The Chinese big balloon theory

February 5, 2023 16 Comments

I tracked the Chinese balloon story for several days, and floated away with some questions about what we were told.

The balloon’s secret payload

Like U.S. reluctance to shoot down the balloon over Montana because of concerns about the safety of people on the ground.

Have you ever been to Montana?

What people on the ground?

Montana is the fourth largest state, after Alaska, Texas, and California. That is area.

As to population, it places 33rd, with 1.06 million, less than Philadelphia. To put this into perspective, Pennsylvania has 12.8 million people while Montana has 2.5 million cattle, twice as many cows as people.

Drive I-90 across the Big Sky state, and that’s what you see — Big Sky.

People? It’s an hour drive between towns, and that’s at 100 mph. There is no enforcement in cowboy country. (Actually, adjoining Wyoming is called the Cowboy State, but that’s all good.)

So when President Joe Biden and some general said they feared shooting down the spy balloon over populated areas for fear of hurting civilians, I ask what areas are that? Driving the northern plains, you can see from horizon to horizon without seeing human life.

The expected debris field would just be a small pasture in all the open space.

And before it got to Montana, it was over Alaska, which is vastly larger, and much less populated — 732,673, with 288,121 in Anchorage, its biggest city.

I can see why a shootdown over the Last Frontier might cause a problem in capturing the debris because Alaska is so mountainous.

Not true in Montana, and not true of much of the Midwest traversed by the balloon.

So what was Joe Biden thinking?

In corners of the internet, the conspiracy theories spin — the Chinese “own” the Bidens, father and son, and this would demonstrate it.

Or it would demonstrate the U.S. is a paper tiger that can’t defend  its own air space, in addition to its land borders. This would make for good Chinese propaganda.

Let’s face it — the balloon was designed to be detected. It was as obvious as Charo’s cleavage, no stealth technology at all. 

The Chinese knew it would be detected.

It wanted to see what we would do about it, even as it flew over our ICBM fields and various military installations.

That was the intelligence gained, not the measurements made from 60,000 feet.

The Chinese reaction to the splash of the balloon was entirely predictable — it was civilian and harmless, just like COVID, heh-heh, and we may take action against you if you defend yourself.

Just like Vladimir Putin.

The question is — will we blink if it happens again?

16 thoughts on “The Chinese big balloon theory”

  1. HAPPY SUNDAY !!!
    Seldom do I engage in replies or debates on these media.
    For this balloon nonsense, I’ll say that everything under biden looks real easy and convenient, EVERYTHING !
    When this term of office comes to an end, there will be a handful of families ‘rolling ‘ in it. The rest of us will be fighting to stay afloat !
    Hope that you re still exercising

  2. Stu,
    The reports stated that President Biden wanted the balloon to be shot down sooner, and the military advised him that it was not safe to do so until it was not over land. I would have preferred that it was shot down before they downloaded additional secret information from military sites here in the U.S. but a former FBI agent familiar with this type of situation (I am not) said this morning on CNN that China already has all the information they need through other sources. The reason for the balloon expedition is …up in the air?
    Regardless, these issues are all quite concerning.

  3. First of all, as the U.S. was obviously aware of the balloon the entire time it was in the air above us, are we all really naive enough to believe the government was simply allowing it to collect vital information about us? I kindly doubt that. As for Montana, can anyone GUARATEE that the balloon, at 60,000 feet in the air, would absolutely not cause any damage nor loss of life? Of course you can’t, no matter how big the state might be. Shooting it over the ocean COULD provide such a guarantee. So put those two thoughts together and I would say this was very likely handled exactly appropriately. Oh, and as a postscript for all you Trump-loving geniuses, how come yer boy let this happen THREE times under his watch without telling anyone or doing a goddamned thing about it? I’ll wait for your incoherent responses.

    1. You have never been to Montana, I’ll bet. The wide open spaces are unbelievable.
      If that scares you, why wasn’t it shot down over the Aleutians?
      Did we KNOW it was there then? If not, why not?
      If we knew, why wasn’t it shot down over the Bering Sea?

    2. Freeze, you know as well as I do that many/most of the people who are lambasting President Biden for waiting to have the balloon shot down over the water, would be castigating him if it had been shot down over land causing damage or death.

  4. Actually, it wasn’t a Chinese balloon, it was launched from Roswell.
    Funny picture to lead the column!

  5. Well, at least three ChiCom spy balloons were detected over America when ‘Orange Jesus’ was President. And he did…….nothing.
    And BTW, Tony C., the Biden economy added 517,000 jobs in January & unemployment is 3.4% lowest since 1969. As long as the Republicans don’t crash the economy over the debt ceiling most families will be alright.

    1. Keith, I am sure you are not surprised that the orange-skinned POC did nothing about the balloons. When it came to his commie friends, NK, China and Russia, he would NEVER do anything to upset them.

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