In 2023, the then-Conservative government awarded Palantir with a £330m contract to “build a new NHS data platform”. The move proved controversial because Palantir is a US spy tech firm and its co-founder Peter Thiel is a prominent Trump donor with links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now, a trove of leaked emails have shone further light on Thiel’s connections.
It’s worse, they sent an F-22 to shoot a 400k USD missile, I bet the balloon’s radar never saw it coming!
It’s way worse, shooting weather balloons make them sound like angels.
https://investigate.info/company/palantir
They provide police state technology currently used by ICE to target immigrants and several US cities police departments use their tech for “predictive policing.” Not to mention they are actively and enthusiastically testing predictive generative AI to plan war crimes and hallucinate targets in the Gaza genocide. Technology they will bring home as “battle tested.”
Also a lot of right-wing government are planning to use the same exact tech to “completely remove homosexuality from society” among others.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-canada-objects-huron-missile-1.6747631
F-16, two missiles, one missed. I think these were the vanguard weather balloons that China sent to test our defenses.
Although to be fair, it looks like more of a giant trash bag.
I don’t know which all aircraft were involved at different points, but there was absolutely a shoot-down by an F-22.
I don’t know anything about this website but it was one of Wikipedia’s sources. I remember seeing the pictures/videos with the F-22 clearly visible, plus the noteworthy stats like being the first f-22 kill, being the first engagement over US territory since WW2, and that it was probably the highest air to air kill.
https://www.twz.com/f-22-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-carolinas-with-missile