John covered this story yesterday when it first broke, but more details (if you wish to generously call them that) have emerged since then. We’re talking about the alleged Chinese spy balloon that was observed and photographed over Canada before moving south and flying over Montana. And now we’re getting reports that Canada has spotted a second balloon heading our way.

🚨 BREAKING: Canada has detected a second Chinese spy balloon that is heading toward the United States. pic.twitter.com/efIYZh48FA

— Upward News (@UpwardNewsHQ) February 3, 2023

Assuming they actually are Chinese surveillance systems (which we have little reason to doubt thus far), this was a very provocative and almost certainly deliberate act by Beijing during a time when tensions between China and the United States are already near the boiling point. China has delivered a statement in response to these reports, but it’s barely worth wasting our time on. Their Foreign Ministry said they are “looking into it.” (Associated Press)

China said Friday it was looking into reports that a Chinese spy satellite has been flying in U.S. airspace and urged calm.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also said she had no information about whether a planned trip to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would proceed next week as scheduled.

“China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international laws, and China has no intention to violate the territory and airspace of any sovereign countries. As for the balloon, as I’ve mentioned just now, we are looking into and verifying the situation and hope that both sides can handle this together calmly and carefully,” Mao said at a daily briefing.

Much like too many stories that have cropped up lately, with Tyre Nichols being only one example, everything we’re being told thus far makes no sense whatsoever. Feel free to call me a conspiracy theorist (though you may need to take a number and stand in line), but there’s got to be more going on here than what we’re hearing.

First of all, China is saying they have “no intention to violate the territory and airspace of any sovereign countries.” So they’re implying that one of their surveillance balloons just accidentally got loose and drifted halfway around the globe and over a state where some of our nuclear silos are located? Nonsense. We all know enough about drift and global weather patterns at this point to control the flight of balloons pretty well.

And then there’s the response from the Pentagon. We’re being told they “considered shooting it down but opted not to out of fear the debris could cause injuries.” Really? It’s a balloon. And it was over Montana. How much damage was it going to cause aside from maybe hitting a couple of elk? Yes, the first balloon was reportedly the size of three buses and had some sort of technology suite attached to it, but there’s only so much of an impact it could make. If we don’t know how to conduct a controlled deflation and descent of a balloon by now, we probably shouldn’t be trusted with jet planes. Reports this morning are saying that Joe Biden himself made the decision not to bring it down. Why? Was he afraid of provoking Beijing?

And why would China bother sending balloons that are so easily spotted? They have spy satellites just like we do, if not even better ones. They cross over our country on an hourly basis with cameras that can read the license plate numbers on cars. We do the same to them. Pretty much every advanced country is spying on everyone else. Also, it’s been pretty well established that the Chinese have developed fleets of small drones with tremendous range and capabilities. Those drones are being blamed for some naval UFO sightings. The balloons are redundant.

John offered one of the few decent explanations for this puzzle last night. China could be engaged in a deliberate act of provocation just to test us and see how we would respond. He also predicted that they might do it again with two balloons. It looks like that’s already happened. If he’s correct, then China is probably taking a significant message away from these events. If we won’t respond and shoot down something in our own airspace that is potentially flying over Malmstrom Air Force Base, we’re probably not going to go to Code Red if China invades Taiwan.

Put this balloon incident in context with everything we’ve got going on with the Russians in Ukraine at the moment. We seem to be edging closer and closer to a war with one or both of the other two largest nuclear powers on the planet. Is everyone really okay with that? America must always remain ready to fight to defend our nation if required, but diplomacy is always preferable to missiles when possible. The situation is getting out of control and the people we pay to go to Washington and supposedly serve our interests need to step up to the plate here.

UPDATE: (Jazz) For what it’s worth, China is claiming that the balloon is a “civilian airship” used for “weather research” and that it apologizes for it “blowing off course.”  Anyone buying that?