Image released of mysterious object shot down over Yukon in 2023

[JMartJr]

Why couldn't the released image have been taken from above looking down? It was at ~ 40K ft when shot down (see below), certainly below the 50K ft service ceiling of the CF-18s and F-22s involved.

If so, we'd have to identify what was hanging up from the envelope to block part of it, or what would cause that same effect...

 

[Calter]

I found this image that someone posted on twitter of supposedly a chinese spy balloon seen from below, and the image is shown with a black and white filter to show the similarity with the photo that has been released. I don't know the source of the original, unedited image so I apologize if that's an issue.


Source: https://x.com/MieHunter/status/1838819485991756103

Maybe it further helps visualize what we may be seeing

 

[Eburacum]

Source: https://youtu.be/HhpjjBD2Dto?si=VqxMPjsH8h_QJuXH


Similar object videoed over Busan, Korea on 26 July 2012. The way this one is moving, looks like a balloon. Wonder if winds aloft data for that day are available?

This looks like an alphabetic balloon, probably the letter C, perhaps the letter G. The ends of the letter balloon appear to be rounded.


On the other hand image released by the Canadians looks a bit square at the ends.

Maybe the pointed end is the nozzle, or 'inflation port' as it is sometimes known.
Not enough information to be sure.

 

[Duke]

If so, we'd have to identify what was hanging up from the envelope to block part of it, or what would cause that same effect...

Why does something hanging in any direction, even the ridiculous, have to account for a "bite" taken out what is apparently being otherwise assumed to be a circular object? While it can block a photo to the extent @john.phil nicely illustrated, that's speculation. Why couldn't the balloon just be "C" shaped, like the object/balloon in the Korean example? As @DavidB66 pointed out in #30 above, there are "actually quite a lot" of "horseshoe-shaped balloons." The fact he didn't find a direct match doesn't mean there isn't one. We never found balloons that were an exact match to whatever that was floating over the US base in Iraq, either.

My bottom line point is we have no data or information that tells us who took the photo, with what equipment, and from what position/distance relative to the object. Might be exactly as speculated by @Mick West and @john.phil, but until/if we know the who/what/where of the image, it's at best an educated guess.

By the way, the thing reminds me of an inflatable c-shaped cushion my Dad had to sit on years ago after he injured his coccyx. Never occurred to me to fill it with helium and let it sail away.

 

[Duke]

This looks like an alphabetic balloon, probably the letter C, perhaps the letter G. The ends of the letter balloon appear to be rounded.


On the other hand image released by the Canadians looks a bit square at the ends.

Maybe the pointed end is the nozzle, or 'inflation port' as it is sometimes known.
Not enough information to be sure.

Thus why I called it "similar" as opposed to a perfect match.

 

[PacketSniffer5000]

Joseph Trevithick on TWZ has a write-up now.
https://www.twz.com/air/first-look-at-mystery-object-shot-down-over-canada-by-f-22-raptor-last-year
Nothing new yet that wasn't covered here.

 

[Mendel]

On the other hand image released by the Canadians looks a bit square at the ends.

My guess is that it's the eye of a sky whale, with the rest of the whale filling the frame and then some.

We do not know:
- the distance
- the size
- the camera
- the image processing (except a photocopier in the chain)

We do not have the object.

We do:
- some balloons have similar shapes
- some balloons can be obstructed to look like this
- some balloons may look like this when partially deflated, which is always a possibility for a balloon that's been up for months
- it moved like a balloon
- when shot, it descended like a balloon

You can also say it looks somewhat like the USS Enterprise from below if the saucer section was illuminated and the main body was not.

Or like a round stroke of white paint on black cardboard. It would make a great company logo.

All we can really say is that the picture does not contradict the assessment that the object was a balloon. That's good enough for me, tbh.

 

[Arthur 33]

Based on this photo I think we can officially exclude the theory that it was a Pico Balloon launched by the bottlecap brigade or am I wrong?

Could it be a larger high altitude balloon with a large payload that is casting a strange shadow when viewed from directly below? Potentially, but not a pico balloon IMHO.

 

[LilWabbit]

I see a one-eyed owl staring at the moon at night.

