Tensions are high right now between the United States and China, and the latest news won’t exactly do anything to calm things down.
This week, a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted hovering over the western United States, primarily in Montana, which just so happens to be where one of the country’s three nuclear missile silo fields are located, at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
The balloon – hovering at 60,000 feet and is roughly the size of two or three buses – is carrying sensors and other equipment, so it’s clearly here to gain intel on the United States… right?
What exactly it’s looking to obtain is unclear, but the balloon is certainly raising alarm bells over at the Pentagon (as potentially dangerous balloons from other countries have done in the past).
You might be asking, “Well, why doesn’t the military just shoot the balloon down?” It’s true that F-22s stand ready to do just that, but no action has been taken against the balloon out of an abundance of caution to the people below. There’s just no telling what would happen to the balloon’s debris as it comes back down to earth.
And this might just be the conspiracy theorist in me talking, but one wonders if the military is cautious to destroy the balloon out of a fear of what might be unleashed out of it. For all we know, the Chinese government has a bioweapon just hovering about the country right now, daring us to shoot it down and spread a plague among the populace as some form of 21st century warfare.
I hope it’s clear I’m being facetious, but as you might imagine, this is a real talking point right now over on Fox News:
China’s Foreign Ministry did release a statement confirming that the balloon originated in China, but according to them, it’s a weather balloon that simply drifted off course.
That is very likely the real answer to all of this, but thanks for indulging me as I went down that completely unfounded rabbit hole anyway.
Recent Updates on the Chinese Spy Balloon
The balloon continues to move eastward, according to Pentagon officials, and as of Friday, it sits over the center of the continental United States.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was actually supposed to head to China this weekend but his trip to Beijing has been postponed because of the situation. Blinken was making the trip as an attempt for the countries to try and find at least some common ground somewhere; for now, that will have to wait.
