Why did they shoot it down? If you don’t know what I’m talking about you must be living under a rock. Now if you really do not know what I’m talking about there was a colossal balloon that China’s government sent. They sent it over to try and spy on us. They think that it started flying over Alaska first because of the way it traveled, but they have no proof that it did. When it first became public, it was flying over Billings, Montana. On Thursday, February 2, the Pentagon issued a statement that a high altitude Chinese surveillance balloon had reentered the U.S. Then the next day, February 3, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that the balloon is Chinese, but they claimed it was just a civilian airship to collect weather data. Why in the world would China send over an airship to collect weather data,  especially not even telling the U.S.? Then finally on February 4, the U.S. shot it down in a F-22 off the coast of South Carolina. 

I think that it was a good idea that we shot it down because we truly do not know what they were doing and could have done with it. The U.S. made the right decision by shooting it down. Interestingly, the state of South Carolina had to issue a statement telling the citizens of South Carolina to not shoot at the balloon.

But why did they not shoot it down sooner? They say the reason is because they did not want it to harm anyone. Personally, I think there might be something else going on with it. What that might be, I do not really know. Although they still made the right decision by shooting it down, this was a very scary time for the people of the U.S.

Maybe next time, if this happens again, we will shoot it down sooner.