I mean come on guys. This is MB.

 

[Arthur 33]

It was reported as a balloon.

This is not accurate. Initially it was reported as a "unidentified object" later it was revised to be a "suspected balloon".

New 'unidentified object' shot down over Canada, says Trudeau

A US warplane shot down an unidentified object over North American airspace, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Saturday. It was the second day in a row in which the US military shot down an unidentified airborne object.

Source :https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ied-object-shot-down-over-canada-says-trudeau

 

[Duke]

We do not know:
- the distance
- the size
- the camera
- the image processing (except a photocopier in the chain)

We do not have the object.

We do:
- some balloons have similar shapes
- some balloons can be obstructed to look like this
- some balloons may look like this when partially deflated, which is always a possibility for a balloon that's been up for months
- it moved like a balloon
- when shot, it descended like a balloon

Excellent point about deflation possibly altering shape, but I'm curious how we know "it descended like a balloon" when shot? Obviously it, or pieces thereof, fell when hit by a AAM, but so would a Cessna 172. To my knowledge, we don't have, or at least haven't seen, a video of that shootdown. And if we did, as far as I know, we would only have a single data point video of a balloon being shot down with an AAM to compare it to, the Chinese balloon taken down off NC. Further since this object was not found, a damage assessment can't be made and compared to what was recovered from the Chinese balloon.

By the way, out of curiosity I checked the NUFORC's data base using "horseshoe" as a discriminator. As seen in the link below, that turned up only 14 of 150K+ reports of "other" shapes. A couple of those were describing multiple lights/objects flying in a horseshoe formation, as opposed to a horseshoe shaped object. So in the grand scheme of things, horseshoe shaped UFOs, at least those reported, are rare.


https://nuforc.org/subndx/?id=sOther

 

[John J.]

What is a plausible reason we don't thus get to see HD photos of "UFOs", if they are all prosaic in nature?

A plausible reason we don't get to see HD photos of UFOs, if that term means alien craft visiting Earth, is that they don't exist.

Because if they were "prosaic" they wouldn't be UFOs, right?

@NorCal Dave's right, when we get good images of UFOs, meaning unidentified things in the sky, those things rarely remain unidentified, they cease being UFOs. Those photos have never shown something which is likely to be an ET craft (AFAIK).

The more detail that photos of claimed alien craft show, the more likely (historically) they have been fakes- think George Adamski, Billy Meier:

Wikipedia articles on both men, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamski, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Meier

Despite the massive expansion in the number of camera devices routinely carried by people, photos of claimed UFOs seem to routinely show less detail than they did in the 1950s/ 60s/ 70s.

We've seen up close fighter photos of Russian planes, Chinese ones and more for quite some time.

Often because they want to be seen, or they want to intimidate aircrew/ naval personnel of other nations.

Our first images of aircraft types and other equipment in the service of less friendly states are often much less clear,
e.g. the earliest photo of the Soviet Tu 160 Blackjack to be seen by western intelligence was taken by a passenger on a commercial airliner (Tu 160 is at bottom left):

If the Canadian/ US authorities were confidant, for whatever reasons, that they were tracking an unmanned balloon or something similar and decided to bring it down, they wouldn't have been under any obligation to get the cameras running for the benefit of UFO enthusiasts or sceptics. If they took detailed pictures, they're not under obligation to release them AFAIK.

 

[JMartJr]

The more detail that photos of claimed alien craft show, the more likely (historically) they have been fakes- think George Adamski, Billy Meier:

I still get a warm feeling in my heart when I see that old Coleman* lamp shade...

I have always loved the visible slot where the lantern handle would go:

and how sometimes that feature is retained or referenced by people using Adamski's UFOs as the model for claims of things like German flying saucers in WWII.

* Edit to add that "Coleman," a brand name, is used generically here, I have no idea what brand it was...

 

[Duke]

A plausible reason we don't get to see HD photos of UFOs, if that term means alien craft
If the Canadian/ US authorities were confidant, for whatever reasons, that they were tracking an unmanned balloon or something similar and decided to bring it down, they wouldn't have been under any obligation to get the cameras running for the benefit of UFO enthusiasts or sceptics. If they took detailed pictures, they're not under obligation to release them AFAIK.

