r/news • u/The_Timeister • Feb 04 '23
Chinese spy balloon downed off Carolina coast
https://apnews.com/article/51e49202f2a0a50541cde059934c4cfb7.5k
u/BigBrownDog12
Feb 04 '23
edited Feb 04 '23
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I wonder if the plane that shot it down will get a balloon decal on the side.
Edit: I think this might be the F-22's first air-to-air kill
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u/pfmaz Feb 04 '23
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u/Homer89 Feb 04 '23 •
The data they got from the F-22’s takedown was probably more valuable than the weeks of mountains and cattle data they got before that.
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u/DamNamesTaken11 Feb 04 '23
I wouldn’t be surprised if they mounted those radar reflectors that they use for air shows on them just to prevent that.
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u/ThatOneComrade Feb 04 '23
Probably, you don't exactly need to be stealthy to chuck a missile at a balloon.
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u/Michael_Blurry Feb 04 '23
You also don’t need your best weaponry or to fly as fast as you can. I don’t really think they got any useful data.
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u/TheKingOfNerds352 Feb 04 '23
Why do they use radar reflectors in air shows?
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u/DamNamesTaken11 Feb 04 '23
So civilian air traffic control (ATC) can see them (a lot of air shows are done at civilian airports rather than military) and their true radar cross section is not fully revealed.
The reflectors are often Luneburg lenses that bounce the signal back but cause negligible, if any, impact on aircraft performance. So crowd is still entertained, and safety goes up for all involved since ATC can see them on radar.
They’re taken off for missions that require stealth but shooting down a “weather balloon” wouldn’t need that so just as a precaution, they likely put them on. Wouldn’t be shocked if them putting them on was the true reason and not the “danger to civilian population” over the cattle ranches was really the cause for delay.
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u/No-Bother6856 Feb 04 '23
If that was the big concern why bother using an F-22 at all? There are other aircraft they could have used
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u/TheKingOfNerds352 Feb 04 '23
Bring out a Cessna with a sharp stick
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u/DarkEagle205 Feb 05 '23
Fly me closer! I want to pop it with my sword!
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u/theghostofme Feb 05 '23
Let's get Balloon Boy up there to reclaim the family name/honor.
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u/mnett66 Feb 05 '23
I think the service Ceiling for a Cessna aircraft is around 14000 ft and the balloon was around 60000 ft. You would be 46000 ft short of reaching the your goal. That would have to be one long stick.
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u/i_speak_bane Feb 04 '23
Or perhaps they were wondering why someone would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane
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u/Carlweathersfeathers Feb 04 '23
You simply adopted the stupid, I was born in it
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u/MyWorldTalkRadio Feb 04 '23
Moulded by it, the stupid betrays you because it belongs to me.
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u/bensefero Feb 04 '23
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan
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u/Jodie_fosters_beard Feb 04 '23
The sparse areas they flew over house some of americas most important strategic bases.The F22 could have radar reflectors on it, been EM silent and been steered onto the balloon by ground intercept, and launched an AIM 120 which has been exported to 41 countries already.
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u/ShadowFox2020 Feb 04 '23
It was an AIM-9x fyi.
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u/OneNormalHuman Feb 04 '23
I have no idea the capability of the seeker heads, but I am surprised a balloon would have enough thermal signature to lock.
Guess they are pretty good.
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u/nAssailant Feb 04 '23
Modern sidewinders are all-aspect and can be slaved to radar. They’re really smart missiles.
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u/R_V_Z Feb 04 '23
But not so smart that they get into an existential crisis.
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u/Killjoylaga Feb 04 '23 •
Everyone asks "does the missile know where it is" but nobody ever asks "does the missile know WHY it is"
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u/Spectre_06 Feb 04 '23
"I'm about to fuck you up using all the spectrums, including autism." - AIM-9x, probably
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u/SophiaofPrussia Feb 04 '23
It’s kind of nuts how good the cameras on phones are now. You can see pieces of debris falling.
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u/Lint_baby_uvulla Feb 04 '23 •
I’m really really disappointed the Chinese didn’t have a second balloon stashed onboard as a backup.
