Nobody could have predicted this. I have my doubts even when they call it “spying equipment” or whatever considering Chinese claim it was a meteorological balloon, certainly no doubt they would try to paint those tools as such.
And in the immense wave of paranoia afterwards they shot down three American weather balloons at the cost of 400k per missile plus fuel and maintenance and man hours.
Not sure which balloon she’s referring to, but I imagine it’s the one from the Illinois bottle cap and balloon club (or whatever it’s actually called, they took the name lovingly from the movie Up). No one ever explicitly confirmed that’s the balloon that got got… but literally every piece of evidence points to one of them being theirs. Hobbyist balloon club, so at least no weather data was destroyed!
