Starting off the New Year strong. Government officials were closely tracking a massive surveillance balloon believed to be from China it traveled across the country for several days. The white balloon traveled at an altitude of around 60,000 feet with a vessel described as the size of three buses. China’s foreign ministry has claimed to be used for meteorological purposes. The balloon entered U.S. airspace on January 28, north of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Shortly after 2 days, on January 30, the balloon then entered Canadian airspace over the Northwest Territories. The balloon was spotted traveling southeast across the U.S., in the states of Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and South Carolina.

So now the question is, what was it doing here? Well, China’s foreign ministry says the balloon was mainly used for meteorological purposes and had limited self-steering ability. It said it was affected by the weather and unexpectedly drifted into U.S. airspace. The ministry has no information to share about what company or entity owns the balloon. This leaves us with the question, should we believe them and what they’re saying about the balloon? Officials here say the U.S. military was constantly assessing the threat and concluded that the technology on the balloon didn’t give the Chinese significant intelligence beyond what it could already obtain from satellites. However, American Officials believe previous incidents of Chinese surveillance involved efforts to learn more about pilot training and how the United States coordinated military weaponry to amplify its combat effects.

President Biden heard about the balloon and immediately initiated to shoot it down; however, military advisers, Austin and Milley, told Biden the risks of shooting the balloon down were too high while it was moving over the U.S., given the chance debris could endanger lives or property on the ground below. They told Biden to wait until the safest place to do it, this was on Wednesday, February 1. On Saturday, February 4, the balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina shortly after 2.30 p.m. ET. A senior defense official says an F-22 dispatched out of Langley Air Force took down the balloon with a single air-to-air missile. The US Navy recovered the remains of the alleged Chinese Spy Balloon after it was shot down over the weekend. What do you think the Chinese Spy balloon was doing? How do you think the US handled the situation? How do you think China will react? Find out more on DCTribalMedia.com.