“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told Fox News Friday night. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon.”
Nearly identical Chinese spy balloons have been dispatched by the Chinese military into the airspace of Japan and India and the Philippines and in at least one case, probably all cases, at least one we know of, over a military installation. So, Chinese spy balloons are actually kind of expensive to make and there’s a diplomatic risk in deploying them over other country’s airspaces.
The question is, what’s the reason? EMP attack? Nuclear surveillance? Drop the next bioweapon?
Pentagon says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America
Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said ‘it is another Chinese surveillance balloon’
close
Sen. Mike Rounds: Chinese balloon should have never been allowed in our airspace
The U.S. government says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America.
“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told Fox News Friday night. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon.”
Ryder said during a briefing Thursday the U.S. government detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental U.S.
A senior defense official said during the briefing the U.S. government is “confident” the surveillance balloon is from the People’s Republic of China.
BIDEN ADMIN TO BRIEF ‘GANG OF EIGHT’ ON CHINESE SPY BALLOON AFTER SPEAKER MCCARTHY’S REQUEST
A high-altitude balloon floats over Billings, Mont., Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023.
A high-altitude balloon floats over Billings, Mont., Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. (Larry Mayer/The Billings Gazette via AP)
The balloon was recently over Montana, and the official said the government considered shooting it down but decided against using military force because of the potential risks.
When President Biden was briefed on the situation, he asked for military options, the official said.
CHINESE SPY BALLOON: BLINKEN CALLS OUT CHINA FOR ‘IRRESPONSIBLE ACT’ IN PHONE CALL WITH CCP OFFICIAL
This map shows the approximate path of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over Montana Friday, Feb. 3, 2023.
This map shows the approximate path of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over Montana Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. (Fox News)
“You did see reports yesterday of a ground stop at Billings Airport and the mobilization of a number of assets, including F-22,” the official said. “The context for that was that we put some things on station in the event that a decision was made to bring this down while it was over Montana.”
A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday the balloon is a “civilian airship” being used for meteorological purposes and deviated from its planned course.
A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, Feb. 1, 2023, in this picture obtained from social media.
A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, Feb. 1, 2023, in this picture obtained from social media. (Chase Doak/via Reuters)
“The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes,” the spokesperson said. “Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.”
CHINESE BALLOON FLYING OVER US ‘INTENTIONAL,’ NOT WEATHER CRAFT THAT BLEW OFF COURSE, US OFFICIAL SAYS
Red flags flutter in front of the Great Hall of the People March 4, 2022, in Beijing, China.
Red flags flutter in front of the Great Hall of the People March 4, 2022, in Beijing, China. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
The Pentagon does not believe the object is a weather balloon that veered off course.
“This was intentional,” a senior U.S. official said, adding that the balloon initially took off from mainland China.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about the launch initiative to support Afghan women during the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Sept. 20, 2022.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about the launch initiative to support Afghan women during the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Sept. 20, 2022. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)
The balloon was seen over Kansas City, Missouri, Friday. Ryder told reporters the balloon will probably hover over U.S. airspace “a few days.”
Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.
Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.
Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.
Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you
and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding.Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently
banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds.
They are disappearing us. But we are here.
Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival.
Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.
Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.
Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.
If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.
52votes
Article Rating
19 Comments
Oldest
NewestMost Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jay
1 year ago
Think of one “L” and two “Pines” and you’ll always spell “PHILIPPINES” correctly
We always referred to them as “tagalongs”. Buy one, get twelve free.
Snowedin
1 year ago
No country is going to shoot any of these balloons down as it seems that government of the countries that the balloons are flying in are owned by china.
Thats certainly true in regards to the current FARCE infesting the WH..
Staff Sgt Chaos
1 year ago
Are they going to let the Balloons spy on us or kill us before they do anything about it? Even than they will cover and lie about it.
Chris Wolf
1 year ago
We need to exorcize the curse of “obama” and scrape Biden off the bottom of our shoe and restore President Trump to his rightful, well-earned second term in office and we will get our county back.
I agree but not without a MASSIVE, maybe bloody fight!
art
1 year ago
Hey geniuses, next time shoot a few holes in the balloon and let it settle slowly down to retrieve it.
Gaucho Sam
1 year ago
Not an out of control balloon.
More will follow.
A number of them are loitering about all over the world.
schutzhund
1 year ago
carry a virus?
David
1 year ago
Remember in the movie, Independence Day, how the aliens placed their ships over every major city before they attacked?? Might these balloons be fine-tuning target coordinates for a first strike? Let’s send some data-gathering balloons over China and see what their response is. That will tell us all we need to know.
I am thinking the same. This administration is so weak it’s putting us all in danger. And the border issue is overwhelming dangerous!!!
Grendel
1 year ago
BIDEN LIES AGAIN (go figure)
Biden now claims that he “ordered” the military to shoot down the ‘balloon’ last Wednesday “as soon as it was safe to do so”.
IT IS A BALLOON!!!
The ‘package’ that was being carried BY THE BALLOON might have had some “hard parts” but the BALLOON is, most likely made of mylar.
BIDEN LIES AGAIN …… he is, and always has been, A TOTAL FRAUD and MUST be executed for his Acts of Treason.
Chris Wolf
1 year ago
Biden can’t sell classified documents out of his garage anymore because the heat is on, so he just invited a surveillance balloon to float around sucking up all the critical electronic and photographic intelligence it wanted and release cicada drones and virus spores on top of our country.
Biden needs to be arrested — today!
And hung by the neck until dead along with his whole treason cabinet and communications apparatchiks and all the globalist infiltrators in the Congress, including China Mitch, Schiff & Swalwell, Imam Jeffries, every cowardly RINO on the take, and of course Patient Zero, Hussein “obama.” And Susan Rice and Ron Klain and every blithering Elite Communist Propagandist in the Treason Media.
This Is Not A Drill.
Chris Wolf
1 year ago
All the plagues we’re beset with, from sky-high inflation, to baby formula scarcity, out-of-control crime in our cities, a wholesale insider’s looting of our National Treasury, a Mongol Invasion on our Southern Border, is the result of one massive-fraud stolen election of 2020 — the globalists and treason elites’ reactionary response to the four-year Renaissance of American Freedom, Liberty & Prosperity that we had under Trump.
SAVE AMERICA!
It is the conflict of our age, yet no one dares talk about it. The true story of the Islamic Supremacist war on free speech as told by those on the front lines fighting for our First Amendment rights,
.
Pamela Geller tells her own story of how she became one of the world's foremost activists for the freedom of speech,
individual rights, and equality of rights for all. "It's my story, it's what happens when someone fights for freedom in America today,"
Geller explained.
Today Islamic supremacists are demanding more accommodation of Islamic principles
and practices than ever, and daily growing more aggressive in eroding our freedoms – with politically
correct public officials only too happy..
Popular conservative blogger Pamela Geller and New York Times bestselling author
Robert Spencer sound a wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our
hard-won...
The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks is a groundbreaking documentary on the controversy
over the planned Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.