comment: >
  
  Great. We already have Russia trying to rush us to Armageddon... We need China to play as well???
context: “Sources told CTV News that a smaller object may have been released from the balloon that might pose a risk to planes.”
  The plot thickens. >
  
  Bottom line is, we don't know what these ballons are doing, and China is lying. We don't know how many there are, or where. China has been encroaching on Taiwan, India militarily. Chinese ships have invaded fishing waters around the globe. China has mining contracts in Afghanistan and across Africa. 
  I think the Chinese economic miracle has created a monster. >
  
  Am I missing something? 
  Could be irony, but I wouldn't call the Chinese economy a miracle. I haven't seen anything in the last decade from Pooh Bear that would leave me to believe he's anything other than another Putin, flailing at western powers as their country's slowly collapse in on themselves. The balloons are a joke from a country that is becoming one. >
  
  From a country that had famines 70 years ago to a country thats just 1 generation behind Taiwan in chip manufacturing. You really dont see any changes? >
  
  No homelessness and high speed rail makes me very frustrated at America's government/media. China does a LOT wrong, but let's not ignore how America has done nothing to improve the life of the average person in the last 20 years. We are headed toward serious problems if something doesnt change. Spending less on military to build public transit wouldn't be bending the knee to China. Rent control wouldn't be bending the knee to China. Universal healthcare wouldn't be bending the knee to china. Our media focusing on our issues at home with attention to the actual causes seems unlikely to ever happen when Tucker is the biggest show on television, and that has me worried about the next decade. >
  
  After having visited Japan just this last month... our country is letting us down in a variety of ways. Whatever is keeping your average American from rioting in the streets (seriously... there's a ton of reasons: healthcare, wages, treatment of citizens, police inaction unless they are shooting up innocent civilians, the list goes on) must be REAL good to keep everyone's ass on the couch. >
  
  I wonder this everyday lol. It has to be some kind of social conditioning. We live in a world so far detached from reality it’s like the entire country is a big TV show. >
  
  Personally, I think it's due to our size (literally in both senses). This is a much larger discussion, but it makes no sense for our country to be THIS big. Our wants and needs are vastly different region to region and sometimes even state to state. 
  The only reason we're still locked in is because the rich states subsidize the poor ones. >
  
  As long as food and drink are readily available its hard to unite behind a cause for mass rioting. I often wonder why we don't experience Shinzo Abe scenarios with a country full of guns combined with such a massive wealth disparity. Both parties have done an incredible job focusing on divisive issues which attract our attention. It helps when one party is legitimately insane. >
  
  The attacks on politicians have already begun. One in NJ just died after being shot in her car.
  But that's the R attacking the L. >
  
  It’s just my Shein order >
  
  Ohh that’s why it’s off track >
  
  Pack it up boys and girls and everyone in between or outside the binary, reddit solved anotha one. >
  
  I could be skeptical of the first balloon only because the idea of air current  - but for 2 to be located as a "oopsie" - no way      Find a space to safely deflate. >
  
  The first balloon was found to be steering itself. Balloons don't accidentally do that. >
  
  “We will get Aunt Peggy’s cookie recipe once and for all.” >
  
  It's her Apple Brown Betty and the secret ingredient is horse manure. >
  
  Minh has a better recipe >
  
  Add nutmeg! >
  
  furious scribbling
  Okay, how bout this one? 🧁 >
  
  "Just monitoring the weather" >
  
  That’s no moon.  That’s a space station. >
  
  That's no balloon.  That's a spy station. >
  
  The local news coverage of these balloons is cracking me up. I feel like it's the national equivalent of half the small towns fire station trying to get a cat out of a tree. 
  Very Pawnee Indiana
  The news have no idea how mad they're supposed to be about a balloon floating above the 18 people who live in Montana, and the military seems to want to use this for fundraising so they can finally get those anti-weather balloon guns. 
  Since this isn't going away today or anything, I can't imagine how the multi day 24-hour news cycle is going to try to get people to care. It will be interesting to learn what a balloon expert looks like and their thoughts on the matter. >
  
