Pentagon Spent At Least $1.5 Million on Missiles to Down Three High-Altitude Objects - WSJ

That figure is only for the four AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles used to bring down the objects over Alaska, Canada’s Yukon territory and Lake Huron. It doesn’t include the cost for Navy, Coast Guard, Alaska National Guard and Canadian forces to search for the debris, which likely will add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost, the officials said.

Oh, and oops, we didn’t find anything.

And everyone gets to keep their jobs!

The flights used to spot the balloons and eventually shoot them down aren’t part of the cost estimates because the U.S. military considers the flights part of its pilots’ training and has already budgeted those flight hours, the defense officials said.

Yup, just a little unplanned scramble and live-fire exercise outside of designated ranges and airspace. Just your classic, garden variety training flight.