“... said a State Department official, who provided a statement on the condition anonymity to discuss the information...”
At which point, you discard ALL the information from this article since:
a) there is no need to be anonymous
b) there’s probably no way to know things that fast.
c) an article like this, if accurate, should not have even gone out in the first place.
We will have to wait and see what happens with the next balloon in a week or two but why did this one go over military sites if not for surveillance ?