For the average American, munching popcorn while watching television, the pictures on the screen appeared to be those of a “strange-looking moon,” while his wife thought it looked “more like a meteor.” They got the shock of their lives when the newsreader said it was a spy balloon that had come all the way from China across Canada to Montana.
After initially being reticent about the balloon — it was a surveillance airship — the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement admitting that “the airship is from China” used for meteorological research. The airship strayed away from its planned course caused by force majeure and entered US airspace, the foreign ministry tried to explain.