Activists Deliver Pro-Freedom Literature To North Korea By Balloon

(PatriotPostNews.com) — For decades, volunteer groups have been sending small balloons across the demilitarized zone into North Korea from South Korea. The balloons generally contain messages associated with freedom or show what life is like outside North Korea.

For a time, the South Korean Government sent similar pro-freedom balloons across the border. In retaliation, North Korea once sent over more than 1,000 balloons containing garbage and animal waste. South Korea banned the sending of balloons in 2020, but the ban was later ruled to be in violation of the South Korean right to freedom of speech and was overturned. The DMZ dividing the two nations is less than three miles wide, facilitating the easy exchange of balloons.

North and South Korea agreed to an armistice in 1953, but are technically still at war.

One secretive group of South Korean volunteers has developed smart balloons. The balloons use 3D components and GPS altimeters to gauge when and where to drop their payload. Some balloons contain speakers that play messages mocking the North Korean dictatorship. The goal of these new smart balloons is to disperse messages more efficiently and get the balloons further inside North Korea.

Standard balloons would be released in massive numbers, but only a small percentage would reach the interior of the country. The new smart altimeter system allows the balloons a level of self-guidance, namely the ability to descend or parachute down to maintain altitude. The correction in altitude has allowed balloons to break previous records.

However, because North Korea is cut off from the rest of the world, it can only be inferred that North Koreans are receiving the balloon messages. Reactions from the North Korean government suggest that the balloons are having an effect. The garbage balloons were an obvious indicator, however, reports say that North Korean officials have recently ordered citizens to keep away from the balloons, and have described the balloons as disease-ridden “alien things.”