George Takei knows what his 2023 Halloween costume is going to be, following the Chinese spy balloon incident

Creative inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places. Some people may be compelled to write a poem about a bedazzled platform shoe they see discarded in the middle of I-74, while others find their muse in the sweet, sweet juice that drips from their chin after chowing down on a slice of watermelon. (Yeah, that’s what inspired that song.)

And if you’re George Takei, you look to the sky. This really isn’t that unusual, considering the 85-year-old actor’s breakout role as Lt. Sulu in the original Star Trek television series from the 1960s.

This past weekend, Takei, who was born in Sacramento, California, to parents of Japanese descent, took to Twitter to let the world know that Bowen Yang isn’t the only one compelled to imitate the giant Chinese balloon that was widely suspected to be surveilling the U.S. in a rather adorably old-school manner.

For those of you whose New Year’s resolution was to take a break from the news on weekends to preserve some sliver of your mental health, the U.S. military on Saturday shot down the errant floaty as it drifted over the Atlantic near the Carolina coast.

The first reports of the big white balloon flying over U.S. airspace came in last week, as social media users posted videos of the aircraft visible above Montana. While China admits that the balloon is theirs, they claim it’s simply a weather balloon used for “mainly meteorological” purposes.

Which, even if true, makes us wonder: Why use the qualifier “mainly”? What else is that weather balloon up to?