Chinese Spy Balloon Archives

As China tensions mount, US planning to quadruple military presence in Taiwan

February 23, 2023

The U.S. has plans to quadruple its military presence in Taiwan. According to U.S. officials, one year ago, there were 30 U.S. troops on the island. Now, the U.S. plans to deploy between 100 and 200 troops to Taiwan in the coming months.

The increase in personnel is meant to bolster a training program to ready Taiwan forces in case of a Chinese invasion. The U.S. deployment to Taiwan is the largest in decades.

The announcement of more troops to Taiwan comes as relations between the U.S. and China have been deteriorating.

China was upset with the U.S. over Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan when she was Speaker of the House in 2022. China responded by conducting military drills over Taiwan last year.

More recently, tensions have risen over Chinese spy balloons entering U.S. airspace.

As the U.S. and China position themselves further and further apart, Taiwan’s sovereignty remains a major issue between the countries.
Defense Department releases pilot selfie of Chinese balloon

February 23, 2023

The Defense Department released a pilot selfie of the suspected Chinese Spy balloon that made its way over the United States earlier this month. The pilot was flying a U.S. Air Force U2S Dragon Lady aircraft.

The selfie, released Wednesday, was taken Feb. 3 when the balloon was in the area of Kansas. The balloon was shot down the next day off the coast of South Carolina.

The release of the pilot selfie comes after recovery of the Chinese balloon and its payload from the Atlantic Ocean was completed last week. The searches for two other flying objects that have since been shot down are also complete.
White House to make guidelines for shooting down floating objects

February 16, 2023

President Biden has instructed his team to create guidelines on how to handle flying objects, like the three still unidentified objects shot down last weekend and the Chinese spy balloon that was taken out the weekend before. The guidelines will be put into a policy that will dictate what poses a safety and security risk, what necessitates further action and what does not.

During a speech addressing the recent incidents, the president said he will share the policy with Congress but it will be classified.

“So we don’t give our roadmap to our enemies to try to evade our defenses,” President Biden said. “These parameters will guide what actions we will take while responding to unmanned and unidentified aerial objects. We’re gonna keep adapting them as the challenges evolve if it evolves.”

After a classified briefing earlier this week, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told reporters that a policy was needed.

“What are we going to do above commercial airspace up until space? What are we going to do if other balloons come above the United States? Is this something that we are going to tolerate or not tolerate,” Gillibrand said. “Those are fundamental policy decisions that the White House and Congress are going to be making over the next several months.”

President Biden said the intelligence community is still working to figure out what the three objects shot down over the weekend were. But nothing suggests they were surveillance balloons or tied to China.

“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions, studying weather, or conducting other scientific research,” Biden said.

The president said they don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. They’re just being spotted more because radars have been adapted to pick them up.
US admits it tracked Chinese spy balloon from launch

February 15, 2023

The U.S. government’s story on the Chinese spy balloon is changing again. This week, the Pentagon revealed it was tracking the suspected Chinese spy balloon from its launch site along China’s south coast, and was monitoring it days before it crossed into U.S. airspace near Alaska.

U.S. officials watched the Chinese spy balloon lift off near China's south coast.

They watched it move toward Guam.

They watched it turn toward Alaska.

They watched it fly over our entire country.

And after all that, the Biden Administration’s still not being honest about it.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 15, 2023

Several U.S. officials said Tuesday the government is now looking at the possibility the Chinese were trying to spy on U.S. military facilities in the Pacific, like Guam or Hawaii. But an errant cold front apparently caused the spy balloon to veer off course, and the Pentagon thinks the Chinese government took advantage of the opportunity to gather more intelligence about U.S. military installations.

While weather may have pushed the balloon off course, the U.S. said China decided to pilot the balloon into the airspace over the U.S. mainland. According to a report from the Washington Post, the balloon “was partly directed by air currents, and partly piloted remotely. With propellors and a rudder, [the balloon had] the capability to be maneuvered.”

