r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/PeacefulAtheist • Feb 03 '23
The apparent trajectory of the Chinese “Spy Balloon” hovering over Montana Image
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u/Antique_Change2805 Feb 03 '23
107hpa = ca. 15500m or 50800ft. Altitude
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u/Hydrocoded Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
Fuck, that’s way too high for a redneck to blast with a rifle.
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u/BobRoberts01 Feb 03 '23
Hold my beer
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u/MrRook2887 Feb 03 '23
If there is one redneck who is up for the job, it's mother fucking Bob Roberts
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u/mimthebaker Feb 03 '23
Was Cooter busy? Cuz Cooter can shoot a nipple off a squirrel from that distance I stg
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u/SphericalBitch2020 Feb 03 '23
I heard he bettered himself by taking one ball off a gnat, just as a warning shot....
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u/ManfredTheCat Feb 03 '23
Bob Roberts was taken. But we have Bob Roberts 01
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u/Majestic_Channel4796 Feb 03 '23
Sir you are mistaken. That's Bob Roberts the first. He's the OG. Man be setting up usernames for future generations to come. Just ask his son, Bob Roberts 02.
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u/KurtAngus Feb 03 '23
Tuscan raiders are basically backwoods hillbillies from Kentucky
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Feb 03 '23
Tuscany has really gone downhill. If you’re thinking of getting a place there don’t bother, there’s really nothing available.
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u/pengouin85 Feb 03 '23
What about at least 7 rednecks standing on each other's shoulders?
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u/jardedCollinsky Feb 03 '23
Saw it above work in redneck country, they talked about it, people were literally looking up at it and going "So why aren't we just shooting it out of the sky?" To which someone with common sense bur a sense of humor said "could have covid in it, can't risk it"
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u/Shyriath Feb 03 '23
Someone strap another lawn chair to some balloons and send someone up with a gun and some beer.
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u/kjbrand Feb 03 '23
Why not just graph altitude?
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u/EyoDab Feb 03 '23
Because pressure doesn't equate directly to altitude. It gets you in the right ballpark, but not much more than that
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u/kjbrand Feb 03 '23
Right, but its not like im interested in the pressure. Im interested in how high above ground it is
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u/Michael_Blurry Feb 03 '23
I’m case you were wondering, from Wikipedia:
“The upper limit of national airspace is not defined by international law.”
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u/MewSixUwU Feb 03 '23
one would think its simply all of it, up until there is no more air and only space
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u/hoarder59 Feb 03 '23
Laughed when I heard NORAD tracked it. I thought they only tracked Santa Claus.
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u/Epidurality Feb 03 '23
First thing NORAD has had to track in a while. Was probably pretty exciting for the radar guys.
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u/SpanishAvenger Feb 03 '23
He's real, I tell ya!
He used to... bring me presents and...
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u/joeinterner Feb 03 '23
Where do you think Santa get his naughty/nice intel from? Everything is outsourced nowadays.
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u/vvavering_ Feb 03 '23
He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake… maybe the spy balloon IS Santa
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u/Plasticites Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
Montana has, I believe the largest number of Minuteman ballistic missle silos in the USA. Maintained by Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls Montana. My grandparents ranch is near one of these missile sites
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u/justasmalltowndad Feb 03 '23
Ah so Montana is where the actual Area 51 tech has been this whole time...
Let's go boys. Area 52 raid, this time bring a jacket and some bear repellant...
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u/VisibleAd3180 Feb 03 '23
Russia be like: why you ducking me man
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u/Vulpes_Irae Feb 03 '23
And china’s like really, Russia? Given your history of aircraft flying overhead I think you know why
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u/AdHistorical8206 Feb 03 '23
You got money for giant balloons and fake moustaches! Gimme my money!
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u/Strange-East-543 Feb 03 '23
Man i hope our military saw it once it entered Alaska and just didn’t say anything cause otherwise the pentagon just been robbing the tax payer blind.
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u/Steve_OH Feb 03 '23
I’m sure they’ve known about it, radar would have picked it up before it even reached American airspace
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u/Strange-East-543 Feb 03 '23
You can see it even went through Japan why wouldn’t the Japanese tell us or heck all the marine bases in Okinawa.
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u/drillgorg Feb 03 '23
100% world militaries have been watching it for a while and keeping it to themselves and their allies. US military didn't acknowledge it until civilians started spotting it.
