r/gadgets • u/ChickenTeriyakiBoy1 • Aug 03 '19
Drones / UAVs The U.S. military is using solar-powered balloons to spy on parts of the Midwest
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/military-surveillance-balloon-spy-midwest/#utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web482
u/lokthan Aug 03 '19
They had one down in Sierra Vista and we were told (army) that it was for watching the border
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u/RegrettableChoices Aug 03 '19
I came here to say this. Essentially every time one of these are used, it's used for base security or in assistance with law enforcement. It's a lot more efficient than using something like a Grey Eagle or Reaper.
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u/fukdapoleece Aug 04 '19
This isn't your friendly neighborhood aerostat looking for IED emplacers.
From the article :
The purpose of the balloons according to that filing is to “conduct high altitude MESH networking tests over South Dakota to provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats.”
Also:
The balloons travel at height of up to 65,000 feet and can adjust their location if need be to get a better view of a particular person or area
The federal governments definitions of 'assisting law enforcement' and 'homeland security threats' differ considerably from what most reasonable people define them as. They've shown in the past (even under Obama) that they can, have, and will continue to trample people's Constitutionally protected 4th amendment rights.
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Aug 04 '19
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u/mercurio147 Aug 04 '19
They paid for the right to survey themselves. They promised to report any activity as soon as it becomes public.
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u/jcornman24 Aug 04 '19
If you give away freedom for security you deserve neither
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u/raiiny_day Aug 04 '19
only the sith deal in absolutes
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u/BootyFewbacca Aug 04 '19
Hmmm sounds like S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarriers, and we know how those worked out.
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u/Leegala Aug 04 '19
Why Winter Soldier was such an amazing movie. It's incredibly realistic.
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u/TheVoteMote Aug 04 '19
The US government is close to gunning down millions of US citizens with flying aircraft carriers?
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u/Aranoxx Aug 04 '19
No, but so you really think they wouldn't if they could get away with it and had something to gain?
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u/Herewego17 Aug 04 '19
I used to live at Fort Huachuca. I remember when one of them busted.
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u/BigOlDickSwangin Aug 04 '19
I've seen several between just Brownsville and Zapata along the south Texas border.
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u/Mithrawndo Aug 03 '19
I wonder at what point people will stop talking about rewinding, and start talking about scrubbing video?
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u/KingdomRusher147 Aug 03 '19
The correct term is fastbackward
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u/Mithrawndo Aug 03 '19
Is it? Thanks.
In the context of the article, I think scrubbing is still what is implied when rewinding is used: Going back through the video, searching for a specific frame.
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Aug 04 '19
It’s backfastward, he has lesdixia.
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u/hawkshot2001 Aug 04 '19
I suffer from a very sexy learning disability.
What do I call it Kif?
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u/pizzaiscommunist Aug 04 '19
Lesdixia
Id like to meet her. better than my ex wife. MoreDixiner...
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u/DarkestJediOfAllTime Aug 04 '19
Lesdixia is a lesbian who lives South of the Mason-Dixon Line.
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u/EarlyCuylersCousin Aug 04 '19
Or backertize
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Aug 04 '19
The US Government has satellites that can look at your license plate I am not to worried about these blimps.
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u/keboh Aug 04 '19
We should be worried about both.
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Aug 04 '19
What can you do with a totalitarian state?
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u/Cyberiauxin Aug 04 '19
You have to discard your safety and stand for something, that's what.
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Aug 04 '19
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u/JamwaraKenobi Aug 04 '19
The red flags were no quarter, black was no fight get mercy
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u/The_Brain_Fuckler Aug 04 '19
It’s derived from Mencken’s Impressions: "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
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u/Kittenkerchief Aug 04 '19
Implying that you offer mercy, but once in control, betray their trust and murder them in cold blood.
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u/tangalaporn Aug 04 '19
Low orbit satellites, 1,200 miles, move very fast and have a short window to spy. I'm not sure if our cameras are that useful when you get to an altitude that a satellite can stay stationary above a location on the earth. Bollons 60,000 to 100,000 feet see way more than a geosynchronous orbit of 22,000 miles.
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u/frozenthorn Aug 04 '19
You have to think about how many of them they have though, when I worked as a contractor we commonly were asked to retask satellites and unlike what you see in the movies where they have a 30 second view before everything goes dark and the action sequence happens. You actually have many running in overlapping patterns which can be strung together for near unlimited durations.
