Dutch cop monitoring “spy balloon” realizes it’s bird poo on his windshield

A police officer in Boxtel joked on social media about his moment while driving that he was concerned that the Noord-Brabant city was the subject of international espionage. “During my surveillance rounds, my eyes fell on a suspected ‘spy balloon’ above my neighborhood,” the community police officer wrote.

“I decided to keep following the balloon, and it soon became clear that the balloon was hanging over the Selissen district,” he added. He decided to pull over his car on Van Beekstraat to investigate.

Once he cleaned cleaned the bird droppings off his windshield, the suspected spy balloon was no longer visible, he kidded. “Boxtel is safe!”

The police officer was likely referencing the 30-meter wide Chinese-operated balloon that was shot down over U.S. territorial waters after it was allegedly used for espionage purposes over the United States and Canada. A second mysterious Chinese balloon also flew a mission over Latin America in February.

In the weeks that followed, several other high-altitude objects were shot down over the United States and Canada as a precaution. These were not connected to Chinese government activities.