"Reported" objects. On a complex radar system which has filters in the process of being re-tuned, because of concern things have been missed but now, there are more false positives: radar is complicated and weather, dust, floating metallised party balloons, insects, migrating birds can generate signals.
Yeah, it's a big distraction from other, non-balloon important world events that we should be focusing on, of which there are many. These balloons taking over the news cycle for days on end eats into peoples precious attention spans. Suddenly balloons are the hottest thing to focus on right now though.
I feel like we have a couple of weird but completely plausible events involving balloons. And now everyone is thinking about it, so people start noticing it more.
Isn’t this a well-studied behaviour? X happens and suddenly lots of people are calling in about X.
I don’t understand what’s so interesting about a spy balloon anyway. Doesn’t China already have satellites in orbit able to take high resolution pictures anywhere in the country anyway?
about the balloons themselves? Nothing. But how the US responds, how much they tolerate, that's all important signals. A lot of geopolitical competition is about poking and seeing what you can get away with.
A balloon 60k+ feet above my house? Yes no big deal. Not like they will see anything better than they could from the public road, or what's on google maps.
What evidence do we have that these balloons are of terrestrial origin, other than Occam’s razor? It could be Venusians, who have experience building lighter than aircraft for their floating cities. Other than how wildly improbable it is, the alien theory still makes more sense than the CCP thinking balloon espionage is a pretty neat idea.
There's no released info on the second or third but China acknowledged ownership of the first balloon (as an errant weather balloon) and complained when it was destroyed. Remains of the balloon were recovered and the Chinese companies that built the balloon were identified. None of that behavior is consistent with a Venusian origin.