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US authorities say Chinese spy balloons have been active on multiple continents.
– We know that these surveillance balloons have passed through many countries on several continents around the world, including some of our closest allies and partners.
This is stated by John Kirby, coordinator of the National Security Council at the White House, in a statement from the US Department of Defense.
At the beginning of February, a balloon was shot down in American airspace, above the coast of the state of South Carolina. Americans believe it to be a Chinese spy balloon, while China denies the claim and claims it was a stray weather balloon.
Recovered “spy electronics”
The Americans now say they have been able to determine that China has a high-flying balloon program used for intelligence purposes, linked to the People’s Liberation Army, according to the statement.
The People’s Liberation Army is the name of the Chinese armed forces.
The United States claims to have recovered sensors and electronic components that can be used for intelligence purposes from the wreckage of the downed Chinese balloon.
– The program was operational under the previous administration, but they did not discover it. We discovered it, we tracked it, and we studied it carefully to learn as much as possible, says Kirby.
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Third object shot down in three days by the USA
Difficult to trace
The balloon that was shot down would have been the size of three school buses. Slow-moving objects at high altitudes are difficult to track with radar, even objects of this size, Kirby says.
Now the Americans are consulting with allies on the challenge of identifying objects in the air.
Recently, several unidentified objects have been spotted in the airspace over the United States and Canada and have been removed. Three objects were shot down in Alaska in the United States, Yukon in Canada and Lake Huron in the United States over the weekend.
