One of my first thoughts when the Chinese balloon thing happened was that there's going to be hysteria and some high school kids science experiment is going to be taken down.
I don't understand how people always reach for aliens or cloak & dagger stuff when in reality the most likely explanation is that you have some Doctor Strangelove characters running around in the bureaucracy.
I can't say that I saw the over-reaction coming, but it was pretty clear by the third balloon that it was happening. I will say that I already had the thought listening to some of the more hawkish types that I could very easily imagine them screaming, "we must not have a balloon gap!" to some authority or other.
I don't understand how people always reach for aliens or cloak & dagger stuff when in reality the most likely explanation is that you have some Doctor Strangelove characters running around in the bureaucracy.