What if?…🎈Across the Great Plains, from northern Colorado and throughout Wyoming, North Dakota, and Montana, are the missile fields of the United States nuclear program. Each of the three Strategic Missile Wings at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, F. E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming
(plainshumanities.unl.edu)
🤔💭 Theory 😲💡
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Now reports of an explosion in the sky over Billings, MT. Seeing it all over Twitter.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11712125/Explosion-sky-Billings-Montana-Chinese-balloon-spotted-U-S-airspace.html
Thanks for the link LW!
Your welcome, fren! 😉
Funny how we continually have to goto the ‘DailyMail’ or other foreign sources to get the real news….
What the hell did they take out?
Excellent question. I'm not quite sure.
I saw that on television. What time was the explosion?
I’ve been down inside an abandoned missle silo in Colorado. Miles out east of Denver metro area. Probably 4-5 stories down, couldn’t go further because it was full of water. Middle of the night, went a few times. Got chased off once by bobbing flashlights and dogs. They shut and buried the lid. Kids dug it out and winched the lid back open…good times
I was stationed at Ft Carson ‘99-‘02! Colorado was full of places to explore. Was hiking up the backside of Cheyenne Mountain one morning until I was met by a gentlemen with a rifle 😅
People that I knew had been to multiple other missle silo sites in the general area. A few miles south and east of Watkins, CO.
Million dollar question. Foreign adversary flying spy balloons over some of our largest nuclear missile silos and no one in power seems terribly alarmed. From what I’ve read, an EMP detonated overhead would not cause immediate problems for nukes but I’d imagine it would cause big problems for the systems associated with operating/launching them.
The Question is do countries still use spy balloons ? I'm giving it 72 hours because you gotta watch the other hand regardless if Trump said shoot it down.. 👀
The theory is that they are really dry runs for an atomic EMP attack.
No way a balloon is holding the weight of an atomic weapon
How heavy do you think an atomic weapon has to be? The W82-1 device (designed to fit into a 155mm artillery shell) weighed 95 pounds for a yield under 2 kilotons. Don't go rushing off making statements without checking the numbers.
I wouldn't bet on that being true. Forty years ago we were carrying them in UH-1 helicopters and it only took four of us to lift them in and out.
Us? Are you glowing anywhere at night that you notice? Shit that is way close!
As the adequately named person below stated, warheads aren't actually all that heavy relatively speaking. The technology at this stage of miniaturization is likely smaller than even normal people know.
Most of a rocket is its fuel, center of mass corrections, guidance systems, etc.
Most nuclear weapons are likely fairly small and light (relatively) at this point.
The launch complexes would be hardened. That's their purpose.
If anything, this would not be an attack but rather reconnaissance.
yeah but why, don’t they have sattelites?
They do, but low-altitude satellites cannot pick up every kind of signature, and their presence overhead is limited to only a few minutes at best.
Plus satellite orbits are very predictable so the enemy would just cover up what they didn't want seen which is why we developed the U2 and after that got shot down the SR-71 (just outrun the missiles.)
You have your history in error. The photo-reconnaissance satellite was developed in parallel with the U-2. Upon the Gary Powers episode, satellite development was given top priority, with a view toward replacing the U-2. The SR-71 was never operated in a mode to challenge Soviet surface-to-air missiles. (The SA-2 top speed was Mach 3.5 vs. the SR-71 at Mach 3. But surface-to-air engagements are head-on, or side-on, not a tail chase. The SR-71 would have been a goner. Same reason they canceled the B-70.) By that point, the CORONA program had proven its capability.
So this is somehow a viable spying solution?
Depends on the data gathered and the results obtained. It seems to be a viable test of Biden's resolve.
I wondered about that. I can’t imagine detonation of an EMP overhead would have zero impact on the silos or their functionality.
They were designed at the beginning to be able to take a near hit by a nuclear weapon. Why do you suppose they were all underground? Same thing with Cheyenne Mountain.
So what if the lame spy balloon was to get devolution leaders to communicate? I would suppose most "secrets" aren't all that secret so the faux recon balloon was to trace strategic communications amongst the real leaders. The MT explosion happened because the balloon failed to achieve the desired intel and (they) were so bold to take the next step. Somewhere a high ranking representative of our nations defense scrambled an interception then probably formally told the pResident afterwards.
