Chinese state-owned television aired footage of a high-altitude balloon dropping hypersonic weapons in 2018.
The stunning footage displays a high-altitude balloon, not dissimilar from the one that traversed over the United States last week, carrying three hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) into high altitude and dropping them for testing.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on the weapons test in September 2018. The footage has since been deleted from Chinese media, but photographs and short clips can still be found online.
In one post from 2018, a twitter user shared footage from Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, which shows the balloon lifting the three HGVs from the ground….