Once it entered U.S. airspace, the balloon slowly drifted across the U.S. mainland. The Pentagon said the balloon didn’t gather any sort of information that wouldn’t also be available to the Chinese through their array of spy satellites. On Feb. 4, President Joe Biden gave the order to shoot down the spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina.

The U.S. military is currently analyzing the recovered pieces of the balloon, which include critical electronics and large pieces of the vessel itself. Three other objects were shot down over North America since the Chinese spy balloon incident, but the Pentagon said it thinks those objects were benign.

The U.S. government sanctioned six Chinese entities tied to the balloon. Beijing criticized the sanctions.

The spy balloon fiasco forced U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his trip to China. But Blinken is now reportedly considering a trip to Germany to meet with China’s top diplomat this week.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Objects like the Chinese balloon have been flying over US since at least 2017

February 14, 2023

The spokesman for the National Security Council said the intelligence community is considering a new leading explanation for the three objects shot down over the weekend – they were commercial, research-related or benign. But the objects still haven’t been found and officials don’t yet know what they are.

The Senate had a classified briefing this morning and members said these types of unidentified objects have been flying over the U.S. since at least 2017.

“We don’t know what they are. What’s different about the last two weeks is that we’ve started shooting them down,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters.

Two years ago, an office was created in the Department of Defense to track and identify the objects. In that time, the office has reviewed over 300 aerial phenomena. Over half were balloons, a couple dozen were drones and some were random objects like floating bags or a bird.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told reporters that a policy needs to be created on how to handle each instance.

“What are we going to do above commercial airspace up until space? What are we going to do if other balloons come above the United States? Is this something that we are going to tolerate or not tolerate,” Sen. Gillibrand said. “Those are fundamental policy decisions that the White House and Congress are going to be making over the next several months.”

There was bipartisan agreement that the threat level from these objects is low. But to give a definitive answer as to what they are, they need to be recovered and inspected. That’s difficult, because the objects were shot down in remote, northern regions with brutal winter conditions.

“On the one hand the administration is saying we don’t yet know what these last three objects are and we don’t want to characterize them until we recover them, but on the other hand it wasn’t a threat. Both of those things can’t be true,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said.

“If you’re confused, you understand the situation perfectly,” Sen. Kennedy said.

To clear up confusion, senators are calling on the Biden administration to be more transparent. In fact, multiple members said between 95% to 99% of what was said in the classified briefing can be made public.

“There is a lot of information presented to us this morning that could be told to the American people without any harm to sources or methods or our national security. And the American people need to know more so they’ll have more confidence in our national security,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said.

Senators also agreed that information is being over classified. Some lawmakers called for President Biden to address the nation about everything he knows.
The White House says the objects in the sky were not aliens

February 13, 2023

China’s foreign minister accused the U.S. of having flown high-altitude balloons into China’s airspace 10 times since the beginning of last year. But National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that’s not true.

“There is no U.S. surveillance aircraft over airspace,” Kirby said.

The former navy admiral gave the same answer when asked if that includes areas China claims as its own like Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The military is still working to recover the balloon in South Carolina, and the objects in Alaska and Lake Huron. Winter conditions are making it more difficult, and the object in Lake Huron likely fell in deep water.

The government is working to find out exactly what the objects are and what they can do.

“We assessed that at this time, these balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the PRC’s other intelligence platforms used over the United States. But in the future, if the PRC continues to advance this technology, it certainly could become more valuable to them,” Kirby said.

President Biden was briefed in June that these objects are a worldwide phenomenon. The Biden administration is taking credit for discovering the objects and balloons despite the fact that the Chinese program was ongoing during the Trump administration.

Kirby said there are no active objects or balloons flying over the U.S. Monday. But to increase security, the military enhanced its radar system so it can pick up slow speed, high-altitude objects. He said even objects with payloads the size of school buses were not picked up by previous administrations.

While officials are still trying to figure out what the objects are exactly, and where those objects are from, they can at least narrow it down to Earth.

“I don’t think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft,” Kirby said.

The Biden administration received bipartisan criticism for allowing the spy balloon to fly over the country, including over sensitive military bases.

“The Chinese Communist Party is testing us,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., “And we did not rise to the challenge.”

