Chinese balloons crossed over the U.S. at least three times during the Trump administration.

This time is was jammed and studied:

VanHerck said the military took “maximum protective measures” to “prevent any intelligence collection” while the balloon flew across the United States.

“We did not assess this balloon posed a significant collection hazard beyond what already exists in actionable technical means from the Chinese," he said, and officials believe they learned more by monitoring the balloon itself.

It "gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilities existed on the balloon, (and) what kind of transmission capabilities existed," VanHerck said. "We were able to get significant analysis throughout this process."

-https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/downed-chinese-balloon-was-200-feet-tall-us-military-says-rcna69371

It was shot down where it would not cause any damage. If you don't understand that you need to picture that structure below the balloon was the size of a couple of busses, and it was 12 miles up.