Recently our country had the experience of having a large
white balloon visit our air space; in fact, it visited quite a bit
of it. The inflated visitor flew over Northern Japan, then
northward to Alaska's Aleutian Islands before heading sharply
south, then east, across the continent before flying again through
U.S. air space, flying over the Rockies, the Great Plains,
Missouri, and on to South Carolina. The balloon, it turns out,
is from China and was made to look like a weather balloon.
The Chinese government claimed to the United States that
it was indeed their balloon and was merely a weather balloon,
and had blown off course. But consider this:
Television footage filmed in the Japanese city of Sendai showed
a balloon-like object attached to a cross, which seemed to have
propellers turning as the balloon moved along through the sky.
The Sendai Weather Bureau's officials reported that it appeared
just before dawn and hung for hours at the location where it was
spotted, until clouds came and obscured the view of the object.
Sendai and its surrounding area just happens to be the home of
four bases of Japan's National Self-Defense Force: Camp Sendai,
Camp Kasuminome, Camp Tagajo, and Matsushima Air Base.
And what some would call "the kicker" is that a photo published
by Reuters shows a large white balloon that looks ironically like
the Chinese balloon that crossed the U.S. not long afterward.
Furthermore, as it has made a rather definite flight path coming
from China, it is certain that it was controlled via technological
means by the flight engineers and other tech staff. This would
also explain the balloon's having stopped in the sky at least once,
all the while holding its position.
The Pentagon and the intelligence community in the U.S. said
that they determined that the balloon was a part of a Chinese
espionage effort, in which (get this!) three such balloons had
entered our air space in years past, at least one during the
Trump Administration years. General Glen Van Herck, North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
commander as well as of the U.S. Northern Command,
said this week "The U.S. didn't even detect those balloons at the
time." Huh???
Gen. Van Herck went on to say "That's a domain awareness gap
that we have to figure out. But I don't want to go into further
detail." If all this doesn't make you shake like a leaf all through
the day, or to lose sleep at night, then perhaps nothing will!
This is urgently important work, detecting and identifying what
may fly even near, let alone through, our air space, and our military
made little or no effort to do so! What gives?
So the U.S. failed to detect the first three of these balloons at the
time that each breezed over the country, didn't determine that they
were part of a Chinese espionage effort until some years later, and
that the sighting of this fourth balloon was not treated as an urgent
warning; it was initially sighted in late January. The U.S. opted to,
rather than report it as a matter of urgency, instead observe the
balloon and collect intelligence on it. And because of the course
the balloon was on, in addition to the cross-like apparatus attached
to the balloon, U.S. military officials determined the craft to be on
a spying mission.
So why is it that our NORAD don't seem to be effective in detecting
these balloons, especially given how large they are? Civilians
spotted the balloon in the sky where it sailed on its route!
And, President Biden wasn't even notified about the balloon until
January 28, when it crossed over Montana. To his credit, he ordered
the balloon to be shot down, which our military did, just off the
coast of South Carolina. The military retrieved its remains from
the sea to study it for further intelligence information.
One could say better late than never, but in this case our lateness
could have had far more serious consequences. And no sense
castigating President Biden or recent past presidents for the
glaring deficiencies in our military's detection effectiveness,
as they apparently have cropped up within its leadership and
were not reported to our recent commanders-in-chief.
And the Chi-coms are undoubtedly laughing themselves
silly.
A big CYA by the military, don't you think? Anyway, pleasant dreams!
MEM
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