This sounds like a weird cope though. This is exactly what I expect the media to say if it actually was spy balloon that managed to acquire some top secret intel.
Extremely secure government confident in its legitimacy
Xi Jinping was reached for comment: "These burgers think I need a balloon? Motherfucker I can go on google maps and see your damn swimming pool in HD!" 
WHO
I like how the image captions still refer to the balloon as "possibly on an espionage mission" and "the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon" lmao
It becomes more clear when you remember that this isn’t the first time the US spent millions of military dollars to fire at unknown objects in the sky
The difference is that Battle of LA is a lot more intense, maybe justified, and spooky which makes it more interesting.
thats what THEY WANT YOU TO THINK
Next time, if such incident goes again, I will buy fucking 99 harmless balloons, humming to this beat, and lead them towards the Pentagon.
It's not a spy balloon. But what if it was? 
called it
Who would have thought a balloon is not useful for spying. You have little to no control over its direction, it isn't discrete, and most silly of all, why use that when you have satellites?
I guess the US was outwitted by a balloon after spending billions of dollars on cutting edge spy planes and powerful satellite cameras.
Of course they still don't see a difference between scientific sensors and spying equipment.
woaow what a suuuuurprise! 
I don't care what it was. Keep your cheap balloons out of my air space.
(⌐■_■)
Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.