By: Kai Wang
Earlier last month, the United States shot down a giant white balloon that had traveled over a large part of North America. The uncrewed vessel was 200 feet tall and weighed around 2,000 pounds. Its motors and propellers allowed it to be remotely guided over certain locations. The balloon’s undercarriage contained solar-powered surveillance technology.
US officials were aware that the balloon was from China; The balloon was closely monitored. On February 4, 2023, officials discovered it about six miles off the coast of South Carolina. Chinese officials said that the balloon was collecting weather data. They claimed that it was pushed off course into US territory by strong winds. However, a debris analysis confirmed US suspicions that the balloon was designed for spying. A debris analysis would confirm that they were right.
On February 9, 2023, the US downed a “cylindrical and silver gray-ish” object flying over Alaska. A couple of days later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau authorized the shooting of a small, “cylindrical object” over Canada’s Yukon territory. A fourth object was later taken down on February 12, 2023. This time it was flying above Lake Huron. “The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.” Said President Joe Biden
This sudden spike in mysterious flying objects may appear alarming. However, U.S. officials have worked to improve the ability to exist radars to track these flying objects down.
“We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase in objects that we’ve detected over the past week,” Melissa Dalton, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, said at a news conference on Sunday.
American military forces are collecting the remains of the balloons, which will determine whether these balloons pose any threat to the US.” Right now, our priority is on — is debris recovery so that we can get a better sense of what these objects are," US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a press conference on February 13, 2023.