Isn't This What the Space Force was Created For?

I was sitting on the patio at the lake last summer enjoying the sun when I noticed an object high in the sky to the north.

It was roughly the shape of an oval with a bright, shimmery border.

It wasn’t moving.

I blinked and shook my head, sure that it was only a floater in my eye, but when I looked again it was still there.

Barb was inside the cabin and I was reluctant to call her. She is a firm believer in UFOs, Sasquatch, and the like. She remains convinced the odd little critter we spotted along the lakeshore a few years earlier was a Chupacabra.

I’m a skeptic. I don’t put much stock in any of that stuff. With the exception of the Little People who live in caves in the Pryor Mountains, I’m convinced that all the rest is pure hokum.

Eventually Barb joined me on the patio and asked if I was having a stroke. I hadn’t moved or spoken, and was staring into space.

I pointed out the strange object to her.

“My wishes are coming true,” she told me.

For years now Barb has been hoping I’d be abducted and probed by aliens just to prove to me she’s been right all along.

We found a pair of binoculars and took a closer look. The thing hadn’t moved in nearly an hour when I began spreading the word to our neighbors.

“Oh, it’s just a weather balloon,” one of them announced.

“But it’s not moving,” I insisted.

And right then it started to move, vanishing from sight in seconds.

“Weather balloon,” my neighbor stated with finality before turning away and walking back to his cabin.

Apparently he was right. At least according to the Chinese, who claim a balloon that passed over Montana recently before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean was just that: a weather balloon.

Now it appears there’s another “Chinese weather balloon” floating over Latin America.

Isn’t this just what the Space Force was created to deal with?

In an age of high-tech satellite surveillance, it’s hard to fathom such a low-tech threat, but perhaps it’s not military at all. Could the Chinese simply be scoping out the walleye fishery on Fort Peck Lake. Could the Rock Creek Walleye Tournament and the Governor’s Cup be in jeopardy?

It’s just a theory, not yet a conspiracy.

I’ll have to run it by Barb for that.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]