So an international incident went down (literally) this week. 💨🎈

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to hear more about the Chinese spy balloon that was hanging out over Kansas City yesterday. It got shot down over South Carolina today, temporarily closing three east-coast airports. Busy Saturday.

A Top Gun plane (quoted as a “U.S. fighter jet” but let my imagination do it’s thing) brought the balloon down with a single missile.

China claims (at least as of now) it was simply a weather research “civilian airship” that blew away. Ooops.

From what I have read, U.S. officials first watched it float above North America from the Aleutian Islands, south over Canada, and above the state of Idaho on Tuesday. News outlets started covering it on Thursday when the Pentagon announced it’s presence.

Wednesday it traveled over the state of Montana. Lots of land? Yup. It’s also the mailing address for Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of three bases that hosts “nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile fields.” The Chinese Ministry said, “The airship deviated far from its planned course … the Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the U.S. side and properly handle this unexpected situation.”

I fully realize this is serious military stuff, but I can’t help but find this move from China comically brilliant.

Supposedly there is a second Chinese “weather research” balloon over Latin America right now too. Funny not funny.

Rewind. For six years we haven’t had a U.S. Secretary of State visit China. Anthony Blinken cancelled his trip this week, hours before departure.

I have to think these balloons (yes, plural) were a big middle finger to the diplomats working on said cancelled meeting this week. Maybe President Xi wanted a higher-ranking visitor to shake hands with on his turf 💪🏼?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of topics to discuss — from to Taiwan to trade to technology to human rights to Russia/Ukraine to, you know, spying. So much for a meeting to build trust.

The balloon hopefully helped out in the SNL writers’ room this week, but it’s scary stuff, nonetheless. Live from NY, it’s China in the house this Saturday night.