That spooky Chinese spy balloon which drifted across America has people wondering if an EMP attack is in the works. The short answer is “no.” That didn’t stop Newsweek from raising the national anxiety level with a big article about it. It also doesn’t mean China isn’t out to get us.
EMP attack would be serious
An EMP Electro-Magnetic Pulse attack would ruin America’s day and everyone knows it. Newsweek heard some tinfoil hat rumors and decided to track them down. They end up debunking them but you have to read the whole story to get to that conclusion.
They start out with the panic part, describing how “the appearance of an alleged Chinese spy balloon, shot down by the American military in February, has provoked anxiety around national security and the technology China possesses to interfere in the U.S.” That’s true, as far as it goes.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi flat out refused to apologize for the incident when Antony Blinken finally managed to corner him about it, in Munich.
I've seen many posts saying that this's a prelude to something else. Is this an EMP – Electro Magnetic Pulse weapon? – My question is this. Can the size of this device be capable of emitting such a broadcast that would "Fry" electronic/computer equipment from 65K-100K feet up? pic.twitter.com/QG6R5p0ypb
— 🐰 J. M. MONTGOMERY ♏ 11:11 ArmyVet/Author MPA (@MakeTrueMyWish) February 6, 2023
Blinky shouted even louder that “the U.S. wasn’t the only nation to have intercepted Chinese spy balloons.” So what. “Just keep your nose out of Taiwan unless you want it to glow in the dark” Wang Yi replied, per reports. Then, Newsweek started hanging out in 8kun chat rooms and heard the EMP worries.
Newsweek isn’t the only one to stumble on the theory. They say a “tweet posted by Cernovich, on February 4, 2023, viewed more than three million times, included a clip of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Infowars discussing the possibility of China using balloons to deliver EMP devices across the U.S.”
So, now Newsweek is using Alex Jones for a source? Must be a slow day for MSM writers.
A test package
During his clip, Newsweek reports, thereby providing a layer of respectability to the nonsense, “Jones said the spy balloon seen over the U.S., ‘could very easily be an EMP weapon package or a test package to test an EMP attack.‘” It could have been the Easter Bunny, too, but it wasn’t.
Theoretically, China could “detonate them over any targets they want and with a couple dozen of these, you would guarantee knock out everything above ground in the U.S.” The experts who understand these things are still laughing.
First of all, the sort of EMP event Newsweek is talking about involves a nuclear bomb going off in the atmosphere. The higher up the better. The balloon was at 65,000 feet, which isn’t high enough to be effective.
Chinese Spy Balloons Purpose – P5 Even More so, the bigger threat is sending one or more of these high-altitude balloons over the U.S. with a small nuclear EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) device.” pic.twitter.com/LZeTqGu6Ve
— Dominick J Graziano (@DominickJGrazi1) February 13, 2023
Also balloons are slow and a huge target, now that we’re looking. Another problem is that nuclear weapons tend to be heavy. Too heavy for a balloon. Instead, there is a much bigger chance that China could lob a few ICBM’s over to do the job a whole lot quicker, better, and more decisively.
Sure one nuke could wipe out a huge chunk of America’s power grid. You should see what an ordinary single use camera can do to credit cards or RFID tags when you hook the right coil up to them. A nuclear EMP attack “could have a staggering effect on the U.S., even if some electronics have protection against pulsing.”
However, Professor Andrew Futter points out, besides those other technical reasons not to use a balloon to deliver a nuke, “it would be a massive gamble to conduct an EMP attack without also planning for major military and probably nuclear confrontation” in response. Brandeis University’s Dr. Gary Samore agrees. “If China deployed an EMP device against the U.S., it would be delivered by an intercontinental range ballistic missile detonated in outer space over the continental U.S.“
