Experts say green laser beams seen over Hawaii last month came from a Chinese satellite
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Experts believe a Chinese satellite fired green laser beams that were seen over Hawaii last month.
The sighting came as tensions between the US and China escalate sharply in the wake of the balloon gate, which ended when the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon that may have obtained sensitive information.
Scientists at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) tweeted late last month that his camera had “captured green laser lights in the cloudy sky over Maunakea, Hawaii, on January 28.”
Video footage showed a series of mysterious green bolts shot across the dark sky.
The lights, the agency wrote, likely came from a NASA satellite.
However, on February 6, NAOJ backtracked, saying the lights were “probable” from the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite.
The green lights captured by the Subari-Asashi Star Camera were initially thought to have come from an American satellite, but it was later discovered that they probably came from a Chinese satellite. They rained on Hawaii in late January.
The making of the green light follows a week dominated by news of a huge Chinese spy balloon traversing the US possibly collecting sensitive data.
‘We really appreciate your effort in identifying the light. We regret our confusion related to this event and its potential on the ICESat-2 (US satellite) team,’ wrote NAOJ.
The confusion likely occurred because the ICESat-2 satellite also fires bright green lasers.
The unexpected light show occurred as tensions between the US and China grow increasingly precarious.
During the first week of February, the US shot down a massive Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, after spending days traversing the country from west to east.
Late last week, the United States shot down another flying ‘object’ hovering over Alaskan waters.
It is not clear, according to the Pentagon, what the purpose of the second object was.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the object was almost the size of a car, much smaller than the first spy balloon, which was about the size of three buses.
On Saturday, the US shot down another unidentified flying object making its way over the Canadian Yukon Territory after inappropriately entering Canadian airspace.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that “Canadian and US aircraft were scrambled and a US F-22 successfully fired on the object.”
It is not clear if China sent the two most recent air objects.
Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory initially reported that the lights over Hawaii came from a US satellite, which also fires green lasers, but retracted days later, saying they likely came from a Chinese satellite.
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon that was shot down by the United States over the weekend over US territorial waters off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The Chinese spy balloon was allowed to drift across the US before US planes shot it down.
The China ‘spy balloon’ that unnerved millions of Americans across the country earlier this month is part of a larger global surveillance plan by the authoritarian government in Beijing, the Pentagon has said.
Republicans have criticized US President Joe Biden for his initial handling of the Chinese spy balloon, allowing it to traverse the entire country before being shot down.
The head of the House select committee on China claimed on Sunday that it was not a “coincidence” that Beijing sent a spy balloon over the US ahead of an official US state visit.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said the device was meant for Xi Jinping to show President Joe Biden what he “can get away with” during an appearance on WABC’s Cats Roundtable.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if all of this was intended to send us a message while our Secretary of State was visiting,” he said.
Gallagher suggested Sunday morning that he did not believe China’s claims that it was just a weather balloon blown off course, saying it was “not a coincidence” that it was seen over the Air Force Base in Malmstrom in Montana earlier this month.
He added: “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was timed to coincide with [Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s] visit to China.
The furore over the balloon, which came at a time of historically low relations between Beijing and Washington, forced Blinken to cancel his scheduled state visit last week, where he was expected to meet President Xi.
“We don’t have proof of that yet, but that would be well within the Chinese Communist Party’s playbook of trying to humiliate ourselves on the world stage,” Gallagher told host John Catsimatidis of his claim.
“The message is, ‘Look what we can get away with. And you won’t do anything about it. You’ll still come crawling back.'”
The Pentagon said last week that the balloon had been part of a vast Chinese surveillance program, spanning as many as 40 countries on multiple continents.
The goal, defense officials said, was likely to gather information about the military capabilities of other nations.