![]() ![]() White House officials said improved surveillance capabilities helped detect it.Ĭhina’s Foreign Ministry said the unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course. officials immediately blamed China, saying the balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals and could maneuver itself. for days at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”Įight days ago, F-22 jets downed the large white balloon that had wafted over the U.S. “The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the spy program that the administration has linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military. Using shorthand to describe the objects as balloons, he said U.S military and intelligence officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information, then compiling a comprehensive analysis. officials were working quickly to recover debris. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that U.S. The officials said the other three objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration. The three objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. Officials were not able to say who launched the objects and were seeking to figure out their origin. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.īoth were believed to have a payload, either attached or suspended from them, according to the officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the balloon - the size of three school buses - hit by a missile Feb. officials were still trying to precisely identify two other objects shot down by F-22 fighter jets, and were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalated about what Washington said was Beijing’s large-scale aerial surveillance program.Īn object shot down Saturday over Canada’s Yukon was described by U.S. It was flying low at about 20,000 feet, said the official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. According to a senior administration official, the object was octagonal, with strings hanging off, but had no discernable payload. and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object. Radar picked it up again Sunday hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was going over Lake Huron, Pentagon officials said Sunday. The latest brought down was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana, but it was initially thought to be an anomaly. ![]() Many Americans have been captivated by the drama playing out in the skies as fighter jets scramble to shoot down objects. and hovered above the nation for days before fighter jets downed it off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The extraordinary air defense activity began in late January, when a white orb the officials said was from China appeared over the U.S. “With some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now,” he said, “and that’s why I think you’re seeing these, plus there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.” adjusted its radar so it could track slower objects. But the unusually assertive response was raising questions about whether such use of force was warranted, particularly as administration officials said the objects were not of great national security concern and the downings were just out of caution. authorities have made clear that they constantly monitor for unknown radar blips, and it is not unusual to shut down airspace as a precaution to evaluate them. “We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase,” said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense. Pentagon officials said they posed no security threats, but so little was known about them that Pentagon officials were ruling nothing out - not even UFOs. Since then, fighter jets last week also shot down objects over Canada and Alaska. Northern Command, said in a briefing with reporters. Part of the reason for the repeated shootdowns is a “heightened alert” following a spy balloon from China that emerged over U.S. ![]()
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