The United States Armed Forces announced this Friday that they have finished the recovery work of the remains of the chinese spy balloonwhich they shot down on February 4 over the waters of the Atlantic.
The United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has reported in a statement that these tasks have been completed off the coast of South Carolina, after the “successful” location and removal of the remains of the balloon. Those recovered pieces have been transferred to an FBI lab in Virginia for “counterintelligence exploitation.”
The US Navy and Coast Guard vessels have already left the area and the security perimeters that had been installed at the search site have been lifted.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said in a speech that plans to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, about the “spy” balloon, but announced that he will not apologize for shooting it down. Biden also warned that will not hesitate to shoot down any flying object that poses a threat to the American people.
The Chinese “spy” balloon was located in late January in US airspace and was shot down over Atlantic waters on February 4. It had been flying over various areas of the country for days, such as the state of Montana (northwest), where one of the three nuclear missile silo fields existing in the United States.
For its part, the Chinese government has ensured that the balloon entered US airspace by mistakenly deviating from its trajectory and affirms that used for meteorological purposesnot espionage.
In addition to the “spy” balloon, the United States has shot down three other flying objects in the last week in its territory and Canadathe origin of which is being investigated by US and Canadian authorities.
Biden indicated that these latest flying objects do not appear to have any link to the Chinese “spy” balloon and that, in fact, US intelligence believes they were “probably balloons linked to private companies, recreational institutions” or research who are engaged in studying meteorological phenomena or doing other scientific investigations.