The administration said it will continue to brief members of Congress and state governors.
Morning rundown: US shoots down more flying objects; Turkey prosecutes contractors

February 13, 2023

Lawmakers are raising concerns after four flying objects were shot down by U.S. military; one week since Turkey was devastated by earthquakes, the country is looking to hold building contractors accountable; an airborne Delta flight catches fire; and a Super Bowl champion is crowned in a nail-biting finish. These stories and more highlight the daily rundown for Monday, Feb. 13, 2023.

U.S. military shoots down four flying objects

While officials have said one of the four is suspected to have been spying on military sites, as of Monday morning, officials aren’t saying what the other objects could be or what country they may belong to.

The latest flying object takedown happened Sunday above the Great Lakes area in Michigan. It temporarily shut down air space over Montana. Before that, an object over Canada was shot down. One was also shot down over Alaska. And then there was the the initial Chinese spy balloon taken down over the Atlantic ocean.

U.S. officials haven’t identified the three most recent objects. But they say the objects were smaller and flew at lower altitudes than the Chinese spy balloon. A Department of Defense official says they’ve been closely scrutinizing U.S. airspace, which might explain the increase in activity.

“Anything that approaches North America, if it’s unknown, I’m going to go identify and assess, is that a threat? If it is a threat, I’ll shoot it down. If it’s not a threat, the kinetic military threat that we talked about earlier, it’s not committing a hostile act or hostile intent, then we’ll have a broader discussion,” Gen. Glen Vanherck, the head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said.

Turkey prosecuting contractors

There is developing news out of Turkey, one week since earthquakes devastated the region. Contractors who built the buildings that crumbled and killed thousands of people are being arrested in the region.

The death toll has sharply risen to more than 34,000 victims one week since the body-count began. The Turkish president called it the disaster of the century and called for accountability. More than 100 building contractors have been arrested or issued warrants for their arrest. The infrastructure, built on seismic fault lines, was reportedly built without passing proper standards and inspections. Hundreds of buildings slumped over or imploded onto residents as a 7.8 and 7.5 earthquake rattled the ground beneath.

Contractors are reportedly trying to flee the region to avoid arrest. The natural disaster affected a 300-mile radius, home to more than 13 million people.

Philippines says ship blinded by laser

The Philippines is accusing China of shining a military-grade laser at one of its coast guard ships in the South China Sea, blinding its crew on board. Officials are calling for the Chinese government to restrain its forces so that it doesn’t commit any provocative act that could endanger the lives of people.

The Philippines ship that was reportedly in eye line with the laser was carrying food and supplies to its crews stationed in the disputed-waterway. Chinese Coast Guard ships have a history of blocking Philippine supply boats in the past.

Delta plane catches fire

It was a scary thing to see for dozens of passengers aboard a Delta flight from Scotland to New York’s JFK airport. Flames erupting from one of its wings forced pilots to make an emergency landing on Friday. The plane had only been in the air for 40 minutes before it was forced to land.

The flight crew told the New York Post that the plane was having engine problems. The FAA has yet to comment.

On the same day, an incident at the LAX airport left five people injured after an airplane, being towed from a gate to a parking area, made contact with a shuttle bus. The airline industry is under a microscope since several incidents of near collisions at the U.S. airports this year.

New Mexico State cancels basketball season

New Mexico State University has canceled the remainder of its men’s basketball season following serious allegations including harassment and sexual misconduct. The campus chancellor said it’s time for the program to reset, after a campus police report revealed hazing allegations involving student athletes that could be criminal.

One player says there was physical and sexual touching happening inside locker rooms. He alleges that three other players removed his clothing and inappropriately touched him.

The remaining six games have been wiped from the schedule as their season is officially over and the school works with police to investigate.

Kansas City Chiefs win super bowl

The Kansas City Chiefs have come out on top over the Philadelphia Eagles as Super Bowl 57 champions. It was a nail biter of a game, with the final score at 38-35. This is the Chief’s second Super Bowl win since 2020.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes was the game’s MVP, leading his team back from a 10-point deficit at halftime and putting the Chief’s in position to kick the game winning field goal with just a second left on the clock.

