>

They could have sent Michael Keaton up in the Batwing to collect the balloon.
Which is why I still doubt it was intentional.
Feels far more likely to be a case where control was lost and they drifted far further than intended. Majority of people seem to be thinking otherwise though, which just doesn’t make much sense. >

Why wouldn't the Chinese  come clean then and admit there was a problem? There were able to control its altitude, so they had some communication with the drone. They could have landed it or cooperated to bring it down safely. They'd get it back, too, if it really was a scientific instrument. >

Losing control doesn’t mean it wasn’t an espionage balloon.
The evidence for them being able to control its altitude is sketchy at best. >

If it wasn't espionage, why not let the US know what happened? >

My reply says losing control doesn’t exclude it from being espionage, what are you going on about? >

Stay calm when a one-ton unknown payload is hovering 60k feet above ur nuke silos. Who really knows what was onboard. (Actually, 900 lbs, but close). >

Wonton* >

I don't understand why we didn't just snag this thing with a drone? Maybe punch a small hole in it and bring it gently down? >

There’s a few reasons:
For one thing, it’s 200 feet tall. Not going to easily snag it with drones.
Not to mention how it’s entirely too high altitude for any drone to ever reach it.
Also, these types of helium balloons are very durable. Canada shot 1000 rounds at a rogue research balloon a while ago and still couldn’t bring it down.
This particular balloon is so high that jets must stay super sonic to attempt to engage this stationary target. The half second a pilot would have to try to land a single 20mm shot on it would be a miraculous feat.
Even if you could poke a small hole in it, these balloons would take months to slowly leak out the helium.