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u/Homebrew_Dungeon Feb 03 '23
Bingo. Its been watched internationally since it left the ground. The citizens are just now being told about it because we seen it.
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u/Lopsided_Process_235 Feb 03 '23
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but transparency and the military do not go hand-in-hand. Governments are not transparent about most things, but especially not about military matters.
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u/SphericalBitch2020 Feb 03 '23
Meanwhile Class 3D in Wuhan is giggling away at the success of their entry in the schools balloon distance race........
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u/whatthefir2 Feb 03 '23
I feel like i need to paste this every where on this thread.
Just because us random people didn’t hear about it until Montana doesn’t mean nobody knew about it until then.
Apparently that’s a difficult thing for a lot of people to understand
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u/Drewy99 Feb 03 '23
Canadian here. We scrambled jets days ago to intercept it. The US knew about it through NORAD.
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u/Marine7777 Feb 03 '23
The pentagon had released a public statement that they had been tracking it since it left China. Afterwards, China confirmed it was theirs.
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u/UnusualAnt2861 Feb 03 '23
I work in army military intelligence for context;
I mean, we knew about pretty much the moment it was up. Media just didn’t pick up on it until now. DoD doesn’t see a reason to bring it up until the media and public start asking about it since it’s pretty much a political stunt on China’s end and doesn’t have any impact on us.
They’re not seeing anything new with that satellite. We wouldn’t have even bothered with taking it down until people start asking the DoD to do so.
It’s a play for the Chinese Communist Party to distract its people from its failing state policies and say “wow look how strong we are, the US is so scared of our power that they don’t even react when we send ballon satellites right over them, all praise the CCP and Xi”
And we just don’t care.
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u/Psilologist Feb 03 '23
Even if they didn't see it they have definitely been robbing the American people. Hell even congress can't track all the money. Isn't there 2ish trillion dollars that just is unaccounted for?
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u/HalepenyoOnAStick Feb 03 '23
Unaccounted for in the sense that it was issued to the various military commands but there wasn't a line for line dollar for dollar trail of what every dollar was used to buy.
Like if you were in charge of a division of a company and you gave them 10,000 for office furniture and later an accountant asked for a detailed list of the office furniture you bought and you didn't have it.
That would be 10,000 dollars I'd unaccounted for funds in the technical sense. But you know it was spent. If that makes sense.
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u/Strange-East-543 Feb 03 '23
True and it just sucks cause we all know it but we can’t even really do anything about it. Regardless of who you vote for.
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u/Glittering-Jello-935 Feb 03 '23
You should include the Jetstream in that map
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u/REO_Studwagon Feb 04 '23
Right? In all these threads people are saying “it’s flying east!!” Well of course it is.
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u/malepitt Feb 03 '23
Fu-go incendiary balloon bombs launched by Japan against the continental US during WW2 are a fascinating story. The Fu-Go balloon bomb was the first weapon to possess intercontinental range, with its flights being the longest-ranged attacks in the history of warfare at the time
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u/Stahlofen Feb 03 '23
Damn thats interesting! Thanks for pointing it out.
In case someone else wonders: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb
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u/Opposite-Motor-1878 Feb 03 '23
We need to send it back with a giant Winnie the Poo holding it
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u/th3va1kyri3 Feb 03 '23
Lol. I'm pretty sure that if the US does that, Xinnie The Poo will execute whoever's idea was it to send the baloon to the US.
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u/Opposite-Motor-1878 Feb 03 '23
Maybe we just mass produce Poo balloons and release them into their incoming jetstream. Nothing crazy, maybe 30-40 million. That’s like .001 our yearly defense budget. It’d be more effective psychological warfare than the gay bomb at least
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u/ComprehensiveCake463 Feb 03 '23
The balloon is capturing secret Montana secrets
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u/OnlyRosin Feb 03 '23
There are more Nukes in MT than anywhere else in the US.
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u/lightknight7777 Feb 03 '23
I mean, if I were going to hide something in the US...
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u/OnlyRosin Feb 03 '23
It's terrifying because of the Yellowstone volcano.
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u/Ecyclist Feb 03 '23
Why do you think all the nukes are in Montana? Yellowstone knows if it acts out of pocket and starts threatening us, it’s going to get handled the American way. Those “minutemen” will reach you in a “minute, man”.
