What if the balloon is ours and has an EMP\nuke on board to be used in a FF attack so gubment can launch a retaliatory strike on "those evil russians".

A missile fired EMP\Nuke could be tracked by Russia, China, etc. and they could prove it was launched from US. By using a balloon, there's no signature of the launch and could be obfuscated.

Good on the guy who filmed it and raised the alarm, i think it foiled their plans.

Just a theory.