China threatened “further action” after the US shot down an alleged reconnaissance balloon that hovered over America for several days, which Beijing claims was a meteorological device that went off course.
US officials said the balloon flew through the stratosphere 60,000 feet above Montana, home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, which houses 100 silos containing Minuteman III ICBMs with nuclear warheads.
A senior Biden administration official sought to refute China’s claims that the balloon, dubbed Red Zeppelin by US media, was only for “civilian use” and “accidentally” entered US airspace.
“It was a PRC (People’s Republic of China) observation balloon. This surveillance balloon intentionally crossed the United States and Canada and we believe it was trying to secure important military installations,” the official said Saturday.
“Its route through the United States near many potential vulnerabilities contradicts the PRC government’s claim that it is a weather balloon.”
Despite saying earlier this week that the balloon posed no “military or physical” threat to the US, Defense Department officials decided to shoot it down on Saturday.
China reacted angrily, saying that it “reserves the right to use the necessary resources to deal with such situations.”
“The United States used force to attack our civilian drone in a flagrant overreaction,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Tang Kefei said Sunday.
China also announced that the head of the Chinese meteorological service, Zhuang Guotai, has been relieved of his duties.
According to state news agency Xinhua, his departure was not unexpected. In late January, Zhuang was elected chairman of the Western Gansu Provincial Political Consultative Committee, the provincial political advisory body.
History of Spy Balls
Spy balloons are not new. Primitives are centuries old, but they found more use during World War II.
US officials said similar Chinese balloons entered US airspace at least three times during the Trump administration and once during Biden’s tenure. But none of these incidents lasted that long.
Balloons typically hover above 80,000 feet (24,000 m) and may carry radar, cameras, and solar-powered sensors. They can cover large areas of territory from more than one satellite.
Once at the mercy of the elements and drifting with the wind, more advanced technology now allows such devices to use current to pilot themselves.
“Balloons can now weigh less, and so balloons can be smaller, cheaper and easier to launch (than satellites),” Peter Layton, a fellow at the Asian Griffith Institute in Australia and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, told CNN.
During World War II, Japan launched thousands of hydrogen balloon bombs and hundreds landed in the US and Canada. Most of them were ineffective, but one proved fatal.
In May 1945, six civilians died when one of the balloons on Oregon land was discovered to have exploded.
According to military research reports and studies, the US began using huge platoons of balloons and sensors tied together and spanning over 600 feet as part of an early attempt to detect Soviet missile launches. The top-secret operation, called Project Mogul, was carried out from 1947 to 1949.
Commenting on the Chinese balloon, the Pentagon said that it has sensors and surveillance equipment on board, is maneuverable and can change course.
Officials concluded that the balloon technology did not provide the Chinese with any significant information other than what they could already get from satellites, although the US took steps to reduce the amount of information it could gather over time.
The giant white ball, about the size of three buses, was spotted over the Carolinas on Saturday morning as it approached the Atlantic coast before being hit by a missile fired from an F-22 fighter jet around 2:39 a.m. local time.
It was about six nautical miles offshore near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, according to senior Defense Department officials.
Ashlyn Preo, 33, was about to pick up her mail in Forestbrook, South Carolina, when she saw her neighbors look up. She saw a hot air balloon in a cloudless blue sky before she saw the fighter jets circle and crash into the hot air balloon.
“I didn’t expect to wake up at one the best weapon Cinema today,” she told The Associated Press.
The wreckage fell into shallow water and scattered over a distance of about seven miles. According to officials, the operation to rescue several vessels will be completed in the near future.
The balloon entered US air defenses north of the Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28 and traveled mostly overland through Alaska before entering Canadian airspace on Monday, according to the Pentagon.
He returned to the US via northern Idaho on Tuesday, the day the White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on him for the first time.
US officials only announced the presence of the balloon on Thursday.
Additional agency reporting
Source: I News
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