The Chinese ‘spy’ balloon, which the United States shot down in February this year, had sent intelligence data of American military sites, the Guardian quoted NBC News as reporting. The development suggests that the balloon flew over sensitive military sites in the US sending real-time data back to Beijing.
According to the Guardian, NBC’s report cited some officials who said, “The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images.”
Reacting to the report, White House official John Kirby told reporters on Monday that he could not confirm it. However, as per the Guardian, he added that the US limited the balloon’s “ability to be able to collect anything additive”.
Adding that the US ‘gained some useful context’, Kirby said that the American government was able to study and analyse the balloon while it was in US airspace, .”
The Pentagon confirmed that experts were still analysing debris collected from the balloon after it was shot down on February 4.
“I could not confirm that there was a real-time transmission from the balloon back to (China) at this time...that’s something we’re analyzing right now,” the Guardian quoted Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh as saying.
According to a BBC report, US officials said they tracked the balloon over Alaska and Canada before it re-entered American airspace in early February. The balloon, which was of the size of around three school buses, was shot down off the coast of South Carolina by a US fighter jet.
US officials later said that they had recovered the balloon.
China has repeatedly denied spying and said it was a weather-monitoring balloon that got away from its set path. Beijing said that the US overreacted by shooting it down, BBC mentioned in the report.
The report further adds that some officials told US media that China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over military bases, sometimes flying in a figure-eight loop.