The United States military retrieved the last remains of the Beijing spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Thursday, shipping the debris to a Virginia laboratory for observation.
Military officials expressed confidence that the United States Navy and Coast Guard successfully recovered all that remained of the Chinese spy balloon shot down by a U.S. fighter jet on Feb. 4. The recovery mission, which commenced Feb. 6, concluded Thursday with all remaining military vessels leaving the area and all air and maritime safety perimeters being lifted. (RELATED: US Troops Deployed To Turkey To Assist After Earthquake)
“Final pieces of debris are being transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in Virginia for counterintelligence exploitation, as has occurred with the previous surface and subsurface debris recovered,” the U.S. Northern Command stated.
The recovery team on Monday found balloon portions and surveillance equipment described to be roughly the size of three school buses, and early analysis reportedly reinforces initial conclusions that the balloon was a surveillance craft from the the People’s Republic of China.
The U.S. has finished efforts to recover the remnants of the large balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, and analysis of the debris so far reinforces conclusions that it was a Chinese spy balloon, U.S. officials said Friday. https://t.co/QP7ewk643J
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 17, 2023
Acting on national security concerns posed by the balloon conundrum, the military ramped up defense efforts, shooting down three unidentified aerial objects over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron. These objects are not believed to be associated with the Chinese Communist Party, and most likely belong to “private companies, recreation or research institutions,” President Joe Biden said Thursday, according to CNBC.
“We don’t yet know what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country … I gave the order to take down these three objects due to hazards to civilian commercial air traffic, and because we could not rule out the surveillance risk over sensitive facilities,” he stated, per the outlet.