Chinese Spy Balloon Recovered, Other Objects May Not Be Found
Brian Everstine February 17, 2023
A U.S. Navy sailor loads debris from the Chinese
surveillance balloon onto a ship on Feb. 10 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Credit: U.S. Navy
U.S. forces
have completely recovered the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off the
South Carolina coast on Feb. 4, though officials warn they may never recover
the other three unidentified objects downed by fighter jet missiles the
following week.
U.S.
Northern Command in a Feb. 17 statement said recovery operations concluded the
day before, with the final pieces of debris transferred to an FBI laboratory in
Virginia. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels have left the area near Myrtle
Beach with all air and maritime safety perimeters lifted.
National
Security Council spokesman John Kirby during a Feb. 17 briefing said crews
retrieved all that was recoverable, including the payload structure,
electronics and optics.
“They’re
analyzing it, they’re looking at it, and we need to let them do their work in a
thoughtful, deliberate way,” Kirby says. “I want to caveat all this by saying
there may be some things we will not be able to disclose.”
During the
briefing, Kirby was asked about Aviation Week reporting that the object downed
Feb. 11 in the Yukon Territory of Canada could have been a hobbyist pico
balloon launched by the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB)
that went missing off the west coast of Alaska the day before. Kirby says the
White House cannot confirm the report or what the remains of that balloon, or
the other two objects downed over Alaska and Lake Huron, will end up
being.
“We haven’t
recovered it. It’s very difficult until you can get your hands on something to
be able to tell,” Kirby says. “We all have to accept the possibility that we
may not be able to recover it.”
The object
in Yukon is in rough, remote territory in cold weather. The object downed Feb.
10 over Alaska is on a shelf of sea ice. The one shot down in Lake Huron on
Feb. 12 is in a deep water, and Canadian officials announced Feb. 16 that they
were ending the search on their side of the border.
Even with
the possibility that the objects shot down by F-22s and F-16s were small, cheap
hobbyist balloons, Kirby defended the decision to take them down based on the
circumstances at the time.
“Given the
situation we were in, the information available, the recommendation of our
military commands, it was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the right
time,” he says.
The
possibility that the objects end up being $12 balloons launched by hobbyists
would be a good thing, he argues.
“Frankly,
given the circumstances, in light of what happened with this spy balloon,
wouldn’t that be a better outcome?” he says. “If it turns out that they were,
in fact, civilian or recreational use or weather balloons and therefore benign,
which is what the intelligence community thinks. Isn’t that a better outcome
than to have to think about the possibility of greater threats to our national
security?”
If the
downed object in Yukon does belong to the NIBBB, Kirby says he is not aware of
any plan to reimburse it for the cost of the balloon.
President
Joe Biden on Feb. 16 outlined his plan to better detect, track and regulate
uncrewed flying objects, and to overhaul procedures for the military to
respond. This includes a new inventory of uncrewed airborne objects, improved
ability to detect objects in airspace and revised regulations for the launch
and operations of the objects.
The military
parameters will likely be classified. They will be sent to Congress within days
and go into effect quickly, Kirby says.
The saga of
the Chinese balloon and subsequent unidentified objects comes as the Pentagon
is finalizing its upcoming budget requests, and there could be funding shifted
to address the issue.
“If there
needs to be more resources, to have more resources applied to this particular
challenge, then that’s certainly a conversation worth having,” Kirby says.
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