US Military Claims to Find Key Sensor in Chinese Spy Balloon Dropped by Fighter Jet

The US Navy's takeover of Chinese spy balloons. (Wikimedia Commons/US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tyler Thompson)

JAKARTA - The United States military said on Monday it had recovered important electronics from a suspected Chinese spy balloon that was dropped by a US fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, including key sensors that may have been used for intelligence gathering.

"The crew managed to recover significant debris from the site, including all identified priority sensors and pieces of electronics as well as most of the structure," the US military's Northern Command said in a statement.

The Chinese balloon, which Beijing denies had a spy function, flew for a week over the United States and Canada before President Joe Biden ordered it to be shot down. The episode strained relations between Washington and Beijing, causing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a trip to China.

It also caused the US military to scour the skies for other objects not picked up by radar, leading to an unprecedented three shootings in three days between Friday and Sunday.

The US military and President Joe Biden's Administration have acknowledged that much about the newest unmanned objects remains unknown, including how they stay in the air, who built them, and whether they may have gathered intelligence.

Yesterday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tried to reassure Americans about the risks posed by such unidentified objects.

"I want to reassure the American people that these objects do not pose a military threat to anyone on the ground," Austin said, speaking to reporters as he landed in Brussels for a NATO meeting.

"However, they pose a risk to civil aviation and are a potential intelligence gathering threat."

The US military says targeting the newest object is more difficult than shooting down a Chinese spy balloon, given its smaller size and lack of traditional radar markings on the object.

As an example of the difficulty, the most recent firing of an unidentified object on Sunday by an F-16 fighter jet using two sidewinder missiles, after one of them missed the target, said a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Austin secretary said the US military had yet to find debris from the three most recent objects shot down, one of which fell off the coast of Alaska in ice and snow. Another shooting took place in Canada's Yukon Territory.

However, US officials have refused to link the incident.