This is some BREAKING NEWS if ever there was any and I sure am glad we pay these guys the big bucks to do our thinking for us. We might have screwed up and gone with what our lying eyes told us.

Chinese spy balloon carried antennas, other intel materials: report https://t.co/lYJzeAwcop pic.twitter.com/1vFqtusg9s

— New York Post (@nypost) February 9, 2023

There’s even an anonymous tip from an inside source who speaks the unspeakable.

China’s military was involved. Whoda thunk?

Honestly, they couldn’t even keep their stories straight from the beginning, so you knew dang well they knew what it was. Here’s ABC News that first night the story broke and all he can say is “Chinese spy balloon” over and over.

Biden, his administration, and the geniuses in the Pentagon poopooed the entire episode, giving increasingly pissed-off Americans whiplash with their contradictory explanations for both the balloon and their distressing lack of any action regarding the intrusion.

Now that all the excitement’s over and the thing got its feet wet, we can all pretend what was obvious from the beginning is a great surprise now that the government has its hands on it.

The dangly things we all saw in the still photos and videos were – quelle surprise – “surveillance” gear all along.

The Chinese balloon that crossed the U.S. was outfitted with antennas likely capable of collecting communications, a senior State Department official said Thursday, adding that the Biden administration is preparing to take action against China’s surveillance program.

Providing details the U.S. has gathered since tracking and shooting down the balloon, the official said the balloon was also equipped with large solar panels capable of powering an array of intelligence-collection sensors. The manufacturer of the balloon has a direct relationship with the Chinese military, the official added.

The new details come as intelligence, military and diplomatic officials prepared to brief members of the House and Senate Thursday about the Chinese balloon downed last week.

Well, knock me over with a feather.

…During the balloon’s eight-day passage across North America, the State Department official said, the U.S. used high-altitude U-2 aircraft to gather information about the craft. The U.S. is also examining debris from the craft pulled from the coastal waters off South Carolina.

I love that thinking, don’t you? It’s so much more efficient and better for national security to have a spy balloon hover at will over any U.S. sensitive site it chooses. All the better so we can launch U-2s to fly close and take pictures of it.

It’s not like they weren’t being careful on the deck. I heard an Air Force general the other day say they had all the doors closed at the missile installations and told people not to “walk around” while the balloon was overhead. I mean, these AirForce types are very security minded – they don’t mess around.

AIRMEN ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO CLOSE THE DOORS AND PULL THE SHADES

Oh, top-notch.

And it took letting it float the whole way across the country over every secure site it could cover to make sure they were trying to spy with those dangly wire thingees.

Yup.

— tree hugging s*ster 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) February 9, 2023

Some new age standard protocol, I’m assuming, is that it’s much easier to determine what sort of equipment any particular enemy vehicle is carrying once it’s been sunk to the bottom of the ocean and retrieved from the saline, watery depths because? By George – you already have beautiful pictures of it from your expensive spy planes. Water intrusion destroying any of the electronics must have been less of a concern than the possible bumping they would take along a Montana treeline/alpine meadow had they shot it down immediately (As I admit, all of us bloodthirsty nationalist China-haters wanted them to do.).

But that’s the periphery sort of thing these cooler-headed professionals are paid to think of and we of the knuckle-dragging class need to remember when we get all heated with “Who the hay-yull do the Chinese think they are/SHOOT IT DOWN?” fervor.

BREAKING: The Biden administration just said the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by US jets on Saturday was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring US communications. Seems data was being transmitted to China in real time then! Your reaction pic.twitter.com/yieyl9yPdc

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 9, 2023

SkyNews had an interesting factoid about shooting balloons down. It seems in 1998 there had been a meteorological one running amok in the Canadian Arctic that they riddled with over 1000 rounds. And it wouldn’t die. They’re tough buggers, but they have to be to handle the weather. Using a Sidewinder on this one was expensive but probably the right call.

In what was probably the only nice thing about the entire episode, the flight leader’s call sign who did so was “Frank 1.” It was a lovely tribute.

…While downing a balloon is an unlikely kill in the 21st century, the call signs used by those jets, as well as a second pair of F-22s, were a nod to an American fighter ace who made his name doing just that during World War I

That ace was 2nd Lt. Frank Luke Jr., the so-called “Arizona Balloon Buster” and the first U.S. Army Air Service airman to receive the Medal of Honor who earned his nickname by shooting down 14 German observation balloons over France in less than three weeks.

“The call sign of the first flight was Frank01. The second flight of F-22s was Luke01,” said Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of United States Northern Command on Monday. “Frank Luke, Medal of Honor winner in World War I for his activities that he conducted against observation balloons. So, how fitting is it that Frank01 took down this balloon in sovereign airspace of the United States of America within our territorial waters.”

So, here we are, defenseless and feckless. I’d love to say it’s comforting that our dementia-addled figurehead has his balloon-busting act together should we ever suffer another incursion.

But in classic Biden fashion…he’s shooting down the wrong ones.

Biden shot down the Border Patrol’s balloons faster than Communist China's…https://t.co/uJwEOrY0gH

— Rep. Tom Tiffany (@RepTiffany) February 9, 2023

Quelle surprise.

Just shoot me.