Appearing at the White House podium, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communication John Kirby announced, “The Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours.” “We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now. We don’t know who owns it – whether it’s state-owned or corporate owned or privately owned, we just don’t know,” Kirby said.
The object first came to the attention of the US government “last evening.” Kirby told reporters that the US assessed the “object” to be unmanned before it was eventually shot down. Biden was first briefed Thursday night “as soon as the Pentagon had enough information.” The high-altitude object, Kirby said during a White House press briefing, was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.
There were two efforts to get closer to the object and evaluate it as it flew. The first engagement by fighter aircraft took place late Thursday night and the second Friday morning. Both engagements yielded “limited” information, Kirby told reporters. “We were able to get some fighter aircrafts up and around it before the order to shoot it down, and the pilots assessment was this was not manned,” Kirby added. WATCH:
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Were the leaks about the first balloon potentially being US made so we could release this one ourselves and shoot it down to prove we cannot be invaded?
I thought the same thing.
They had to get the Nordstream gas pipeline sabotage out of the headlines
No – wait – it wasn’t IN the headlines
No major news outlets were covering the story
DOD/CIA/FBI/NSA/DOJ deserves everything that is coming.
Yeah, but who’s going to pay the price? Taxpayers, our children & our grandchildren–not our corrupt elitist generals, admirals, other elitists, FJB, the Ho or politicians who are supposed to have our backs!!
The legacy media are no longer relevant. Most people get their news from the internet.
If we had UFO’s and real aliens (not the ones sneaking over our southern border)
and they had any brains, they would zoom over to DC and take quite a few dems and rinos for
evaluation. Would probably take more than one space ship.
Nope…it was shot down cause a pesky citizen might report it to the media.
Whereas THEY couldn’t find the former spy air thingy that goes up, powers in charge are on full alert.
Perhaps they wanted to shoot down this “object” but were afraid of how people would respond – especially if they “don’t know who owns it.”
So you fly a balloon over the country for days while pointing at it, calling it a spy balloon, and asking “why hasn’t it been shot down yet?”
Now you can shoot down any aerial object and avoid criticism because “shooting things down is the right thing to do” even if you (supposedly) have no idea what it is, what it does, or who put it there.
I don’t believe anything these people say and all their actions are suspect.
Its an ugly thing when we can’t trust leadership. I don’t trust anyone after the WMD fiasco.
We need to get organized so we don’t suffer the consequence of these hateful people. Its payback for the USA, and its richly deserved, but it doesn’t mean we should suffer too.
Stock your pantry, and water.
I haven’t trusted the feds since FDR’s great gold heist.
“We have always been at war with balloons “
You beat me to it. As soon as I saw this tonight I thought “set up” as a mitigation attempt.
Mars Attacks.
Ack Ack!!
I bet nothing was “shot down”! It’s just a story to make it seem as if we’re actually protecting our territory.
Does anyone really believe this BS?
No
The press conference made Biden’s press events sound lucid by comparison.
the real question is if you even believed the opposite of the story?
Not even Baghdad Bob.
Not a scintilla.
No, this is a bunch of balloney.
My first question is; if they could shoot this one down over Alaska, why couldn’t the first “real” Chinese spy balloon be shot down over Alaska? Instead Xiden’s cabal said they were worried about “civilian” safety while letting it traverse the whole country. Civilian safety, yeah right.
My second question is; if a “civilian” had not seen and photographed the “real” Chinese spy balloon over Montana, would we have ever known about it? 🤔
And if the 1st “balloon” wasn’t endangering civilian aircraft, why did they shut down airports & divert flights, etc., as it went across U.S. airspace for 7-8 days or xx yrs?
Not I. They lie all the time. Watch how this “shoot down” story just fizzles out as it is a weekend.
This administration makes ole time vaudville look serious.
Cue the clown circus music.
Standard Friday afternoon document dump.
To little, to late.
yeah, that too
😉
Oh no da grammar police, whoda thunk it
Nims our punny man.
When does Biden appear to spike the preverbal football— as he runs away to his beach house?
No Joe! Not the real football!
Where is the Suspicious Cat?🤔
How many civilian air flights are above the arctic circle?
You might be surprised.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/
After looking at the map on that site, I’m not the least bit surprised.
plenty
a lot of flights to and from Europe are over the pole, it’s the shortest distance
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=palemoon&q=flight+lines+over+the+pole&ia=web
Great Cirle Route, I made 16 round trips Seattle to London on British Airways in 2001, passing across 70 North and over Greenland – that is some desolate lonely country up there.
