The Chinese spy balloon spotted over the United States last week sparked interest in a 2013 presentation featuring a former CIA director in which he and other experts discussed the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event that would wreak havoc on the country.
"On July 29th, 2013 in Washington D.C., President Bill Clinton’s former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, led a panel discussion on the growing — and perhaps imminent — threat of a natural or nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to the U.S. electric grid and other critical infrastructures that sustain modern civilization and the lives of millions of Americans," noted Infowars in a post featuring the video.
"The event was sponsored by the newly established EMP Coalition, of which Woolsey was the Honorary Co-Chair along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich," the post noted further.
In the video, the various experts discussed how a nuclear EMP attack could be carried out, and one of the possibilities was by stealth rather than a nuclear-tipped ICBM -- and balloons are very stealthy. And late last week, the Washington Examiner reported that they could be used to ferry an EMP device over the U.S. to be detonated during a time of war, or possibly to start a war.
"High-altitude balloons, such as the one China has floated over mountain state military bases this week, are considered a key 'delivery platform' for secret nuclear strikes on America’s electric grid, according to intelligence officials," the report began. "Spy balloons, used by Japan to drop bombs during World War II, are now far more sophisticated, can fly at up to 200,000 feet, evade detection, and can carry a small nuclear bomb that, if exploded in the atmosphere, would shut down the grid and wipe out electronics in a many-state-wide area."
The report noted that two years after the event hosted by Woolsey, Air Force Maj. David Stuckenberg authored a report for the American Leadership & Policy Foundation that discussed exclusively the potential for high-altitude balloons to carry nuclear-tipped bombs and how they present a unique threat to U.S. national security.
"Can a state, pseudo-state or non-state actor(s) deliver Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)/Weapons of Mass Effect (WME) to strategically impact America’s infrastructure absent employment of Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched Ballistic Missiles (SBLM), or other conventional means? The answer is 'yes.'" he noted in the report.
"Thus, the feasibility of using novel delivery platforms to achieve offensive capabilities against the United States should be examined and understood by the emergency management and national security communities," the report went on.
"If a nuclear warhead were detonated at a height of 200 miles above the U.S., according to the National Technical Information Service: 'For an explosion of high yield at sufficient altitude, the area covered by the high-frequency EMP extends in all directions on the ground as far as line-of-sight above the center of the United States, almost the whole country as well as parts of Canada and Mexico could be affected by the EMP,'" the report noted further. "The EMP would devastate most of the critical infrastructure located within the deposition area."
It's not clear how large the nuclear warhead would have to be to cause that kind of extensive damage.
Stuckenberg mentioned three different types of craft that could be used for this purpose: Commercial or experimental aircraft, drones, and balloons, the latter of which are "the easiest to resource, equip, and launch is also the least understood."
Interestingly, a report published on Monday claimed that the Chinese balloon the U.S. shot down off the coast of South Carolina was carrying explosives. Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck told reporters "that the balloon carried explosives to destroy itself, was 200 feet tall, weighed thousands of pounds, and its payload was the size of a jetliner."
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