Earlier quoted context omitted.
This analysis even admits that there’s an object required for the “glare” to exist. This analysis doesn’t reject an actual object being tracked: it confirms it and describes it as one that causes IR glare!
Exactly. Zero of the GPs objections are inconsistent with this explanation. The carrier group tracked an unknown object and scrambled fighters to investigate. The pilots may have visually observed the object, but it would have been too far away to really ascertain any visual detail. Instead they relied on infrared sensors which… suffered from glare, and so rendered incorrect visuals for the object. Its strange shape…
Space Data Corporation was operating as early as 1997. Their product is radio communications provided by balloon. IIUC, normally those balloons are tethered, but if a tether snapped and one got away and was caught in a high-altitude crosswind, you'd have a mostly-metal object catching sunlight and throwing it in weird ways as it tumbled.