The Chinese surveillance balloon that was downed on February 4 by a F-22 fighter jet in the Atlantic Ocean after it traversed a large portion of the continental United States was able to gather intelligence from strategic US military locations. That data was transmitted back to China.
According to NBC News, one former senior Biden official and two additional senior US officials said the Chinese dirigible was successful "despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so."
"The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images," one of the officials said.
The balloon was roughly the size of three school buses and flew approximately 60,000 feet in the air. The Chinese dirigible entered US airspace on January 28 and was known to the Biden administration for nearly a week before its report on Thursday, February 2 in the news.
The White House attempted to keep the balloon secret to not disrupt Secretary of State Antony Blinken's scheduled Sunday trip to China, according to reports at the time. The trip was postponed after Montana's local Billings Gazette published pictures of the balloon.
Chinese officials said the balloon was a civilian weather vessel that had drifted from its charted course and entered US airspace by accident. "The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure," Beijing said at the time.
After the balloon was downed in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, early reports indicated that it was equipped with antennas that were capable of gathering electronic communications.
The US downed three other unidentified high altitude objects over North American airspace in the weeks after the Chinese balloon was downed but the other objects were likely civilian vessels.Join and support independent free thinkers!
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