Life imitates art. The famous 1983 hit song "99 Red Balloons" by Nena is about a cluster of party balloons being mistaken for enemy aircraft and provoking a nuclear war. Earlier this week, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy declared that the authorities had confronted a "cartel drone incursion" over El Paso, Texas, only for the threat to turn out to be a party balloon.
The consequences were fortunately short of a world war. But the government deployed experimental laser weapons and shut down the airspace over El Paso on Wednesday, disrupting flights for the thousands of passengers scheduled to fly through the city that day.
