Sailors assigned to Assault Craft Unit 4 prepare material recovered in the Atlantic Ocean from a high-altitude balloon for transport to federal agents at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Feb. 10, 2023. The Chinese surveillance balloon that hovered over the United States two months ago might have picked up some intelligence from sensitive military sites, but it would be nothing more valuable than what Beijing could already collect with its satellites, the Pentagon said Monday, April 3. (Ryan Seelbach/U.S. Navy)
WASHINGTON — The Chinese surveillance balloon that hovered over the United States two months ago might have picked up some intelligence from sensitive military sites, but it would be nothing more valuable than what Beijing could already collect with its satellites, the Pentagon said Monday.
“We are still doing an assessment of what, exactly, the intel was that China was able to get,” Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters at the Pentagon. “But we do know the steps we took provided little additive value for what they have been able to collect from satellites before.”
The high-altitude balloon was first spotted off the coast of Alaska in late January and later floated through parts of Canada before reaching the U.S. mainland. The airship floated from the northwestern states the across Great Plains to the southeastern states. U.S. jets shot it down on Feb. 4 when it reached the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast.
But an NBC News report Monday citing unnamed sources stated the balloon was able to collect data from sensitive military sites — including Malmstrom Air Force Base in north-central Montana — and transmit it back to China before the U.S. government could block it. The 341st Missile Wing of the Air Force Global Strike Command, which stores some of the military’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, is headquartered at the base.
A U.S. Air Force pilot looks down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovered over the Central Continental United States, Feb. 3, 2023. Recovery efforts began shortly after the balloon was downed. (Defense Department)
“I think what we said at the very beginning still holds true,” Singh said. “As soon as we realized they were collecting intelligence and hovering over our sensitive sites, we took measures that limited the additive value that the balloon could collect on.”
“I wouldn’t be able to say they were able to transmit back to Beijing,” she added. “That is not confirmed at this point.”
The Pentagon said the FBI is still studying the balloon wreckage pulled from the ocean to determine what the capabilities of the airship were. China has claimed the balloon was an unmanned civilian airship that veered off course, but U.S. officials have said it was a spy balloon and had the ability to maneuver and propel itself in the sky.
President Joe Biden has said he waited for the balloon to reach the Atlantic before shooting it down because the size of its payload — about the length of three buses and weighing 2,000 pounds — posed a danger to civilians and property on the ground. At its altitude, about 60,000 feet, it also was not a threat to civilian air traffic, the Pentagon said. The balloon itself was about 200 feet tall and the airship carried rows of solar panels for power.
Not long after the Feb. 4 shootdown of the balloon, U.S. officials said the Chinese had a fleet of spy balloons that they had floated over other continents. Singh said Monday that no other Chinese balloons have been detected over the U.S. since the one in early February that was shot down.
