The massive white orb drifting across across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media.
China insists the balloon is just an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds and has only limited “self-steering” capabilities.
The Pentagon and other U.S. officials say it's a Chinese spy balloon — about the size of three school buses — moving east over America at an altitude of about 60,000 feet . The U.S. says it was being used for surveillance and intelligence collection, but officials have provided few details. Even if the balloon is not armed, it poses a risk to the U.S., said retired Army Gen. John Ferrari, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The flight itself, he said, can be used to test America's ability to detect incoming threats and to find holes in the country's air defense warning system.
For now, officials said the U.S. will monitor it, using “a variety of methods” including aircraft. The Pentagon has said the balloon isn't a military threat and doesn't give China any surveillance capabilities it doesn't already have with spy satellites.Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that it could be valuable to try and capture the balloon to study it.
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