WASHINGTON, D.C. – Communist China has sent a high-altitude surveillance balloon floating over the continental United States to gather data on sensitive areas, including Montana, where siloed nuclear weapons are stored.
The United States Government has detected and is tracking a high altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement. The U.S. government, to include NORAD, continues to track and monitor it closely. The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the issue today as well, saying, “I’d just like to briefly address the presence of the Chinese surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace.
“I spoke this morning with Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi to convey that in light of China’s unacceptable action, I am postponing my planned travel this weekend to China. As you know, President Biden and President Xi agreed during their meetings in Bali in November that I would travel to Beijing to follow up on their discussions. We’ve been working across the U.S. Government to prepare for a substantive set of discussions on issues that matter to the American people and to people around the world. And we’ve been engaging for some time with our counterparts in Beijing to prepare for these meetings.
“Yesterday, the Department of Defense announced that we had detected and were tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that remains over the continental United States. We continue to track and monitor the balloon closely. We’re confident this is a Chinese surveillance balloon. Once we detected the balloon, the U.S. Government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.
“We communicated with the PRC Government directly through multiple channels about this issue. Members of my team consulted with our partners in other agencies and in Congress. We also engaged our close allies and partners to inform them of the presence of the surveillance balloon in our airspace. We concluded that conditions were not conducive for a constructive visit at this time.”
A Senior defense official weighed in on the matter today, saying, “So how big? You know, I’m not going to go into the exact dimensions. We did assess that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area. We had been looking at whether there was an option yesterday over some sparsely populated areas in Montana. But we just couldn’t buy down the risk enough to feel comfortable recommending shooting it down yesterday. So, beyond that, though, I can’t really go into the dimensions. But there have been reports of pilots seeing this thing, even though it’s pretty high up in the sky. So, you know, it’s sizeable. Clearly the intent of this balloon is for surveillance. And so the current flight path does carry it over a number of sensitive sites. But out of an abundance of caution, we have taken additional mitigation steps. I’m not going to go into what those are. But we know exactly where this balloon is, exactly what it is passing over. And we are taking steps to be extra vigilant so that we can mitigate any foreign intelligence risk.”