  Oh no! What if it.... they put the satellite in space with the 10,000 other satellites Just like it? 
  Drops the satellite for fun?
  I  don't understand why this is so serious >
  
  Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie where the balloon drops or reaches ground level one way or another and releases a massive virus or some shit >
  
  Chapter 1 of a Zombie apocalypse novel. >
  
  There s always two of them! >
  
  no more, no less >
  
  We should send one back in the shape of a dragon >
  
  I'm sure they will bring it down intact when it's over the ocean. Need to see that shit. >
  
  If they don't, then that's when we need to start criticizing. >
  
  It'll all be OK guys. There monkeys being stolen from zoos, and I have a feeling they'll be equipped with darts >
  
  The future is history >
  
  Atleast make an effort and give it some sky blue camo >
  
  99 red balloons go by >
  
  Why can't they pop a hole in it, then let it fall slowly, then capture the equipment ? >
  
  Interesting article from Forbes.
  
  Bringing down the balloon may be difficult as it is highly resistant to available weapons and is located in the stratosphere, far above the altitude of airliners.
  Stratospheric balloons are very large, with NASA's standard balloons having a volume equivalent to over 195 Goodyear blimps.
  The balloon envelope is thin and made of plastic material and it is unlikely that puncturing it would bring the balloon down.
  Previous attempts to bring down large balloons have been unsuccessful. For example, in 1998 a rogue Canadian weather balloon was hit by more than 1,000 rounds of cannon fire and a volley of rockets, but it continued to drift.
  Interception aircraft may be able to hit the small gondola of the balloon, but a failed attempt would be a public relations disaster. >
  
  We apparently haven't figured out how to fight giant balloons yet. >
  
  If aliens come in giant balloons we are doomed. >
  
  You see “Nope?” >
  
  That movie was insanely good >
  
  It was ok >
  
  It was bad. >
  
  China already playing victim.
  You really can't make this up. "We always respect international law and it's the US making us look like the baddies over a minor mistake of a civilian balloon that accidently hovers over key military sites and is accidently correcting itself when wind tries to push it along" >
  
  If this balloon is so critical to national security and secrecy, why isn't it taken down by now? Imagine whining about a floating balloon just so you can raise money for the military complex. >
  
  
  so critical to national security and secrecy
  
  Source?
  I haven't seen where this is critical to national security, the opposite actually that it's not a major security risk to US intelligence. >
  
  Look to see if Christopher Robin is hanging off it. Incase Xinnie the Pooh is looking for Honeypot... >
  
  Are we sure it's not a "V" first contact like situation? >
  
  Aliens flying a battle bus? Maybe we're more akin to a batrle royale prelude >
  
  Don’t shoot ‘em down. Trap them shits and read the info available >
  
  It’s about time the world sees what China is doing. Y’all are making a big deal out of the balloon while all your data is being given to the Chinese government by Chinese companies like tencent by law. They own a big part of Reddit you know? >
  
  Says the person typing on reddit who probably shops at Walmart too >
  
  Yes 😭 It’s almost impossible to avoid it, which is the problem. I use Snapchat, Spotify for example and all of them have the same issue as reddit. 
  Thankfully I haven’t got a Walmart for hundreds of km >
  
  So anyways I started blastin >
  
  Shoot ‘em down. Let’s get this show on the road >
  
  Maybe I’m just not up to date on foreign affairs but what are they spying on? Farmers, cars driving on highways, people living day to day life? I don’t get it. >
  
  Air Force bases would be my guess. Malmstrom AFB in Montana is one location where they maintain the minuteman III ICBM’s (inter-continental ballistic missile), part of our nuclear deterrence strategy. But again, that’s me just assuming stuff, nothing official. >
  
  Ya as someone who doesn’t understand this stuff, it sounds like some BS world leader pissing contest lol >
  