Can't speak for the Canadians, but the USG would be obligated to release those photos (if requested) if taken by/for the USG for official purposes.....as long as their release doesn't conflict with one or more of USG's nine FOIA exemptions.
https://www.foia.gov/faq.html#:~:te...ion that is,disclosure by another federal law

Of those exemptions, just #1 (information that is classified to protect national security) would seem to apply here. So what would be being protected in this case? The bad guys didn't/wouldn't learn anything new about the F-22 or AIM-9X from these misadventures. Means/method/sources for gathering intel or targeting data? Possibly, but
I think it's likely more a case of partisan politics.

I believe the current administration didn't want to admit it had ordered the firing of half-million dollar AAMs to take out no-threat hobbiest balloons worth maybe a couple hundred dollars after the criticism they received over their inaction with the Chinese balloon. Can't prove it, but I'd put money on it.

 

[Arthur 33]

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is forming an interagency group to address the recent spate of objects in the skies above North America, the White House announced Monday.

"The president, through his national security adviser, has today directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a White House briefing.


"Every element of the government will redouble their efforts to understand and mitigate these events," he said.

Source:https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...nteragency-team-address-objects-sky-rcna70416

And not a single update from the "interagency team" who was tasked to study and respond to these shootdowns...

It sure looks like a coverup, and the lack of transparency is fanning those flames.

 

[Mendel]

After it was shot at, it slowly descended... like a balloon with a punctured envelope.

How do you know that?

 

[Mendel]

And not a single update from the "interagency team" who was tasked to study and respond to these shootdowns...

maybe they didn't uncover any relevant information

 

[JMartJr]

I started wondering if we might be seeing the moment the balloon was burst... would it maybe tend to split along a straight "seam" like that?

With the recognition that there may be dozens of ways to put a weather-balloon type envelope together, and lots of ways it might burst, nonetheless I couldn't find a decent match. This shot of the "Chinese Spy Balloon" being shot down off the coast of SC is about as close as I could find, and is not particularly close:

Source: Clipped from a montage at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/colombia-says-object-spotted-overhead-after-us-warning-over-chinese-balloon/articleshow/97626829.cms1


Most images of such balloons bursting that I can find look more like this:

Source: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/8/1/21, "Dynamic Characterization of a High Altitude Balloon..."

Which would make for a great inexplicable jellyfish UFO, but does not match the object in this thread.

Posted in the belief that there is value in weeding ideas OUT as well as in! ^_^

 

[Arthur 33]

I believe the current administration didn't want to admit it had ordered the firing of half-million dollar AAMs to take out no-threat hobbiest balloons worth maybe a couple hundred dollars after the criticism they received over their inaction with the Chinese balloon. Can't prove it, but I'd put money on it.

Or more likely the Biden admin didn't want to admit that a 2nd China Spy Balloon penetrated our airspace so they blamed UFOs as a cover story.


Source: https://x.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/1839013216514617696

 

[Ann K]

This looks like an alphabetic balloon, probably the letter C, perhaps the letter G. The ends of the letter balloon appear to be rounded.

@Duke
Or, based on its apparent speed against the clouds, it's a bird. Here's a Dalmatian Pelican, native to Korea, which has an eleven-foot wingspan. The "C" shape might be how it looks with its wings cupped forward to catch the air, and at about 18 seconds in to your video, it abruptly changes shape and appears to be "flapping" briefly before continuing to soar.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Or more likely the Biden admin didn't want to admit that a 2nd China Spy Balloon penetrated our airspace so they blamed UFOs as a cover story.

The problem with speculating is it can go both ways. IF it was another Chinese spy balloon, it could have been spun as: "Those ChiComms tried again with another spy balloon! We tracked it till it was in a safe area and then shot it down."

IF it was another Chinese spy balloon trying to float over the US/Canada right after the other one, it would also make for some good PR fodder to identify it as such. The claims of the CPC that the first balloon was just a "weather" balloon that strayed off course and the US wildly overreacted, would look a bit lame if they actually sent another one right behind it, showing it wasn't a one-off stray.

