By Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris; Edited by News Gate Team
By the time a Chinese surveillance balloon entered American airspace late last month, U.S. military and intelligence services had been tracking it for almost a week and had observed it when it launched from its home station near China’s south coast, an earlier glimpse of the balloon than was previously known.
© Thomas Peter/Reuters
The balloon appeared to have flown over the U.S. island of Guam as U.S. observers watched it settle into a flight route. But according to many U.S. officials, somewhere along that easterly course, the craft made a surprise turn to the north. As a result, analysts are now looking into the possibility that China didn’t plan for their airborne surveillance equipment to enter the American heartland.
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According to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, the balloon floated over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, thousands of miles away from Guam. It then drifted over Canada, where it encountered strong winds that appear to have pushed the balloon south into the United States. The balloon was brought down by an American fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on February 4—one week after it had flown over Alaska.
According to this new version, the subsequent global crisis that has heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing may have been caused, at least in part, by a mistake.
According to sources, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had previously flown spy balloons over Guam and Hawaii to keep an eye on American military sites. However, the unusual days-long flyover over the continental United States caused uncertainty within the Chinese leadership as diplomats rushed to spread a cover narrative that the balloon had been blown off course while it was gathering harmless meteorological data, according to U.S. officials.
Beijing was caught off guard by the commotion. At first, it claimed to have “regrets” regarding a weather balloon that got out of control. After that, it criticized Washington for what it perceived to be an overreaction, and this week it claimed that Washington had sent 10 spy balloons over China. The report has been vehemently refuted as incorrect by the White House. “We are not overflying China with surveillance balloons. According to John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, “I’m not aware of any other craft that we are flying over into Chinese airspace.
The balloon was tracked by American military and intelligence organizations as it departed from Hainan Island. Intelligence experts are unsure if the apparent deviation was deliberate or accidental, but they are certain that it was done with the goal of spying, probably over American military stations in the Pacific. In any case, the PLA made a serious mistake when it entered American airspace, which resulted in a diplomatic and political uproar and increased scrutiny of Beijing’s aerial spying capabilities by the United States and its allies.
Its crossing into U.S. airspace was a violation of sovereignty and its hovering over sensitive nuclear sites in Montana was no accident, officials said, raising the possibility that even if the balloon were inadvertently blown over the U.S. mainland, Beijing apparently decided to seize the opportunity to try to gather intelligence.
© Provided by The Washington Post
According to officials, the incident was simply the most recent example of China’s deliberate expansion of its monitoring capabilities, which include modern satellite technology and balloons.
The balloon fleet is a component of a much larger air surveillance project that the Chinese government has invested what analysts estimate to be billions of dollars over the years in. This effort also includes sophisticated satellite systems.
One senior U.S. official described the initiative as “a distinct program” that was “part of a bigger collection of programs that are about acquiring greater information about military sites in the United States and in a variety of other nations.” To “augment the satellite systems” is what it seems to be intended for.
The three other items that were shot down during the past week, according to officials, appeared to be significantly different in size and capabilities from the surveillance balloon. They currently have no idea who launched them or whether they were Chinese.
One senior U.S. official described the initiative as “a distinct program” that was “part of a bigger collection of programs that are about acquiring greater information about military sites in the United States and in a variety of other nations.” To “augment the satellite systems” is what it seems to be intended for.
The three other items that were shot down during the past week, according to officials, appeared to be significantly different in size and capabilities from the surveillance balloon. They currently have no idea who launched them or whether they were Chinese.
© Image by NOAA/Image by NOAA
Model simulations reveal the balloon started to pick up speed and quickly deviate north about Jan. 24, when it was roughly 1,000 miles south of Japan. This was most likely in response to a powerful cold front that had blown in and sent extremely chilly air to northern China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan.
Historical weather data indicates that the balloon would have typically been kept on a significantly more west to east track by atmospheric steering actions. The strong cold front, however, may have swept the balloon northward by forcing the jet stream and high altitude steering currents to dive south.
© Image by NOAA/Image by NOAA
The airship first entered American airspace off the coast of Alaska on January 28. It then traveled across Canada and back into American airspace over Idaho on January 31, one day before it was spotted over Montana by citizens, leading to a ground stop at the Billings airport as American officials debated shooting it down.
Officials chose to wait until they could shoot it down over water after determining they could not reduce the risk to people on the ground.
The cargo of the balloon, which officials estimated to be the size of three school buses, is still being retrieved, and analysts are still expecting its arrival, but “it doesn’t look like it’s a dramatic new capability,” said a second U.S. official. “It appears to be more collection; everyone wants more.”
On Monday, Kirby stated: “These balloons have offered the [People’s Republic of China’s] other intelligence platforms employed over the United States very modest incremental capabilities. However, if the PRC keeps developing this technology, it will undoubtedly grow in value for them.
The intelligence community would “not exclude as a possibility that the could be balloons that were just related to commercial or scientific groups and hence innocent,” Kirby said on Tuesday in reference to three other flying objects that were shot down over the previous week.
Officials from the United States emphasized that they took action to thwart any attempts by China to collect sensitive information from military locations. Kirby has stated that any such data or communications were encrypted.
“The name of the game of spying is always new capability, new mitigation,” said the second official.
By Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris; Edited by News Gate Team