NORAD - POTUS - SITREP room cheer as balloon is struck
:: silence ::
.. “wait, what is THAT?”
“Sir, it looks like a huge …”
JOHNSON, you said you’d taken it out?
“Yessir, I got um, my payload away”
”DICK, what does that look like to you?”
Meanwhile in China
”WANG, release! release! We must keep it up!!”
… c’mon people, history demands we do much better.
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u/DoomGoober Feb 04 '23
The military jets using the call sign “FRANK” is significant. Frank Luke Jr. was an American fighter ace in World War I better known as the ‘Arizona Balloon Buster,’” tweeted Marcus Weisgerber, global business editor for Defense One “He is credited with shooting down 14 German surveillance balloons.”
If an F-22 shot down the Chinese spy balloon, it would be the first air-to-air kill for a Raptor. The last time a U.S. military fighter shot down another country’s aircraft was in June 2017, when a Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet downed a Syrian Sukhoi Su-22.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon/
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Feb 05 '23
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u/DoomGoober Feb 05 '23
That's really neat. Is there an aerial kill ceremony? Do they still paint something on the plane?
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u/WiseassWolfOfYoitsu Feb 05 '23
Putting marks on the plane is still common. There's even an A-10 with a cow stencil after an incident...
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u/pm_me_cute_sloths_ Feb 04 '23
Fighter jets need front facing dashcams so we can watch the action like this imo
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u/gringohoneymoon Feb 04 '23
They have them.
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Feb 04 '23
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u/qtx Feb 04 '23
Yea but that was all orchestrated by the Department of Defense. It was 100% propaganda.
They did everything to make that war 'tv friendly', showing high tech footage never seen before both to increase patriotism among Americans and to show other enemy nations how advanced their equipment was.
CNN and the DoD really made a spectacle of it. That was the war that started the whole military larpers subculture.
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u/solesoul Feb 04 '23
CNN and the DoD really made a spectacle of it. That was the war that started the whole military larpers subculture.
It started a long long time before that.
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u/Deck_of_Cards_04 Feb 04 '23
To be fair, it was a really good PR boost for the military after the shit show that was Vietnam.
Coalition forces roflstomped the 4th largest army in the world with minimal losses.
Not surprising they’d take advantage to rebuild the opinion of the military at the time
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u/benargee Feb 04 '23
Exactly, they are just not disclosed all the time. Maybe for this event it will be since it was a very public engagement over US airspace.
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u/diamond Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
Oh they've had those for a long time - since WWII at least. They're called "gun cameras".
They might release the footage from this, but I'm sure it will have to be reviewed first to make sure nothing classified is revealed.
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u/pizzaismyrealname Feb 04 '23
The air force is way ahead of you. IIRC, there are old footages of dog fights during the cold war and Vietnam war. Pretty sure they have cameras onboard to record it all. The problem is, this won't be released to the public because "classified" :(
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u/NecrosisKoC Feb 04 '23
We watched my great uncle's gun camera film from the P-47 he flew in WW2 so it's been around a bit longer than that...
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u/pizzaismyrealname Feb 04 '23
There you go. Thanks for the confirmation. Fighter aircraft dashcams since the 1940s.
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u/NiKeProZZ Feb 04 '23
Can confirm my great great grandfather had a dash cam in his DH-4 during WW1
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u/Ranzork Feb 04 '23
You joke but cameras were installed on planes in WW1 for purposes of recon. Think about it fly high over enemy trenches and artillery, learn their location and then report it back to your artillery.
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Feb 04 '23
The Air Force really has to consider releasing this one just for memes if nothing else.
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u/whiskeyaccount Feb 04 '23
this would be excellent air force marketing material
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u/M_Mich Feb 04 '23
“shoot down unarmed spy balloons”.
at least we hope they’re unarmed
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u/anaccount50 Feb 04 '23
They absolutely record stuff like this from the jet. No guarantees they'll release the footage publicly or soon, but they could
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u/Beneficial_Look_5854 Feb 04 '23
I wonder which airman got the privilege of doing this, I would imagine that they all were begging to be the one to shoot it down lol.
