> Generally, balloons either have no maneuverability at all, or they can go up and down. Since the wind often blows in different directions at different altitudes that gives the up and down ones some ability to control their course by going up or down to a layer going the right direction.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the balloon was maneuvered by anything more than up and down control. But if you have a link I’d like to take a look? This is the best I could find so far:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinese-spy-ballo...