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The Chinese Spy Balloon Over My House
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The Chinese Spy Balloon Over My House
Main Street in the author’s town of Livingston, Montana. (Nick Fox / Alamy)
Walter Kirn on the floating intruder Montanans weren’t supposed to notice.
By Walter Kirn
02.05.23 — U.S. Politics
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Last week, when Montanans looked up at the sky—the fabled “big sky” that gives our state its nickname and remains clear and blue and well worth gazing at—they saw something odd. Some people reported the distant silver sphere to the authorities, it being a tradition in a state that was pacified by vigilantes back in the days of the frontier mining camps …

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Walter Kirn
Walter Kirn is an essayist, screenwriter, and novelist. His books include Up in the Air and Thumbsucker, both of which were made into movies. His latest book is Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade.
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