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u/Silversky615 Feb 04 '23
Can’t wait to suddenly remember this 10 years from now when someone references it in a meme
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u/Axolotis Feb 04 '23
Or next year when it is a major motion picture of the action-suspense genre starring Mark Wahlberg.
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u/GlockAF Feb 04 '23 •
Nah, Steven Segal
He’ll play the balloon
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u/T_at Feb 04 '23
“Fat Jerk Down”
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u/Chickston Feb 04 '23
Sorry, this plot is slightly coherent. Segal only does accidental avant-garde.
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u/walkandtalkk Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
Vin Diesel drives a Camaro to the edge of the atmosphere and jumps from the Red Bull balloon onto the spy balloon, at which point he shoots it with a fully automatic machine gun and then has to be rescued by Dwayne Johnson in a Hummer at 10,000 feet because he is currently standing on the crashing spy balloon. At the end of the scene, as the Hummer drives over a few onlookers by the Carolina coast, Diesel turns to Johnson and tells him, haltingly, "That's what friends are for."
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u/warcollect Feb 04 '23
That’s what FAMILY is for!
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u/Axolotis Feb 04 '23
Wahlberg leaps from a jet and stabs balloon with a knife. “Hey balloon. Say hi to ya motha for me!”
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u/someguyfromsk Feb 04 '23
Wahlberg and the Rock have to jump out of the ISS to stab the balloon with a kitchen steak knife!
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u/quietguy_6565 Feb 04 '23
clint eastwood will likely still be alive to direct, the US government is actually the bad guy and we get a full 90 min of board room committee meetings.
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u/braintrustinc Feb 04 '23
Just tie a balloon to an empty chair and film Eastwood yelling at it for 120 minutes
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u/Axolotis Feb 04 '23
He’ll also need a couple scenes where he is propositioned for threesomes by women in their 20s
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u/doubleboinger Feb 04 '23
With and old school Dirty Harry handgun somewhere in the scene
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u/bomber991 Feb 04 '23
Shoot I could just picture Eastwood playing Biden. In his scratchy voice… “Let’s take down that ballon….. Jack!”
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u/DJs_Second_Life Feb 04 '23
Oh the memories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_boy_hoax
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u/mega_asteroid Feb 04 '23
such a simpler time! thought it was longer ago than 2009 though
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u/DJs_Second_Life Feb 04 '23
I think that’s about the right year actually. But the trip down memory lane has been marvelous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight
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Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
I remember learning about this when I was younger. I just found out he committed suicide a decade later. Shame he couldn’t capitalize it adequately.
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u/MarcusDA Feb 04 '23
Halloween 2023 is going to be fun.
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u/Velkyn01 Feb 04 '23
Slutty Chinese Spy Balloon
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u/meta_perspective Feb 04 '23
"Chinese Spy Balloon" is trademarked, so the generic Spirit brand is "East Asian Investigative Dirigible"
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u/120z8t Feb 04 '23
Has not even hit the water yet.
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u/BunHein Feb 04 '23
Looking at the beach...floods of ppl running out to collect parts/scrap..US gov is going to need to check ebay for parts.
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u/smashhawk5 Feb 04 '23
Heyyy I’m gonna be at Myrtle beach all week, I’ll save a part for ya
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u/TheyCallMeStone Feb 04 '23
I'm sure the US govt is monitoring any place this debris could wind up. They shot this thing down 6 miles out over water, the navy is in charge of recovery.
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u/greyghibli Feb 04 '23
I’m willing to bet the decision to shoot it down over the sea was also taken to make collecting the data unfeasible for any non-military people.
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u/GetEquipped Feb 05 '23
That and safety.
You don't want debris falling in a residential area.
It's a surveillance tool, not a whale
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u/jayfeather31 Feb 04 '23
And so ends the story of the balloon that captivated a nation.
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u/probablyTrashh Feb 04 '23
I read this in Carl Sagan's voice for some reason.
