In Kabul, Afghanistan, a tethered U.S. military surveillance blimp floats silently overhead, as it has since 2009. Below, men work, children play, vegetables lie stacked in heaps. Like a God who sees everything, the white balloon looks down on the city. The blimp’s capabilities are classified—are there even cameras on board?—but its mere presence shapes the behavior of those it purports to observe, like a modern-day panopticon. On the other side of the world, a similar sight: A blimp hovers over Aberdeen, Maryland, equipped with radar to detect long-range missile attacks. In this impressionistic short, director Kirsten Johnson trains her camera on the blimps and the cities they survey, compelling us to question what it means to watch the watcher.  EM