US tracking ANOTHER mysterious balloon | Daily Mail Online

The US military is tracking another mysterious balloon that flew over US soil three months after the Chinese airship was shot down.

The Pentagon has been tracking the unidentified object for a week that flew over Hawaii and headed for Mexico.

It is not clear who or what it belongs to, but it did not fly over any sensitive military locations. NBC reported.

U.S. officials don’t believe it belongs to China, but would still consider shooting it if it gets close to land.

In late January, the Pentagon discovered a Chinese spy balloon flying over the mainland US

The Biden administration waited until it was off the coast of South Carolina to shoot it down on February 4.

The balloon entered US airspace on Jan. 28 and was shot down on Feb. 4 after passing over US nuclear missile sites, including Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

The information gathered came mainly from electronic signals, rather than images, experts said.

China previously claimed the balloon was a civilian weather balloon that had gone off course. The State Department condemned the shooting as an “overreaction”.

On Monday, satellite images were revealed 12034123 showing a 30-meter hot air balloon developed by the Chinese military at a secret military base in the desert.

The footage from a base in northwest China was captured three months before a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the US coast and could indicate significant progress in China’s airship program, aerospace experts say.

Sitting in the middle of a nearly 0.6-mile runway, the 100-foot-long blimp could be a “more versatile and maneuverable craft than previously seen or known,” CNN reports.

The images, taken by US satellite imaging company BlackSky, were presented to several aerospace experts, who confirmed that they show a blimp, a runway, a fulcrum to launch dirigibles and a 900-foot long hangar.

Jamey Jacobs, executive director of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute, said a zeppelin like this could be used as a “submarine of the sky” because its propulsion and navigation capabilities allow it to hover over an area for quite some time.

The footage from a base in northwest China was captured three months before a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the US coast and could indicate significant progress in China’s airship program, aerospace experts say

A senior Defense Department official said that since the blimp was visible via satellite imagery, the Pentagon would know and track the object, but declined to comment on the threat the blimp may pose as part of China’s arsenal.

The satellite images confirm that China uses airships of all types: blimps, aerostats and free-floating balloons, such as the balloon shot down over the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4.

Eli Hayes, who has studied China’s airship program for years, said the blimp’s appearance at a secret military base marks a transition in China’s blimp technology and research from civilian to military use.

William Kim, a surveillance balloon specialist at The Marathon Initiative, a nonprofit military and diplomatic research organization, said if he had to guess, he would say the balloon was part of “some sort of test.”

Other satellite images and analysis suggest there may be larger targets for the secret airship location and China’s airship program.

Recently issued patents indicate that a unit has been established to oversee the technology and that the new unit holds several patents related to airship technology and storage.

When the huge hanger was built in 2013, there was little activity around it for years until these recent images show the new blimp at the hangar.