Spy Balloon

On Thursday, a white balloon was spotted over Montana in the United States. The Chinese government is claiming the object is a weather surveillance balloon that had drifted off course and is denying the United States' claim that it is a spy balloon getting surveillance. The United States' claims are backed by the object’s proximity to nearby Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, which is one of only three nuclear missile silos in the United States mainland. 

The white balloon - carrying a payload the size of about three school buses - was first spotted over Alaska by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) moving in a trajectory toward Canada on Saturday, January 28. Military officials say that at the time, the balloon was of little priority or importance, after all, Chinese spy balloons drifted into American airspace often. However, the balloon wasn’t stopping, 

NORAD continued to track the balloon as it sailed through Canadian airspace toward the United States mainland. Three days later, Biden’s top generals finally alerted him, deciding the balloon was cause for enough concern. “We’ve seen them and monitored them, briefed Congress on the capabilities they can bring to the table, but we’ve never seen something as brazen as this,” A US official said in an interview with CNN. 

Biden’s top military generals advised Biden to avoid shooting down the balloon out of fear of hitting civilian populations; the projected path of the balloon followed it going over several cities and towns. Because of this, the Biden administration didn’t act on the balloon, however, fighter jets were prepared to strike the object if they needed to shoot it down quickly. 

On the morning of February 4th, after drifting southeast through the United States from where it was sighted in Montana, the balloon was spotted in the Carolinas heading for the Atlantic Ocean. At around 2:40 pm, an F-22 fighter jet was ordered to fire a missile at the balloon; it was downed 6 nautical miles (11 km) off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In congratulating the operation, Biden stated that “They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it.” 

A US fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, February 4th. It had been floating across the US, as well as over sensitive military bases.

The balloon entered Alaskan airspace on January 28 and flew over Canada before returning to US airspace over Idaho on January 31 and then Montana on February 1.

US defense officials claimed this balloon was a “high-altitude surveillance device.” Chinese officials denied these claims, saying that it wasn’t used for spying, but rather for “scientific research such as meteorology.”

Still, Biden gave orders on Wednesday, February 1st for the US military to shoot down the balloon. However, it wasn’t brought down until a few days later as Pentagon officials said they worried debris could cause injuries, death, or damage to properties to what is under the floating balloon.

A Chinese weather balloon, which was believed to be a form of espionage, flew over the United States of America Jan 28, 2023. The US followed and analyzed the weather balloon for multiple days, until they eventually shot it down on Feb 4, 2023. 

The balloon was taken down by a missile shot by an F-22 fighter jet near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Officials are hoping to find the debris in order to gather valuable information by retrieving crucial parts of the weather balloon that would have fallen into the ocean.

After the first sighting of the weather balloon, general VanHerck decided not to shoot it down immediately. In a statement from VanHerck he mentioned, “It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical military threat to North America – this is under my Norad hat – and therefore, I could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating hostile act or hostile intent” to reporters.

After the weather balloon was shot down, China said in a statement that the US was ‘overreacting’ and using ‘uncritical’ use of military force. Giving a warning of affecting the two-sided relations. However Joe Biden responded to the general public saying that shooting down the balloon had not affected relations with China. Another thing that China recently said in a statement was that the weather balloon simply ‘blew off course’ and it was a ‘total miscalculation

The first pieces of debris from the weather balloon were found near the coast of South Carolina, according to the Pentagon. While others were most likely sunken at the bottom of the sea floor.