From what I understand our missile silos and components have intentionally been left “low tech” 1950’s technology for such eventualities.
Maybe so. It's a fact they haven't been updated since their construction. There is a new program under way (2020) for a Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) system to replace the entire Minuteman system. This will doubtless incorporate EMP hardening.
We probs just released anti-climate, covid 2.0 by blowing it up lol.
Or those weird seeds they were sending everyone.
It is very weird to think that we all blindly trust buying products from China (amazon and the lot), for things like seeds (food in this case) from a communist country that hates America and we're so naive to think that they wouldn't fuck with the seeds Monsanto style to kill off vegetation here.
This kid at it again… https://youtu.be/e8Tb8-PtSNo
Sky event?
I was thinking about this earlier before what ever this happened.
It probably launched from somewhere in all the land the Chinese bought - probably Grand Forks.
Unlikely it would go west if it was launched from Grand Forks, but that is a key airbase as well as Minot for silos. I just heard about the Chinese trying to buy that land north of the city of Grand Forks yesterday. Lived there for 12 years. Hope they shut them down. Go Sioux!
What if it was launched from inside the US? (likely)
Another voice of reason! There's no possible way there is a Chinese spy craft floating around the US over the missile silos, gathering Intel. No. Way. It's just ridiculous to even consider that.
I’d be more willing to buy into Gregg’s suggestion if the administration takes action and shoots it down - otherwise they just look more inept with every passing day that it floats above the US.
You make a great point. It has definitely captivated the attention of a lot of people, already. Do you think there is an end game or does it just float off into the Atlantic in a week or so?
I've come to the conclusion that the reason they are saying they will not shoot it down is to save face from the fact that they can't shoot it down.
First of all, if the balloon is at an altitude of 80,000 feet or higher, we have no aircraft that can operate at that altitude. And, even if we did, it would be problematic to shoot a nearly-stationary target with cannon fire at a closing velocity of hundreds of knots---and proximity fuzes may not activate against a balloon. Engagement with infrared homing and radar homing missiles may be ineffective because the balloon may not have a significant signature. This would also be a problem for any surface-to-air missiles. A balloon is probably not in the velocity-altitude filter for the radar detection and tracking system. Trying to snag it with a wingtip is dangerous as hell. (If we had airborne lasers it might be a different story, but no can do.)
Yes, the YAL-1A would have been perfect. It is gone, scrapped, thanks to the Obama administration. But it lacked the surveillance system that would have been needed. The mission testing was cued by the ground control and the laser used its tracker to acquire the target. (I did preliminary system studies in the late 1970s, edited the final proposal in the 1990s, and conducted mission analysis in the 2010s.) We're starting all over again with a different laser technology and at lower power levels.
What if there is a risk it's filled with bio-weapon?
Exactly my thought
I’m concerned about this, too.
What if there's a risk that it will release a bio-weapon? Do we just stand by and gape? What if there's a risk that it contains a nuclear device? There are good reasons for interdicting such things before they get to us...such as preventing these risks.
There's really no time for such things, sunce the military is busy making sure we have matching heels and handbags for the 2023 bdu's
Maybe we could find someone to design a death ray we could use against it?
Monkey werx says it's at 19-20k ft and they are concerned about what's inside.
Wow. That's pretty low. It must be sinking. There may not be much "inside." The photos show a dangling structure that appears to have solar power panels and equipment boxes.
They had it tracked all the way out of CHYNA, if they wanted to have shot it down they would have done it over the ocean imo.
Near STL MO ... Flew over my house around 525ish.
Too close to home. I'm sw mo.
Second balloon reported over Latin America a few moments ago.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/china-spy-balloon-latin-america-b2275624.html?amp
This is what E posted just before: https://t.me/TheOfficialE/3169
How does E know this? Have I missed some reports along the way or is there educated guesswork happening here?
More like B.S.-work. Sheer speculation. I was in the field of airborne surveillance and no such sensors were ever discussed. More likely to conduct signals intelligence and uplink the data to their own communications satellites.
A quick Google search will show you that all these airborne surveillance are very much real and used routinely. Perhaps your experience is outdated?