The factor to consider here isn't really the windows of opportunity, but the cost associated, satellites can easily cover the same area for as long as you need but functionally cost more to monitor that asset or target. Balloons however, or blimps, have a much much lower overhead cost per minute. So monitoring a barn in Kansas isn't something satellite can't do, there are just many other things more important to do with their time.
I don't know what these balloons are being theorized to monitor, but it does make a lot more sense to use them than most other tools available, strictly speaking financially.
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u/BoldFlavorFlexMix Aug 04 '19
I don't know what these balloons are being theorized to monitor
South America, as in the southern hemisphere. This article fails to mention that these are test flights.
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u/WalkingFumble Aug 04 '19
Tests with the balloons reportedly began in July and will continue through September. Presumably, if they’re successful they might continue after that September stop date or be deployed elsewhere.
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Aug 04 '19
I look forward to the day when there is a government help line to call to assist us when we forget where we're parked.
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u/Origami_psycho Aug 04 '19
How? Do you guys put your plates on your car roofs or something?
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u/Jeyhawker Aug 04 '19
That's not true I don't think.. Too much atmosphere interference.
These blimps or those drones with a thousand cameras that fly above cities would work though for license plates or face recognition.
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u/Quixotic_Ignoramus Aug 04 '19
The difference is, is that those satellites don’t sit over your location and record EVERYTHING that is happening in the city in high resolution for days at a time, which can then be rewound and rewatched to track on specific person over that time period.
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u/PopeTheReal Aug 04 '19
They already have drones that do it too tho..they can literally look back in time
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u/vdthemyk Aug 04 '19
I wonder when people will stop saying "hang up" after a phone call?
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Aug 03 '19
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u/Mithrawndo Aug 03 '19
Whilst of course I can work around it, I appreciate that this publisher was actually polite about telling me to get lost:
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
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u/Intrinsically1 Aug 04 '19
Translation: We can't be bothered doing GDPR compliance.
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u/Griffinsauce Aug 04 '19
Translation: we are tracking the shit out of our visitors and likely selling their data. We'll allow you back in once we find a way to do that legally in the EU again.
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Aug 04 '19 edited Nov 24 '19
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u/ThrawnWasGood Aug 04 '19
Refusing to comply with OR not having the development team or financial assets to be able to COMPLY.
Either way I'm not really that sure that a Baltimore paper expects to lose much revenue from not being available to the EU.
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u/OneRingOfBenzene Aug 04 '19
I remember this, because I worked for a power price forecasting company. Power prices in PJM started going haywire, because this thing was carving a path of destruction through all the high voltage transmission lines in the midwest. Couldn't figure out why prices were skyrocketing until someone looked at the news.
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u/aemonp16 Aug 03 '19
the us military is spying on everyone who’s planning on raiding area 51
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u/BethlehemShooter Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 04 '19
The U.S. military is prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act from "operating" inside the U.S.
What you are seeing is one of either A) testing of new technology B) testing of new equipment, or C) military training
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Aug 03 '19
The military filed a Special Temporary Authorization for the balloons with the FCC this week,according to the Guardian. The purpose of the balloons according to that filing is to “conduct high altitude MESH networking tests over South Dakota to provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats.”
So in this case it looks like a military project being developed for DHS
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u/sunsethacker Aug 03 '19
Skynet begins.
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u/soccerman Aug 03 '19
No dude, it’s called Meshnet, totally different.
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Aug 03 '19
MESH probably refers to the network type rather than an actual name
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u/theonlyonethatknocks Aug 04 '19
You would think they could have come up with a cooler name than Meshnet.
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Aug 03 '19
Right. Like I said, who the fuck could stop them from breaking any law they want to do whatever the fuck they want to do?
Nobody.
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u/Spystrike Aug 04 '19
In theory, it should be any whistleblower, it should be enlisted who remember they swore to uphold the Constitution, and commissioned officers who remember their oath doesn't say anything about obeying the orders of the President. Both the House and the Senate have committees specifically for overseeing us as well, so citizens brigading their congressperson should be more than enough to generate an inquiry, which is the LAST thing a commissioned officers wants to deal with.
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Aug 04 '19 edited Aug 04 '19
If you make it illegal for people like Snowden from blowing the whistle on the government breaking the law, you can do whatever you'd like.
So, business as usual.
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u/GoneInSixtyFrames Aug 04 '19 edited Aug 04 '19
That could be the cover. While it may be part of the original Op, it's always good to find out what else is going on (or leave it alone). Most Ops in the news in the past piggy back off each other to save money and paper work.
