Why Haven't We Shot Down Spy Balloon?

[Ronson]

My wife thinks the balloon was full of the latest covid.

[seanD]

The data can be there without anyone actually knowing what it means.

So your conclusion that someone in the DoD obviously knew the crafts were there is faulty.

I don't understand what you mean. Someone in the DoD obviously knew they were enough of a security issue to bother making a report, and it was specific enough that allowed them to supposedly search for similar incidents and recall it.

[Cow Poke]

If it poses zero threat, then even a tiny chance of hurting Americans tips the risk-benefit analysis in favor of waiting, without even considering the possibility that we can gain useful information by studying it in action.

What level is your security clearance?

[Mountain Man]

All I could make out from the fuzzy photos were a few rows of solar panels. Probably a camera and some other electronics in the center.

From what I've read, the entire construct was over 60 feet long. A lot of it was solar array, but given our current state of electronics, there was plenty of room to build a technically advanced monitoring system into the thing.

[Stoic]

What level is your security clearance?

I don't have one any more.

[Mountain Man]

If it poses zero threat, then even a tiny chance of hurting Americans tips the risk-benefit analysis in favor of waiting, without even considering the possibility that we can gain useful information by studying it in action.

I don't believe it really did pose "zero threat". Clearly the Chinese government did not fly it over the US with our best interests in mind. There's lots of uninhabited land in the mid-West, and our military had plenty of time to figure out the best way to shoot it down while presenting the least risk to the public. Ideally, we should have taken it out before it even got to Alaska, but it is inconceivable that the second best option was to allow the balloon to complete its mission before shooting it down.

[Cow Poke]

I don't believe it really did pose "zero threat". Clearly the Chinese government did not fly it over the US with our best interests in mind. There's lots of uninhabited land in the mid-West, and our military had plenty of time to figure out the best way to shoot it down while presenting the least risk to the public. Ideally, we should have taken it out before it even got to Alaska, but it is inconceivable that the second best option was to allow the balloon to complete its mission before shooting it down.

Let not your hear be troubled - Joe will have a perfectly acceptable explanation when he does the State of the Onion Address tomorrow night.

[seanD]

Let not your hear be troubled - Joe will have a perfectly acceptable explanation when he does the State of the Onion Address tomorrow night.

What do you suppose the odds he'll somehow reference it as something like "We were successful taking it down, unlike the prior admin."

[Stoic]

I don't understand what you mean. Someone in the DoD obviously knew they were enough of a security issue to bother making a report, and it was specific enough that allowed them to supposedly search for similar incidents and recall it.

We're not talking about going through reports. We're talking about going through data that was recorded. Intelligence agencies record huge amounts of data, and store it in server farms to be mined later.

That data might be RF signals, or satellite photos, or radar recordings, or maybe something else that I'm not aware of. There can be a lot of good stuff there that's impossible to find until you know what to look for.

[Cow Poke]

We're not talking about going through reports. We're talking about going through data that was recorded. Intelligence agencies record huge amounts of data, and store it in server farms to be mined later.

That data might be RF signals, or satellite photos, or radar recordings, or maybe something else that I'm not aware of. There can be a lot of good stuff there that's impossible to find until you know what to look for.

You forgot smoke signals.

[Cow Poke]

What do you suppose the odds he'll somehow reference it as something like "We were successful taking it down, unlike the prior admin."

Perhaps he'll attribute it to President Harris -- by the way, did you see him stammering and bumbling about half the women in his administration are women?

"More than half the women of my cabinet, more than half the people of my cabinet, more than half the women in my administration are women."

[seanD]

We're not talking about going through reports. We're talking about going through data that was recorded. Intelligence agencies record huge amounts of data, and store it in server farms to be mined later.

That data might be RF signals, or satellite photos, or radar recordings, or maybe something else that I'm not aware of. There can be a lot of good stuff there that's impossible to find until you know what to look for.

But of course, all this is just theory. Your theory requires more complexity and uses more assumptions that can't be proven. Then you have to wonder why there were no civilian eyewitness accounts during the time it supposedly invaded our air space three times, when it only look one time for eyewitnesses to notice it this time. Occam's Razor. The simple solution is they lied, hence the reason they kept themselves anonymous when numerous high level intelligence officials came forward and refuted the story.

[Cow Poke]

But of course, all this is just theory. Your theory requires more complexity and uses more assumptions that can't be proven. Then you have to wonder why there were no civilian eyewitness accounts during the time it supposedly invaded our air space three times, when it only look one time for eyewitnesses to notice it this time. Occam's Razor. The simple solution is they lied, hence the reason they kept themselves anonymous when numerous high level intelligence officials came forward and refuted the story.

It's beginning to appear that, to be a member of the Biden administration, one must fail at least 3 consecutive lie detector sessions.

[Cow Poke]

We're not talking about going through reports. We're talking about going through data that was recorded. Intelligence agencies record huge amounts of data, and store it in server farms to be mined later.

That data might be RF signals, or satellite photos, or radar recordings, or maybe something else that I'm not aware of. There can be a lot of good stuff there that's impossible to find until you know what to look for.

So, you're suggesting what --- that after being embarrassed and humiliated by their feckless response, the Biden administration ordered their minions to sort through all that data to find something - ANYTHING - to whatabout Trump?

Or, WAIT --- maybe this was in one of the classified documents in Biden's residential garage?

[Stoic]

But of course, all this is just theory. Your theory requires more complexity and uses more assumptions that can't be proven.

I tend to prefer explanations that do not assume that someone is lying, unless there is good evidence that someone is lying. Once you start assuming that people are lying, then you have the difficulty of figuring out just who is lying.

Then you have to wonder why there were no civilian eyewitness accounts during the time it supposedly invaded our air space three times, when it only look one time for eyewitnesses to notice it this time.

The previous incursions are claimed to have been comparatively brief. We also don't know whether they passed over any populated areas, or what the weather was like at the time.

Occam's Razor. The simple solution is they lied, hence the reason they kept themselves anonymous when numerous high level intelligence officials came forward and refuted the story.

DoD background briefings are usually done without identifying the presenters. You can go back and look at lots of them on the DoD website. So the fact that they were anonymous this time doesn't really require explanation.

And "I never heard about it" does not quite mean the same thing as "it never happened." If you hear the latter from someone, you can be pretty sure that they are claiming more than they actually know.