All Your Questions About the Chinese Balloon Floating Over Kansas City Answered
SlateThere was a Chinese government balloon floating over Montana on Thursday that now appears to have blown to Kansas City, and it’s causing an old-fashioned international incident in addition to earning five-alarm BREAKING LIVE TRACKER coverage on every cable news network. Late Thursday afternoon, NBC News reported that the U.S. military was tracking a “suspected Chinese surveillance balloon” that had flown into airspace above Billings, Montana, via Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and Canada. Probably not: A Pentagon spokesperson told CNN Friday that the balloon is flying far above commercial airspace, “does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” and “does not present a significant intelligence gathering risk.” While Montana is home to multiple nuclear missile installations, as well as on-location filming of the successful cable show Yellowstone, neither the Pentagon nor the Paramount Network apparently believed that any active measures against the balloon were required. According to an anonymous Pentagon official quoted by NBC, some “defense leaders” proposed shooting down the balloon, but the idea was dismissed because of the risk that falling debris could harm citizens on the ground. Another told ABC News that this has “happened a handful of other times over the past few years,” although this particular balloon drew extra concern because “it is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time this time around.” The nightmarish human-sucking alien entity from the 2022 film Nope looked a lot like a balloon, and it started the movie by “appearing to hang out” over a ranch.