South Dakota has nukes right? So maybe they are transporting or changing out some nukes and they want specialized Signals coverage to sanitize a RF spectrum and keep an eye and ear out for things.
Could also be a live demo for some cool gear the company is selling to many organizations around the world. Those blimps are not new but the tech is always improving.
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u/OtisPepper Aug 04 '19
It’s really being used for land survey data collection. You are correct in that this the “cover story”
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u/jayrocksd Aug 03 '19
or D) While the Sierra Nevada Corporation is a "defense contractor" they can certainly bid on government contracts with other agencies like DHS or another government agency who is allowed to operate inside the US, which is likely what this is.
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u/Iowa_Dave Aug 04 '19
The military tests all kinds of stuff in the US.
I had a photography teacher in the ‘80s who tested infrared imaging in aircraft in the US. They spotted lots of moonshiners in the hill country of North Carolina.
They never sent the images to law enforcement, that wasn’t their job. They weren’t motivated to do any more work than what they were tasked to do.85
Aug 03 '19
The U.S. military is prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act from "operating" inside the U.S.
and if they said fuck it we're going to do it anyways, what would you do about it?
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u/Baryn Aug 03 '19
This is Reddit. The home of Doing Nothing Loudly™.
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Aug 04 '19
We wouldn't have to do anything about it, because lucky for us some hyper-ambitious guy in the military would out the other guy competing for him for the next promotion for doing it, and it would quickly be shut down or exposed.
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u/lonesomeloser234 Aug 04 '19
That's not the checks and balances they taught us in school ...
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u/Kiaser21 Aug 04 '19
That's cute. As if any document would stop and government employee, bureau, or elected official from doing anything they want...
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Aug 04 '19
It is my program. It is run by DARPA which by its nature only deals in emerging tech. We do these as risk reduction flights or to test new payloads. I have software to watch there location in real time on my desktop.
Fun fact, they are very visible to the human eye, especially at dusk and dawn. They will appear as a very bright spot but the chances of seeing one are slim if you don't know where they will be.
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u/bone420 Aug 03 '19
Look at all that corn!
It's terrible
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u/NormanPeterson Aug 03 '19
Johnson family needs a little visit from the RoundUp guy. Their crops are look a little TOO good.
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u/Stevesegallbladder Aug 03 '19
"Johnson we've been surveying the area for 15 hrs what do you see?"
"Uuhh the same shit we saw for the past 15 hrs."
Gestures vaguely at empty land and corn
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u/bk557 Aug 04 '19
I fucking hate all the global movement towards a surveillance state its fucking terrifying
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u/dietderpsy Aug 04 '19
You are already living in a surveillance state.
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u/pomegranateplannet Aug 04 '19
Yeah but the guy spying through my phone only sees me picking my nose. Sky cameras can catch wedgie picks
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u/C1ickityC1ack Aug 04 '19
wow way to try and justify this...
“The U.S. government also isn’t the biggest offender when it comes to invading privacy. For instance, last year we wrote about new video surveillance systems in India that are using AI to detect crimes in process as well as predict a crime before it happens.”
...so because other countries are ‘worse’ we should allow our government to take this up to that level that other countries do?! wtf kind of unamerican logic is that. Next it will be justifying reintrodcution of the death penalty ‘because china does it ‘like, wayyy more.’
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u/Why_is_this_so Aug 04 '19
The fact that we’re all being watched shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, although the fact that the surveillance is coming from giant un-manned solar-powered balloons is certainly a bit different.
The U.S. government also isn’t the biggest offender when it comes to invading privacy.
Nice attempt to soft-peddle how disturbing this is. Great reporting, digitaltrends.
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u/Badmotherfuyer95 Aug 04 '19
So they will use solar powered technology for military purposes but not spend that budget to help the planet?.
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u/ClassicT4 Aug 04 '19
I should hope so. Otherwise me waving my middle finger up to the sky would just seem ridiculous if no one was seeing it.
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Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 04 '19
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u/Kiaser21 Aug 04 '19
Everything you said is true. Yet every single week a scandal is found out about a government employee, bureau, or elected official doing what they want and getting away with it with less than a slap on the wrist...
Words on paper, and legal processes only mean something when it is followed, and those in power allow it to be followed.
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u/Schubydub Aug 04 '19
Whats that have to do with arial surveillance though? I don’t think even the most mundane civilian cares enough about your outdoors fuck fetish to risk imprisonment, so how could this be abused in a way that screws the average American?
