Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder holds a press briefing at the Pentagon on October 18, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
The government has been monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northern U.S. for the past few days, and they have discussed shooting it out of the sky, according to two U.S. officials and a senior defense official.
“The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told NBC News. “We continue to track and monitor it closely.”
“Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information,” Ryder said.
The high-altitude balloon was spotted over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday. It flew from the Aleutian Islands, through Canada, and into Montana. A senior defense official said the balloon is still over the U.S. but declined to say where it is now.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin convened a meeting of senior military and defense leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, NORTHCOM/NORAD Commander Gen. Van Herck, and other combatant commanders.
Austin was traveling in the Philippines at the time.
The leaders reviewed the threat profile of the Chinese stratospheric balloon and possible response options, and ultimately decided not to recommend taking it out kinetically, because of the risk to safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field. Pentagon leaders presented the options to President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
“Currently we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective over and above what the PRC can do through other means,” the senior defense official said. “Nevertheless we are taking all necessary steps to protect against foreign…
Read the full article here
