U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, and things only got weirder from there

In today’s Big Story, it started with a suspected Chinese spy balloon, shot down by the American military off the coast of South Carolina after being tracked floating over the continent for at least four days.

Since then, three more as-yet-unidentified objects have been blown out of the sky, one near the coast of Alaska, one in the northern Yukon Territory, and one over Lake Huron. At this point we can say with some certainty that the origin of these objects is terrestrial, and that’s essentially it.

Stephanie Carvin is an Associate Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University and a former national security analyst with the government of Canada. She joins us to break down the many questions that remain about the objects, and what the whole saga says about Canada’s ability to protect its own airspace.

“I think we need to be careful about assuming that this is just a new trend … this may be something that’s been going on for some time, but we just haven’t noticed or registered it,” she said.

Are these floating objects something new, or are we just noticing them more often now that we’re on higher alert? And is the most sensible response here fear, or curiosity?

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