[Pres1939]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

No idea. But the prevailing wind would carry them from west to east. Japan launched about 9,000 balloons with bombs attached to them in WWII (retaliation for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo). Only a very few out of 9,000 ever did any damage, and that was some isolated forest fires. A couple of kids were killed after they found one and tried to pull it out of the woods. But that was all, as I understand it.

Wherever they're coming from, once they're launched they're going to go in a generally westerly direction but aside from that, I doubt they're steerable. The one that hit Dead Horse on the north slope of Alaska may have have been intended for Los Angeles, for all we know.

Coming from North Korea? Maybe Kim Jong-un's nose is out of joint because he's not been in the news for awhile. I can see him pulling such a stunt. China? Seems pretty primitive compared to what they're capable of.

Please note that there is nothing primative about sending equipment the size of 3 school buses (as reported) into and across our country. And, YES, they were shown to be steerable from their flight paths.
Obviously, China is willing to risk an international incident to gather the information the equipment is designed to retrieve. You can be certain they were forwarding the data retrieved via their satellites in real time as they traveled. This is not 19th century technology.
Demand that we get the truth about these and how we handled their detection. If not.....