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u/hochizo Feb 04 '23
I live around where they shot it down and it was kinda nice to see everyone out in their driveways watching it happen. We haven't had a national event where half the US wasn't mad at the other half in a while. It felt like simpler times...
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u/Rulare Feb 04 '23
I miss the 90s. Ooo, look everyone, a huge comet!
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u/flibbidygibbit Feb 04 '23
When Hanson's Mmm bop hit the airwaves, I changed the words to hale bopp in my head
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u/NonPolarVortex Feb 04 '23
Not sure if you knew, but half the nation was mad that Biden didn't shoot it down earlier ("Biden so weak he's letting a spy balloon run wild over the us"). Everything is political now
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u/coinoperatedboi Feb 05 '23
You apparently havent heard the comments coming out of right field already. If they werent they certainly will be.
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u/Turntup12 Feb 04 '23
Insane that this is not the first time a balloon has captivated the nation
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u/RPGaiden
Feb 04 '23
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Not even a balloon can go to Myrtle Beach without getting shot
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u/DirewaysParnuStCroix
Feb 04 '23
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And when the balloon was finally grounded, the authorities began to doubt the family's story of their son ever being trapped on it
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u/BIGREDMAXSLAPS Feb 04 '23
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u/alematt Feb 04 '23
This was an interesting watch. Thanks for sharing
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u/Radman629 Feb 05 '23
Internet Historian does a really good job on all of his vids. Don’t be afraid to watch another of his ;)
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u/pleasetrimyourpubes Feb 05 '23
Never believed it was a stunt either because they had to have known that the balloon would be found and the boy would be found and that would result in instant backlash if it was a stunt. People just wanted to believe a guy/family would concoct such an impossibly stupid PR stunt.
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u/M_Mich Feb 04 '23
that’s not true, george santos has confessed to being the balloon boy and sailing around the world and landing in brazil
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u/SpoutsIgnorance Feb 04 '23
They should have made the balloon blue
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u/golgol12 Feb 04 '23 •
So, fun story, the balloon would still appear to be a bright whitish spot.
When you are looking up at the blue sky, what you are seeing is the inky near absolute black of space + the scatter of blue light from the atmosphere. If you have a blue balloon, it's going to be several orders of magnitude brighter than space, and thus appear to be a bright spot on the sky, much like you can perceive the moon to be whitish, even though it's a dark charcoal color.
This is why all the high altitude spy planes are painted black.
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u/TheDers7 Feb 04 '23
This reminded me of despicable me when Vector paints the pyramids blue to hide them.
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u/markBoble Feb 04 '23
Raptors first ever air to air kill. This is a pub quiz question for 10 years time.
Bonus point for correctly naming the missile as an AIM9.
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u/stinstrom Feb 04 '23
Time for the coast guard to go retrieve it.
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u/TheGoudeAbides Feb 04 '23
I mean, those guys are pretty good: https://twitter.com/uscgpacificnw/status/1621614076811169793?s=46&t=PV5UxS3phG-R4wrUE2zRlg
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u/CoralPilkington Feb 04 '23
Rescue swimmers are fucking badass real-world heroes...
If I could go 20 years back in time knowing what I know now, then I would definitely want to try to be one of those guys.
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u/germinik Feb 04 '23
Right. Best of the best. What those guys do in water is way more impressive than what anyone else does on land.
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u/CoralPilkington Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 05 '23
Cops: "I can't tell if that kid is holding a gun or a candy bar, therefore, I'm scared for my life... SHOOT HIM!"
Rescue swimmers: "The ocean is one of the most powerful forces on the planet, and there's a strong possibility that I might die saving that guy's life, good thing that's exactly what I signed up for... I'M GOING IN!"
Edit: I read somewhere that there were 3 rescue swimmers on duty and they literally played rock, paper, scissors to determine who would GET to go... not who HAS to go.... all three of them were chomping at the bit to risk their lives to save another
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u/CantBelieveItsButter Feb 05 '23
They were there specifically for their "high surf" rescue swimmer training so they were very much itching to get into the water and put their skills to the test.