If we're going to speculate, I'm with @Duke at this point in time. After the first Chinese spy balloon, NORAD was probably instructed to find all the balloons they had previously filtered out. IF that resulted in the shooting down of a very common $100 HAM radio balloon, that was reported to be in that area and lost contact at close the right time, then some may be less than forthcoming about that. Which is BS also. IF they suspect it was a HAM balloon they shot down, then say so and hopefully learn from it. Mistakes are bad, covering them up only makes it worse.

 

[Eburacum]

Based on this photo I think we can officially exclude the theory that it was a Pico Balloon launched by the bottlecap brigade or am I wrong?

I think you are probably wrong.
From the CTV News article;
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/image...object-shot-down-over-yukon-in-2023-1.7049241

"Visual - a cylindrical object," they wrote in an Feb. 11, 2023, email. "Top quarter is metallic, remainder white. 20-foot wire hanging below with a package of some sort suspended from it."
The image appears to have been taken from an aircraft below it, although that has not been confirmed.

A wire 20ft long seems entirely consistent with an amateur balloon launch, and if this image was taken from underneath then it could be quite a small balloon partially obscured by a payload. A couple of metres across seems reasonable - not exactly pico, but certainly micro.

 

[Eburacum]

An amateur micro weather balloon.

 

[Arthur 33]

I think you are probably wrong.
From the CTV News article;
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/image...object-shot-down-over-yukon-in-2023-1.7049241

"Visual - a cylindrical object," they wrote in an Feb. 11, 2023, email. "Top quarter is metallic, remainder white. 20-foot wire hanging below with a package of some sort suspended from it."
The image appears to have been taken from an aircraft below it, although that has not been confirmed.

A wire 20ft long seems entirely consistent with an amateur balloon launch, and if this image was taken from underneath then it could be quite a small balloon partially obscured by a payload. A couple of metres across seems reasonable - not exactly pico, but certainly micro.

At this time we have conflicting reports. They say it is a "cylindrical object" but the photo is not cylindrical. I trust the photo more than I trust a reported description. And if they are lying about the shape (or confused), than the report of a 20 ft. wire with a payload is suspect too.

The photo looks like the China Spy Balloon. A China Spy Balloon was in our airspace days before. The most logical explanation is another Spy Balloon IMHO.

Honestly UFOs are the perfect cover story. Nobody cares about UFOs which are seen as a novelty fluff subject.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is forming an interagency group to address the recent spate of objects in the skies above North America, the White House announced Monday.

"The president, through his national security adviser, has today directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a White House briefing.


"Every element of the government will redouble their efforts to understand and mitigate these events," he said.

Source:https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...nteragency-team-address-objects-sky-rcna70416

And not a single update from the "interagency team" who was tasked to study and respond to these shootdowns...

It sure looks like a coverup, and the lack of transparency is fanning those flames.

That interagency team is working on the NSC and they have absolutely 0 public information activities related to their mission set, that is not why they were formed. Further, they were not formed to study or respond to the shootdowns. They were formed to study the policy implications of detection, analysis, and disposition re UAP.
These study groups happen all the time to evaluate standing efforts, current policy and regulations, etc - they are then given to other decision makers to help inform them on how to potentially best proceed with the given topic/subject being evaluated. In this case, they are likely looking back across AARO and maybe UAPTF and AOIMSG, and evaluating the implications it has had on policy.
As an example, we know that the UAPTF, similarly to AARO given the mission set of handling reporting for UAP, looked for aliens so hard they actually missed surveillance balloons like this. Looking at that overall frame of it has policy implication as its first order effect, with, say, operational implications being second order. Eg in this case, misled efforts had policy implications that led to operational implications (that in turn, led to further policy implications).
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...-chinese-spy-balloon-threat-as-early-as-2019/

 

[John J.]

They say it is a "cylindrical object" but the photo is not cylindrical.

Good point, but I guess it could be the end of a roughly cylindrical balloon envelope (or whatever it's called).

The unidentified flying object shot down in Canadian airspace on Saturday appeared to be a "small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it," according to what sources described as a Pentagon memo sent to lawmakers on Monday and obtained by CNN.
The memo offers the first official details of one of the three objects shot down in recent days that was previously described as a "cylindrical object."

