Remember when you were a child and you would let go of a balloon, just to see it zig-zag, go up and down and do a couple loops?
No? Oh, right. That’s because that’s not normal.
As you’ve assuredly heard by now, there’s a peculiar balloon making its way over the continental United States.
If you were to believe the Chinese, it’s merely a “civilian airship used for research” that blew off course, and why wouldn’t you believe them?
Just in case you don’t, most people, including officials at the Pentagon, believe that this is a “Chinese surveillance balloon.” What exactly is it surveying? Nobody appears to know, only adding to its worrisome nature.
One thing, however, that we do know, is this spy balloon is exhibiting some highly unusual traits, including an unusual level of maneuverability that the government did not seem too keen on elaborating on.
“But is it — you say that it’s moving eastward and it’s over the continental U.S. It’s change — it’s not over Montana anymore. Is the Chinese government controlling the movement of the balloon, or is it just floating with air streams?” a reporter asked the Pentagon’s press secretary, Air Force Brigadier Gen. Patrick Ryder, on Friday.
“Thanks, Jennifer. So I’m not going to go into any specific intelligence that we may have. Again, we know this is a Chinese balloon and that it has the ability to maneuver, but I’ll just leave it at that,” Ryder said.
That “ability to maneuver” is what piqued the interest of John Villasenor, the director of the Institute for Technology, Law and Policy and a professor of electrical engineering, law, public policy and management at the University of California, Los Angeles, via Scientific American.
Should the balloon be shot down?
Yes: 98% (429 Votes)
No: 2% (7 Votes)
“The only balloons I’ve ever heard of are the ones that can go up and down or the ones that don’t do anything—they just go completely at the mercy of the winds,” Villasenor told Scientific American. “But the phrasing from these spokespeople seems to suggest some greater degree of control than that. I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s notable …. It adds some more complexity to the whole thing.”
Oh. Great.
It’s scary to think of what could be next. A week ago, no average Americans likely had any inkling that the balloon existed. A couple of days ago, nobody really knew about this “ability to maneuver.”
What’s next? Will this balloon grow sentient?
Villasenor did provide an effective way to determine the balloon’s exact purpose — it would just require actually physically obtaining the balloon.
“If you took it out of the sky and examined what was on it, that would probably answer the question (of how to figure out the balloon’s purpose)!” Villasenor said. “If it’s a weather balloon, then it would be equipped with sensors to measure things like temperature, and so on. If it’s a spy balloon, then it would be equipped with, perhaps, high-resolution cameras or equipment to detect electromagnetic signals, things like that.
I don’t know what Trump would have done had this Chinese military balloon come over on his watch. But that’s the point — China never would have dared to do such a thing on his watch. pic.twitter.com/vEBZAGNxqC
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 4, 2023
“So if you actually physically had access to it, it would be pretty easy to assess whether it was really simply a weather balloon that had blown off course or whether it was created with the idea of surveillance.
“But without access to it, I don’t know how you would get that information.”
So there you have it. All President Joe Biden and his administration have to do is procure the balloon and inspect it to tell if China is actually telling the truth (there’s a first time for everything.)
Unfortunately for most Americans, this is the same Joe Biden who has let this blatant breach of U.S. sovereignty and international laws stick around unmolested for almost a week now.
In other words, don’t hold your breath.
