[wfvr]

> Most UFO sightings are completely banal things that are not recognized at the time, like camera artifacts and (unironically) atmospheric phenomena.

Completely agree, but in this case it was not a balloon. When asked specifically if these objects were balloons, a US general said no and that "we are calling them objects for a reason" (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-milita...). K9YO-15, the supposed missing balloon, eventually turned up and pinged again in late February and then March, weeks after the shooting down of those objects, as seen here: https://aprs.fi/info/a/K9YO-15

The weird thing with the three other objects besides the Chinese spy balloon we all saw pictures of, is that not a single image of the other objects was released. They were also shot down in known locations, but no debris at all were supposedly found. A few days after the first time ever that F22's shot down stuff over the continental US, the whole thing was buried, never mentioned again, and everyone was left thinking that they were all Chinese spy balloons, like the first one that was very publicly shot down.