"Pentagon memo says object shot down over Canada was a 'small, metallic balloon'", CNN, Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb,
February 14, 2023 https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/13/politics/pentagon-memo-canada-small-balloon/index.html

Are there any estimates given of the overall size of the thing? An estimate that a wire or cable suspended from the main component was 20 feet (6.1 m) long might imply that there are, have they been shared with the public?

Quoting Canada's General Eyre and Defence Minister Anita Anand, CTV News told us

Chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre said during the press conference that an AIM-9X missile from the American F-22 took down the object.
Although Anand did not refer to the object as a "balloon," Eyre did make reference to one when he said the aircraft, which were under the direction of the Canadian Norad region, received instructions that whichever jet had the "first best shot to take out the balloon had the go ahead."

"Norad shoots down 'unidentified object' over Yukon under PM Trudeau's orders", CTV News, Michael Lee, 12 Feb 2023
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/image...object-shot-down-over-yukon-in-2023-1.7049241

In passing, while doing an image search using our "

" image, I chanced across the website/ forum "Deny Ignorance" where there is some discussion of the photo (not recommending the site, but it's at https://denyignorance.com/Thread-im...ot-down-by-US-fighter-jet-over-Alaska-in-2023).

Member putnam6 posted (25 Sept 2024) the "C" picture and some background, I don't think there's anything substantial which people here haven't already posted or supplied links to...

...except, without any attribution or additional information, putnam6 posted this:

Strongly suspect it's computer-assisted fakery. Did an image search, some UFO enthusiast sites carry it, again without any attribution or backstories as far as I can tell. Sometimes with mentions of Tic Tacs.

The Russian 'personal recommendations' site "Zen" carries the picture in the article
"UFO invasion of the United States" posted by The Peace of Asterugs, 17 February 2023.
The author links the picture with the Friday, 10th of February 2023 shootdown near Deadhorse, Alaska, not 11 February Canada:

The second incident, recorded last Friday in Alaska, led two F-22 fighters to fly off the United Elmendorf Joint Base to U.S. territorial waters. This time it was not a balloon, but a "cylinder silver object without visible propulsion systems", the remains of which were searched for on ice. Although the images have already appeared, it should be said that this is a fake, since over the weekend the networks filled memes and photos that do not correspond to the incident.

https://dzen.ru/a/Y-t4z5heYAULVImw (Machine-translated, my emphasis).
Immediately after this quote, the following picture is posted (in addition to the title pic as above)

This looks even more like CGI than the Deny Ignorance picture. -In fairness, the author has stated that they believe it's a hoax.
He or she continues with a brief description of the shootdown in Canadian airspace, Saturday 11th February 2023; there are no accompanying pictures for that event.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...-chinese-spy-balloon-threat-as-early-as-2019/

As reported by the Drive and others, China's intelligence efforts off U.S. coasts have been bold. But officials say the Chinese balloons have been a well-known foreign intelligence concern for a number of years. They say that the UAP Task Force, then led by Jay Stratton, was reluctant to confront the balloon UFO consideration. Stratton's relationship with Tom DeLonge, a musician who established a UFO research group, and his association with research at Skinwalker Ranch (where anomalous phenomena have been reported) also raised concerns with the Navy.

Stratton adamantly resists this characterization and rejects the aforementioned claim of other officials that the UFO task force was primarily focused on air safety. In a statement to the Washington Examiner, he asserted...

This is circular logic.

..."No one involved with the Pentagon's UAP Task Force ever labeled something a UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, if it was identified as anything known or if it performed in a similar manner to known conventional technology, obviously including balloons. Anyone suggesting otherwise is simply trying to mislead the public into thinking very real UAP are balloons."

Yeah... Identified as such by the UAP task force itself. They're relying on their own judgements to prove that their judgements were correct. That's exactly where the bias entered the system.


It's the classic UFO fallacy.

Spoiler: Argument by assertion

Argument by assertion refers to a logical fallacy where a statement is repeatedly asserted as true without providing any evidence or reasoning to support it. This fallacy often involves the assumption that simply repeating a claim will make it more credible or convincing, even if no supporting proof is offered.