Indeed.
I slept in the boom pod on tankers going over the top and the view through the belly windows was seriously spooky.
KC-135’s? It was interesting watching the ice and glaciers grow and recede in Greenland over the course of that year. Always been fascinated by the polar explorers. Great book recommendation – Dan Simmons, The Terror –
“The Terror is a 2007 novel by American author Dan Simmons. It is a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition, on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to the Arctic, in 1845–1848, to locate the Northwest Passage.”
It’s got spooky in spades…
Glaciers grow and recede with the seasons.
Propagandists get to pick their truth.
It was pretty freaky imagining landing safely on the ice knowing the chances of surviving until rescued were slim, that thought worked it’s way into some weird dreams.
You called it right, desolate.
Did that too!! Pretty comfortable unless it gets cold!
That’s why I chose that spot, I run hot.
My water bottle left outside my sleeping bag froze up.
Nothing disproves all the the leftist fantasies about global warming or over population or the lack of fresh water, you name it, more than simply flying over North America.
Thousands of miles of empty ground. Thousands of miles of trees and fresh water and unpopulated ground.
The world is mostly empty. People crowd into a few cities. The Left wants it this way.
Start there.
The Monsters That Be have already agreed to purge humanity from the vast majority of the globe to live in authorized corridors of metropolises.
It’s being fast tracked along with putting Agenda 2030 in overdrive.
All the marbles are in play.
Check out the 100 mile – long “Linear City” proposed to be built in Saudi Arabia. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/saudi-arabia-building-100-mile-long-linear-city
Uh huh.
Good question.
According to the BBC said (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64605447.amp), they not only didn’t know what they were shooting at (a UFO by definition). It was the size of a small car (which isn’t very big) … at 40000 ft! (which it pretty high) … and, according to National Security Council coordinator Kirby, it seemed to be “virtually at the whim of the wind”. Now I suppose it could be a small weather balloon (you would think the fighter pilot would have discovered during the first pass and having discovered this, why shoot it down?) so I’ll assume it wasn’t a weather balloon. In which case, wouldn’t it be ironic if slow-Joe Biden is the one who starts our first interplanetary or interstellar war by shooting down a REAL UFO?
Well they would just use their “cloaking device!”
We should demand to see what the fighter’s camera showed.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Chinese spy balloons sapping our precious bodily fluids! America under attack! All questions about Russian pipelines to be classified as thought sabotage! Arms to be rushed to Taiwan! A safe America is an obedient America! Remember to do your part for the
climatewar effort! Enlist at your local ESG Compliance Assistance Center today!We have a balloon gap!!
Which gap will be filled with hot air.
Stand down, General Ripper. LOL
From asleep at the wheel to trigger happy.
Don’t go flying.
Shooting it out of the sky over Alaska puts the lie to their excuses of waiting until the last balloon was out over the Atlantic.
The gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
$816.7 billion in defense spending but they’re not quite sure what it is or who owns the darn thing…
Clearly they need a bigger budget!! 😀
/s
…14 TIMES HIGHER THAN RUSSIAN…DOD BUDGET….
IKR?
They know. They probably shot down a flying small car. That’s how much of our military defense money goes towards “detection.”
NORAD commander is now saying their detection capabilities are way outdated & under-funded.
Here comes another special appropriation, folks, including more defense of Ukraine money for the Big Guy, Zelenskyy & all of Congress.
Still unclear WTF they still don’t “know” what they shot down yesterday.
UFO!
(Useless FJB Object)
But of course.
The fact that very little has come out about the balloon they shot down is likely because it was a nothing burger. The media hyped it as nasty China spying on us. To have to tell people it was a weather balloon would make Biden look like the ridiculous stupido he is.
The whole incident was a chance to slam China. Instead of telephoning China and holding talks with them, we just shot it down. Then we decided to call China. Funny, but they would not take our call…..not after we had already bludgeoned China as an enemy in our media.
China has dozens of satellites that pick up intelligence, communications, movement, and has high definition cameras. They don’t need a balloon to watch us. And we have probably twice as many satellites over China constantly.
“China has dozens of satellites that pick up intelligence, communications, movement, and has high definition cameras. They don’t need a balloon to watch us.”
That’s what McGreagor said too.
What if it’s a coordinated effort to locate places to stash “Chinese nationals” coming illegally across all of our borders & into our airports dressed/acting like asylum victims but in reality special ops & military operation types.
Chinese national illegal encounters on our southern border are up 800%.
Illegal encounters in general on our northern borders are up 400-500%.
