South Carolina police order locals to stay away from Chinese spy balloon debris
>
South Carolina officials have warned residents to stay away from fallen debris from the Chinese spy balloon that is expected to come ashore after an F22 missile shot it down from the sky.
The pilot of a Top Gun fighter jet used a Raptor from Langley Air Force Base to shoot down the balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach on Saturday at 2:38 p.m. Footage showed the balloon plummeting toward the ground while separating from its surveillance payload.
President Joe Biden requested that the balloon be shot down Wednesday as it hovered over Montana, but Pentagon officials insisted on waiting until it hit a body of water to avoid civilian injury.
Authorities rushed to recover the debris before it sank into the ocean, but warned that some might remain.
“The US military is collecting pieces of this balloon, however it is possible that some of those pieces may wash up on shore,” the Sunset Beach Police Department announced Saturday.
Authorities warned residents to call police about the remains of downed Chinese spy balloons. The balloon was seen bursting at 2:38 p.m. Saturday and its payload, the metal structure that carries its cameras, appeared to have separated as it plummeted into the Atlantic off Myrtle Beach.
Attendees were seen recovering debris from the balloon Saturday night hours after it was shot down. Officials warned residents not to touch, remove or move the debris as the balloon remains are part of a federal investigation.
Authorities warned residents not to touch, remove or move the debris as the balloon remains are part of a federal investigation. They estimated that the balloon was about the size of three buses.
Biden applauded the mission as he headed to Maryland on Saturday. Early last week, officials feared that the Chinese government might try to attack ICBM fields in Montana.
“They successfully shot it down and I want to congratulate our Airmen who did it,” the president said as he stepped off Air Force One en route to Camp David at Hagerstown Regional Airport, Maryland.
The Pentagon confirmed: “The balloon, which was being used by the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was shot down over United States territorial waters.”
Attendees were seen walking around Myrtle Beach at night looking for debris. The balloon was estimated to be about the size of three buses.
Attendees were then seen taking a closer look at the arena with their flashlights.
Biden (boarding Air Force One on Saturday morning in Syracuse, NY). He told reporters: ‘I told them to shoot it down on Wednesday. They told me let’s wait for the safest place to do it’
News broke on Friday that a Chinese spy balloon had been spotted over Latin America, passing over the Panama Canal and moving southeast over Venezuela.
‘We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We now assess that it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,’ said Pentagon chief spokesman Brig. said General Patrick Ryder.
The rise of the spy plane comes on the heels of a classified report to Congress outlining advanced new technology that US adversaries were leveraging to spy on the country.
Last month’s report mentioned at least two incidents of a rival power conducting aerial surveillance with what appeared to be unknown cutting-edge technology, the sources said. The New York Times.
Although the report did not single out any countries, two US officials familiar with the investigation named China.
The two sites where the unusual surveillance was detected included a military base in the US and one abroad.
Since 2021, the Pentagon has studied 366 unexplained incidents and determined that 163 were ballooning.
A handful of these were advanced surveillance balloons, a US official told the Times.
A Chinese high-altitude balloon that was seen flying over Missouri and sensitive areas of Montana, where nuclear warheads are stored, yesterday, prompting the military to take action to prevent it from collecting intelligence.
The Pentagon said the balloon was floating at about 60,000 feet on Friday afternoon.
China insisted that the balloon is an errant civil aircraft used mainly for meteorological research that went astray due to the winds.
However, the US rejected that outright and Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his trip to Beijing, telling a senior Chinese diplomat that sending the balloon over the United States was “an irresponsible act.”
Blinken insisted he had a meeting with whom he said told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon over the US was “an irresponsible act and (China’s) decision to take this action on the eve of my visit the substantive discussions that we were willing to have are detrimental.’
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “Actually, the United States and China have never announced any visits. The US making such an announcement is their business and we respect that.”
According to Beijing, Wang said that China “has always strictly followed international law, we do not accept any baseless speculation or exaggeration.” Faced with unexpected situations, both parties should remain calm, communicate in a timely manner, avoid misjudgment, and manage differences.’