Social media is flooded with memes about China's surveillance balloon after US fighter jets shot it down over South Carolina

• The US shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the South Carolina coastline Saturday.
• The balloon soon became the subject of viral memes across the internet.

US fighter jets shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the coast of South Carolina Saturday in an event that captivated both the military and civilians alike.

While US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement Saturday that the balloon was being used by the country "in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States," China's Foreign Ministry said the balloon was a civilian aircraft that was flown over the US in a "totally accidental" incident, the New York Times reported.

As photos and videos of the balloon dissipating into the sky circulated online, memes about the balloon wracked up thousands of views. A memorial video set to Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You," garnered more than 641,000 views and 5,700 likes on Saturday.

Writer Alex Thomas suggested the balloon could be repurposed for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and another Twitter user guessed it was a gender reveal balloon gone astray.

Others joked about what the balloon could actually be, with guesses ranging from a piñata to Grizabella's floating chandelier from the 2019 movie-musical "Cats."

In TikTok with over 833,000 views posted Saturday, one user joked about how eager Americans were to see the balloon go down with a clip from "Spongebob SquarePants."

The Twitter account for the Myrtle Beach Visitors Center, which was close to where the inflatable went down, even got in on the action, asking Saturday, "Hey, did anyone lose a big white balloon?"

A senior defense official told The Hill that the US Navy and Coast Guard are working to collect debris from the balloon from the Atlantic Ocean, although there's no estimate on how long the recovery will take.

A US official also said that while the part under the balloon is roughly the size of two to three school buses, the actual balloon was larger and has the potential to create a considerable debris field, per Insider's John Dorman and Michelle Mark.