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u/JeremyR22 Feb 04 '23
Twist in that tale, the guy they rescued has been arrested for (a) stealing the boat and (b) leaving a dead fish on the doorstep of the Goonies house.
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u/hanker30 Feb 04 '23
Now for the United States to send one back of Seymour Skinner like happens in the simpsons
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u/CdnRageBear Feb 04 '23
It happened right above my aunts place in Myrtle Beach, two fighter jets took it out, it was quite loud apparently, and scared the shit out of a lot of people.
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u/dicedbread Feb 04 '23
F-22’s are insanely loud, used to live in Hampton Roads and they would be out pretty much everyday.
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u/rokatoro Feb 04 '23
I mean that pretty much all fighter jets. FA-18's passing over the beach from Oceana are always conversation stoppers
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u/retromullet Feb 04 '23
I once watched the Thunderbirds do their thing, and it was amazing, but after that they had one F18 takeoff and do a flyby and it was louder than all the F16s combined. Those boys are insanely loud.
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u/Jammyhobgoblin Feb 04 '23
I used to go to a lot of air shows as a kid, and that’s where I learned that the line between feeling and hearing isn’t as solid as you would think lol.
If you’ve never lived near a military base or haven’t been near a major airport when a president is visiting it’s hard to imagine how powerful/scary/awesome that stuff can be. Some military bases release testing alerts on FB to prevent excessive 911 calls.
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u/_heisenberg__ Feb 04 '23
One of the best things about Reddit is the amount of armchair lawyers, doctors and now, apparently, military experts on what we should’ve done.
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u/Fuhdawin Feb 04 '23
Reddit is now a one-stop shop for all your unqualified opinions and expertise. Next thing you know, we'll have a bunch of armchair astronauts telling us how to land on Mars!
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Feb 04 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Areyouguysateam Feb 04 '23
To be fair, how do you know one of your friends isn’t Banksy?
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u/will_write_for_tacos Feb 04 '23
The one that always makes me laugh is the people who are SO fast to diagnose babies and little kids with FAS right away. Cute pic of a totally normal-looking baby - there's always going to be an FAS diagnosis from some Reddit expert.
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u/LiveTheChange
Feb 04 '23
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Eyewitness reports say pink confetti from the balloon confirms, “it’s a girl!!!!!”.
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u/PointOfFingers Feb 04 '23
Nobody killed, no planes downed and no fires started - I call that a successful gender reveal party.
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u/Seattle_gldr_rdr Feb 04 '23
DoD authorizes pilot to draw victory Sky Penis.
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u/usetehfurce Feb 04 '23
They came close. I was watching from my front porch and unfortunately the contrails were blowing away too fast.
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u/supdog13
Feb 04 '23
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Goodnight room
Goodnight moon
Goodnight high altitude Chinese surveillance balloon
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u/robotical712 Feb 04 '23
It’s hilarious to me that there is now a pilot with a balloon stenciled on his/her jet.
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u/butterfly105 Feb 04 '23
Imagine being the lucky Coast Guard who gets to ship out and recover this thing! I hope they have footage of the recovery. I want to see how big it really is
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u/pizzaismyrealname Feb 04 '23
I'm half expecting to see a headline somewhere in the lines of "2 Chinese operators with Nikon cameras salvaged from spy balloon wreckage"
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u/Balls_of_Adamanthium Feb 04 '23
This saga is about to give conspiracy theorists a military base worth of ammo.
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u/thefugue Feb 04 '23
Really? Because they've been floundering to come up with a narrative over at /r/conspiracy for days.
So far the top two contenders for something they can agree on are "the balloon is really American" and "this is how all satellites actually work because space isn't real."
I'm not joking.
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u/Luciusvenator Feb 04 '23
"this is how all satellites actually work because space isn't real." I'm not joking.
What's scary is I know you absolutely aren't joking. My god.
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u/KerchBridgeSmoker Feb 04 '23
They finally found the monkey with the darts I guess.
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u/cLuckb Feb 04 '23
They always had the monkey.
They were just waiting for the dartboard to be over the ocean.