  Panama Canal Authority gonna be upset they missed a transit fee.🇵🇦 >
  
  Annnd... Here's how we usher in WW3. Great time to be alive. >
  
  China always doing China shit >
  
  I highly doubt that it's designed to spy on anyone. Almost all phones and electronic components are made in China, if they wanted to spy on anyone, they'd do it that way. We no longer live in the 50s, spying balloons make no sense. At best it's just some lost weather analysing equipment and at worst it's full of some new bioweapon that will erase humanity in a few years. But think about it, if they wanted to release a bioweapon into the world. There would be like a million better ways of doing it. So yeah. >
  
  Seems to me the simplest guess of its purpose is exactly what it’s achieving…pandemonium. It worked for Russia, who spent a helluva lot more on Republican politicians than China spent on a balloon. 
  Why would any adversary invest in any weapon against us other than simple internet fuel for crazy people? It’s the only thing necessary to keep this country in mortal hysteria and constant bickering. >
  
  It may very well be Operation: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
  They may be testing how long Americans will stay complacent in the event of obvious foreign transgressions in a time of inept government. Right now, a heavily armed population is realizing how vulnerable they would be to a simple Trojan weather balloon. A population fractured by civil war that can't trust its militarized police. When you're a powder keg, all it takes is a spark. >
  
  Go touch some grass jesus christ >
  
  in times like these the most important thing for us to do is panic and catastrophize >
  
  inflation in china must be worst then ours. >
  
  I'm thoroughly entertained by the idea of open espionage. Just have a shady dude walking around with "SPY" on the back of his uniform jacket just walking up to people asking invasive questions. >
  
  That's called: social media >
  
  Are the Feds watching the Coca Cola plants around the country?!?! Let’s not forget, people, these folks like to play jokes. If the taste of our beloved national beverage changes, we know who to blame!!!!! >
  
  I love how the US said they were afraid to shoot it down over Montana because the debris might hit civilians… Montana is about 95% open range with a ranch home about every twenty miles. >
  
  Maybe the debris of a biological fall out...
  the plot really thickens... >
  
  Yup… and I wondered if somehow they were trying to see the equivalent of “who picks up the package”… >
  
  Just a thought.. 
  A nuke can weigh in at just a couple hundred pounds. What if a nuke was put onto one of these as it passed over a military installation, a major city, or D.C.? 
  Could a nuke be disguised as something else such as surveillance equipment and then released over a target?
  Would there be enough time to take it out as it falls from 60,000 feet? Could this happen undetected? 
  Just thinking. Just becuase it hasn't been done before doesn't mean that it couldn't happen for the first time today. The attitude of "no one would ever dare to do that" or "that couldn't happen to us" has been just the approach that has gotten us in trouble before. Disregarding or shrugging something off as "no way" has came back to bite us in events such as Pearl Harbor or cockpits of commercial airliners not being secure prior to 9/11. >
  
  MAD still exists >
  
  Mad doesn't exist if they drop something 10 times or more the explosiveness as the "2nd" tsar bomba that was designed yet never detonated because there wasn't a way to save anyone dropping it. Instantly fuck up more than half the country and destroy all the main silos in one swoop. Anyway, yeah, I'm just saying, it's extremely doubtful. >
  
  Thankfully that's not how nukes or US nuclear deterrence work, like, at all.
  I'm just going to ignore the super-giga-ultra nuke that wipes out all ICBM silos at once because it is physically impossible to exist.
  But the entire purpose of the nuclear submarine fleet is to maintain MAD in the event that all land-based nukes are somehow magically wiped out instantly, because they can stay hidden and launch from anywhere without warning. >
  
  I know, but there's that kind of erie thing like, people were talking about that being bullshit when phone predictions were made such as having a computer in the pocket, is an absolutely giant technological new bomb so out of the realm of possibility? Or an advanced targeted bioweapon? Although not likely at all based on what we know, I still remain humble to such a thing. >
  
  I think they're getting data on weather patterns for aerosol releases of foreign substances. >
  
  i dont think weather patterns are exactly something thats difficult to come across lol >
  
  Lmao, yeah pretty sure that is openly mapped already >
  
  Might be a plan to infect America like the Japanese had in WW2 when it is brought down. >
  
