What is a spy balloon?

A spy balloon is just that — a balloon used for surveillance purposes. “Clearly they’re trying to fly this — this balloon over sensitive sites … to collect information,” the U.S. defense official said Thursday . And spy balloons are nothing new: During the American Civil War, the Union even used hot-air balloons to track Confederate troop movements. During World War I , the photographic section of the U.S. Army Air Service used balloons to conduct surveillance and provide aerial imagery. And in the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force launched Project Genetrix, which it described as its first “large-scale, unmanned, high altitude balloon intelligence operation,” designed to take photos over “the Soviet land mass.” Balloon surveillance activity has continued in recent years. Chinese surveillance balloons have been sighted “multiple times over the last five years” in the Pacific, including near Hawaii, one U.S. official told The Post.

How big was the suspected spy balloon over the United States?

The payload of the balloon — the part underneath the balloon itself — was the size of three large buses, according to U.S. officials. A Pentagon official previously said the balloon is “large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area.” One official said Saturday the airship contains “some sophisticated communications gear.” The United States had “been tracking it for some time,” as the balloon entered the airspace of the U.S. mainland “a couple of days ago,” a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.

Where did the balloon travel?

The balloon was flying at about 60,000 feet, Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said at a Pentagon briefing Friday, adding that the balloon didn’t represent a physical or military threat to people on the ground. That’s roughly double the altitude at which commercial aircraft typically fly. The balloon’s path crossed over “a number of sensitive sites” a U.S. defense official said, but the Pentagon was “taking steps to be extra vigilant so that we can mitigate any foreign intelligence risk,” a U.S. defense official said Thursday. The National Weather Service reported a sighting of a “large balloon” over Kansas City, Mo., in the early afternoon Friday that was not one of its weather balloons. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said Friday afternoon she had received reports of the suspected Chinese spy balloon over northeast Kansas. “If true, this provocation is alarming,” she tweeted . By Saturday afternoon, the balloon had reached the Carolinas. Residents near Myrtle Beach, S.C., spotted the round, white object high overhead in the early afternoon, before it was downed off the Atlantic Coast. Before reaching the U.S. mainland, the balloon soared above Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and Canada, The Washington Post reported, citing American officials. This particular balloon stands out for how long it stayed over U.S. territory. “I think the thing that is different is the altitude and, of course, the willingness to put it over the continental United States for an extended period of time,” the defense official said, although he noted that he did not think the balloon “provides significant value” to Chinese surveillance capabilities. Ryder confirmed to The Post Friday night that The Pentagon had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/03/second-chinese-spy-balloon-pentagon/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_headlines&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3908c40%2F63de3ae81b79c61f8779c896%2F5de3b9d1ade4e25a93f62ca1%2F10%2F55%2F63de3ae81b79c61f8779c896&wp_cu=3a29651eccfe6af5e90dc1093b3e47bd%7C18F3DAB2BD9E1B4CE050007F010029D6" target=_blank>seen reports of a second balloon “transiting Latin America” and had assessed it was “another Chinese surveillance balloon.” He did not offer specifics about the location of that balloon, and said Saturday morning he had no new updates to provide. Social media users in Costa Rica posted images of an unidentified hot air balloon flying over the country beginning early Thursday morning, Costa Rican media reported .

Why did the authorities wait to shoot it down?

President Biden was briefed about the balloon Tuesday and asked the military to present options, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. Military leaders strongly advised against taking “kinetic action” — or firing at the balloon — out of concern for the safety of the civilians on the ground who could be hurt by debris, she said. The balloon poses neither a physical nor a substantial intelligence threat, U.S. officials said. By midday Saturday, the calculus had changed. Asked about the balloon Saturday morning, Biden told reporters, “We’re gonna take care of it.” Shortly afterward, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops for all flights in and out of Wilmington, N.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Charleston, S.C. to “support the Department of Defense in a national security effort.” Videos posted to social media in the early afternoon showed contrails from military aircraft circling the Chinese balloon above South Carolina. In one video, shots could be heard before the balloon exploded and began to fall. Biden ordered the military on Wednesday to take down the balloon “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement Saturday. Some Republicans criticized the Biden administration for not downing the balloon immediately. Officials are due to brief top lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate next week.

