IS IT REAL OR IS IT MEMOREX?

Where are, is, was the Balloon(s)?

The title of this Letter is from an old TV campaign for magnetic tape made by Memorex. Those of who are saying “huh?” can lookup “tape recorder” on Freespoke. Sorry Google, you’re out.

The point of the ad was that when something was recorded using Memorex magnetic tape you couldn’t tell the difference between the recording or the live performance. And that Dear Readers is what the Balloon Boondoggle has reminded of.

Here is the very quick version of The Ballon Ballyhoo.

At the end of January a “ballon”, a REALLY BIG balloon that was steerable and carried some sort of an unknown “payload” entered US airspace over the Aleutian Islands. From there it transversed the US, exiting land somewhere around South Carolina where it was finally shot down by a “heat seeking”(so we were told) missile.

It was not until the balloon was mid-way on its journey that the Biden administration let the People know it was there; even though some had observed with the naked eye. People wanted to know why it hadn’t been shot down. The answer? Fear of civilian casualties — over Alaska, Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska; four of the least populated states in the Nation. The Air Force states that the debris field is about the size of 15 football fields by 15 football fields or 4,500 ft X 4,500 ft or roughly 506 acres; that’s not even big enough to raise cows.

The Chinese told us that it was a matter of happenstance. The balloon was subject to the whims of Mother Nature — then it was revealed that it was steerable. And now the dust-up began in earnest and political hay was made. Sort of.

President Trump quickly asserted that such a thing NEVER happened on his watch. Everyone in his administration who was in a position to know agreed with him including his political adversary, John Bolton. THEN, the leakers started leaking.

“Yes, yes it did happen. Not just once but at least three times.” said the well known Anonymous Source.

Then when the leakers, leaked that the Trump administration didn’t have the intelligence tools to detect a ballon large enough to reach 60,000 feet and carry a payload weighing more than one ton (2,000 lbs) transversing the entire United States. HOWEVER, the Biden administration has new tools that allows them to look back in time and find those balloons. And so did Peabody and Sherman.

There are so many questions that come to mind about this event and this back and forth between Trump and Biden but the very first one that comes to mind is this:

Why did the Biden administration need to develop a tool to look back in time for an event(s) that no one knew had occurred?

This is well beyond the question of a tree falling in the forest. And yes, it does make a sound. Physics is physics.

Did the Trump Intelligence Community (IC) know that this had been happening and just didn’t bother to tell him, because___? They deny knowledge and the Biden administration asserts that the Trump IC wasn’t able to find a balloon the size of this one even if they wanted to. Why? Perhaps they didn’t have Memorex or Peabody and Sherman’s “WABAC” machine.

”Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who serves as commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said that Chinese spy balloons previously went undetected on at least three occasions during the Trump administration.”

Since Gen. VanHerck is currently the Commander of the Joint Staff of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command and held a similar position from 2019 - 2020 clearly during the Trump administration, how does he now know that there were things that he didn’t know existed but that were really there?

Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe General VanHerck has another source of imaging or detection of things in the sky that are visible to the naked eye that wasn’t available during the Trump years that allows him to look back in time. But for now it’s all a very confusing mystery and it NONE OF IT makes any sense; except this:

The Chinese Communist Party felt quite comfortable violating US airspace at will and without consequence.

Union, Kentcuky

7 Feb 2023