  Yeah because its not like we have nuclear armed submarines with subsonic weapons stationed all around China or anything in case of a deadhand scenario or something >
  
  Did everyone freaking out about these balloons forget the Google Earth exists? >
  
  Google Earth doesn’t have ground penetrating radar that can see what’s hidden underground. >
  
  Why send a balloon to do that? You have no control over it. Why send a device like that into a country who doesn’t trust you anyway with no real idea where it will go specifically? 
  It would be easier to activate a sleeper cell living here in the US to attach it under a car and go for an off-roading adventure. >
  
  Reports are that they do have some control over it because it’s changed directions on its own. >
  
  They don’t think twice about shooting us but a fucking balloon that’s up to no good and they want to wait and see. >
  
  China has kick ass spy satellites. Has anyone considered that these things might be
  …
  …
  weather balloons? >
  
  Are weather balloons maneuverable? >
  
  $200B spent on the Reagan’s Star Wars program to develop fancy space lasers. Canceled. Forty-three years later and we can’t stop a simple balloon from entering our airspace.
  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m more sure now than ever that the US Government’s plan is to just “let them all die.” >
  
  We could have destroyed the balloon at any time. >
  
  I’d like to hear your thoughts on how they would have accomplished this so easily. SAMs can cruise at that altitude, but the likelihood of them hitting a target at 60k feet is low due to the lack of control surfaces. F22s can’t fly that high. A U2 spy plane might stand a chance of reaching an altitude high enough to engage, but they don’t have any armaments. The US Army has 60 kW and 300 kW lasers that would work once it was over land, but then there’s the possibility of the debris crashing into someone’s house. The Navy has 30 kW lasers that are good to 5 miles, but the balloon is at 11.3 miles.
  Don’t get me wrong — I’m no fan of Reagan. The reason they cancelled the Star Wars project back in the 80s was due to an agreement with the USSR to not weaponize space… which is exactly what is happening now anyway. I’m quite certain the US Military detected this balloon when it was way out over the Pacific. Apparently, they didn’t have a viable option to take it down before it entered the US mainland, and now that it is here their hands are tied. Makes you wonder how effective they’d be in a real situation involving an ICBM. >
  
  Probably would have done it similar to how we just took it out - fighter and air-to-air missile.
  The balloon entered the lower 48 from Canada, by the way. >
  
  What is inside of the balloons!? Hate to be conspiracy theorist, BUT is this a Trojan horse!? The balloon can be maneuvered. Do they want us to shoot it down and release toxic chemicals? This is concerning. I'm getting too old for this. >
  
  You are overeacting >
  
  I know. That's how my anxiety works about war. >
  
  Don’t worry, it’s just Harry Kanes ball finally returning to earth. >
  
  Get them down to at least find out if this is a fuckung bio attack! >
  
  Would it be illegal to shine a laser pointer at it? I mean… it is an illegal balloon, after all. >
  
  Need a naval blockade of China >
  
  goes these stupid Chinese, just go to Google Maps. >
  
  The balloons are up there taking the highest resolution photos of this planet.
  Google Earth, Google Maps, Apple Maps are all fairly low resolution maps.
  These accessible maps have been, massaged, edited and manipulated for many, many reasons. Some for privacy, some for military protection and some for evidence of places and items they just don’t want us to know about or see.
  The Chinese want to know and see it all and don’t bow down to rules of other countries privacy or laws.
  They’re doing their thing and may be brave enough to show us what is really going on and where. >
  
  They already have low orbit satellites of their own. The pictures already exist. >
  
  Yes, thankyou, l realise this but the point l was trying to imply was that, we, the general public are not privy to the pictures. When Google maps came out, the pictures were much, much clearer. You could zoom in closer to things. People started finding stuff on these pictures, reported them on the net, then they would disappear from the map, blurred out, pixelated so you couldn’t see them anymore. The images we see are rough, the images that the powers that be, see are incredibly detailed.
  So, in my opinion, the Chinese want their own images.
  Not depending on any other countries so called photos. >
  