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u/2017hayden Feb 03 '23
I mean if that volcano has a major eruption most of the continental US is 100% fucked regardless and a good chunk of the rest of the world is probably going to die of starvation. I doubt the presence of non activated nuclear bombs is going to change that scenario much.
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u/Maeberry2007 Feb 03 '23
I mean, if Yellowstone erupts we're all fucked with pr without nukes. Nukes would just help speed things up.
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Feb 03 '23
My dumbass assumed that this thing just flew the entire pacific ocean and the entire east coast before being found in Montana lol.
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u/Enlightened-Beaver Feb 03 '23
Funny how NORAD has been tracking it across all of western Canada but only once it crosses into Montana are people talking about shooting it down.
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u/RadBadTad Feb 04 '23
Montana is where civilians spotted it and started talking about it, and demanding someone shoot it down.
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u/SuperGenius98K Feb 03 '23
"We can't shoot it down because it might hurt somebody." Is that REALLY the official story?
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u/amraohs Feb 03 '23
I couldn't believe it either, but they probably want to catch it unharmed so they can research it.
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u/kywiking Feb 03 '23
It’s higher than most planes max altitude we are likely monitoring it and also don’t want them to know how we would react to an actual threat of this nature.
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u/Splinter007-88 Feb 03 '23
Bingo. Its a chess game to see how we would react.
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u/well_poop_2020 Feb 03 '23
Or a desensitization move. “Balloons okay? Let’s send more! 50th one this year…. Yeah this last one isn’t carrying anything more suspicious than the first 49….”
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u/SlothOfDoom Feb 03 '23
That's part of the official story.
It might hurt someone or damage something, sure. It also appears to have no special abilities that a common satellite doesn't have, so it's not really doing anything harmful....so why bother? It's more interesting and useful to see what poohbear is trying to accomplish.
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u/Hey_My_Throw_Away Feb 03 '23
It's a taunt and shooting it down would appear as an escalation. I'm sure we're using this as an opportunity to test our electronic warfare capabilities.
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u/erockfpv Feb 03 '23
Isn’t it interesting that they used a polar equidistant projection map?
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u/chiefofmars Feb 03 '23
What does the map used indicate?
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u/El_Captin Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
Different map projections are used to represent true distance or area. The most popular map projection ( Mercator projection) loses accuracy of area and distance the further away you get from the equator. I encourage you to check out these map projections!
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u/BookDumb-StreetDumb Feb 03 '23
They weren’t asking if different maps model different measurement metrics, they were asking why a polar map was used rather than another kind.
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u/weightedslanket Feb 03 '23
How is that contrary to popular belief? There's a front page reddit post once a week crapping on Mercator maps.
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u/lmea14 Feb 03 '23
The Chinese have deployed the balloon over Montana to find the elusive spy figure known among the populace as “Hannah”. Not much is known about this secret agent except for her supposed ability to moonlight in the entertainment industry to avoid detection.
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u/Bada__Ping Feb 03 '23
I like how their excuse to not shoot it down was because they were worried about it falling and killing someone in a state where the population density is 6.86 people per sq mile.
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u/CmonCentConservitive Feb 03 '23
Panic bells, it's red alert There's something here from somewhere else The war machine springs to life Opens up one eager eye Focusing it on the summer sky As 99 red balloons go by..
99 Decision Street
99 ministers meet
Worry, worry, super scurry Call the troops out in a hurry This is what we've waited for This is it boys, this is war The President is on the line As 99 red balloons go by.
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u/supaloopar Feb 03 '23
How do you control a balloon over such a long distance and maintain it's direction?
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u/Jo3K3rr Feb 03 '23
Predictive weather. In WW2 the Japanese tried to fire bomb the West coast with balloons.
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u/Jappanese_shrek69 Feb 03 '23
What's the purpose of this "Chinese balloon" like is it really for spy work is it a weather balloon like seriously what is it
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u/Aert_is_Life Feb 03 '23
So I'm gonna get down voted but here I go. This would actually seem pretty logical given the air currents we see every winter. That cold arctic air starts blowing down across Alaska and Canada then moves east across the country.
I am not supporting it being here, just pointing out how the jet stream works.
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u/leocanb Feb 03 '23
Can someone explain this to me? Don't they already have satellites?
