It's late January, 2003.

18,300 meters, some 60,000 feet high in the skies over North America.

A balloon soars on the jet stream.

Now, this is no ordinary balloon.

It's enormous, a towering 200-foot high, luminous white inflation, outfitted with propellers and rudders for maneuverability.

It's a balloon that can be steered.

It carries 16 solar panel rays to power the balloon's payload suspended below it.

A tech bay, the size of several school buses,

crammed with computers, sensors, antennas, all sorts of fancy surveillance equipment.

Gliding steadily southeast, the balloon moves over Alaska's frozen tundra, the wilds of Western Canada,

eventually crossing the border into the United States,

riding its air currents over rugged Montana.

Pilots begin to notice the thing above, circling it, photographing the behemoth.

What is it? What's it doing? Who sent it here?

As serene and peaceful as it appears, lofting through the air, down below on earth the

balloon is creating a turbulent storm of controversy, the focus of suspicion and geopolitical

anger between American officials who claim it is a giant militarized spy platform dispatched

by China, and Beijing, who plays the denial game, declaring it's nothing but a weather

balloon gone off course. Well, innocent or not, this high-altitude colossus marks yet another

flashpoint in a long, endlessly tense relationship between the U.S. and China. A relationship

is tenuous and troubled,

as it is economically vital to both superpower nations.

...