Four White Balloons And A Promising Atmosphere

                                        

On Friday, February 10th, a car-sized object was shot down in the space between the US-Canadian border, north of Alaska. The object was presumed to be shot down right inside the Radar Identification Zone. The following day, another object was shot down over the Canadian Yukon. Finally, on February 12, another object was shot down over Lake Huron. This series of events is unprecedented. Never before has there been such a violation of US and Canadian airspace without the government identifying who the culprit is. Obviously, as soon as the news broke that some “unidentified flying object” was shot down, people all across the internet ran to suspect it was an alien spacecraft! In fact, the first report people got from John Kirby was that the object was “cylindrical” and “silver.” It almost seemed too obvious; it must be an alien invasion. But it couldn’t be. These objects were at the will of the winds; they were not moving at absurd speeds as other UAPs have been reported doing so. If aliens really wanted to invade us, why would they send slow-moving floating objects? This news also comes a week after China flew a spy balloon over the US. Could it be another one of China’s spy balloons?

The answer is probably not. From what has been shared, the balloons did not have a payload. What would be the point of a spy balloon if there was no recording equipment onboard? Maybe it could be China testing out the endpoints of different launch locations of spy balloons. Honestly, we don’t know. China has no reason to do this after getting caught the first time; it would only make the situation worse for them. Furthermore, China has also reported flying objects violating their airspace, and they blame the US for trying to spy back on them. So it seems like either this is their version of an elaborate cover-up, or this is not of China’s doing.

People would like to imagine that the governments would be able to find the wreckage of these balloons and therefore identify them. But it hasn’t been that easy. If they turn out to be alien spacecraft, chances are, the US is not going to share that information with any news station. Also, getting to the crashed craft is not an easy task; the first craft was shot down over a frozen ocean. Keep in mind that because of the time of year, it is permanently dark up that far north. The other was shot down in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon. Both these places are not easy to get to. As China begins to accuse the US of sending balloons into its territory, it seems more and more likely that they were the culprit for these shootdowns. They accuse the US in retaliation for shooting down their balloons. Just today, they began making outlandish claims that the US sends balloons over China all the time. If it is China, it would be an easy way for them to test out our defense systems and waste some of our money by making us shoot these objects down.

The atmosphere is made up of a number of “layers,” but the one I want to focus on is what meteorologists call the troposphere. This is the layer of the atmosphere from sea level to about 18 km. Nearly every flying plane does not go above this level. Even the most modern and advanced jet planes do not go higher than this altitude, which means that any objects that can fly there have an unprecedented advantage over lower-flying objects. Warfare in the upper troposphere is still relatively unresearched. Control over the upper parts of our atmosphere is specifically important because nearly every search radar or radio-guided/feed object hits the troposphere with their radio waves, which get reflected back down to earth. Planes that can fly at high altitudes or even higher altitudes are relatively uncontested by enemy fighters. Perhaps only the best interceptors would be able to contest them at this altitude. In the future, we may see research on stealth technology carried over into the ionization of air in the upper troposphere where radio waves refract. With enough power, a plane could be mounted with tiny but powerful lasers that ionize the air around them, distorting or bending any radio waves that come near it, making it virtually invisible to traditional radar. This technology could also be used to jam radio transmissions from an enemy contingent and to amplify the range of a radio signal. The balloon mentioned earlier was floating in the upper troposphere.

The problem with changing the refraction of a radio wave in the troposphere is that it also depends on the weather and the electrical charge of the air around it. A year-long study at Johns Hopkins University showed that in a wet environment (in terms of water vapor content), radio waves reflect at a greater degree than in a dry environment. But a dry environment had more consistent end results for the radio wave. Meaning that in a dry environment, radio waves would have a tighter spread, while in a wet environment, radio waves would have a much looser spread. This is important when considering the practical applications of refraction in the troposphere. When designing a stealth application, a wet environment for the light to refract would probably be preferable because the larger the refraction of radio waves, the more stealthy the plane becomes. When amplifying a radio signal, a dry environment would be better for reducing the refraction level of the radio waves and therefore improving the signal. Control of the environment surrounding an object is possible, but it would be very expensive and power-hungry. The most possible refractivity would theoretically be at sea level, but few radar arrays or radio channels broadcast or receive at this altitude.

Over-the-horizon radar systems are one kind of system that could benefit from the applications of this refraction, specifically skywave systems, which currently use the ionosphere to refract their radio waves and cover a larger area. These radio waves currently fall between about 3-30 MHz, which is in the high-frequency part of the electromagnetic spectrum. But some radar looking to exceed longer range will broadcast below 3 MHz However, at this frequency, the variability in results and the effects of the weather and atmosphere on the radio band are too severe for any serious modern-day application. The U.S navy submarine communication system operates around this frequency. In the future of stealth technology, an extremely practical application for tropospheric refractivity would be to increase the resolution of low-frequency radar or extend the range of high-frequency radar or radio communications. Refraction would also make it more difficult for stealth aircraft designers. Refractivity would effectively change the angle at which the plane is being detected. This would have design-based consequences, and the angling on certain planes may have to be completely rethought. This brings us back to the topic of balloons and specifically how balloons could be used to refract radar detection. Balloons made of certain materials that absorb or scatter radar waves could reduce the radar signature of aircraft and themselves. So it is important to reconcile the connection between this promising new area of exploration and the current geopolitical risks that come with it.

The choice not to recover the balloons is interesting. Perhaps they were certain that these balloons were of no interest and not worth the effort. A group of amateur balloon enthusiasts have come out and claimed that the balloon shot down over Alaska was theirs. So, if this is true, it would explain why recovery is pointless. Although, the rapid shootdown of all these balloons without deciding to recover a single one demonstrates the tension between the United States and China at this moment in time.