A Bouquet of Balloons
I may or may not know what I’m talking about here, it’s literally been decades. But the Chinese Spy Balloon probably wasn’t collecting our communications. Rather, I suspect it was collecting ELINT – Electronics Intelligence. Every device that uses electricity – powerful radars, satellites, aircraft, submarines, ICBMs, toaster ovens – has an electronic signature. There is a steady-state signature when the device is idling, and a different signature when it departs that state.
To me, it’s all a black box. Data are collected and fed into a black box where magic is performed and on the other side of the box, we get a set of profiles. Later, when that device starts to do something besides idling, we have a good idea of what is going to happen next. Examples include the toaster oven is going to heat pop tarts or the ICBM is about to launch in twenty minutes. Why waste perfectly good balloons on collecting communications when everything in the country is routed through the Penn/Biden Center switch?
Whose Balloon is it Anyway?
On to balloons. The list of countries that have a legitimate purpose in launching weather balloons that could wind up over Alaska is long and starts with the US and Canada. Others include Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Russia, China, Japan and the list goes on. Then you have private commercial enterprises such as Maersk, the shipping giant. In addition, academic institutions teach meteorology, and use weather balloons. I have no idea how many such universities in the US alone teach meteorology; the link only lists the highest ranked.
Remember, Roswell was a weather balloon. Honest. If you don’t believe me, just ask me.
I am very naive when it comes to spy wear and what the balloon could have the potential to deliver but what I saw was a lot of hype and CIA/NSA speculation that fed the desired narrative. What could a balloon delver that the already existing satellite and drones not carry out? These are crazy times. Thanks for weighing in on it