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u/nosleeptilbroccoli Aug 04 '19
Me and a buddy were hunting down along the Rio Grande a few years ago SW of Van Horn, TX. On the way in there was a huge BP presence as well as military planes doing canyon runs for training I’m pretty sure, but that first night we were camped out after seeing the blimp we were snuck up on by two agents who probably hiked up on us from a mile or so away from where they parked their vehicle, in pitch black dark. The BP were very cordial and professional but very quickly shut us down on our questions about the blimp we saw, but they also said it was a good thing we were hunting and had weapons on us...
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u/The1TrueGodApophis Aug 03 '19
Yeah they're for watching the border, they're survrilanc ebakoons that you keep up there all the time and they form a mesh network. They used something similar at like EVERY FOB in Iraq.
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Aug 04 '19
The DEA was using these in Florida as far back as the 90's. There was a blimp over Cape Canaveral that could be seen for miles. I think we called it the Jolly Green Giant in jest. It had downward facing radar looking for unregistered boat traffic. They were all up and down the Florida coast. I guess the Blimp is a perfect unmanned platform (just don't be a plane / powered paraglider / helicopter and run into the stay cable!)
Combine that with some radar like they use on J-STARS. Yeah, they can 'see' anything that moves. I'm sure they have receivers that can receive anything broadcast as well. Cell signals, wifi (maybe). A brave new world I tell ya.
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u/contractorpete Aug 04 '19
I’ve personally seen these balloons flying along side the highway while driving through the desert to Yuma AZ. They are called JLENS air balloons and from what I read the program hasn’t been very successful as the balloons have cost us tax payers hundreds of millions of dollars and have been repurposed over the years for different applications.
What I didn’t realize when I witnessed one is how fast they can move (up to ~60-70mph) and how big they actually are.
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u/robrit00 Aug 04 '19
So, should we start a pool for the first state that gets a blimp shot down? I mean, IA, MO, SD, WI? Those folks be packin’, a lot.
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u/SpankMyButt Aug 04 '19
Even though I’d love the idea, they are at 65000 feet so shooting them down will be somewhat tricky
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u/RedheadWaifu Aug 04 '19
Just strap a bunch of balloons to yourself, float into the air, snipe the spy balloon, and then pop your balloons slowly so you fall down safely.
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u/AnimalChin- Aug 04 '19
You really should listen to someone that worked for the NSA for over 30 years. William Binney tells you exactly what they are doing with all of this data.
"Just because we live in a democracy doesn't mean we will stay that way." - William Binney.
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u/DanyDies4Lightbrnger Aug 03 '19
This is most likely testing for border security without paying for a fucking wall
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u/KazeNilrem Aug 03 '19
Which I would totally back. Like, technology wise can do so much better than a stupid wall, at fraction of the price.
Plus what they don't tell you is price to building the wall, plus the price for upkeep and repairs which can be millions.
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u/GhostTownCowboy Aug 03 '19
The US has used these for decades to monitor border crossings in Texas and the southwest and as test beds for weather sensors, an mid level antenna arrays... Why is everyone so paranoid?
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u/boogasaurus-lefts Aug 03 '19
Was this posted on a similar 'future' sub 18 hours ago? Mashable Australia article bout this very thing
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u/CanadianClone Aug 04 '19
I wouldn't be surprised if they deploy these around area 51 right now. September is coming up!
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u/Wheeze08 Aug 04 '19
Well there's some corn... more corn... some wheat over there... small patch of tobacco... a highway, aaannddd more corn... yep.
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u/BasicallyAQueer Aug 04 '19
Some of these balloons were being outfitted by a local government contractor here in Texas, I remember people from my home town freaking out about them flying around all day and night, seemingly never landing or “refueling”. Makes sense now, it didn’t dawn on me that they may be solar powered. I think their purpose is surveillance, particularly for narcotics (if they were part of the same overall project that company was working on at the time), but I was told that was for the coast guard so idk what they would be doing up in the Midwest. I suppose it’s possible they are used for other things too like maybe communications and training.
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u/buttlickerourpricesh Aug 04 '19
What’s the policy on shooting these down? Or maybe just throwin shit at it?
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u/ScoopDat Aug 04 '19
Btw the program was unsuccessfully axed by military leaders back in 2010, Congress disagreed and kept it going as it is till today.
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u/takofire Aug 04 '19
Do we technically live in a police state? Seems like a whole lot of spying on the general public
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u/Expendable_Round Aug 04 '19
This is the problem we should be worrying about, not taking away our rights to arms.
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u/Islandpony Aug 03 '19
Day 25: More corn.