Characteristics of Argument by Assertion:
Repetition: The same point is stated over and over, as if restating it makes it valid.

Lack of evidence: No evidence, logic, or reasoning is presented to substantiate the claim.

Dismissal of counterarguments: Often ignores or brushes aside opposing evidence or reasoning without addressing it.

"Anyone suggesting otherwise is simply trying to mislead the public into thinking very real UAP are balloons."

"It was behaving in a way that breaks the known laws of physics. Therefore it must be a real Flying Saucer."

But was it really doing that?

Regardless, one key contention was whether radar returns indicating some UFOs traveling at very high speed (multi-Mach) were truly unconventional UFOs or simply balloons producing bad data returns due to their particular physical profile. Directly knowledgeable personnel convinced of the latter scenario felt ignored by leaders in Congress and the Pentagon when they offered their concerns. They say they believed that the UAP Task Force was diverting government resources to researching truly unconventional UFOs at the expense of addressing Chinese balloons.

This is more serious than I'd thought...

China has taken advantage of the stigma associated with the UFO subject for its espionage efforts. The PLA explicitly notes that "balloons are emerging as viable, capable alternatives to aerial weapons that are less likely to be detected by enemy air defenses or often mistaken for UFOs."

Did UFO buffs, indulging their own personal beliefs, become a threat to national security?

The outstanding question: whether a willingness by senior Pentagon and congressional leaders to allow foreign intelligence devices to be cataloged or otherwise ignored as unexplained UFOs has granted China freedom to conduct aggressive intelligence collection activities.

 

[LilWabbit]

Or more likely the Biden admin didn't want to admit that a 2nd China Spy Balloon penetrated our airspace so they blamed UFOs as a cover story.

Classified information in the military context is often somewhat mundane and unexciting if the general public were privy to it.

This is because the main purpose for all military classification in most modern states is to preserve or gain a military advantage over the adversary. There are roughly three kinds of classification that exist to meet said purpose:

(1) Classification of information revealing our own special capability or a program for developing one (sometimes publicly denied or obfuscated when such a capability would inadvertently feature in some publicly available footage) (Yes, UFO speculations amid the general public may serve the military well in said obfuscation and hence need not be actively 'debunked' by the military)

(2) Classification of information revealing our own intelligence-gathering technology, methodology, sources or locations, and hence compromising military advantage and future intelligence-gathering. Such information may feature something important, such as an adversary's capability or technology or location, or something utterly unimportant and irrelevant.

(3) Classification of information which reveals the current limitations of our intelligence-gathering methodologies, technologies, sources, locations, etc.

To preserve advantage, the adversary must generally not know what we know or don't know, and how we know or don't know. In rare cases, deliberately revealing to the adversary what our intelligence has gathered (say, concerning an imminent attack by Iran on Israel, or by Russia against Ukraine) may cause the adversary to call off the attack, postpone it or plan an alternative attack tactic. But even then the actual intel isn't revealed, but only it's overall analysis of an imminent attack by aggressor x against target y.

The pertinent and evident point being (and which was mentioned also on the Lebanon thread), a military establishment not sharing the specifics of an intelligence to the public questioning it as evidence does not logically imply the lack thereof. Neither does undisclosing intelligence specifics imply something nefarious or mind-blowing is always happening. Similarly, a military establishment wouldn't neither publicly admit lacking some critical piece of intelligence.

As a slight downside to the overall information deficit and mistrust such ambivalence and secrecy creates in the general public towards the intelligence community, they won't be trusted by certain elements of the general public even when they sincerely announce lacking intelligence on something irrelevant to their work let alone something fictional (say, aliens and alien crafts).

Hence said elements regard any absence of evidence as evidence of a cover-up.

 

[Eburacum]

At this time we have conflicting reports. They say it is a "cylindrical object" but the photo is not cylindrical. I trust the photo more than I trust a reported description. And if they are lying about the shape (or confused), than the report of a 20 ft. wire with a payload is suspect too.

A cylinder is a circle when seen from directly underneath, so there is no contradiction there.

If the reported description is correct, then the top half was metallic, probably mylar; when seen from below in a cloudless sky, the mylar section would reflect nothing but sky, and become effectively invisible.

