How Washington Reacted To The Chinese ‘Spy Balloon’

Late Thursday evening, a huge, mysterious balloon floated over the United Statesapparently across the Pacific Ocean to sensitive airspace in Montana.

On Friday, the Chinese government said the levitating thing was not a spy balloon — fair, to be honest, since the Pentagon said such a plane would have little value for intelligence gathering — but rather a “civilian airship” intended for meteorological research was that was far away. Way, way, incredibly wrong.

“The Chinese side regrets the accidental intrusion of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

President Joe Biden chose not to shoot it down, ostensibly out of concern for local civilians along the way. Canada said it was investigating a “potential second incident”.

Everyone in the nation’s capital was in arms. Click through to see how they freaked out.