A Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a US fighter jet may have drifted at least Slot Bonus New Member partially into mainland airspace by accident, officials have revealed.
The U.S. had tracked the balloon from launch from the Chinese island of Hainan as it sailed across the Pacific Ocean before entering North American airspace over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28, it said. The Washington Post. The publication spoke to intelligence officials briefed on the matter.
A week before it was shot down on the other side of the country, observers reportedly watched the balloon come to rest on a flight path that appeared to have sent it to the US territory of Guam, thousands of miles from Alaska and far from previous Chinese surveillance . efforts near military installations in Guam and Hawaii, officials told the newspaper.
Military officials and the White House are investigating whether that seemingly sudden turn of events was intentional. They think it was likely to guard US military sites over the Pacific.
The newspaper reported that the surprise balloon drift by the US reportedly caused confusion among Chinese agencies and diplomats. They rushed to put together a cover story to describe the plane as a civilian weather balloon gone off course, and U.S. analysts are apparently exploring the possibility that China had no intention of entering the U.S. mainland at all. The mail reported.
The findings could undermine partisan fighting and a volatile debate over the country’s relationship with China in the wake of the media frenzy over the balloon intrusion.
They also follow a “leading” theory by intelligence officials that three other recently shot down objects were used for commercial or other “benign” purposes.
“The intelligence community takes as a leading statement that these could just be balloons attached to some commercial or benign target,” White House National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby told reporters on Feb. 14.
Officials have ruled out those objects being government craft, and intelligence suggests they are not related to China, Kirby said.
“We are not aware of any evidence at this time to confirm that they were, in fact, intelligence gathering by another government,” he said.
After hovering over Alaska, the surveillance balloon drifted toward Canada, where strong winds appear to have pushed it slightly south toward the mainland United States. The mail found it.
Strong high-altitude winds likely pulled it off course, although the aircraft was partially air-steered and also remote-controlled; it was equipped with propellers and a rudder, officials told the newspaper.
While the crossing into US airspace and proximity to nuclear sites in Montana probably weren’t accidents, Beijing is believed to have taken the opportunity to gather intelligence while over the mainland, officials said.
President Joe Biden initially asked the military to explore options to shoot it down, though military advisers recommended the government wait until the craft no longer posed a threat to crash into people or structures below.
Defense officials also testified to a Senate panel last week that firing the balloon over Alaska at first sight would have risked forfeiting valuable materials in frozen waters thousands of feet deep.
An F-22 Raptor jet fired a Sidewinder missile at the balloon on Feb. 4 and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in water about 50 feet deep, 10 miles off the coast of South Carolina.
