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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Nia Rodgers: Hey Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
Nia Rodgers: I'm good. How are you?
John Aughenbaugh: I'm good because we get to talk about the weather today.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly. We get to talk to about the weather today. Briefly for folks who are wondering about all the things that are flying over the United States we would like to drop this brief in the news. Literally we're just going to talk a couple of minutes here. It's not aliens, calm down. What it is is that NORAD used to look for things that were miselly like, because NORAD didn't want us to be missiled and we appreciate that. Thank you NORAD for doing your job. We just don't have a Cold War.
John Aughenbaugh: During the Cold War where all different nations have nuclear missiles. We like the fact that there was an agency that was tracking that stuff.
Nia Rodgers: But they were looking for fast moving stuff, they were looking for very specific parameters.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Then the weather balloon happened. The pretend weather balloon that was a spy satellite balloon or was a spy balloon rather that came over from China. They said, "Hey, I wonder if there's other stuff that we haven't noticed." They widened the parameters on their radar and there's all kinds of crap. There's just stuff everywhere. There are stuff over the Yukon, there is stuff over Alaska, there's just stuff everywhere. Because frankly companies put up all low flying things in order to do industrial espionage that has absolutely nothing to do with national espionage. Yes, other nations fly over other countries and do all kinds of espionage stuff and drive up their submarines really close and listen.
John Aughenbaugh: Because they've got really good technology to hear that stuff.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly. What we would like to throw out there in this brief in the news is it's not that there are more objects, it's that we're seeing them.
John Aughenbaugh: We're seeing them. They were recognizing the fact that other nations are doing what we've done for years. Corporations do this stuff.
Nia Rodgers: Individuals may do this stuff depending on the individual and their weirdnesses.
John Aughenbaugh: How much money they have etc, etc.
Nia Rodgers: Then lots of schools put up all kinds of weather balloony things and all kinds of experiments and all kinds of stuff like that. Let's test the atmosphere in this area by doing this thing. Now the United States has decided we're going to shoot down everything which seems a little extreme. But the pendulum swings we didn't even notice those things before to now we are shooting down every single object that enters our airspace and we will come back to an equilibrium of we will shoot down objects that are actually dangerous to us as a nation or to individuals. But we will probably stop just shooting down everything. Because at some point somebody's going to say this seems this is a little oversensitive.
John Aughenbaugh: Well and also too, remember listeners. If we got a whole bunch of balloons and other kinds of aircraft in the skies above any particular nation, that becomes particularly problematic when we also have airplanes full of people.
Nia Rodgers: That's the major problem is that they are in the same airspace. Because of the way the atmosphere works when these things rise up there's only so far they can go and that seems to be in general the same airspace that's used by Boeing 747s carrying 600 people or whatever that is. Not a thing you want to meet in the sky. Because when objects meet in the sky even if you have a little teeny tiny object and a great big object everybody is going to get hurt. That is not going to end well.
John Aughenbaugh: Bad things happen and I notice that's not really scientific but bad thing can really happen.
Nia Rodgers: Insert bad thing happens here. Yes.
John Aughenbaugh: Because if we were writing your script for a movie.
Nia Rodgers: Oh my gosh. Actually if we were writing this script for this particular movie what it would be is that the military would decide they need to take down whatever it is and they would accidentally shoot down a commercial jet while taking down the other thing and then we'd have to do a rescue and it would involve Gerard Butler or Liam Neeson.
John Aughenbaugh: A whole bunch of scenes in the White House situation room.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly. Did we get the object? Oh no, we got the plane. Oh, no and it would be an international incident yada, yada. Well, we've just written the next blockbuster for Hollywood. But what we would like to remind our listeners is, this is not unusual. It's not unusual for things to fly over the United States and now especially with the use of personal drones and all kinds of other things like that. This crowded airspace thing we're going to have to talk about that as a nation and we're going to have to talk about that as legislation. How do we deal with all of that stuff in the same airspace?
John Aughenbaugh: Then we need to go ahead and talk with other nations, get protocols in place. Because I'm pretty sure that the nations of the world can agree that having countries use their military to start shooting things down on a regular basis-
Nia Rodgers: It's a terrible idea.
John Aughenbaugh: Is a terrible idea. Wars have started-
Nia Rodgers: Over less stuff.
John Aughenbaugh: If this actually gets nations starting to talk about what can be sent up and how can they be tracked and who can respond to them, that's probably a good thing. Bottom line for Nia and myself is yes guys, there's a whole bunch of stuff floating up there in the skies some of which we probably weren't all that truly aware but nevertheless aliens are not invading.
Nia Rodgers: Even though some people in defense have refused to say that, which I think they're just yanking your chain. They know it's not alien technology, they're just yanking your chain for fun. They get so little fun in their lives that when reporters call them and say, "Could it have been alien oriented?" They're like, "Well, we don't know." Even though they know dang well it's not alien.
John Aughenbaugh: For me Nia when you see those kinds of statements from the Department of Defense spokesperson it is a cross between let's have a little bit of fun with the reporters/CYA.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly. I want it to be able to cover myself in case it actually was an alien.
John Aughenbaugh: It was an alien.
Nia Rodgers: Anyway.
John Aughenbaugh: Switching gears.
Nia Rodgers: We will be back with our regular episode in just a minute because you're going to hear these released on the same day. We look forward to talking to you more about a real thing that is really happening in the real-world.
John Aughenbaugh: World.
Nia Rodgers: Thanks, Aughie.