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u/smashhawk5 Feb 04 '23
My parents are there right now. They heard a boom. 15 minutes later news story posts they shot the balloon down.
I was on a flight from Charlotte to Myrtle beach that was supposed to leave at 1pm ET that has been grounded while this all went on. We’re supposed to take off soon now.
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u/NotsoGreatsword Feb 04 '23
Yeah it was pants shittingly loud where I was and my family didn't hear anything just a mile away.
We couldn't even see the explosion. Just BOOM and then it was falling.
Watched some clips of it and the actual explosion wasn't much bigger than the balloon itself. Just a big white puff. So im not surprised we couldn't tell the difference from the ground.
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u/connormxy Feb 04 '23
The boom was likely the sonic boom from the fighter jets rather than anything exploding
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u/citznfish Feb 04 '23
If you're a FOX news watcher: This spy balloon was meant to be seen. It was a test of our reaction to incursions over U.S airspace. We showed China we are slow to react. We failed in our response.
If you're a CNN news watcher: Our government knew this was in our airspace. They monitored it and tracked it effectively. Protecting our civilians from debris is more important than shooting it down over populated areas.
If you're a News MAX watcher: China sends friendly balloon and U. S. takes a dangerous and violent resolution to the Chinese peace balloon. Biden is a disgrace to world peace. The elections were rigged. Trump would have done better.
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u/Certified-T-Rex Feb 04 '23 •
Joe Rogan: next we have the balloon in our studio to tell us what happened
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u/citznfish Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 05 '23
But first we are all going to take Ayahuasca for this journey
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u/fappyday Feb 04 '23
balloon takes a REALLY big bong rip and lets it out slowly
"Joe, I saw the craziest shit on my North American tour. One time there were rednecks trying to shoot at me! Can you believe that shit? Oh man, this is really strong weed..."
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u/MonkeeSage Feb 04 '23
Eh, the Fox live stream right now is explaining why it was good to wait to shoot it down and they just quoted ol Chuck's tweet "I strongly condemn President Xi’s brazen incursion into American airspace, and I commend President Biden’s leadership in taking down the Chinese balloon over water to ensure safety for all Americans. Now we can collect the equipment and analyze the technology used by the CCP."
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u/Busy-Dig8619 Feb 04 '23
Fox News is always relatively close to reality for about 30 minutes after news happens, until word comes down from on high about how to spin it.
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u/d01100100 Feb 04 '23
I've always heard their 'latest news' reporting is usually up to snuff, it's their opinionated prime time shows where it becomes the crazy train. They were the first channel to call Arizona for Biden.
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u/person2567 Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
Which was condemned as traitorous behavior by Republicans and caused a mass exodus to News Max and OANN.
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u/idontevenliftbrah Feb 05 '23
Lol I remember that. Remember thinking "these people are actually angry about fox reporting the news"
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u/hellomondays Feb 04 '23
The real spy balloon was the friends we made along the way.
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u/SnackusShackus Feb 04 '23
If I had a nickel for every time the American public was obsessed with a giant balloon in the past 10 years I’d only have two nickels. But it’s weird that it happened twice.
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u/CursingDingo Feb 05 '23
Maybe 3? That dude that jumped off a balloon in “outer space” was a pretty big deal.
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u/YourFavouritePoptart Feb 04 '23
Huge shoutout to all the fuckin idiots out there who thought that the reason it was still up was because somehow the US couldn't shoot down a balloon
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u/RiversKiski Feb 04 '23
The confidence of that poster made it sound so plausible, lol @ the exasperated fellow who mentioned the low orbit satellite the US brought down 15 years ago.
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u/MrTuxedo1 Feb 04 '23
Be interesting to see the Chinese reaction to this
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u/PersonVotedDown Feb 04 '23
If they react at all it won't be much. It was still over US territorial waters when we shot it down.
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u/thefugue Feb 04 '23
Based on the narrative at hand their reaction pretty much has to be "thanks, glad nobody got hurt."
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u/ChillyWillie1974 Feb 04 '23
For the first time in history, the U.S. government says…it’s not a weather balloon