Making anglo North Americans even more paranoid and racist, getting them hyped for a war with China? Distract people from actually terrible things like the poisoned town in Ohio, increasing effects of climate change, our bleak present and even bleaker future? Is China just trolling the US and Canada? Aliens? What is going on lol
My hunch is, everyone knows these are weather balloons. In the past these governments never thought to make a big deal out of it because why the hell would you in the first place. There's probably a whole bunch of science balloons up in the sky at any given moment. Then last week when this balloon showed up in Montana, they decided to make hay from this particular event, without much thinking about the future. But after it became such a massive news story that I think the Biden admin thinks made them look bad, the new unannounced policy among the Defense Dept is to just shoot down anything in the sky they don't know about, even if it's certainly just a weather balloon.
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Wouldn't be the first time...
To provide cover for the train derailment and toxic cloud that formed from it.
I'm sure their science advisors told them. This arctic blast event is a once-in-a-generation event so a lot of scientists are throwing up balloons to get direct observations. They also know this arctic blast event started in China so having a balloon come through is not unexpected at all.