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Itās a very controversial channel, lol. I used to watch it often until I gave up on national news shows all together. They do have good coverage sometimes, like now.
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I would stay inside for a bit. No idea if this thing was carrying any chemicals or anything. Probably not but just to be safe for a bit. Iām a worry wart though.
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Weāre not at the house now so weāre good, but it did float over my hometown earlier today.
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One of our local meteorologist predicted early on that it would travel to the gulf coast, steered by current wind currents. Boy was he wrong. Or it has additional steering mechanisms. So many questions. But no matter what, this balloon was definitely up to no good.
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Totally just speculating, but Iām guessing it was a test to see how weād respond. 
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If its helpful, ABC just keeps adding brief updates to the top if this page. If you scroll down and click āload moreā (thatās on mobile anyway), you can back track through the high level play-by-play.
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It certainly wasnāt covert. I hope they start covering the South American one.
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Here is the best map Iāve seen yet that includes both.
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This map is disturbing.
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Of course, it could be UFOs and the Chinese are just playing scapegoats. 
That would play about right in this timeline, I thinkā¦
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The āspy balloonā definitely went over the St Louis area yesterday. I was chauffeuring the teen around at the time it did, but several of my friends took pictures of it from their yards.
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The more I think about it, the more certain I am that our intelligence people had a pretty good idea what was up with it and knew what level of threat it was. Perhaps we were able to eavesdrop on itās communications? It was a choice to let it proceed. From the ABC feed:
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Hereās my other thought on the balloonā¦ why tf didnāt Canada do anything about it? It flew over 2 countries.
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No definitive reports but it was speculated that we could block communications the balloon could send I hope we get answers though and it doesnāt get swept under the rug.
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I do too, but since intelligence is involved, we might not. Spy games.
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My take is that NORAD tracked the balloon very closely from the beginning and there was a conscious, joint US/Canadian decision made at the highest levels to let it proceed, while hiding sensitive military equipment, and ultimately shooting it down in shallow territorial waters to facilitate recovery.
The balloon flew over the Aleutian Islands on Tuesday before it entered Canadian airspace on Wednesday. source
There was a decision to let it proceed and shoot it down over water to avoid potential harm to people on the ground. source.
President Biden said he issued an order Wednesday to shoot it down, but the Pentagon advised waiting until the balloon was over water to safeguard civilians. source
Itās not easy to shoot down balloons, b/c air defense systems and fighter aircraft arenāt designed to deal with balloons. source. An F-22 with an AIM-9X Sidewinder - some of the USAFās most advanced hardware - brought it down. The F-22 has a higher ceiling that most fighter aircraft (above 50,000ā), which may have been relevant here as the missile was fired at 58,000ā while the balloon was between 60-65k feet. source
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Yeah I just feel like there is so much negative press about why we let it go as far as it did and I thought well Canada let it fly on through there too soā¦
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I am reading multiple reports that this is not the first time this has happened?
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