Singer Rihanna stole the show at halftime. Not only with her performance but with a surprise baby bump reveal. The singer is pregnant with her second child.

Students in Kansas City will have no class this Wednesday. School is canceled to allow students and teachers to participate in the city’s “Championship Parade” set to take place in two days.
US shoots down ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska days after Chinese balloon

February 10, 2023

The White House confirmed that fighter jets shot down what they described as a “high-altitude object,” about the size of a small car, over Alaska. The Pentagon said they do not know the origin of the object and that it was unmanned.

John Kirby, coordinator for Strategic Communications for the National Security Council, said the object was flying at 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flights. Unlike the Chinese balloon, it did not have the ability to maneuver. For those reasons, President Biden ordered the military to take it down at the recommendation of the Pentagon.

“We don’t know if it’s state owned. We don’t understand the full purpose. We don’t have any information that would confirm the stated purpose for this object,” Kirby said. “We do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell not only within our territorial space but on what we believe is frozen water so a recovery effort will be made.”

While the military is still trying to figure out what it is, the military does know it didn’t have a significant payload, like the recent Chinese spy balloon which was carrying equipment about the size of three buses.

President Biden has come under bipartisan criticism for not shooting down the Chinese balloon sooner. He waited until it flew over the ocean so it wouldn’t do damage to infrastructure or harm civilians. But in the process it flew over the entire United States including sensitive military bases. The Pentagon revealed that the spy balloon had the ability to monitor U.S. communications, which is officially called “signals intelligence collections operations.”
US intel: Chinese spy balloon part of wider surveillance program

February 8, 2023

According to senior U.S. officials who spoke with The Washington Post, the Chinese spy balloon shot down over the weekend was part of a vast surveillance program ran by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Those officials say the program has been going for several years, partly out of the Hainan province off China’s south coast.

China has used the surveillance program to collect information on military assets in nearby countries like Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines. Spy balloons have also been spotted over five different continents.

The Post report contradicts China’s claim that the spy balloon was actually a weather balloon that was blown off course. The U.S. has widely rejected that claim.

“When it comes to what we’ve heard from the PRC, I’m just not going to give that too much oxygen,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this week. “Let me see if I can state it as clearly as I can. The PRC knows precisely what this was. The PRC knows precisely why this was in our airspace. The PRC knows precisely what this was doing over the United States, and ultimately the PRC knows precisely why we did what we did.”

The surveillance program report comes as a team of FBI engineers at a government lab in Quantico, Virginia, have begun poring over the remnants of the recovered spy balloon. The U.S. has also begun sharing information with diplomats around the world.

Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman briefed nearly 150 foreign diplomats across 40 embassies. The U.S. embassy in Beijing also gathered foreign diplomats on Monday and Tuesday to present U.S. findings about the balloon.

The diplomats at the Beijing briefing said they were told the solar panels on the balloon meant it needed more power than a weather balloon, and its flight path did not conform with natural wind patterns. U.S. officials have said the balloon was equipped with rudders and propellers.

“Based on the U.S. briefing, our own understanding about such balloons and the fact that China has so far refused to name the company or entity that owns this balloon, we find it hard to believe it is a civilian weather balloon,” a Beijing-based Asian defense diplomat told Reuters.

CNN contributed to this report.

As China tensions mount, US planning to quadruple military presence in Taiwan

Defense Department releases pilot selfie of Chinese balloon

White House to make guidelines for shooting down floating objects

US admits it tracked Chinese spy balloon from launch

Objects like the Chinese balloon have been flying over US since at least 2017

The White House says the objects in the sky were not aliens

Morning rundown: US shoots down more flying objects; Turkey prosecutes contractors

U.S. military shoots down four flying objects

Turkey prosecuting contractors

Philippines says ship blinded by laser

Delta plane catches fire

New Mexico State cancels basketball season

Kansas City Chiefs win super bowl

US shoots down ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska days after Chinese balloon

US intel: Chinese spy balloon part of wider surveillance program

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