This story is so bizarre I'm not quite sure where to even begin.

First, why a balloon? Don't the Chinese have spy satellites? But maybe its not Chinese, maybe N Korean? But if so, why take credit/blame for it?

And why didn't we shoot it down? Maybe we can't. I'm sure we can shoot down stuff that high, but maybe not. We've never had the need to shoot down slow-moving unstealthy objects flying where planes can't operate. And if we can't, we certainly don't want to admit it. The damn thing is way over Jacundaville, the back of beyond. Of course, I'm sure its rigged with explosives so if it fell into our hands it could be detonated, destroying the evidence. Maybe that's what they're afraid of, that its loaded with explosives, shooting it down, even out in the boondocks, might cause damage on the ground. Perhaps they prefer knocking it down at sea, or they're assembling a recovery team. Who knows?

Of course, it gives us a splendid opportunity to vent dramatically, cancel our scheduled meeting with the Chinese, and puff around in a rit of fealoous jage. And why would the Chinese do this just before an important diplomatic meeting? Are they trying to intimidate us? Checking to see if we're paying attention? Trying to determine if we're to wimpy to save face? None of it makes any sense.

And what's this nonsense of a "partially steerable device"? There is no way to steer a balloon, except to go up and down until you find a wind heading roughly where you want to go. You'd have to predict high altitude winds for weeks ahead of time, and then risk your top secret sensors being captured by the Yankee Imperialists? And what for? What are the chances you would fly over a secret missile base?

The official version is we scrambled some jets to shoot it down, but the mission was scrubbed by Pentagon order on account of the fear of falling debris. But they showed on the news where those fighters took off and those jets couldn't have made it to Montana without refueling, it was too far away.
Maybe it was the only base where balloon-busting munitions were on standby?

Then again, maybe we were monitoring this thing all along, but pretending we were clueless so they would become over-confident. But when the balloon was photographed by a civilian, it forced our spooks to act.

I haven't a clue WTF is going on.