My experience was based on working with AWACS, JSTARS, and side-looking radars. These take a lot of power, weight, and real estate. Fancy sensors are finicky and need good control of the platform's movement. SIGINT, ELINT, and COMINT systems are much lighter and require less power. They can also compensate for the platform movement.
Frankly, I don't know what he is referring to, since his nomenclature is too vague. Apparently two Twitter posts have been joined together. No clue what "acoustic light penetrative field (DAS)" refers to. A search on that only loops back to his post.
In any case, it is entirely a speculative leap for him to declare what he did.
These are probably not too commonly used, but definitely not made up. I think he is talking about some advanced versions of these technologies.
AEM - Airborne electromagnetics
GPR - Ground penetrating radar
DAS - Distributed Acoustic Sensing
Originally I got the impression that you were posting an opinion thats based on your professional experience. But yeah, I am not so sure its a speculative leap for him.
I was expressing my view based on my professional experience. AEM is used mostly for geologic studies. A "small" target is considered to be less than 10 meters in extent. This is completely inadequate to develop a diagram of missile silos. GPR is mostly surface based, but has similar limitations in regard to image resolution. DAS requires a large field of optical fibers as sensors, and is not compatible with an airborne platform.
So, I'm the guy with the professional experience and you are not---and you think this is not speculation?
Highly questionable, but thats just my opinion!
You have to follow his telegram to judge for yourself what he posts. Its definitely worthwhile
wow what a distraction this balloon is
Explains this.
This ad was on TV and caught my eye. Never saw anything like it.
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/2W0d/americares-foundation-the-next-disaster-is-coming
We are, in fact back in the 80s I remember my teachers saying that if North Dakota were to secede from the Union we would be the third largest nuclear power in the world.
We also have two large Force Bases in Minot and Grand Forks.
Oh and the Chinese corn processing plant that was supposed to open near Grand Forks no longer will be. The air force has deemed it a security threat.
We’re being invaded by balloons! Oh no mister bill!
Has the possibility the balloon has a nefarious payload on board to "prevent" it's downing, thus letting it to & fro at leisure been raised?
#surveillance #balloon #disruptor #grid #emp https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/balloons-called-top-delivery-platform-for-nuclear-emp-attack
Since they have their people here and CANADA…why wouldn’t they have just launched from here or right over the northern border? Isn’t their military in Canada, on an island that Canadians aren’t allowed now?
2/3/23 think mirror
And remember the balloon bombs Japan sent during wartime…
Rather than shooting it down, wouldn't it make more sense to capture it and find out what it's about?
Go ahead. Propose how to do it. Easy to say; hard to do.
It's not in my job description, but I can't believe those who whose job it is to defend the country couldn't figure out how to capture a balloon.
It's not a matter of belief, but of knowledge. Just because you don't have it, doesn't mean they do have it.
Now, supposedly they told Biden they have "options." I would be curious to know what that might mean. There might be a way for them to target it with an air-to-air missile and bring it down with a fragmentation warhead (lots of punctures in the envelope). But they have some legitimacy to their point that such "options" may entail a lot of fragments or wreckage falling out of the sky. Do you want to be on the hook for any resulting accident that kills or maims someone?
It doesn’t make sense, the only information to be learned about missile sights from the sky above is no better than what somebody can learn online? Everyone’s talking about these missile sites, but if you’re talking about it then there’s no secret as is!?
Oh, there's plenty that would be secret. Like how they are built... What the hardening techniques are... The only information to be learned about the missile launch complexes is...what you are allowed to learn. Same thing about nuclear submarines.
I want to believe.., but I don’t! Biden has already sold out our country. It’s a decoy…,
Also over Whiteman AFB in Missouri where all of our B-2 bombers are based.
The B-21 RAIDER was just recently shown to the public in Dec, too, here in South Dakota, the new home for the new bombers https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3235326/world-gets-first-look-at-b-21-raider/
Also lots of mines to think about out west. Just a thought as well as the other obvious stuff already stated. The company I used to for took 13ft tires to these mines. In, Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Montana. 🤷
A semi was hauling some of those new tires down I-29 here recently and what a site to see! They are MASSIVE!
Yes they are! They go on the earth movers in the mines out west and in Canada.
We also have them in Washington