U.S. Military Shoots Down Fourth “High-Altitude Object,” This One Over Lake Huron
“the object was shaped like an octagon and was at an altitude of 20,000 feet, posing a hazard to commercial aircraft”
Apparently, our national defense under the Biden administration is a complete joke. Unidentified flying objects are being shot down in our (and Canada’s) airspace at an alarming rate.
A fourth object, this one described as a “high-altitude object” was shot down Sunday over Lake Huron.
The U.S. military shot down another high-altitude object on Sunday afternoon, this one over Lake Huron, three U.S. officials confirmed to ABC News, marking the latest in a string of such incidents.
Prior to it being shot down, Michigan Representative Elissa Slotkin (D) tweeted:
Just got a call from @DeptofDefense — our military has an extremely close eye on the object above Lake Huron. We’ll know more about what this was in the coming days, but for now, be assured that all parties have been laser-focused on it from the moment it traversed our waters.
— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) February 12, 2023
She later followed up:
2/ As long as these things keep traversing the US and Canada, I’ll continue to ask for Congress to get a full briefing based on our exploitation of the wreckage.
— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) February 12, 2023
The Wall Street Journal has more:
A F-16 fighter jet shot down the object, according to a Congressional aide, who said the object was shaped like an octagon and was at an altitude of 20,000 feet, posing a hazard to commercial aircraft.
. . . . Officials have yet to determine who launched the objects and what their purpose was.
U.S. officials have reached out to research agencies to determine whether the high-altitude craft might be related to their work, U.S. officials said. But the U.S. hasn’t ruled out that they might be of foreign origin, they said.
Here’s a report:
🚨 FOX NEWS ALERT: “For the fourth time in eight days, an object has been shot down over North America” — Fox News’ @LucasFoxNews confirms a new object has been shot down today by USAF over Lake Huron pic.twitter.com/6so4etEGjU
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) February 12, 2023
Needless to say, people have thoughts.
I’ve been in contact with DOD regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today.
The US military has decommissioned another “object” over Lake Huron.
I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots.
The American people deserve far more answers than we have.
— Rep. Jack Bergman (@RepJackBergman) February 12, 2023
BREAKING: The U.S. military has shot down another unidentified flying object over Lake Huron.
We need answers now.
— Congressman Troy E. Nehls (@RepTroyNehls) February 12, 2023
For those keeping track…the U.S. has shot down FOUR "objects" in EIGHT days:
🇨🇳 🛰️ Chinese spy balloon shot down off SC
🛸 "Object" shot down over U.S. territorial waters in Alaska
🛸 "Object" shot down over Canada
🛸 "Object" shot down over Lake Huron
We need ANSWERS!
— Chad Gilmartin (@ChadGilmartinCA) February 12, 2023
It’s (past) time for some answers from the Biden administration.
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Comments
It’s possible that we’ve entered the phase where we go crazy and shoot down anything and everything that looks weird on radar.
Shaped like an octagon and at 20,000 feet?
And why can’t they show pictures of the debris when they go find it?
“Shaped like an octagon and at 20,000 feet?”
What you’ve gotta watch out for are the jet black cuboids with 1 : 4 : 8.8 ratios.
“My God! It’s full of yellow stars!”.
This.
I don’t know whether I should watch the superbowl or go outside and watch for balloons.
Well do they have any recovered yet?
At 20,000 feet they should be shooting holes in the balloon so it comes down slowly and can be recovered intact.
But then, what do I know? I mean, can’t wreckage and debris reveal as much as an intact payload?
I originally thought that too, but the military has once tried to shoot down a weather balloon with cannonfire and it ended poorly. The inside balloon pressure and outside pressure are nearly the same so even after putting hundreds of holes in it (and raining 20mm shells down on the ground below) their target just kept floating along.
Grappling hooks with weights attached. We had cabled cannon munitions designed to take down sails and rigging during the Revolution. Can’t be that hard.
And this isn’t the first time aircraft have encountered balloons either. You’d think they would have developed something for this.
“We had cabled cannon munitions designed to take down sails and rigging during the Revolution. Can’t be that hard.”
In midair from a platform moving 1,000 MPH? May the odds be always in your favor.
There are connected-ball shotgun rounds today. Ought to be able to rig something like that for any substantial sized gun or cannon.
How about one connected pair of balls per 30mm cannon shell? An A-10 could start with a small burst and add more as needed.
Tilting at windmills.
We’re not being told when these objects first appear on the North American radar net. W
One of the objects was shot down over “Alaskan territorial waters,” which implies it was launched in Russia or by unknown actors from surface vessels or submarines located in far north Pacific.
