#spy balloons

[wumingfoundation]

UFOs And The Longing For The Unidentified

During the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 there was an exponential increase in UFO sightings throughout the West. Then, in February 2023, the concept of “Unidentified aerial phenomena” became central to the dispute between the US and China over alleged spy-balloons.

The Italian writing collective Wu Ming recently published UFO 78, a novel whose principal plot is set between March and May 1978. In it, the kidnapping of former prime minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades is intertwined with the great wave of UFO sightings that occurred in Italy that year. The novel closely follows another book, La Q di Qomplotto [The Q of Qonspiracy] (2021), in which a member of the Wu Ming collective developed an anticapitalist take on conspiratorial thinking, taking Qanon as his case study.

In the following essay, which appeared on Wu Ming’s blog Giap on February 24th, 2023 before being expanded for publication on Ill Will, the Italian collective interprets the return of UFOs into our collective imagination and the “longing for the unidentified” not only as a symptom of climate anxiety and our  post-pandemic predicament, but also as the manifestation of a "utopian impulse," an attempt to escape a system that forces us to continuously identify ourselves while suffocating any future perspective of radical change.

https://illwill.com/ufos

[biglisbonnews]

Government agencies have 30 days to purge devices of Tik Tok Civil servants! Delete your Tik Tok! You've got 30 days, says the White House. In a bid to keep U.S. data safe, all federal agencies must eliminate TikTok from phones and systems and prohibit internet traffic from reaching the company, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young told agencies in a guidance memorandum seen by Reuters. — Read the rest https://boingboing.net/2023/02/28/government-agencies-have-30-days-to-purge-devices-of-tik-tok.html

[trekkiesagainstchastity]

Truly one of us

[ID] A cropped tweet from Edward Snowden @Snowden reads It's not aliens. I wish it were aliens. [End ID]

[ivovynckier]

There are no UFOs, only spy balloons. If there were, François Truffaut would be there, making hand gestures at them.

[hoveringaboveuranus]

Unidentified flying objects - timeline

4 February: US military shoots down suspected surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina. It had drifted for days over the US, and officials said it came from China and had been monitoring sensitive sites

10 February: US downs another object off northern Alaska which officials said lacked any system of propulsion or control

11 February: An American fighter jet shoots down a "high-altitude airborne object" over Canada's Yukon territory, about 100 miles (160 km) from the US border. It was described as cylindrical and smaller than the first balloon

12 February: US jets shoot down a fourth high-altitude object near Lake Huron "out of an abundance of caution"

[lil-tumbles]

I am Uncomfortable with the way the four recent UFOs that have been downed over the USA are being presented in the same kind of timelines used in history books about the Cold War and world wars. It's just all a little too close to "we see history but continue on repeating it"

[geezerwench]

I'm real glad we get along with Canada.

One of the comments beneath this article:

Text of photo above:

Rev Joe

It is no secret that the White House and high ranking military officials know exactly what was the purpose of the Chinese spy ballon. The Chinese have decoded an alien message that they are ready to make contact with earthlings. It is well known that Area 51 has an alien life form secured in a research laboratory. China also has an alien life form. They recently opened up the corpse and by accident unleashed the Corona Virus. Now there is speculation that aliens from Alpha Centauri , in invisible spacecrafts, are hovering in deep space over China, Russia, Korea, Iran, U.S. and Canadian airspace sending unmanned objects with messages that say “we come in peace”. These aliens want to determine if now is the time to finally reveal themselves to earthlings. Are earthlings by their actions toward others peaceful or violent? Or if they, the aliens, need to destroy earth.

So, in these troubled times, will the aliens finally reveal themselves to us? Or will be the coming of Armageddon? Pray to Jesus for salvation.

___________________________________________

Guess we better REPENT and shit.

[johnnyrobish]

Republicans Pissed Biden Shot Down ‘High-Altitude Object’ Over Alaska

The Pentagon announced that a U.S. fighter jet has shot down a “high-altitude object” in Alaskan airspace Friday, marking the second such encounterin a week after the ploddingcross-country flight by a suspected Chinese spy balloon.  Officials say the object was roughly the size of a car, making it much smaller than the Chinese airship shot down Saturday.

Well then, I guess when it comes down to shooting down “unidentified high-altitude objects,” size doesn’t matter.  Gee, I wonder what the hell it was that was flying so high above Alaska?  The way I see it, it could only be one of two things - Elon Musk’s car, or Sarah Palin’s ego.  We can only hope it wasn’t Santa, on some kind of a test run.  Otherwise, Christmas ’23 is all shot to hell.

Meanwhile, Republicans are up in arms about the matter, first complaining about the cost of shooting it down, and then claiming President Biden shot the thing down way too soon.  Now, while I’m certainly no Republican, I do see their point about shooting it down too soon.  I mean,  as they say, it would be a damn shame if we just shot down a Martian peace delegation.

Of course, folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are quick to remind us that these mystery objects could very well be the evil work of Republican Bond villains Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci, attempting to use unidentified high-altitude objects to drop billions of micro 5G chips from way, way up in the atmosphere - for all of us to inhale.  Boebert and Greene’s motto is “You can never be too cautious, or too paranoid.”  

Anyway, whatever it was, the truth is we really have nothing to fear.  That’s because the MAGAs across our nation have heeded the call and have momentarily paused their attacks on Black History Month, grabbed their AR-15s, ran out into the backyard, and are pointing their weapons up at the night sky.  Say what you want about MAGAs, but its hard not to feel a strong sense of security, once you know these folks are on the job.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve just read, please consider joining me at:

[cosmic-neighbors]

Previous spy balloons that traversed U.S. soil under the  prior administration were classified as UFOs

Were They UFOs or Balloons?

