This could have been an X-Files episode. I mean, it kinda IS! Government conspiracy, skin-crawling horror, no it wasn't an UFO but a weather balloon reflecting the light off of Mars. I felt right at home :)
BUT, it takes place in the 1940s, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and in the Japanese internment camps. America is already on edge, spreading hate, suspicious of neighbors, and angry and racist towards Asians. But do the people of the western U.S. seem a LITTLE too angry? Is this fervent nationalism spreading a little too quickly?

I really love Alma Katsu's historical fictions because there's always a supernatural horror element in it to get me to read it!