Good to see Biden taking it so seriously. Who know what one of these things coud be carrying. You’d figure the president would show he cared to the people, rather than once again hide the ball and tell us how transparent they are and how something unprecedented does not matter much.
Raise your mouse cursors if you’re not believing these reports.
Apparently, our national defense under the Biden administration is a complete joke.
Let’s not go overboard. For all we “John Q Publics” know, this fourth “object” was something that was launched as a sick joke by a resident who lives in the vicinity.
He’s not the fourth. He’s the 46th.
High altitude? 20K feet isn’t high altitude. It’s in a range where many commercial, private, and military aircraft fly. If it’s anywhere close to an airport or heavily used flight paths, it’s definitely a hazard.
.
The paraglider under it was PO’d, I hear.
You would be hard pressed to find a commercial aircraft so low on an actual flight path. It is sub-optimal both for fuel and range. It is sub-optimal as a weather device (the nature of which has not been used in decades other than extreme remote stations). I agree the airport approaches would constitute a hazard. Leading one to conjecture the use of an AIM was totally uncalled for, a waste of $300,000. A micro-burst from the 20mm canon would allow far more detailed study of the object.
I agree with a “micro-burst”, but that presumes the military knows what it is doing. Given these 4 “surprises” in the last two weeks, that seems doubtful.
It costs millions just to launch a spy satellite, let alone to build it.
Kudos to the Chinese engineer who figured out you could instead get the same payoff for pennies on the dollar with spy balloons, As long as the target country lacks either the capability or the willpower to defend its own borders. Which apparently currently describes the US.
“Are there any UFOs in the room with us right now, President Biden?”
At 20,000 feet it was not spying. It was probably another smaller balloon. At that altitude, the pilot could have easily made a fly-by and photographed it. This really stinks of mass incompetence or grandstanding to hide or distract from more serious matters. I am sure that we will never learn the truth from Biden unless it will help him.
yup….or more DHS/DOD/Biden lies. Pure lies. Destructive and a continuum of falsehoods and propaganda.
Odds are they did photograph it at closer range, but they’re just not releasing the photos.
Years ago, I was having drinks with a TV script writer friend of mine. I brought up the concept of a space alien invasion where they arrive in weather balloons. Went nowhere but I still think it would be a funny movie.
“Goodyear Attacks.”
Jules Verne did this, only in the other direction.
The alien should step out and announce, “I am Number Two.”
There is only way to find out what is going on. Ask Dan:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/go-woke-get-broken-chatgpt-tricked-out-far-left-bias-alter-ego-dan
Still no photos, in flight or after shoot down.
How odd!
Almost as if Washington is trying to hide something!
Lake Huron…..glad the French and Indian War is still relevant.
If there are defense secrets out in the open in Lake Huron the question is why?
Anyone could buy a cheap drone and send it over Lake Huron. The allies in WW2 actively used the fact that you could fly over and photograph targets to trick the Germans with a fake army stationed to attack Calais.
In 2023 our military is vulnerable to low flying craft with cameras? While the allies in WW2 not only didn’t feel threatened by it but used aerial recon by the enemy to their advantage?
Not buying it.
Not buying the need to be hysterical about Chinese balloons right when a host of government abuses are being brought to light by congress and the Church Committee is going to bring many more to light.
I am buying that the FBI is sending agents into Latin mass to try and turn Catholics into terrorists, I am buying that they are being a Stasi organization trying to arrest people for praying and persuading women to keep their children, I am buying that they just tried to put a man in jail for over a decade and take all of his money because when his son was attacked he defended his son, I am buying that the State Department just funded declaring every conservative news source to be disinformation. I am also buying that the private sector corporate America, and Academia is far worst and unlike government will need legislation instead of just voting to fix.
Not buying that it is time for yet another hysterical moment about a foreign moment.
America’s hysterical moments towards foreign countries in the 21st century have without exception produced atrocious results. Thanks to those moments this has been a horrible century for America so far.
I am tired of Iraq Wars, I am tired of Libyas and of knowing we produced mass graves across the red sea with our drones.
I am sick to death of these mass hysteria moments.
The last one was ten seconds ago and it is still going on about “American Democracy”.
Do you trust the people who say you are a threat to American Democracy by existing and voting, that America is a white supremacist state, that CRT is the true and the beautiful so much you want to get hysterical about a nuclear armed economic super power just because they say so?
Enough is enough.
If 200 dollars worth of canvas cloth is a threat to our military it is time for absolute mass court martials we spend about a trillion a year on military budget.
Few years back we caught on that the Chinese were putting up surveillance cameras adjacent to our military bases.
