What's up with all these UFOs all of a sudden

[camfused]

BTW, I highly recommend the movie Danny Deck Chair.

Seriously, my take is these last few are weather balloons. Hundreds of them are launched every day around the world. If we start shooting them all down, we will run out of sidewinder missiles.

 

[audreyh1]

"In light of the People's Republic of China balloon that we took down last Saturday, we have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase in objects that we detected over the past week," Dalton said, referring to a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon taken down by F-22s off the coast of South Carolina last weekend.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/12/politics/lake-huron-high-altitude-object/index.html

 

[cyber888]

I enjoyed that movie. Very funny.

BTW, I highly recommend the movie Danny Deck Chair.

Seriously, my take is these last few are weather balloons. Hundreds of them are launched every day around the world. If we start shooting them all down, we will run out of sidewinder missiles.

 

[SecondAttempt]

BTW, I highly recommend the movie Danny Deck Chair.

Seriously, my take is these last few are weather balloons. Hundreds of them are launched every day around the world. If we start shooting them all down, we will run out of sidewinder missiles.

I've been involved in weather balloon launches. They don't have octagonal platforms. They also do not maintain altitude. They keep going up and stretching bigger until they pop around 90,000 to 100,000 feet. At that point they can be enormous, 100 ft in diameter or more.

Most NWS field offices launch a weather balloon twice each day. So you are correct that there are hundreds launched each day. If you want to launch one from a non-NWS location you need permission from the FAA.

I suppose it is possible that if one were underinflated it could reach neutral bouyancy at 20,000 - 40,000 ft and drift for thousands of miles. You can buy weather balloons online so it could very well be a prank but I'm not leaning that way. I don't think it is WW 3 either. I'm starting to like my drug smuggling theory to be honest.

There are some high altitude research platforms used by NASA that have a platform that could be called octagonal. The Missile Defense Agency had a project to develop balloon-borne missile defense about 20 years ago. I worked on the payload part of the program. I think that program has been abandoned but I'm not sure what became of the hardware.

 

[Ronstar]

I know one thing. When the UPS truck pulls up the driveway and hands me a package and DW says "What did you order this time?" My response will be "An object."

 

[marko]

I think it would be helpful if they told the public what they found from the more recent balloons. I'm sure they can figure out where it came from and it's purpose by examining the payloads.

"It’s classified" only makes matters worse, IMO.

 

[CRLLS]

I just hope we don't taste like Martian chicken.

That reminded me of the old Twilight Zone episode where friendly Aliens came to Earth. They had a book whose title was translated to "To Serve Man". Only later in the episode, when it was fully translated, it was found to be a cook book.

 

[MRG]

I kinda expected a pandemic during my lifetime. A war involving Russia and the West wasn't very likely. Alien invasion, I didn't expect that. We live in interesting times.

 

[Kork13]

BTW, I highly recommend the movie Danny Deck Chair.

Seriously, my take is these last few are weather balloons. Hundreds of them are launched every day around the world. If we start shooting them all down, we will run out of sidewinder missiles.

This is my best bet as well, some form of weather balloon or other scientific research, of which hundreds are launched daily. Yesterday a US Defense official stated that this is the prevailing expectation of where they are coming from. Perhaps it is actually something illegitimate... But I think it's more likely to be innocent, and NORAD is overreacting in response to the resounding anger/frustration about how long they delayed in reacting to the legitimately illegal/hostile "spy balloon." They're just trying to prove that they really do know what they're doing. Having worked for NORAD, this level of insecurity & subsequent showboating is par for the course, under the guise of "we're sending a message to our adversaries that we'll aggressively defend our airspace."

Perhaps we've just recently brought online a capability to detect small objects like this (offhand, 2 specific capabilities come to mind), and we're merely now able to detect & track such things.

As for running out of 9X's .... We have missiles going past their effective shelf life every day, which we've had in stores for years. Very few air-to-air missiles are fired (or lost) every year, while many more are produced. Most often, the military simply decommissions & destroys the old ones. This is a good opportunity to use some of the old stock, while also giving pilots a good opportunity to actually fire a live missile, which again, very few pilots have done in real-world conditions. So it's not all bad... Though I do wonder why they don't simply use their onboard guns, for literal shooting practice. 20mm rounds are far cheaper than an AIM-9X, albeit less reliable & more challenging.

 

[Surewhitey]

Not that powerful. But that wouldn’t stop them from trying.

Made me think of the game pops used to play at Six Flags in St Louis...

 

[USGrant1962]

...

Seriously, my take is these last few are weather balloons. Hundreds of them are launched every day around the world. If we start shooting them all down, we will run out of sidewinder missiles.

I'm wondering why they are using missiles instead of cannon? The later should be cheaper with less incidental damage to the payload.

 

[camfused]

I'm wondering why they are using missiles instead of cannon? The later should be cheaper with less incidental damage to the payload.

Well, if I was a fighter jet pilot, heck yes, I am using my cool missile!

 

[Freedom56]

It's the harmless old guy and the goofy kid again.

 

[REWahoo]

I'm wondering why they are using missiles instead of cannon? The later should be cheaper with less incidental damage to the payload.

Well, if I was a fighter jet pilot, heck yes, I am using my cool missile!

My guess is a missile is preferred for safety reasons.

Using cannon requires close proximity to the target and no one knows if the "ufo" has any sort of defensive or explosive capability. Using a missile allows the pilot to maintain a safe stand-off distance.

 

[Car-Guy]

Maybe they are just a distraction from other/important things?

 

[Beldar]

Could be hobbyists involved...

http://ham-tv.com/balloon/

Local group here launches short duration flights as well. Very common around the world.

_B

 

[steelyman]

I’m waiting for Yosemite Sam to come to the rescue.

 

[Gumby]

I propose that we retaliate by shipping them annuity salesmen. They'll cry 叔叔 or дядя, or even 삼촌, soon enough.

 

[Music Lover]

Maybe they are just a distraction from other/important things?

That's the most likely explanation. The media is very easily led astray.

 

[Walt34]

All this is really nothing new.

BTW, he does get into "why not" use guns instead of missiles. Canada tried that and despite being riddled with bullet holes the dang thing wouldn't fall but did become a hazard to navigation.

Anyway, here's The History Guy's take on it:

 

[ls99]

They are searching for ET.

 

[Winemaker]

Are there new ways to explore for oil or gas? Here in the Marcellus shale area years ago, the exploration companies were "pinging" from the surface underground and helicopters were flying overhead to explore the gas fields. Could these balloons be picking up similar signals from previously placed "pingers" or "ping trucks"? I dunno, just brainstorming.

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

They are alien reconnaissance missions looking for natural resources to take from our planet.
Not manned or aliened if you will but just the information gathering mechanism.
Any alien life form advanced enough to make it this far would have the technology to suck up all of our water and other necessary resources to take back to their planet.

Can’t be Martians- I’m pretty sure that we have ruled out intelligent life in our solar system. Other than earth of course.

This was the conversation at my house yesterday anyway.
[emoji89]

 

[MichaelB]

It could be an alien toddler who let go of his balloon and it flew away and made it to our skies…

 

[Happyras]

Can’t be Martians- I’m pretty sure that we have ruled out intelligent life in our solar system. Other than earth of course.

[emoji89]

Where on earth are you finding this?