Depending on who you ask, it’s for research and data gathering on banal things like the weather and it just got off course. Or it’s a spy balloon and its current path is intentional. Either way, the one thing we do know is that it belongs to China. A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said that it “is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes” that was pushed off course by wind patterns.
Some in the U.S. are suspicious that the high-altitude balloon, which is reportedly the size of three buses, is actually being used to spy on the U.S. However, if this is the case, officials aren’t too concerned over what data it might collect, because it probably won’t get much, if anything. “It does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in low Earth orbit,” said a senior defense official.