[danu2203]

[biglisbonnews]

White House says it was probably weather balloons Multiple government agencies, including the White House, have assured the public that whatever we've been shooting down is probably just weather balloons conducting research. It seems this is just conjecture as they have not yet recovered the debris and the people rooting for Aliens aren't out yet. — Read the rest https://boingboing.net/2023/02/14/white-house-says-it-was-probably-weather-balloons.html

[louis-massa]

"Watch those wrist rockets!"

Kriffin' spy balloons. This one's about to get blasted by a wrist rocket.

[spaceintruderdetector]

Project Mogul (Operation Mogul) / popular science 1948

[ivovynckier]

Balloons? The Donald looooooves balloons. They're the reason he bought the Miss Universe contest. He checked out Stormy's. And Ivanka's.

[aharonmendlowitz]

Spy balloons give police new view of Jerusalem

Spy balloons give police new view of Jerusalem #jerusalem #spyballoons

By ARON HELLER and AMI BENTOV

http://news.yahoo.com/surveillance-balloons-deployed-above-jerusalem-192451395.html?format=embed

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police are watching from above in their attempts to keep control in Jerusalem in the face of the city’s worst wave of violence in nearly a decade.

Police have been flying surveillance balloons over the city’s eastern sector and Old City — the…

[newstfionline]

Spy Balloons Become Part of the Afghanistan Landscape, Stirring Unease

By Graham Bowley, NY Times, May 12, 2012 KABUL, Afghanistan--The traders crouched beneath the walls of an old fort, hunkered down with the sheep and goats as they talked, eyes nervously flitting up from time to time at the blimp that has become their constant overseer.

"It is there every day except the days when it is windy and rainy," said Suleman, 45, who goes by only one name.

"It watches us day and night," said another trader, Mir Akbar, 18, his eyes following the balloon as its nose swiveled with the wind from east to west.

"I notice it all the time," said Rahmat Shah, 28, a secondhand car seller, who was standing slightly aside from the other men. "I know there is a camera in it."

The dirigible, a white 117-foot-long surveillance balloon called an aerostat by the military, and scores more like it at almost every military base in the country, have become constant features of the skies over Kabul and Kandahar, and anywhere else American troops are concentrated or interested in.

Shimmering more than 1,500 feet up in the daytime haze, or each visible as a single light blinking at night, the balloons, with infrared and color video cameras, are central players in the American military's shift toward using technology for surveillance and intelligence.

In recent years, they have become part of a widening network of devices--drones, camera towers at military bases and a newer network of street-level closed-circuit cameras monitoring Kabul's roads--that have allowed American and Afghan commanders to keep more eyes on more places where Americans are fighting.

The dirigibles are now such a common feature in daily Afghan life that some people here shrug and say they hardly notice them. Other parts of the network have become lasting parts of the urban landscape as well, particularly in Kabul, where long-necked closed-circuit cameras overlook locations susceptible to attacks, like the Supreme Court building, traffic circles and main highways past the military camps.

But other Afghans describe a growing sense of oppression, the feeling that even as the Americans are starting to pack up to leave, the foreigners' eyes will always be on them.

It is often expressed in typically Afghan fashion, as a grumbled undercurrent of quips and brooding pronouncements: "It is an American kite," or "Afghans and Americans are up there." (They are not; there is no one in the balloons.) "It shows us that, sure, the Americans are still here," and, "It is not effective because there are still these suicide attacks and car bombs."

For others, the cameras are an outrageous intrusion into private lives, putting women and children on display for foreigners whom they see as immoral.

"We cannot sleep on our rooftops anymore," said Mohammadullah, who goes by one name, a resident of Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province, where families regularly sleep on their roofs during the summer's sweltering heat, and who was voicing a common concern. "Whenever our female family members walk in the yard during the day, or whenever we want to say 'hi' to our wife when we sleep on rooftops, we feel someone is watching us."

First used in Iraq in 2004, the helium balloons were introduced to Afghanistan in 2007, and the military has been shipping them here ever since.

American commanders love them, for giving them a perpetual full-color view of important thoroughfares and helping to catch insurgents planting roadside bombs. They cost less than the multimillion-dollar drones that get headlines.

"It has been a game changer," said Ray Gutierrez, who trains the civilian crews, all Americans, who operate the cameras, and the military units who use them. One recent afternoon, he stood in the small control room beneath the old fort where two men with joysticks scanned close-up views of the hillsides several miles away, practically as if they could reach out and touch them. "It lets us see the battlefield as we have never been able to see it before."

For the Taliban, the blimps have become things to fear.

The insurgents avoid the areas under the balloons and have taken to disguising themselves as farmers to avoid detection--and a deadly follow-up airstrike, residents say.

Though the balloons may not stay after the last American combat troops are gone--that is still being negotiated--they will have an even more important role amid the withdrawal of military forces, as planners hope the technology will help a dwindling force stay effective. And the military is building a bigger, 300-foot, untethered airship with more powerful surveillance capabilities intended for use here.

In the meantime, the Americans have mounted a publicity campaign devised to reassure Afghans that the cameras are not spying on women or children, and cannot peer through walls.

The program is clearly not infallible, nor is it invulnerable. From time to time, Afghanistan's summer winds and storms snap the balloons' tethers. And then there is the target practice.

Often when crews bring the balloons down, for maintenance or to protect them from storms, says Eddy Hogan, who manages the aerostats, they find bullet holes all over, attesting to the balloons' role as an object of resentment.

The balloons' size, and the fact that helium is not explosive, means they can stay aloft even with lots of small holes in them.

"You can tell when, you bring it down and see hundreds of bullet holes in it, that they don't like it," he said. But, he added, "It takes hundreds and hundreds of rounds to bring them down."