Chinese Spy Balloon Program Started Years Ago, Targeting Several Countries
“And because balloons float along high-altitude winds, their paths are less predictable and thus more difficult to track. The balloons are also much cheaper to produce and launch than space-based satellites.”
The Washington Post discovered the Chinese began the spy balloon program years ago off of the country’s south coast:
The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines, according to several U.S. officials, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Officials have said these surveillance airships, operated in part by the PLA air force, have been spotted over five continents.
“What the Chinese have done is taken an unbelievably old technology, and basically married it with modern communications and observation capabilities” to try to glean intelligence on other nations’ militaries, said one official. “It’s a massive effort.”
Hainan is an island housing the “PLA command and control location.” It’s a naval facility with an airfield.
The balloon in question arrived in America in Alaska on January 28. It traveled over Canada before entering Idaho.
President Joe Biden’s administration didn’t shoot down the spy balloon until it traveled across the country. The military shot it down over the Atlantic coast. It measured 20 feet tall.
The action ticked off China. The Foreign Ministry insisted the balloon was a weather balloon and just happened to get blown off course.
The sources revealed Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman briefed “150 people from about 40 embassies.” The officials also provided details about the spy program “to every U.S. embassy.” They gave the people permission to share the information “with allies and partners.”
U.S. officials have gone more in-depth with the countries targeted by China, such as Japan.
It reminded one Japanese official of an incident in Japan in 2020. People thought they saw a UFO.
“In hindsight people are realizing that was a Chinese espionage balloon,” said the official. “But at that time it was purely novel — nobody had seen this. … So there’s a lot of heightened attention at this time.”
The Pentagon has confirmed the military has seen many unidentified flying objects. I wonder if, like in Japan, those objects are spy balloons.
The balloons fly higher than commercial flights, “between 60,000 and 80,000 feet.” Officials don’t know how many balloons China has in the program:
They take advantage of technology provided by a private Chinese company that is part of the country’s civil-military fusion effort — a program by which private companies develop technologies and capabilities used by the PLA.
In a news briefing Saturday, senior Pentagon officials alluded to the PLA program, noting that balloons had been operating elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. “These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” said one senior defense official.
But why balloons? It actually makes sense:
They can linger over a target for hours, whereas a satellite orbiting Earth may have only minutes to snap a picture of its target. “If you have a balloon that’s moving extremely slowly you have persistence that you can’t get from a satellite,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Charlie “Tuna” Moore, a former fighter pilot who helped run operations out of NORAD and retired in October as deputy of U.S. Cyber Command.
Analysts think the balloons, like drones, can be remotely piloted — at about 30 to 60 mph, said one official. And because balloons float along high-altitude winds, their paths are less predictable and thus more difficult to track. The balloons are also much cheaper to produce and launch than space-based satellites.
Some of the balloons have been launched from China on flight paths that took them around the entire globe, officials said.
We also have images of the spy balloon.
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Comments
200 feet tall not 20
Well, it looked like 20 feet from ten miles away.
There’s also some waffling because the balloon and the widget hanging under it were (of course) quite different scales. Hopefully the Navy will release unclassified photos of the cargo with meter sticks for scale. The Chinese want to keep it secret? Best thing we could do is a full detailed photo spread of every inch published on a public server, just like Hunter Biden. Oh, wait! NOT like Hunter. Ewww, now I need brain soap.
Is anyone going to get around to why the Chicoms have been sending these over to several countries? It’s pretty clearly a middle finger.
No, it’s pretty clearly intelligence collection, as explained above. We didn’t send U-2’s over Russia just to annoy them.
If I had a 12 hour notice of the arrival I can easily take one down first by allowing a balloon to ascend, note the drift according to altitude and calculate trajectory for a powdered sugar/potassium nitrate powered rocket to rip the gas bag.
Use their old tech against their current old tech.
I can make it guided via radio control or target-seeking via Arduino. Best part is all components are made in China.
That is how the snake eats itself.
Not a meteorologist but what know even before these last couple weeks atmospheric wind speeds can get crazy up over 100mph, guess it can be slow but mostly its moving. Can’t imagine must direction unless it’s gain or lose altitude to catch winds direction but it’s not manned so doubt it has much direction but wherever the winds take it.
“Not a meteorologist…”
The Chinese are not meteorologists either.
So if this has been happening for years, why didn’t the pentagon have a plan for dealing with them?
They claimed they couldn’t shoot it down over land because of the risk of debris hurting people. They’ve had a couple years to come up with a way to drop a net over one and tow it to where they want it to be.
The ONE TIME they were called on to defend the mainland U.S. and they completely blew it.
What’s their plan for dealing with it next time?????????
The pentagon has an excellent plan for dealing with more important things like personal pronouns.
“In hindsight people are realizing that was a Chinese espionage balloon,” said the official. “But at that time it was purely novel — nobody had seen this. … So there’s a lot of heightened attention at this time.”
This is the sad state of affairs in US intelligence. If our intelligence is only able to pay attention to things that they’ve seen before, then we are pretty much screwed.
Hindsight is not 20/20 because they won’t do anything next time either.
A CO2 or other high powered laser would be enough to deflate the bag and control it’s decent. Or just give it a good slice. It is not rocket science.
The Chinese lie like a Persian rug.