how could they?!).
  While it's totally plausible this was some PRC intelligence kit, it's also totally plausible that it turns out to be something dumb like scientists in B.C. surveying wildlife populations and that the military's kneejerk reaction was tainted by growing concerns of a future US/China conflict. >
  
  Never trust anything the Chinese government says. It lacks transparency.the Chinese government has yet to admit to it's numerous han rights violations. >
  
  That's low key a good idea >
  
  Well the US could and should shoot it down as it is in their airspace and it is unauthorized to be flying there, and tear the fucker apart and see what those cunts really are up to. >
  
  That’s what China expects and wants us to do. It could contain bioweapons. >
  
  Want to bet the tinfoil folks will not report this? >
  
  Do you think China would be ok if a U.S. weather balloon just happened to be loitering over China for a few days? >
  
  Ugh, it's a weather balloon. I'm sure that your tin foil may be on too tight, but perspective helps. >
  
  Yep, the pentagon routinely considers shooting down weather balloons all the time.  It just so happens to be in a stable jet stream over our ICBM bases.   Nothing to see here.  Shoot it down when it gets to a safe space to confirm.  I’m certain that the CCP would be ok with us sending a weather balloon with monitoring equipment over China. >
  
  The US chose not to shoot it down specifically because they don't fear it as a surveillance platform. A giant balloon is less stealthy and less capable than advanced spy satellites, which China has plenty of. 
  But why would China be flying giant balloons near US airspace, if not for spying? It's not a threat or a political stunt, because it's just a useless balloon. Now balloons are commonly used for weather monitoring, but why would China care in the slightest about the weather in the US?
  Crazy idea: Geoengineering.
  Climate change is a huge crisis for humanity. Geoengineering is the idea of deliberately modifying the climate to reduce its temperature. We know that huge volcanic eruptions pour sulfur dioxide and other particles into the upper atmosphere that block sunlight, creating a cooling effect (that's volcanic winter, same principle as nuclear winter).
  Geoengineering could be a relatively cheap way to temporarily hold back global warming, but it's controversial because it could have unintended effects. The United Nations or other large intergovernmental bodies would never agree to it--there would just be endless arguments and squabbling. Who would pay for it? Who would be responsible for any unintended consequences?
  But enter China. Authoritarian China is known for ramming ahead with vast infrastructure projects that only pay off long term, like the Three Gorges Dam or their huge High Speed Rail network. Xi Jinping himself studied as a chemical engineer. So it's a crazy idea, but what if Chinese leadership got worried about climate change? Sure they can invest in renewables and try to cut back on coal plants, but they need energy to modernize, so what if they decided to also secretly start tests with geoengineering to buy themselves (and us all) some time to hold back climate change?
  Enter the balloon. What if the "weather research" is actually a platform for distributing particles into the stratosphere in an attempt to induce cooling? A very similar balloon was spotted over Japan a few years ago. (link: Japan Times article) What if they've been secretly launching them at various places around the world, but they lost control of one balloon that just so happened to drift into US airspace? And if the US knows the balloon isn't useful for spying, but they figured out it came from China or a Chinese vessel, then China has to come up with some new excuse for what the balloon is for. So they say it's a "civilian vessel" for "weather research", but maybe it's actually an advanced test platform for upper atmosphere geoengineering... or maybe not. >
  
  Don't you think China should have maybe consulted the u.s. before floating an information gathering device into their airspace? This is still a violation of sovereignty. Whether their motivations are altruistic or not, you can't do that. >
  
  I'm not saying China is good or altruistic (because if they were, then yes they would have asked permission). I'm saying that it doesn't make sense for them to be flying spy balloons in the age of satellites, and it doesn't make sense for them to be flying weather balloons halfway around the world. What do they have to gain from this? >
  
  Theyre probably testing their version of Fu-Go Balloon Bomb. >
  
  Americans whining about whatever the Chinese are up to will always be funny >
  
  Why would it be funny if it literally is hanging over our country? How could this be a more valid concern? What the hell are you talking about? >
  
  They’re 100% spying on us. We’re 100% spying on them. The performative histrionics are funny. >
  
  Even if this isn’t a “spy balloon”, how is it not a valid concern? A flagrant violation if sovereign airspace should be alarming to any country. >
  
  And we would never do such a thing, right? >
  
  Absolutely nobody said that. If we did, China would have a valid concern. This hypothetical ’whataboutism’ is irrelevant to the facts. >
  
  Nothing exposes American hypocrisy quite like reactions to Chinese belligerence. I never said it wasn’t a valid concern, just that the whining is funny. Because it is. >
  
  Where have I seen that before? Oh wait a minute... Are we about to see a reverse U-2 incident lol. >
  
  Yea…OK! 👌