Over the past 16 years I've covered a lot of spy scandals - especially those involving China.
This one, for example, in which computers at dozens of major American companies - including a major bank, government contractors, Apple, and Amazon - were compromised with secret microchips planted by the Chinese army.
One time they stole Google's source code. Another time they scored oodles of government secrets including weapons technology.
But I've never seen anything like this balloon story.
It's just bonkers.
And it's hit people in a much different way than previous hacking scandals, which probably yielded more useful intelligence.
There's something really visceral about this particular effort.
The audacity of it, the brazenness, and the fact that it seems to have been somewhat successful.
After it was revealed that Chinese balloons had infiltrated U.S. air space on three previous instances during the Trump administration, it was further clarified that those violations weren't caught in real time.
These incursions took place over Hawaii; Coronado, California; and Norfolk, Virginia, where our country's largest naval bases are located.
And officials only learned about them after it was too late.
Then, there's the fact the military was gun-shy about shooting down this latest balloon.
Why?
Defense officials say the balloon didn't pose a threat to the public and that the government "took immediate steps to protect against the balloon's collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value."
Whatever that means.
Additionally, they were supposedly able to study the balloon and its equipment mid-flight.
And honestly, as private citizens, we can only take them at their word.
But still, these explanations sound pretty suspect.
And they certainly don't alleviate the sense that we, collectively as a country, feel violated.
We feel antagonized, disrespected, even attacked.
It feels like China really does want war.
It's another escalation in what's become a long-standing feud - another declaration that the international rules don't apply.
And that declaration is further evidenced by the fact that it's not just us.
China's surveillance balloons have sailed over dozens of countries, from Europe to South Asia.
The earliest publicly reported sighting was over the northern Japanese city of Sendai in June 2020.
And in all of those journeys they collected huge volumes of data.
That includes logistical data that can be used to enhance the accuracy of radar targeting systems, along with atmospheric data that can be used to develop hardware and software technology for missiles.