Fear factor: The great spy balloon freak-out of America

David Ropeik

These are not safe times to be a weather balloon. Until a couple of weeks ago, the high altitude weather and research balloons we all know are up there doing all sorts of non-nefarious things were not even on the public’s risk radar screens. But now they’re certainly a bright pulsing blip on the screen of our fears.

In just a couple of weeks, we’ve soared into full-blown balloon freak-out. One balloon that, according to the U.S. government, was connected to the Chinese military was found floating over nuclear missile bases in Montana. That device dangled all kinds of electronic gear and was shot down when it was safely over the ocean. Then, three more devices were spotted over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron and were shot down too, even though close inspection by fighter pilots found they were carrying no discernible weapons, had no identifiable propulsion systems and had no apparent capability to transmit anything.

How can this threat have gone from zero to OMG! so quickly? It turns out that we are instinctively wired to worry more about new risks and about risks with a lot of uncertainty, according to research from the psychologist Paul Slovic and others. These devices are being referred to as “unidentified aerial objects” and officials admit they don’t know if any more are out there.

We also worry more about risks that remind us of things we’ve already learned to fear, particularly those we fear most, like nuclear war. The spy balloon comes amid growing tension between the United States and China, whose militaries are already not talking to each other as much as they used to. Communication helps make sure small things, like spy balloons, don’t become big things. For some people, these past few days recall other times we freaked out about something from above in the context of the threat of nuclear war. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, a little metal ball with four antenna transmitting weak signals, into space as the first human-made satellite. I was only 6 years old and can viscerally recall the fear that carved through the country. We were all scanning the skies, and worrying.

Of course, there were actual balloon weapons used against the United States. During World War II, Japanese meteorologists tapped the jet stream to float 9,300 “Fu-Go” balloons with anti-personnel bombs and incendiary devices toward Alaska and the West Coast. The idea was to set the Northwest ablaze. About 300 of them landed, mostly in damp forests, and therefore did little damage. Nor did that attack set off huge public alarm because the press paid little attention and the government said even less, given what else was going on.

Balloon freak-out also taps into our fear and fascination with the prospect of aliens paying Earth a visit. That fear bell is readily rung. The panic set off by Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio play in 1938 is legendary. The 1951 film “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” is still considered a classic. Contemporary alien visitor films like “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), “Independence Day” (1996) and “War of the Worlds” (2005) were all blockbusters, in part because they flashed this threat across our reptilian brains.

Balloon freak-out will probably pop soon presuming that the wreckage of the three devices proves innocuous. But it is a providing a great opportunity to recognize that risk perception itself is fraught with risk. Meanwhile, anyone thinking about launching weather balloons might want to wait a few weeks.