As the American Government releases more and MORE on the ‘unknown objects’, which Are Chinese spying ballons of differnt sizes and shapes it appears?
We are getting a peek at something that has probably been going on for some time….
A appears to have such a routine that breifing about it did not reach up to Presidential level during Trump’s or even Biden’s time in office…
The Washington Post has a piece that reveal’s that the US tracked the first BIG ballon from the time it was launched….
One would guess that the US has the the knowledge of the same for each ‘obeject’ that has made the news….
These are ballons…
They are ‘benign ‘ as John Kirby, the White House National Security mouthpiece reports….
China and American officials probably hope this whole thing will go away….
So they can let the intel people keep at their business….
No country likes surprises….
By the time a Chinese spy balloon crossed into American airspace late last month, U.S. military and intelligence agencies had been tracking it for nearly a week, watching as it lifted off from its home base on Hainan Island near China’s south coast.
U.S. monitors watched as the balloon settled into a flight path that would appear to have taken it over the U.S. territory of Guam. But somewhere along that easterly route, the craft took an unexpected northern turn, according to several U.S. officials, who said that analysts are now examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with its airborne surveillance device…
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This new account suggests that the ensuing international crisis that has ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing may have been at least partly the result of a mistake….
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Meanwhile, the White House on Tuesday said that three other objects shot down over North America in the last week may have posed no national security threat, striking perhaps the clearest distinction yet between those flying anomalies and the suspected spy balloon. John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters that the U.S. intelligence community “will not dismiss as a possibility” that the three craft instead belonged to a commercial organization or research entity and were therefore “benign.”
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has sent spy balloons over Guam before, as well as Hawaii, to monitor U.S. military installations, officials have said. But the days-long flyover of the continental United States was novel, and it sparked confusion inside the Chinese government as diplomats scrambled to disseminate a cover story that the balloon had been blown off course while it was collecting innocuous meteorological data, U.S. officials said.
The furor caught Beijing on its back foot. Initially it expressed “regrets” over what it insisted was a wayward weather balloon. Then it shifted to criticizing Washington for what it said was overreacting, and this week it accused the United States of sending 10 spy balloons over China. The White House has strongly denied the claim as false. “We are not flying surveillance balloons over China. I’m not aware of any other craft that we’re flying over — into Chinese airspace,” Kirby said Monday….
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Kirby said Monday: “These balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the [People’s Republic of China’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.”
U.S. officials stressed that they took steps to defeat any efforts by China to gather sensitive information from military sites. Any such information or communications were encrypted, Kirby has said.
“The name of the game of spying is always new capability, new mitigation,” said the second official….