US F-22 fighter jets dramatically shot down a possible spy balloon and two other flying objects over North America.

On Sunday evening, Congressman Jack Bergman of Michigan said the US military had “shot down” a new object over Lake Huron.

This comes at the same time as Canada announces it has closed airspace over Ontario, which borders Michigan.

Bthe liege was shot down over South Carolina in the United States last weekend, while what was described as a car-sized flying object was shot down over Alaska on Friday. On Saturday, a cylinder was shot down over the Yukon in Canada.

Few details are known, but the Americans believe they are certain the balloon they shot down was equipped with spy equipment from China.

China, for its part, insists it was a weather balloon that strayed and reacted strongly to the crash. Last week one came statement that the presence of the balloon over the United States was due to the wind and was an “accident”,

“China has always adhered to international law and respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week. They stressed that China has no intention of violating another country’s territory or airspace.

– If it is true that the three objects come from China, there is reason to believe that they are all part of a Chinese strategy of espionage and provocation of the United States, says Director of Intelligence Tom Røseth at the Norwegian Defense Academy at NRK.

He adds that spy balloons and flying objects towards the United States and Canada could be China’s desire to show itself as a great power.

chinese spyware

The United States claims to have known about China’s hot air balloon program for 10 years.

• The advantage of hot air balloons is that they can fly far in a favorable wind direction, e.g. China. Drones have a shorter range and must be sent from a ship in the Pacific Ocean.
• A balloon is also not so easy to detect on radar if you are not actively looking for it.
• All of these objects fly low, are cheap and get good images compared to expensive spy satellites.
• On board, they have equipment to listen to and locate military communications, such as e.g. communication between the pilots of an F-35 fighter jet and the main base, or tracking radar systems.

The balloons flew over areas in the United States that have huge radar equipment and where nuclear weapons and large bombers are stored. Large amounts of data can be collected.

– It can provide information on how the US encrypts military messages, which radars hit where, or you can find out what level of readiness Americans are at any given time, Røseth says.

Great Power Games

The United States and China have long been rival superpowers. Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and the full-scale Russian war of aggression in Ukraine that began nearly a year ago have led China to be more in the shadows.

Sending spy balloons can be seen as a political message from China that it would like to get involved again. It is also uncertain whether President Xi Jinping is directly involved, but whether there are hawks in the Chinese leadership who will provoke a reaction, according to Røseth.

– Sending a ball carries a great risk of backlash, but it can represent a desire to make yourself more visible in the United States again, he says.

The desire to show muscle as a great power goes both ways, says lead researcher Hans Jørgen Gåsemyr of the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy (NUPI). He says the United States puts China at the top of its priorities despite the war in Ukraine. Gåsemyr points out that there is a lot of intelligence activity between China and the United States and that the ball was not so technically advanced that it was suitable to send a strong political signal to the United States.

The Chinese reaction that it was a weather balloon that got lost seemed unexpected, he said. But global geopolitics is changing, and the United States needs to flex its muscles too.

– It is also necessary for the United States to show China that it has both the technical and analytical capabilities to react, says Gåsemyr.

The NUPI researcher thinks it will be interesting to see what the aftermath of this week’s spy drama will be. If there will be a more aggressive game between the United States and China, or if the level of conflict will be reduced.

On Sunday, a White House spokesman says the latest objects, which were shot down over Alaska and Canada, do not resemble the Chinese balloon. The person also repeats that the object is much smaller.