US says no sign three downed aerial objects were Chinese or spying

WASHINGTON - The United States so far has no evidence that three

unidentified aerial objects shot down this month

were connected to China or any foreign spying programme, the White House said on Tuesday.

US authorities “thus far haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the PRC’s spy balloon programme or that they were definitely involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, using the Chinese state’s official acronym.

Mr Kirby said the three objects – two shot down over the United States and one over Canada – “could be balloons that were simply tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign”.

That “could emerge as a leading explanation here”, he said.

However, Mr Kirby stressed that China is running a “well funded, deliberate programme” to use high-altitude, hard-to-detect balloons

for spying on the US and other countries.

Such a balloon, according to American officials, was shot down on Feb 4 over the US East Coast – an incident that triggered a heightened alert, leading to the precautionary shooting down of the subsequent three unidentified objects.

Beijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the huge craft shot down off the coast was for weather research.

According to the Pentagon and the White House, getting to the bottom of the three mystery objects is made harder by the difficult conditions for teams sent to find the debris.

Citing “pretty tough” weather and geographical conditions in all three cases, Mr Kirby said “we’re recognising that it could be some time before we locate and recover the debris.”

“We haven’t found them yet,” he said.

Meanwhile, China urged the US on Tuesday to conduct a “thorough investigation” into what Beijing claims was

a string of incursions into its airspace by US balloons.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have nosedived

following the shooting down of what the US alleges was a Chinese spy balloon – China insisted it was an errant weather observation aircraft with no military purpose.

A number of unidentified aerial objects have subsequently been shot down over North America, though the US has not attributed them to China.

On Tuesday, Beijing doubled down on allegations that the US has sent over 10 balloons since last year.

“The US has launched several high-altitude balloons from the US that made continuous round-the-world flights, illegally flying over the airspace of China and other countries on at least 10 occasions,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing.

“The US side should conduct a thorough investigation and give an explanation to China,” he added.

Mr Wang did not provide evidence of the alleged incursions, which he said started in May 2022. AFP