Great questions, nothing surprises me either. Could be a distraction as you say, in the future it could be used as a bioweapon that if punctured would release something deadly, a dry run excercise by the ChiComs that when equipped could spread their malice over here. The ChiComs did say that it was a civilian balloon that flew off course. The Chinese Foreign Ministry then expressed regret over the incident. Russian news noted that they tracked it flying over the Pacific then over the Aleutian Islands, through Canada, and into Montana at an altitude of about 114,000 feet. NORAD was also tracking it when it entered American and Canadian airspace. These balloons equipped with solar panels can easily operate for over a year. I am also surprised as well that they did not blame Russia. The most damning thing about this whole incident is the fact that our military has no capability to keep these high altitude spy balloons out of our airspace and are unable to repel them over the Pacific. Remember that military aircraft have no capability of intercepting or even reaching these balloons because they fly too high and all aircraft with conventional turbofan engines will stall at these high altitudes as they run out of essential oxygen for fuel combustion. Only specialized turbojet engines equipped with a pressurized oxygen supply may fly at these altitudes. In theory, once up there, what would we do. Do we puncture it slightly with kinetic weapons to force a controlled descent? Then what? The US Airforce has NO capability of dragging it away over some secure zone to examine it. Once the balloon has dropped to an altitude of about 25,000 feet a massive helicopter equipped with a grappling hook and 5000 foot cable could drag it away to some other airspace, but the problem here is that the area of that balloon is over 7 acres. Which means that it could become a giant sail in the wind above that could easily drag down the helicopter to it's doom. I have more questions than answers here. Bottom line is that our military is totally helpless. Not a good feeling if the ChiComs decided to equip a balloon with an EMP Producing nuke or simply a bioweapon. But then again, the Deep State could plan the exact same thing and label it as a Chinese or Russian plot to attack the US. Then what? As we watched the twin towers come down in a controlled demolition on 9/11, it mobilized the Deep State plot for us to declare war, to use our beloved military, their blood and treasure to invade Iraq and remove Saddam because he dumped the Petro dollar in favor of the Euro. The DS/Rothschild banking cartel was never going to allow that because the Federal Reserve notes would in time become worthless, if other OPEC nations followed suit. Dumping the recognized world reserve currency would destroy the DS and Banking cartels' control over all nations. There is much more to this but better stop now. My two cents on that balloon and what it might mean.