  It is beyond ridiculous and implausible to think any country capable of launching spy satellites is using balloons for spying in the 21st Century. Use your head for something more than a hat rack. >
  
  Big brain time. You probably think you made a clever retort. >
  
  Not clever so much as calm and reasonable.
  I do see that dissent from the mobthink earns a multitude of lost karma points here. 
  It will turn out to be a big nothing. >
  
  Lmao basic common sense is mobthink nowadays. >
  
  Yeah, it's a freakout of a mob. Otherwise my quite reasonable comment questioning how it is supposed to have been steered to various sensitive sites would not have been heavily downvoted. >
  
  I heard it was actually the soccer ball Harry Kane launched into orbit during the France game. >
  
  Oh no, Blinken isn’t going, that will show em >
  
  Oooh es un futbol, es una pelota al azar en el patio >
  
  The Chinese are pretty trustworthy, they’re just observing weather patterns of the west any other thought would be sinophobic.    Edit: downvotes mean truth on Reddit lmao, they also didn’t release the virus right?🙄🤣😂 >
  
  Lmao do you seriously believe they released covid? 
  Also no it's not xenophobic. It's just stupid to assume things. >
  
  I do believe that, the Chinese don’t care about anything. The United States said they didn’t release it and then retracted they’re statement, what does that mean to you? The WHO also said it needs much more investigating, stop being so naive. >
  
  I'm not naive. I just don't assume things.
  If we're going the assuming route, why don't we assume that the USA knew exactly what they were doing by releasing and retracting that statement, thereby turning people by you against china?
  I'm not saying i believe this but that statement i just made has just as much to back it up as yours. >
  
  Most likey the ballon is a network server that deals with hacking local networks. >
  
  From 60k feet? >
  
  They bought one of those wifi boosters >
  
  All that fuss over a pretty balloon… people got nothing else better to do? Like, focus on the inflation and the recession please >
  
  Yes we can all worry about one thing and one thing only. >
  
  All that money spent on defence and they can't shoot it down. >
  
  We do not generally make a habit of shooting at things in the sky above our nation. Things can fall.
  Besides, maybe it's just a regular balloon doing nothing interesting. Shit happens. >
  
  Has litterally solar panels and is the size of a small house. Ope just floating on by here dont mind me >
  
  Fraid of the big bad bwoon??? It's ok hunny >
  
  Meanwhile a Chinese spy satellite can see your butthole. Has anyone actually stopped and thought about this lol. It’s a fuckin balloon. This isn’t the early Cold War. There is literally ZERO reason to use a balloon to spy in the modern age. Whole thing is being used for fearmongering by the media. >
  
  China has admitted, it is unable to control its militarized balloons and I like that the US is not shooting the balloons down. This will further embarrass and pressure the Chinese for an answer to the following question:
  How are we in the international community to believe that China is a good “international partner”, “superpower”, or military threat if it can’t control its militarized balloon?
  Overall: Epic Fail >
  
  It doesn’t make China look weak. The majority of Americans think the government looks weak not shooting down this balloon. Seriously, go take a poll of people at the supermarket or work and see how many find this to be ridiculous. The USA looks pathetic. >
  
  Come on now, a balloon with cameras on it? This is early 1900s tech… NORAD has tracked the balloon since it left China. The US, undoubtably has the ability to shoot the balloon down and it’s not as though a slow moving balloon caught anyone by surprise…
  With this ask yourself, why leave it up there? 
  Personally I think it’s intentional and continues the presidential offices narrative around China. It also presses China to publicly answer for an archaic spying attempt and provides Blinken a reason to skip out on meeting with Xi. >
  
  Condaleezza Rice would never have canceled this trip.  She would have stood up to China just like she famously stood up to Putin. >
  
  Maybe they've been taken over by aliens, and this was the only way to ask for help? 
  (goes off to write screenplay). >
  
  Will be interesting to see how Latin America responds. >
  
  I'm actually interested to see how Latin America responds to their balloon and if it impacts how we respond to our balloon >
  
  So, why a balloon instead of a drone? >
  
  Don’t they already have spy satellites? What’s the point of an obvious balloon?