{"id":1454,"date":"2023-02-12T21:58:01","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T19:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2023-02-12T21:58:01","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T19:58:01","slug":"that-was-the-week-that-was-06-10-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1454","title":{"rendered":"That Was The Week That Was 06-10 February"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Ballooning Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to make of the increasing number of balloons arriving over north America?  The first one, 30 stories high and with obvious banks of data collection equipment was felt to be sinister, and thus probably Chinese.  The more recent ones are not marked, have no apparent data collection equipment, are smaller and lower and are thus harder to phantom.  We induced that the first one in this series being Chinese these must be Chinese too.  But what if they are not? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several options arise.\u00a0 Option 1, and frankly the best one, is that we are watching extra-terrestrials attempt to make contact, or to learn more before making contact.\u00a0 If true, we might want to think again before shooting them down pre-emptively.\u00a0 They might be coming in peace but leaving them in pieces is not sending a welcoming message. \u00a0The extra-terrestrials might merely be trying to scope out a landing that would not cause mass panic, a-la Orson Welles and his broadcast of H.G. Wells, \u00a0War of the Worlds<\/a>.\u00a0 The wide-open spaces of the ever-welcoming Canadians is a good first port of call.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In support of this theory is that the balloons are white.  All clever, paying attention, extra-terrestrials would have learnt in the 1980s that sending 99 Red Balloons<\/a> would be a disaster.  It would mean 99 jet fighter pilots, thinking they were Captain Kirk, which would make matters much worse.  It might be that NENA\u2019s warning song has only just now made it to the however many lightyears away they are, so after a quick meeting the red balloons that they had planned on using were put back in storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Option 1A is that whilst the balloons are from outer space, the first one, the largest one, with the data gathering equipment, was in fact Chinese, and its appearance a mere coincidence, a red herring.  That is what a novelist would do.  As an aside, what data are the Chinese (if in fact it is they) collecting that a quick scan of TikTok could not gather?  Maybe mission control is looking for the last houses in the USA that are not TikTok subscribers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Option 2 might be that come in peace, or more accurately, in peaceful commerce.  They are here to sell us Sustainable Aviation Fuel.  These are not hot air balloons, they are huge cannisters holding the start of the first shipment of SAFs to save aviation, being sent to us by the Montgoflier Brothers<\/a> of another galaxy.  If they are full of SAFs, and thus sustainable, shooting them down need not mean massive environmental disaster for Canada.  On the downside, we have learnt exactly nothing since 1782.  The first thing that happened after the Montgofliers\u2019 flight was the promulgation of a law prohibiting any flights without permission.  The start of the problem for aviation, right there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Option 3 is that the balloons being white is a cunning feint.  We will think they are coming in peace; we will not scramble the jets; and we will not start a shooting war.  So far so good on that one, but frankly, watch this space.  Whether or not a shooting war starts might be up to Them.  Whoever Them is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Option 4 is that in fact the balloons are terrestrial not extra-terrestrial, and yes, China is the current clubhouse favourite villain.  Other despots and evil regimes are available.  What happens next is hard to predict, but not every option is a good option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might be a matter not of watching this space; but watching Outer Space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Ballooning Crisis What to make of the increasing number of balloons arriving over north America?  The first one, 30 stories high and with obvious banks of data collection equipment was felt to be sinister, and thus probably Chinese.  The more recent ones are not marked, have no apparent data collection equipment, are smaller and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1455,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions\/1455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}