A Suspected Chinese Spy Balloon Flew Near U.S. Military Bases Last Fall: Report

A senior U.S. official stated Monday that a suspected Chinese spy ball flew close to sensitive U.S. military bases last fall, but they remained far enough away that the military did not decide to shoot them down.

According to The New York Times, the balloon was either in China or very close to China. It traveled against the prevailing winds and had its own propulsion system.

The military tracked the balloon’s journey from Asia to the Middle East.

The report stated that Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the American Air Command in the Middle East (USAF), made mention of the incident during a meeting with journalists this week, but did not provide details as it was classified.

“It never got to the point where it was a high enough concern,” He said. “We just monitored it.”

The U.S. military had shot down several objects during the last two weeks. This includes a Chinese spy satellite on the first weekend of the month, an unknown object over Alaska on Friday and Saturday, as well as an unidentified object in Canada.

When asked about the incident, U.S. Air Force Major Glen VanHerck (commander of North American airspace) did not rule out aliens following the one-hour incident over Lake Huron.

VanHerck answered the question, “Has the U.S. military ruled out extraterrestrial origin of the unidentified objects?” “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.”

“At this point we continue to assess every threat or potential threat, unknown, that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it,” VanHerck continued.

Unidentified aircraft was shot down by a U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter plane “octagonal” Sidewinder missile to fly object above Lake Huron

Later, a U.S. defense officer spoke anonymously to Reuters. “No indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent take downs.”

VanHerck claimed that U.S. officials believed that the objects were not balloons.

“I’m not going to categorize them as balloons. We’re calling them objects for a reason,” VanHerck claimed. “I’m not able to categorize how they stay aloft. It could be a gaseous type of balloon inside a structure or it could be some type of a propulsion system. But clearly, they’re — they’re able to stay aloft.”

VenHerck said that U.S. officials considered trying to use the fighter jet’s machine guns to shoot down the objects so that the objects would be better preserved after they were shot down.

“We assessed taking a gunshot yesterday in that event, as well as today, and the pilots in each situation felt that that was really unachievable because of the size, especially yesterday in the altitude and also because of the challenge to acquire it visually because it’s so small,” VanHerck claimed.

“We have taken extreme caution to ensure that we limit potential collateral damage, so today, we worked closely with the FAA to clear out the airspace,” He added. “I gave direction specifically to the pilots to use their visual acuity to check for mariners on the ground, airplanes in the air to clear with their radars as well. And when they were comfortable, that we can minimize collateral damage, they selected the best weapon today that was the AIM 9x (missile). And they took the shot.”