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PM Justin Trudeau's Canada

Northern Light

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What exactly is going on with random UFOs this month? Were they on sale at Black Friday prices before Christmas and people just finished the assembly instructions with the Allen Key? LOL

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Richard White

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Jonny5

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From the Washington Post, which is paywalled so a cut and paste here only which has the heart of what is really going on:


But it turns out that China’s effort has been underway for more than a decade. According to a declassified intelligence report issued Thursday by the State Department, it involves a “fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations” that have flown over 40 countries on five continents.

Balloon operations obviously make sense for the Chinese. The United States has military bases in Japan and elsewhere from which it can launch daily flights by P-8 and other surveillance planes that fly perilously close to Chinese airspace. China doesn’t have similar options.

The frequency of these American “Sensitive Reconnaissance Operations,” or SROs, has increased sharply from about 250 a year a decade ago to several thousand annually, or three or four a day, a former intelligence official told me. China wants to push back, and collect its own signals; it wants its own version of “freedom of navigation” operations. Balloons are a way to both show the flag and collect intelligence…
So essentially, the US does not fly into Chinese airspace, but it buzzes the circumference of it multiple times every single day with spy planes that no doubt contain the most sophisticated signal and communications monitoring tech that exists, essentially wire tapping every communications hub they can reach, and China is kind of pissed off by that, so the balloon fleet is the response
 
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gabe

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From CNN This might be the same kind of thing they shot down today. It's not a balloon but a “high altitude airborne object"

Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, but not all pilots reported experiencing that.

Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

The conflicting eyewitness accounts are partly why the Pentagon has been unable to fully explain what the object is, the source briefed on the matter said.



 

kEiThZ

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Seems all hilarious until you realize there's similar tracking, surveillance and warning issues with HABs as hypersonics and fractional orbital bombardment systems.
 

Richard White

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From CNN This might be the same kind of thing they shot down today. It's not a balloon but a “high altitude airborne object"

Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, but not all pilots reported experiencing that.

Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

The conflicting eyewitness accounts are partly why the Pentagon has been unable to fully explain what the object is, the source briefed on the matter said.




The truth is out there.

Quick.. call Mulder and Scully.
 

Richard White

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lenaitch

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Interesting times. No doubt some will make some political hay (or try to, defence matters don't get much milage in this country) about the fact that the shoot-down was executed by a US aircraft in Canadian airspace. NORAD is a partnership but i doubt the US would allow a RCAF aircraft to take the shot in their airspace. This assumes the 'object' was at an altitude that a 40-year-old CF-18 could achieve.
 

Bjays92

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Interesting times. No doubt some will make some political hay (or try to, defence matters don't get much milage in this country) about the fact that the shoot-down was executed by a US aircraft in Canadian airspace. NORAD is a partnership but i doubt the US would allow a RCAF aircraft to take the shot in their airspace. This assumes the 'object' was at an altitude that a 40-year-old CF-18 could achieve.
The issue here, if im not mistaken, is the Americans were closer. Both Canadian and US jets were scrambled but the US base was way closer and so they arrived first and as a result Trudeau had them take it down.

I do agree I would rather it have been our planes but I think this moreso exposes the fact that we need an airbase in the north.
 

Northern Light

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Could stick this in the U.S. thread, but since we're discussion Chinese balloons and other UFOs here.........

The U.S. just closed air space over Lake Michigan for national security reasons:

 

kEiThZ

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I do agree I would rather it have been our planes but I think this moreso exposes the fact that we need an airbase in the north.

"The North" is huge. You wouldn't be able to cover it all with one airbase. We have an list of Forward Operating Locations in the Arctic where our fighters deploy. You can even see the hangars on Google Earth.


Stationing fighters up north permanently is difficult. That would mean posting personnel there with their families. It's hard enough getting people to serve in Cold Lake. I can imagine release rates would skyrocket for anybody posted to Inuvik. If you can't imagine living somewhere for years, it's going to be hard to convince military families to make the move. Personally, I would love to see Cold Lake and Bagotville shut down and all fighter assets centralized in Mirabel with detachments rotated through FOLs as needed.
 

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