Chinese hackers downloaded data from military personal records.
TikTok turned out to be a data collection app spying on its users.
Now it’s public that China, not satisfied with legal spy satellites in orbit, is using self-directing (ie they can alter course) ballon tech to get closeups of the stuff they’re interested in.
On every possible level, China is using both legal and illegal means to monitor US military and civilian personal and infrastructure.
Even if you and Joe (what day is it?) Biden think all this is harmless and normal behavior that we shouldn’t worry about, have you considered that a ballon payload of hundreds of pounds is sufficient to silently (and cheaply) directly deliver attacks to the US? As one instance, even non-nuclear EMP weapons can be delivered thusly. Even more worrying, given the increasing appearance that Covid originated from Chinese bio-research and not nature – despite govt-censorship-by-proxy trying to silence anyone asking that question – biowarfare by ballon could do damage the previous Japanese WWII ballon attacks never did.
If the Chinese are getting something from these balloons what that means is incompetence in the United States.
We flew spy planes all the time in the cold war. Russia shooting one down caused a major diplomatic incident.
We no doubt still fly spy planes. We really need to stop getting hysterical every ten seconds. If we do it elsewhere yes others will be interested in seeing what they could find over us.
The name on the checks for the gain of function research by the way was Dr. Anthony Fauci. The Wuhan lab was essentially an early 20th century Vickers drydock working for any nation paying for the service. The reason for the censorship is it was our public health officials writing the checks.
Now to the relevant thing.
We do not have an inept military. They know others fly spycraft over us because we fly spycraft everywhere.
In any war by the way the USAF would be in no danger of letting a balloon through. Not even into the Pacific Islands. We have known that use of balloons could by enemies could be potentially deadly since the Japanese Imperial Army did it successfully.
The military calculus was the balloons aren’t worth the price of shooting them down. Now that the church committee starts and reveals something truly damning (FBI is trying to shut down latin mass and use salon as their cassus belli to do so) suddenly we start shooting them down and it is our opportunity for next target of hysteria.
Just say no.
Just say no to believing the same people who call you a white supremacist, who said Libya was a vital strategic threat etc. Just say no.
If the balloons did get something useful to China demand they produce the admiral or general who was incompetent enough to put a military secret in an easily accessible place and demand to know why he isn’t under court martial. If not enough hysteria.
Danny, a certain level of visibility to a possible enemy is not always a bad thing, during the height of the Cold War we had official military “observers” for instance between the Soviet’s and us in E and w Germany who were allowed to wander around the countryside except for certain exclusion areas. The idea being we would both be able to spot border buildups so there was fewer chances of war by mistake.
That said, there were limits to where you could go and it was both sided. Neither can be said for the Chinese spy balloons.
And even if the observations they obtain are “harmless” as you say during most times, that may not be always true. Suppose they invade Taiwan – do we really want them to have another method to be able to real-time count planes on the ground while they’re making that move?
And – as I mentioned – with steerable balloons that can pick and choose direction and speed with sizable cargo payloads both biological and emp weaponry can be triggered at crucial moments in any attack. Stealth planes are expensive and range-limited. Stealth balloons much less so.
Don’t fire the generals that didn’t order shootdowns unless you also fire the administration that ordered them not to do shootdowns.
Why would American aircraft be left out all at the same time for a spy balloon to get a hold of? Even the Russian high command knows to keep some of them safely in the hangar.
I also know of no evidence any of these objects have stealth. During war time because we detect them they would all go down within at most minutes.
Furthermore how do you know we aren’t fooling Chinese balloons the same way we fooled the Luftwaffe?
They send assets over the United States we send assets over China, likely stealthy assets that aren’t so easy to shoot down. Most of the time our high command doesn’t see a threat, and neither does the political leadership. The shooting down of these balloons seems to confirm they aren’t a threat but a distraction.
A distraction perhaps from the nuking of the state of Ohio.
The military has what it needs to shoot down any balloon trying to infiltrate American airspace at any time. If it doesn’t shoot them down it means they don’t see any reason to.
“In 2023 our military is vulnerable to low flying craft with cameras? While the allies in WW2 not only didn’t feel threatened by it but used aerial recon by the enemy to their advantage?”
“Our military” is not a static entity.
In WW2, “our military”was manned by men — not narcissists, cross-dressers, pregnant aviatrixes, leaders who left $7B armaments as “retreat presents” to the Axis, and top generals who called Goering to inform him of our plans.
Also In WW2 we didn’t have 50 million illegals living here whose allegiance was toward some other country.
I don’t disagree that our military leadership has seen much much better days but the idea they forgot about aerial reconnaissance is extremely low.