Chinese “tourists” pretty much have easy access to fly into Canada, at least they used to. Trudeau let the Chinese military “train” for cold weather in 2019 or 2020 pre-COVID during the Trump Administration.
Nothing to see here, folks. That’s because FJB, his Administration of freaks & his woke military have our backs!!
A dozen miles high loitering below the ionosphere as opposed to zipping one-hundred-eighty miles high completely outside our atmosphere makes a substantial difference in signals gathering capability.
It’s likely much much less about “seeing” than it is “sensing.”
Well, we shall see. I’ve seen how very accurate the data is and the definition of satellite cameras to know that there isn’t much they can’t see and sense, even years ago.
But think about 2 things. There was always the possibility that someone would pick up one of these balloon, shoot one, or it could fall, and be grabbed. Whatever they put in that balloon was going to be able to be discovered, so why would they do anything that was intelligence gathering?
Second, they had no way to predict exactly what the jet stream was going to do. The jet stream winds are 275 mph. Not much maneuvering that can be done with a balloon in that strength of winds. The balloon followed the jet stream if you noticed its track.
That’s why I think that this is going to turn out to be a nothing burger or that they will lie to us about it…..surprise. It was too good an opportunity to stir up China fear.
The maneuvering is accomplished by changing altitude to catch different winds, and those winds are continually analyzed and mapped as part of the global effort to predict weather for all human endeavors, China has access to all that and is sufficiently sophisticated to make our Derps look ridiculous.
There will always be advantages to having a closer view for certain surveillance techniques, no matter how good space based platforms become, some signals are simply too weak to make it that far, and those satellites remain in their respective orbits in consequence of their speed, low orbits are fast with no loitering capability and continually shift the ground path from orbit to orbit, therefore it would take many redundant satellites to create any degree of consistent coverage of any particular area.
Sometimes the intelligence sought is the responses to the platform itself, as in a feint, the presence of the craft is essential in provoking reactions, satellites won’t do that.
Another thing to consider is if the technology is not entirely passive, but actually emits signals on some spectrum, whether lasers for lidar or some form of radar, space based systems attempting this would be very vulnerable to detection if not interception of these efforts. The shorter the path the harder it is for counter intelligence to recognize there is any back and forth at all, if they even recognize the platform is there; that’s the advantage of getting into the weeds as it were.
The vulnerability to capture and analysis of the platform is certainly a risk, one that is not unknown to espionage efforts which we ourselves also engage in. Some have suggested that the craft taken down over the Atlantic had explosives to destroy the equipment if compromised, and that seems an entirely reasonable supposition, certainly not a difficult thing to do.
Nevertheless, I fully agree that we cannot overlook the efforts of the Derps to create alarm and false narratives. China is a real threat but it’s ludicrous to believe that Biden intends to present a credible defense. It seems simply a global level of sock puppetry to cooperatively engineer narratives as they work their way to pre-agreed outcomes.
What makes you think our WEF elites & globalist are any match for China?
That’s your take-away here?
Kirby is the male Karine Jean Pierre – another insufferable worthless prevaricating press whore suckretary in the Department of Lies and Disinformation.
I can’t believe he was an Admiral
Top Men.
And Buttgag was a Lieutenant. Evidently, a**holes are up and down the ranks.
Said every NCO ever.
In a military built in Obama’s image?
They’ll probably shoot down the Goodyear Blimp on its way to the Super Bowl pre-game show.
No…the worst…
Sure thing.
Super Sized Jiffy Pop. But we got it, and now the IC can back engineer. And I’m thankful.
The new Wed Scare?
I don’t even believe anything was shot down. I think they just want to make it look like they shot something down. I don’t believe a word of what the government says about anything
So the fauxly lauded Old Man Yelling At Clouds didn’t prevent another incursion?
Quelle surprise.
In an effort to reassure the American people, the administration says it is randomly shooting unidentified objects out of the sky.
I think it was the Tesla that Elon Musk put into orbit returning to earth.
If it was they’d’ve brought it down over a populated area to generate a body count.
That’s a crisis they’d love to inflate.
The balloon was ours! Nice try!
The Weather Channel is going to require its own air force.
Oh for Fux sake.
Any more obvious an obfuscation is beyond compare.
USA = third world country.
We are truly done. USA occupants will believe whatever the msm delivers.
Millions of Nation Invaders a year illegally cross our southern border, and kill 100,000 Americans with fentenol alone, and what does our $800 billion a year, more than that of the next 5 most expensive on the planet, do?
They shoot down a couple of balloons.
