The U.S. military is once again tracking another “mysterious” balloon flying over American soil, weeks after the Chinese spy balloon incident.
According to NBC News, the military has been tracking the balloon since last week but has no information on who it belongs to. The object was spotted flying over Hawaii but did not go over any sensitive areas, U.S. officials told the news outlet.
🚨#BREAKING: The U.S. military is tracking another mysterious balloon that flew parts of Hawaii
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) May 1, 2023
📌#Hawaii | #USA
The US military is currently keeping tabs on a mysterious balloon that was spotted over American airspace, but it's unknown what it is or who it belongs to. The… pic.twitter.com/Vn6GYNia30
A Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement on Monday that the balloon was floating at 36,000 feet with “no indication that it was maneuvering or being controlled by a foreign or adversarial actor. The balloon did not transit directly over defense critical infrastructure or other U.S. Government sensitive sites, nor did it pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground.”
It is still unclear whether the object is a weather balloon or something else, but officials said that it could still be shot down should it get near the continental U.S. NBC News noted that the object is currently drifting in the direction of Mexico and doesn’t seem to have any ability to move.
This comes after a Chinese high-altitude balloon was spotted flying over several sensitive American military sites in February. The Defense Department has since confirmed that it was collecting information.
Two months after the incident, two current senior U.S. officials and one former White House official told NBC that the intelligence China collected mostly came from electronic signals.
The Pentagon has not confirmed which sites were compromised by the surveillance balloon, but important installations in the balloon’s path included Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, one of three bases that maintain and operate Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles; Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, the headquarters of US Strategic Command, which oversees America’s nuclear forces; and Joint Base Charleston in South Carolina, which hosts two nuclear submarine squadrons.
The balloon first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska on Jan. 28 and was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. Critics slammed President Joe Biden for waiting until the balloon was over open waters to shoot it down.
“I said I wanted it shot down as soon as possible and [the intelligence community and Defense Department] were worried about the damage that can be done even in a big state like Montana,” Biden said.
