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President Joe Biden said Thursday that the three most recent objects he ordered to be shot down were “most likely balloons” not tied to Chinese surveillance.
“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing, nothing right now suggests they were related to Chinese spy balloon programs or they were surveillance vehicles from other any other country. The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” he said.
The shoot-downs — by U.S. military aircraft over Alaska on Friday, over Canada on Saturday, and Lake Huron on Sunday — came after a 200-foot Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly across the continental U.S. after first entering U.S. airspace over Alaska on January 28 and then re-entering over Montana on February 1.
The Biden administration did not shoot the balloon down until February 4, when it flew over South Carolina and reached the Atlantic Ocean.
