Styx theorycrafting on why the balloon was shot down over water

Styx thinks the Chinese spy balloon was allowed to cross the entire US and get shot down over the Atlantic so as to keep regular citizens from having close access to it. Had the thing been shot down over land, swarms of camera-toting civvies would have descended upon the thing, allowing analysis and speculation among the hoi polloi to run wild.

Whether Styx's theory holds water, I don't know, but a modern version of Occam's Razor would say that the most cynical interpretation of an event is the most likely one. This is especially true in an age when conspiracy theories routinely turn out to be true.