Eyes were locked on the skies Saturday as a suspected Chinese spy balloon passed over the U.S. Eastern Seaboard -- where local authorities warned civilians against taking potshots with rifles -- before it was shot down when it drifted over the Atlantic Ocean.
Software engineer and storm chaser Brian Branch captured photographs of the balloon high above western North Carolina just hours before it was shot down.
The maneuverable balloon entered U.S. airspace over Alaska early this week and it wasn't acknowledged by government officials until Thursday, a day after commercial flights were temporarily halted at the airport in Billings, Montana and people on the ground saw the balloon seemingly loitering high above the city.
But in York County, South Carolina, not far from the North Carolina border, the county sheriff's office advised against anyone trying to take out the balloon on their own. Those included an unverified video out of Billings that purported to show a "massive explosion" over the city Friday evening, two days after the balloon passed over. The video was picked up and broadcast by Fox News, where Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that he was "monitoring the situation."
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