US Could Use Laser to Force Down Chinese Spy Balloon in ‘Semi-Controlled Descent’: Aerospace Specialist

Art Thompson, CEO of Sage Cheshire and president of A2ZFX, stands in front of two model capsules he built for Red Bull Stratos. On Oct. 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner used Thompson’s capsule as a launch pad and broke the sound barrier, reaching Mach 1.25, breaking the record for the highest freefall, largest manned balloon, and highest balloon flight. The famous capsule was featured at the Smithsonian in 2014. Linda KC Reynolds

The United States could bring down the Chinese surveillance balloon currently flying eastward across the country by shooting it with a laser, which would cause it to gradually descend without inflicting serious damage to civilians on the ground, according to an aerospace specialist.

The Defense Department previously ruled out shooting down the balloon, which was first spotted earlier this week in Montana, saying that its size could cause a debris field large enough to harm Americans.

But Art Thompson, CEO of California-based company Sage Cheshire Aerospace which provides stratospheric balloon launching and research services, believes that a “semi-controlled descent” could be a solution. He was previously the technical director of the Red Bull Stratos program, which in 2012 smashed records for the highest-ever skydive, an endeavor that included the world’s largest manned balloon.

By firing a munition or laser weapon, one can put holes in the balloon and force it to vent air.

“Knowing what the weather patterns are, you could probably predict how fast you can get it to vent, in which case it’s semi-controlled. [Then] you can get it to touch down relatively softly, recover the equipment, and try to figure out exactly what this is,” he told The Epoch Times.

“The trick is that it has to be big enough to get the balloon to vent down and start dropping in altitude. But it has to be small enough that it’s not going to just come tumbling down or tear a giant hole out,” causing it to crash, he said.

This action, Thompson believes, would be in the United States’ best interests. “Because once it gets out of our control, you know, we’re never going to know exactly what it was used for.”

The Chinese balloon was first sighted above Montana, a state that houses intercontinental ballistic missile silos, earlier this week. A top Pentagon official said on Friday that the balloon is flying at 60,000 feet (18,300 meters), has the ability to maneuver, and has changed course at some point during its flight, although he wouldn’t specify when.

The Associated Press, citing anonymous officials, reported that the balloon has the size of about three school buses.

Defense Department spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the balloon has a “large payload underneath the surveillance component” and could stay in the United States for several more days as it moves eastward.

A high altitude Chinese balloon floats over Billings, Mont., on Feb. 1, 2023. Larry Mayer/The Billings Gazette via AP

Radio Signals Intelligence

Thompson suspects the balloon’s role has more to do with intercepting radio signals than collecting visual information—such as radio frequencies relating to communication systems or evaluating electromagnetic energy that can allow Beijing to interfere with U.S. communication systems if something were to happen. Satellite footage from Google Earth already provides the Chinese regime with plenty of photographic images of U.S. terrain with high accuracy, he noted.

That said, “they aren’t being very stealthy about it,” because the balloon uses a white shell that reflects a lot of light, making it conspicuous when compared to those made with StratoFilm, which is sheer and less reflective, like “a dry cleaner bag,” he said.

The balloon has most recently been sighted near Kansas City and several other parts of Missouri. A local news report cited a pilot seeing the balloon at an estimated 50,000 feet altitude, but suddenly dropped by 20,000 feet in seconds—a description that surprised Thompson and made him wonder if there’s already a hole in the balloon. Although he later noted that the pilot’s estimate could be inaccurate, as such a dive would mean the balloon is in a freefall, in which case it would have been on the ground by this point.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Kansas City, Missouri, at 12:30 p.m. local time posted photos of the balloon, saying it was visible from their office in Pleasant Hill and the Kansas City metropolitan area.

“We have confirmed that it is not an NWS weather balloon,” it said on Twitter.

The U.S. Air Force received its first high-energy laser weapon that can fit on a tactical fighter jet last June. The U.S. Navy also has ground-based laser systems that can attack targets on air, although Thompson noted that they might not be immediately available to deploy in the area needed for use.

The United States has missed its best opportunity to bring it down, Thompson said. That’d be earlier in the week when it was flying over sparsely-populated areas.

But an alternative, he said, is to wait until the balloon leaves the coast but is still within U.S. territorial waters before shooting it down, and then getting the Coast Guard to retrieve it, which would pose the most minimal amount of civilian damage.