There's a mysterious Chinese balloon that's floating over America right now,
but people can't decide whether it's a spy balloon
or it's just a scientific weather balloon that got pushed way off course.
Oh my gosh, you know, this is just a atmospheric pressure balloon from Lanzhou.
At first, we're trying to measure the best conditions for Lanzhou Lamian,
and then it just flew way off course.
Oh, there's a terrible misunderstanding. I'm so sorry.
All right, so the official statements from the Pentagon go like this.
They said, we are not going to shoot it down
because that could cause a whole mess and a bunch of debris,
and it could fall on citizens down below.
Also, we do think it's a spy balloon, but it is not posing an immediate threat.
Okay, so that's what the Pentagon said.
And then China said, hey, guys, our bad, man.
That's a weather balloon that just got off course.
The westerly winds pushed it.
You know, it went through the top of Canada and came down.
Don't worry about it.
So obviously, a lot of people are skeptical about what China says,
but we're going to go over the multitude of responses,
everything from the very serious emotional responses
to the funny responses people had,
and then we'll talk about whether, as citizens, you should care about this.
Is this a big deal or not?
Let us know in the comments down below
and check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys.
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Andrew, when we're talking about an article going viral,
especially amongst the older crowd,
this is like as viral as it gets, man.
Some of these Yahoo News comments is like 20,000 comments in the comments section.
Let's get into the main reactions.
Of course, it was,
Shoot it down, man!
That's the American way, man.
Even if my neighbor has a balloon fly over onto my property,
I might shoot it down.
What's going on, man?
Did something change?
How come we can't shoot it down?
Yeah, yeah.
How do we have trillions of dollars in missile defense systems,
but we can't do nothing about this balloon here?
Why don't we take a big net and just capture and bring it down and then...
Yeah, maybe we spent all the money overseas
so we don't even have the needle anymore, apparently.
You know, just pop the balloon with a needle.
Someone said,
Well, actually, guys,
you know, we kind of spy on each other.
This is kind of a thing that countries do.
So probably out of diplomacy,
we're probably not going to blast it out of the sky.
Come on, guys.
Come on.
Everybody knows, man,
they got something else in that balloon, man.
They got something else in that balloon, man.
It's going to spread something crazy.
Someone said,
Wait, wait, how do we even know that it's Chinese?
Like, why couldn't it be the Russians?
And honestly, why couldn't it be a UFO?
It could be the aliens, dude.
Long story short, man,
I think that there's a lot of people,
obviously, that don't like this.
I think it's completely fair.
I do not think Americans should like this.
But of course, the way that people are taking this,
either low, middle or high,
it sort of depends on like their perspective, you know,
and how like locked in they are to the old days.
Of course, Andrew,
as is with anything in the internet nowadays in 2023,
there was a bunch of funny responses as well.
You can't fool me.
That's Team Rocket.
Someone said,
Yeah, actually, that thing's just...
That thing's going to pop
and then it's going to make all the agriculture into soy plants
because China wants more soybeans.
And then we'll become soy boys
and then it's going to increase the estrogen in all our men
and then they can't fight wars.
It's a ploy.
Someone said,
Yeah, man, I can't believe they needed even those balloons
when they already got TikTok.
TikTok is a big spa balloon in your hands.
And yeah, somebody said,
Man, how come we don't have the technology?
Just go up there and bring it down.
Oh, I know why we don't have the technology
because China has the technology.
Someone said,
Man, egg prices are as high as that balloon is right now.
Somebody's got to do something about the eggs.
A foreign power has not entered our airspace for over 70 years.
Well, actually, the aliens do it every day.
Well, how'd you know it was a Chinese balloon?
Well, clearly it was because look how badly it was driven.
I actually believe them because man,
if there's one thing that the Chinese are bad at,
it's driving.
Well, actually, this balloon was just surveying
all the new Chinese investment properties.
So, you know, just watching over its own stuff.
Yeah, this balloon's about to pop
and then it's going to be the biggest Chinese gender reveal ever.
Hey, guys, actually, this balloon was just taking takeout orders
that asked me if I wanted pork fried rice.
Yeah, I just thought it was a gigantic crab ringoon in the sky.
Someone said,
Yeah, well, this is what happens when China owns half your country
due to treasury bonds and us just printing more and more money
because we want nice and cheap things from China.
So, yeah, I guess so be it.
How come all those highly trained operators in Montana
like the gravy seals and meal team six didn't take it down?
I mean, overall, listen, at a time like this,
I can understand why people are very emotional about it
because they're feeling like, hey, this is an aggressive move.
And then some people are literally seeing it the opposite way and saying,
how is this an aggressive move?
It's a balloon.
They have satellites on us already.
We know this.
We actually know that they have satellites on America.
So why are we worried about a balloon?
That's not going to do anything to us.
Yeah, I think that it really does.
First of all, I think it's a medium tier issue, at least.
So it's absolutely something that everybody should be taking serious.
But in terms of sort of the emotional responses to it,
I think a lot of it comes down to like a lot of people
are sort of displeased with the direction of the country.
Just like when Trump was in office, like half the people were displeased.
Now that Biden's in office, half the people are really displeased
and sort of like saying that they wouldn't be displeased
if their leader was in office.
Yeah, maybe this balloon is spying on our politics
because they're just like, oh man, America's so crazy.
It seems like half the country hates the other half.
Every single time the president changed.
It's kind of weird.
All right, you guys, let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Is it a big deal, a medium deal or a small deal?
I mean, man, right now, if you made me analyze it,
I think it's like a very high tier deal to some of the country.
And it probably is a medium deal.
But other people are taking it like a low level thing.
You know what I mean?
But realistically, if I was to put my opinion on it, it's medium.
Yeah, and I think this just joins a really long list of things
that a lot of like, I guess, traditional patriotic Americans don't like to see.
They don't like to see America just sit here
and watch a balloon from China float over their land, right?
They don't like to sit here and see this and that.
They don't like to see how this is being ran,
how Miss Universe was bought by this person
or how the police are this or there's riots or even January 6th.
It's like all these things.
There's just a lot of older people in America
who are just on their phones and see all this media
because media is just so ubiquitous now, right?
You can consume this 10 different ways.
And then everybody's just like, man, I hate this.
So I guess it's, yeah, I think it's a bigger news
and being more talked about amongst the older generation of Americans.
But I do think it's a thing that it is notable.
Yeah, for sure.
Like geopolitically, it's got to be addressed.
Yeah, so I'm not saying it's nothing, guys.
But I'm also saying like we still don't know the facts
because the fact that the Pentagon doesn't want to do anything about it
and China denied it, I don't know.
What else are you supposed to do as a citizen?
Yeah, I mean, hey, guys, you know, we talk about silly things,
serious things here on the Hot Pop Boys.
Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
And yeah, I guess more stuff will develop.
Anyway, let us know what you think.
Till next time, we out.
Peace.