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Agreed... a bunch of highly trained fighter pilots mistaking unidentified craft that move in highly erratic manners at high speeds with balloons seem pretty far fetched.

The article clearly says that not all events can be described this way, especially the "tic tac" encounter.

I don't know, if moderate wind turbulence can cause a multi-ton airliner to bounce the altimeter by 10s of feet, than I can imagine it also moving a ten pound balloon enough to be characterized as performing erratic flight maneuvers

Especially a ballon filled with reflective spinning cube, aka Radar reflector.

This theory makes a lot of sense and would imply perhaps an adversary has been spoofing advanced radar systems.

edit: Also reports of underwater disturbances would be consistent with the concept of these being launched by submarines and ... maybe retrieved by them.

During these incidents, there were US subs nearby, it's unlikely they wouldn't have picked up foreign subs.

While I agree, it's impossible for us to tell who might be responsible, I wouldn't dismiss foreign subs as easily detected. AIP diesel-electrics are the quietest things out there, and Sweden has one of the best.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21662/swedens-notoriou...