This has got to be the biggest continuing rip off of all time.
Wait. Did Miley call xi before they did anything?
such aggressive action to defend our air space! What is going on?
Mildred said “mother may I” first
Glad they followed PT’s advise a lot faster this time! 😂 \s
China double-dipping: Only paid for access for one balloon.
Oh please, this guy is full of it
False flag media narrative shift?
Trump was right on the first one, “shoot it down’.
it is safe to shoot down the 2nd balloon over Alaska, but not the last one?
….
Proof Trump was right.
Evidence that the power of public opinion works., sometimes.
….shorter clip..
That exchange wasn’t scripted.
No way no how.
🙄
Captain Wallace “Wally” Binghamton and Ensign Parker could not be reached for comment.
“What, what, what McHale”
I’m sure it was a deliberate set up to try and make up for the cluster f*&k that was the balloon fiasco.
I’m glad I’m not flying or hot air ballooning any time soon. Biden has an itchy trigger finger
Prove it….
I’ll lay odd it was one of ours from WorldView. That is quasi private ( Chinese stock owned) US company founded by Now Senator Mark Kelly a surveillance balloon operation. Originally touted that it would take civilians into space which was how it was sold and given illegal (deemed by courts) perks by an Arizona County. The irony is that it is within walking distance of one of the nations biggest weapons manufacturer Raytheon.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2020/07/21/senate-candidate-kellys-spying-company-bankrolled-by-chinese-government/
The movie “JFK” has several memorable lines. This one is applicable. Kevin Costner asks “Is a government that lies to its people worth preserving?”
I feel that way about the republican party
China will keep sending these so the US spends lots of money on missiles to take these down.They dont even have to be surveillance balloons, just empty blimps
In other news, our weather reports will be slightly delayed this week.
Scranton Joe is feeling his oats now! Any more classified docs show up? You Go Get’em Scranton!!
His sniffer will be in overdrive. Hide the women and children!
How on earth can an object that big be floating around at 40,000 ft. and we don’t know who it belongs to? That’s right it can’t. This is distraction 101.
It’s a glaring False Flag to cover their butts for letting the “real” CCP balloon fly throughout our country collecting data.
Buncha sad clowns.
We don’t have the science to “know” exactly what this object is, can’t get an image, or won’t release one, but we “know” we have to take over everyone’s lives because of “Climate Change”.
With biden in the take no prisoners mode, I’d be staying out of a hot air balloon.
Baghdad Bobism
Don’t forget, we used balloons in 1956 to spy on commie China and the USSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genetrix
It was those zany kids playing with the military’s weather balloons , again.
….did you see those gams on that widow?
https://www.tcm.com/video/71026/ticklish-affair-a-original-trailer/
YUUP ! ——
Why didn’t the balloon fly over DC ?
Because there was no intelligence to gather there !
Wouldn’t attempting that violate the Prime Directive? Oh, no. If Starfleet was interfering with natural liberal evolution it could only mean one thing. Another Special Council!!
And a half-cocked committee.
What committee meets, discusses issues, comes to decisions and write the report, in that brief amount of time?
At least those guys were real actors unlike the Demented Fraud which wouldn’t know a military briefing from a pair of low-rise mesh briefs
They already have all the info they need from the people there.
Best comment today! 😂🤣
lol
Hmm……the news reported that this “object” was shot down with a heat seeking missile. What would make them think that this object would not be at the ambient air temperature and generate a heat signature?
Well, since they flew up to it with a military jet, and nearly all military jets have infrared cameras, they wouldn’t have to guess.
Could have got an IR signature from tracking the waste heat from onboard electronics.
What would the sensitivity be on such a missile? What would be the minimum delta to ambient be to establish a target lock?
You really think any who know would tell you?
Classified, certainly.
ex mil pilot told me the sun glint on the balloon helps w/the infared signature
IT’s AVAILABLE in TECH REPORTS on the WEB…
Missile that tracks engine exhaust heat? I don’t think so…
Good question.
and at what cost to the american taxpayer
Certainly less than the 1000 illegals that walked across the border today will cost us.
Where is the famous Senator Proxmire’s Golden Fleece award, today?
What would make them shoot down something they don’t know what it is.
Could have been carrying a load of…??????????
This is laughable. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
They don’t know what it was, where it came from, why it was only 4o,ooo ft above sea level but they know it had ‘no payload’.
We pay all of these alphabet agencies billions all told and what we really need is a couple of honest people with some WWII Navy binoculars.
They know…”they” know when I am taking the puppy out to pee!