Sometimes a weather balloon is just a weather balloon

You may have seen today's breathless coverage of a Chinese balloon floating over the United States. The coverage assumes it's a spy balloon and the government seems to be in a panic, even suspending a diplomatic trip to China by the Secretary of State.

Here's an article with a bunch of reasons why this is likely a completely unnecessary crisis and the balloon isn't a spy balloon.

The whole 'Chinese spy balloon' story is the absolute definition of malarkey.

Among the reasons:

• China already has spy satellites that can take images of every square yard of the U.S.
• Balloons like this are uncontrollable (especially over large distances) and couldn't be aimed at specific installations.
• 1,000s of weather balloons are sent up around the world every day and often go off course. Occam's Razor suggests that that's exactly what this is.

We are a scared, panicky nation.