"Pentagon spokesperson Ryder pushed back on this assertion, saying the U.S. is confident the balloon is for surveillance. He said it continues to move eastward at an altitude of about 60,000 feet and has the ability to maneuver."
I misread. I guess at one point it had actually dropped 20k feet in altitude, not to a total of 20k feet. Where is your link that said it was being jammed? I've yet to read anything regarding jamming.
Logical deduction combined with some coverage by Monkey Werx. MIL aircraft have been shadowing pretty much the entire time. If it's transmitting sensitive data, it's a logical assumption they can and would jam it. Obviously, you can't get confirmation on something like that.
The Pentagon intentionally muddied the waters. They never said it was at the altitude of 60,000 feet. They said it was 60,000 feet above sea level. You would have to look up how far the places were above sea level wherever it was at the time. I'm not sure why they reported it that way unless they just didn't want people to really know the actual "feet-above-ground-level" altitude.
Look at it this way - if they said it was 4,000 feet above sea level and it went near Pike's Peak it would mean it crashed into the mountain.
No, I don't think so. That thing was more than 10 miles up. Their directional jamming is advanced enough that it's not going to disrupt ground comms.
It was nowhere near that high. It was at around 20k feet. 10 miles up would be about 52k feet.
"Pentagon spokesperson Ryder pushed back on this assertion, saying the U.S. is confident the balloon is for surveillance. He said it continues to move eastward at an altitude of about 60,000 feet and has the ability to maneuver."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/suspected-chinese-spy-balloon-found-northern-us-military-installations-rcna68879
I misread. I guess at one point it had actually dropped 20k feet in altitude, not to a total of 20k feet. Where is your link that said it was being jammed? I've yet to read anything regarding jamming.
Logical deduction combined with some coverage by Monkey Werx. MIL aircraft have been shadowing pretty much the entire time. If it's transmitting sensitive data, it's a logical assumption they can and would jam it. Obviously, you can't get confirmation on something like that.
The Pentagon intentionally muddied the waters. They never said it was at the altitude of 60,000 feet. They said it was 60,000 feet above sea level. You would have to look up how far the places were above sea level wherever it was at the time. I'm not sure why they reported it that way unless they just didn't want people to really know the actual "feet-above-ground-level" altitude.
Look at it this way - if they said it was 4,000 feet above sea level and it went near Pike's Peak it would mean it crashed into the mountain.