#China #USA #Wandering-Balloon #politics reporting: “The balloon, which spent five days traveling in a diagonal southeast route from Idaho to the Carolinas, had moved off the coast by midday Saturday and was shot down within moments of its arrival over the Atlantic Ocean. (...) Pentagon officials advised then against shooting down the balloon, whose belly structure was roughly the size of three buses. (...) Pentagon officials said the spy balloon, which was remotely maneuverable to some degree by the Chinese but still dependent on the jet stream for travel, began its controlled drift into American territory on Jan. 28, when it entered Alaskan airspace near the Aleutian Islands. (...) the most recent balloon, equipped with solar panels to power propulsion and cameras and surveillance technology, exited American territory on Monday and spent the day over Canada’s Northwest Territories. But it was back over the United States on Tuesday after entering through northern Idaho.”
on 02024-11-22BBC reporting at the time on the #China #USA #Wandering-Balloon #politics, apparently the most comprehensive coverage
on 02024-11-22more on the #China #Wandering-Balloon: “Regarding the unintended entry of a Chinese unmanned airship into US airspace due to force majeure, the Chinese side has verified it and communicated it to the US side. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.” #USA #UFOs #politics #history
on 02024-11-22“Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on the Unintended Entry of a Chinese Unmanned Airship into US Airspace Due to Force Majeure” prior to the #Wandering-Balloon #politics #USA #UFOs #history
on 02024-11-22“Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said he lodged a formal complaint with the U.S. Embassy on Sunday over the “U.S. attack on a Chinese civilian unmanned airship by military force.”” in February 02023. The #USA government said it was a spy balloon at 18000m altitude, while #China said it was a civilian meteorological research balloon (a sort of weather balloon) blown off-course. #politics #Wandering-Balloon #UFOs
on 02024-11-22