BLIND SPOT AT 65,000 FEET: The hot take on China’s dispatch of a surveillance balloon to spy on U.S. missile fields and other sensitive sites is that it was an in-your-face message from Beijing to the Biden administration. After all, the Chinese had to know a 200-foot high balloon violating U.S. airspace that could be seen from the ground would be quickly detected.

Except we’re now learning that in recent years, previous Chinese spy balloons passed over the United States while circumnavigating the globe, apparently with no one the wiser. An Air Force report from last year documented a 2019 balloon that “drifted past Hawaii and across Florida” on its around-the-world journey, according to CNN, which said it reviewed portions of the intelligence report.