Pentagon says tracking Chinese spy balloon over US
- Balloon lingering at high altitude over Western United States, home to sensitive sites including nuclear-missile silos
- A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Beijing was verifying the situation, and warned against ‘hype’ over the issue
The Pentagon said that it was tracking a Chinese spy balloon that has been hovering over the United States for several days.
At US President Joe Biden’s request, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and top military officials considered shooting the balloon down but decided doing so would endanger too many people on the ground, a senior US defence official told reporters on Thursday.
One of the places the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
Separately, Canada’s defence ministry said a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” was detected and that it was monitoring a “potential second incident”, without giving further details, adding that it was in frequent contact with the United States.
The Canadian statement did not reference China.
American officials have declined to say why the US believed the balloon belonged to China, saying only that the US had high confidence in the assessment. The US has engaged Chinese officials through multiple channels and communicated the seriousness of the matter.