It seems like what’s happening is the pentagon has a really specific definition of what a balloon is and is a little tone deaf when it comes to making statement

It seems like what’s happening is the pentagon has a really specific definition of what a balloon is and is a little tone deaf when it comes to making statements normal people read. Are these craft held aloft by closed containers of lighter than air gas? Very little uncertainty there. Are they straight up weather balloon style big stretchy polymer and nothing else? No. Are they somewhere else on the spectrum of various kind of structure around the lifting gas? Yup. Can you tell what kind from afar or after you’ve blown it up? Not so easily. Can you tell what kind or if they have any propulsion after you’ve blown them up especially over large bodies of water? Not so easily. Really bad PR is what got us Roswell because nobody had the mind to just explain these things, somewhat embarrassing public image but i guess I’m ok with the military being bad at this kind of thing because being good at it is kind of a threat to everyone. Someone clever and independent needs to be in charge of handling this whole project but I’m afraid we’re just going to keep getting “F-22 victory vs balloonish thing, we have no idea what it was” This would be a really good opportunity to embarrass China which really gets you negotiating power with them, but that opportunity is being squandered. Capture one and put it on the nightly news, maybe with some nice prominent Chinese lettering on the hardware. The story needs to be “China is violating our airspace in the stupidest possible way, it’s so lame we’re not at risk but please stop you’re embarrassing yourself”