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That's incorrect. False: They are described as not being balloons. Correct: They are not described as being balloons. The latter indicates that they could be balloons or something else.

metereological balloons would need to be bigger (and thus more hazardous) and more expensive if they were required to support transponders, so I don't think that's feasible

If that's the topic, the evidence for that claim is missing, and it belongs in Rambles. There's zero evidence supporting conclusions about Biden's intent. Metabunk doesn't deal with conspiracy theories, it deals with claims of evidence.

Right. And this smart software has to be developed by smart humans, and someone has to pay them to do that.

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You mean clouds? Flocks of birds? Every mundane weather balloon launched in China, which is larger than the USA? Do you want to detect shipboard launches in the Pacific Ocean? How would you justify the expenditure of resources for this? You are going to want to find these things automatically...

sounds like the payload was already released. or it might be a tethered balloon that broke loose. I don't think these small light-weight balloons are as much of a hazard to navigation as is being suggested. Specifically, 20,000 ft is above the altitude of most small aircraft (because the air...

However, you have to want to detect it, i.e. some data analysis software has to be programmed to find them.

These are excerpts of the actual obligations, as set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO): Unmanned Free Balloons Definition: A non-power-driven, unmanned, lighter-than-air aircraft in free flight. Source: ICAO Annex 2 - Rules of the Air Unmanned free balloons need to comply...

it's not a conventional weather balloon, it's a high altitude platform, and likely not that many exist. They don't run off some assembly line. Yet Project Loon is quite well documented. In general, civilian science and research is fairly public, see e.g. the article on the Chinese AIR balloon...

I followed this Chinese balloon for almost 200 miles Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/BxuY3Bi

I found a video of the briefing, but no transcript. Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F4lJRYNiUvM

Ze Krauts are attacking zrough ze air! :D

note that Facebook thinks that the UFOs are real ;)

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and recent news

The Chinese "weather balloon" was definitely a high-altitude platform, maneouverable, and designed to stay at altitude indefinitely. The size, solar cell loadout, and propulsion equipment support this idea. See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/is-this-a-chinese-spy-balloon.12858/ There's really...

incredulity in the face of facts: Back in 2011, we had a hunch that balloons flying freely on the winds could be controlled just enough to act like floating cell phone towers in the sky. We’d pump air out of or into the balloon to make it lighter or heavier, and then move up or down to catch...

The problem with this being a hill line is that I'd typically expect a barbed-wire fance to be below eye level, which makes the crest of these "hills" very much below eye level, which means the photographer is on pretty much the highest hill around, which makes it unlikely for there to be a...

superimposed, contrast-enhanced image of the scan: Last night (early morning 2023-1-28 HST) was cloudy on Maunakea. But our Subaru-Asahi Star Camera captured quite an interesting view -- green laser lights coming from the sky! It was only a second or less -- but our keen viewers did not miss...

That's a feature. "Balloon limited to 80,000 ft alitude" isn't really a drawback. This will not work, because at high altitude there are no clouds. If the inside ballonet is filled with helium, and the outside is air, the pump could easily equalize a few bullet holes—which would tend to make...