Why China might use a spy balloon — and why it would loiter

It’s well known that the United States and China spy on each other, and the senior U.S. official said that the balloon’s capabilities did not appear to be “over and above” those of existing Chinese satellites and other tools. The defense official said “I can’t speculate” about whether China would have wanted the balloon to be spotted. The balloons are part of an extensive, years-long Chinese military surveillance program, two officials told The Post , speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Professor Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said that given China’s access to advanced technology, any spy balloon probably would be of more “symbolic value, showing that the Chinese are able to send something in the air to survey U.S. military installations.” But the incident marks a setback to Beijing’s diplomatic overtures to the United States. Blinken’s decision to postpone his trip to China came just hours before he was scheduled to depart — an indication of how seriously the Biden administration takes the incident and hopes to avoid potential criticism for appearing soft on China. Blinken told his Chinese counterpart Friday the presence of the balloon over U.S. airspace was “an irresponsible act and a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law that undermined the purpose of the trip.” The leaders of a House select committee on China, Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), said in a statement that the threat China poses to the United States “is not confined to distant shores — it is here at home and we must act to counter this threat.”

How has China responded to the spy-balloon accusations?

Initially, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spoke out against “speculation and sensationalizations.” “China is a responsible country that has always strictly abided by international law and has no intention of infringing on any country’s territory and airspace. We hope that both sides can handle this together with calm and caution,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said. Later Friday, the Foreign Ministry said: “The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.” It added, “The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure, ” referring to the stipulation in international law that frees parties of liability in the event of an extraordinary, unforeseen development. On Saturday, the Foreign Ministry <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/04/china-spy-balloon-blinken-cancel-visit/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_headlines&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3908c3f%2F63de3ae81b79c61f8779c896%2F5de3b9d1ade4e25a93f62ca1%2F8%2F55%2F63de3ae81b79c61f8779c896&wp_cu=3a29651eccfe6af5e90dc1093b3e47bd%7C18F3DAB2BD9E1B4CE050007F010029D6" target=_blank>said the balloon’s presence over the United States was “completely an accident,” and accused “some U.S. politicians and media” of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China. Ryder said the balloon had changed course, casting doubt on Beijing’s assertion the wind had blown it off track. Earlier Friday, the state-run nationalist tabloid Global Times quoted an expert as saying that only the United States and China are capable of making navigable balloons of such a size. “If the U.S. can prove that this balloon was from China with hard evidence, then it shows that China is already ahead of the U.S. in the technology of this field,” aerodynamicist Huang Zhicheng said. Josh Dawsey, Samuel Oakford, Samantha Schmidt, Kelsey Ables, Lily Kuo, Ellen Nakashima, Amy B Wang, Cate Cadell, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton contributed to this report.

What to know about the suspected Chinese spy balloon

By Victoria Bisset

Andrew Jeong

Lyric Li

Claire Parker

and

John Hudson

Updated February 4, 2023 at 4:15 p.m. EST|Published February 3, 2023 at 10:11 a.m. EST

Billings resident Chase Doak spotted an unusual object over Montana on Feb. 1. The Pentagon has been monitoring a Chinese surveillance balloon for several days. (Video: Chase Doak)

9 min

The spotting of a high-altitude balloon over the U.S. mainland this week quickly spiraled into a diplomatic incident. U.S. officials say the object is a Chinese spy balloon, while Chinese officials called it a “civilian airship” mainly used to track weather.

The airborne vehicle was originally spotted over Montana, home to some of the United States’ nuclear missile silos. The balloon then moved southeast from Montana, with locals in Missouri and Kansas reporting sightings, before a U.S. military aircraft brought it down just off the Atlantic Coast, near the Carolinas.

The Pentagon said Friday it had assessed that a similar airborne vehicle spotted over Latin America was a separate Chinese spy balloon.

Spy balloons have previously passed over the United States, but this object was unusual for loitering overhead “for an extended period of time,” defense officials say. The incident prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a planned trip to China that was intended to lower tensions between the two countries.

The first known usage of reconnaissance balloons was by the French during the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, when they were used to spy on Austrian and Dutch troops in what is now Belgium.

Here’s what you need to know about spy balloons, and about the Chinese balloons sighted this week in North America.

More on the flying objects shot down over U.S., Canada

The latest: U.S. fighter jets have shot four objects out of the sky over North America this month. The first object, a balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast, was Chinese. Biden said Thursday the three other objects did not so far appear to have connections to foreign surveillance programs.

The first balloon: The first object was linked by the U.S. intelligence community to a vast surveillance program run by the People’s Liberation Army. Here’s a timeline of the balloon’s journey across the United States and photos of the recovery.

The response from China: China’s Foreign Ministry said the U.S. has sent at least 10 unsanctioned balloons into Chinese airspace since last year. China accused the United States of an “overreaction” and reiterated claims that the airship was a civilian vessel that drifted off course.

Why use a spy balloon? Spy balloons “offer a few advantages over the use of satellites or drones,” James Rogers, an academic at Cornell, tells us. The Defense Department told Congress that similar surveillance balloons had been spotted in U.S. airspace before, and a top U.S. general said past incursions by Chinese balloons went undetected by the Pentagon.