Chinese Surveillance Balloon

Last Saturday, a U.S. fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina after being watched over and speculated about for 3 days. President Joe Biden commanded this action, and at 2:39 p.m. the balloon was shot down by a single missile. They had been watching the balloon since Wednesday, but decided to wait to shoot down the blimp until Saturday to cause less risk with the debris falling into the ocean instead of on people. The balloon was flying up at about 60,000 feet, which is around twice as high as normal civilian air traffic. The U.S. The Navy and Coast Guard sent over boats to retrieve the wreckage and debris of the balloon. The wreckage was scattered across a 7-mile area going down to the depths of about 50 feet in the Atlantic Ocean. The pentagon still hasn't explained what the reason for this technology could be. The unusual part of the situation is that the balloons couldn’t have seen anything more than the spy satellites that China is already using. The balloon never came in contact or threatened any citizens, but supposedly remained over a few sensitive sites a few times. The Chinese government admitted it was theirs only saying, it was a “civilian airship” that they were testing out that accidentally drifted and that the American government was severely overreacting to the situation. 

Kate Fricke, a freshman at Palisade high school said, “This is such a weird situation. I’ve heard about it quite a few times in the past week, and what confuses me is they don’t seem to have a reason for the balloon.”