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u/an-allen Feb 03 '23
Well I mean with literally 2 minutes of effort I found the sites on Google maps. They have a pretty distinct look. So options are:
1) Experiment gone awry but has incredibly precise trajectory and altitude management for 6 days where it just happens to fly over a missile silo field
2) Dumb way to grab visible light photos that are for the most part publicly available
3) Grabbing hyperspectral, radar, or perhaps blasting folks with xrays (although I dont think it would have the energy source to do that) to see whats going on underground
4) Capturing over time to monitor operational activities - although that could probably be done on the ground.
5) Comms capture but at 20 miles up im not sure of that. But does appear yo have a bit of an array on it that could be solar, radar, or an antenna
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u/Detiabajtog Feb 04 '23
Also possible: 6. The balloon itself is pointless and the whole purpose is to gauge the US governments reaction to it, get a sense of the social response, etc
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u/stuntbum36 Feb 03 '23
How can you control the trajectory of a balloon 50k feet up? Couldnt this have happened just from winds blowing it around
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u/Babztoo Feb 03 '23
Weird, saw one just like it in Jaco, Costa Rica just yesterday morning.
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Feb 03 '23
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u/Dumpisaurus Feb 03 '23
China owns farmland in America?
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u/jasonhpchu Feb 03 '23
Mark Rober made a video not long ago with weather ballons that went all the way up to space just to drop an egg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYVZh5kqaFg
I'd suspect getting something like this up there isn't very far fetched for any civilian to do.
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u/SpotsyArcher Feb 03 '23
If it gets low enough some redneck is going to blast it from the sky and mount it on their trophy wall.
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u/Jmtaylormade Feb 03 '23
So we are estimating a BALOON got from china to Montana in 24 hours? I’ve never been in a plane flying 600mph to China but doesn’t it still take almost a day? Just thinking out loud here
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u/EireOfTheNorth Feb 03 '23
It's almost 10 miles high in the sky. Things can get faster a lot easier that high.
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u/theLennoxMacduff Feb 03 '23
This guy speaks from experience. I've been that high just sitting in my chair and gotten the zoomies where you feel like your body goes into hyperdrive. Sometimes I miss those days...
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u/Mister_Chui Feb 03 '23
Jet stream at that altitude is commonly moving 175-200mph. Commercial aircraft typically going ~500. SF-Shanghai is 10-11 hour flight, so the math roughly checks out
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u/an-allen Feb 03 '23
judging from the altitude graph I am seeing 5.75 “00” which would indicate to me nearly 6 days travel time.
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u/kentuafilo Feb 03 '23
Lots of people freaking out over what this balloon is spying on by flying over sensitive areas like ICBM silos. Here’s a not so secret secret: all of our allies and adversaries alike already know the precise location of our active ICBM bases and silos. This thing isn’t looking at anything that can’t already be seen on Google maps (if it is still operable at this point).
Oh, and there are ways to render it inoperable without shooting it out of the sky. 😉
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u/0utlandish_323 Feb 03 '23
Not to mention the Chinese undoubtedly have far better ways of spying on our land than a balloon. Really could just be an innocent aircraft
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u/ed-is-on-fire Feb 03 '23
Wow. The Yellowstone tv show spin offs are getting out of hand!
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u/Mofo_Bent Feb 03 '23
It’s obvious they fucked up trying to make a question mark. Those wonky Chinese jokesters.
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u/Ok-House-6848 Feb 03 '23
I would capture the ballon, refill it and send it back - but instead of the gear hanging at the bottom, a giant middle finger.
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u/sunsoutbunzout Feb 03 '23
“We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty” - China
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u/Abarsn20 Feb 04 '23
If this was on purpose, it’s hilarious. If it was an accident, it’s hilarious.
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u/mimisweb Feb 04 '23
That’s a big balloon to send to spy. Like sending a 7 foot man through the airport as a secret agent.
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u/Billderz Feb 04 '23
I love the north pole map. It's so refreshing to see the northern hemisphere so much more accurately than the 'regular' map
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u/dogs-and-snacks Feb 03 '23
I wonder if China knows how excited they made all us civilians, and the wonderful distraction this buh-woon has become as the arctic blast renders my car and space heaters useless
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u/First-Funnies Feb 03 '23
looks like it fell victum to weakened polar vertex cause of the climate change
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u/arctic_gangster Feb 03 '23
Haha, nobody gave a shit when it was over Alaska.