Both the image and the reported description may be correct, and probably are.

 

[Arthur 33]

To preserve advantage, the adversary must generally not know what we know or don't know

So in your mind you are ok with the government keeping everything about the 4 shootdowns forever secret? You trust the government too much. FOIA laws are intended to act a a check and balance against waste fraud and abuse of the federal government. It is not just a nice thing when it is convenient.

At the bare minimum the gang of 8 should be provided a classified briefing. But I guess the feds think congress can't be trusted to keep their secrets.

Seems like people here are bending over backwards to justify the lack of transparency.

Every US FOIA request has been flatly denied.

 

[jarlrmai]

justify the lack of transparency.

It's more like explain it. I think we'd all love to know what the details are. But we understand that militaries have secrets and that generally it's to ensure the technology they use is not exploitable by their rivals.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Did UFO buffs, indulging their own personal beliefs, become a threat to national security?

We'll have to wait for the book to come out!

Jay Stratton, who investigated UFOs as director of the UAP Task Force, appeared on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, believes a werewolf haunted his home, and plays in a garage band named Hitchhiker (after the alleged Skinwalker ghost) with fellow cast member UAP Task Force personality Travis Traylor. He signed with HarperCollins this week for an undisclosed sum to write a memoir about his time hunting flying saucers and paranormal oddities.

https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/another-government-ufo-hunter-signs-a-major-book-deal

 

[jarlrmai]

Did UFO buffs, indulging their own personal beliefs, become a threat to national security?

I think they sort of did, it's possible the UAPTF have at least led to less wasted resources or stopped alternative stuff like balloons and drones from being identified earlier.

 

[Mendel]

So in your mind you are ok with the government keeping everything about the 4 shootdowns forever secret? You trust the government too much.

What do you think the government is hiding?
What would the consequences be if it was made public?

This fails to even rise to the level of conspiracy theory, it's so mundane.

 

[jarlrmai]

Let's imagine that right now there's some Chinese balloons over the US, but the US air force hacked them and is feeding false data, would you want the government to tell you?

 

[JMartJr]

So in your mind you are ok with the government keeping everything about the 4 shootdowns forever secret? You trust the government too much.

I did not get anything even remotely approaching that from LilWabbit's post. Misstating their position is probably not a valid way to refute it.

 

[AllTheQuestionsToday]

At the bare minimum the gang of 8 should be provided a classified briefing. But I guess the feds think congress can't be trusted to keep their secrets.

Under the law, does the Executive Branch even have the option? I thought the law was unambiguous the last time I saw a write up, that the Executive Branch has no legal ability/power to keep any secrets from the Gang of 8.

 

[Ann K]

So in your mind you are ok with the government keeping everything about the 4 shootdowns forever secret?

Arthur, nobody has said "forever". You seem impatient to know it all right now!, when the reality is that it will probably be released to the public some years from now. The fact remains that you and I are simply not on the priority list of people who will be given that information first. I understand your curiosity, but I also understand the perfectly logical argument that the people who have the evidence are the best people to examine the matter and glean whatever information they can before a premature release allows public speculation and conspiracy theories to run wild.

In short, speed is not their priority, nor should it be.

 

[Duke]

Arthur, nobody has said "forever". You seem impatient to know it all right now!, when the reality is that it will probably be released to the public some years from now. The fact remains that you and I are simply not on the priority list of people who will be given that information first. I understand your curiosity, but I also understand the perfectly logical argument that the people who have the evidence are the best people to examine the matter and glean whatever information they can before a premature release allows public speculation and conspiracy theories to run wild.

In short, speed is not their priority, nor should it be.

And why are you wasting your time here? Even if you are right, I doubt there is anyone here who can affect the release of the data you are seeking. Wouldn't your time be better spent writing your elected representatives, and/or those seeking to be your elected representatives, and demanding as both a constituent and tax payer they investigate your theory?

 

[Eburacum]

My tentative hypothesis is that the Department of Defense and its counterpart in Canada are worried that they might be sued by the owners of these flying craft, which were probably entirely innocent research or hobbyist balloons, launched in good faith (and nothing to do with China or Zeta2 Reticuli).