Hmmm, is there another interpretation for the infamous spy balloon that the U.S. shot down?
The Chinese balloon that was shot down by American forces recently has been all over the news. The U.S. claims that China has a fleet of such surveillance balloons. China maintains that the fleet are weather balloons and that this one simply got away from them.
I only just learned that the balloon was in fact detected a few days earlier than we heard about it. It apparently passed north of the Alaska Aleutian islands on January 28 and entered Canadian air space between January 30 and 31 before its discovery was announced by the Pentagon on February 2 while it hovered over the U.S. Midwest.
The discovery of the balloon resulted in NORAD adjusting their radar to find similar objects which led to the detection and shooting down of three unidentified objects over the U.S. and Canadian air space a week later. The U.S. has indicated that these objects do not appear to have come from China or any other country and did not have surveillance capabilities.
It is easy to let our imagination go wild and attach all kinds of unnerving and worrisome significance to these developments. As you may know, I am inclined to look at these incidents through the lens of metaphor which takes me in a different direction.
I see the Spy Balloon as a metaphorical Word Balloon hanging over all us – a random act of metaphor to remind us that if we spend too much time sky-gazing for theoretical threats we may miss the very real blessings that lie right at our feet.
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