The US government announced on Monday evening that it had recovered more remains of the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down Feb. 4 as it flew over US territorial waters off Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A large part of the remains had already been recovered in recent days, but several debris was still in the sea and it had not been possible to collect them due to bad weather.
Among the parts recovered on Monday were the balloon’s sensors and other electronics, the US government said. For the moment, no details have been disclosed in this regard, but it is clear that the analysis of these remains will be fundamental in the coming days to better understand what the Chinese balloon was doing in American territory. It is probable that among the recovered material there are the antennas that according to the United States would have been used by the balloon to receive communications and collect and geolocate information. Balloons like the downed one also have instruments that can take photographs from above and can accurately detect atmospheric conditions around potential military targets.
The US government has been claiming for days that the balloon was used by China to carry out espionage operations, but the Chinese government has rejected these allegations and claimed that the balloon had civilian-type functions that had deviated from its course and ended up on the United States by mistake United.
Meanwhile, recovery operations are also underway for the other three flying objects shot down over the airspace of the United States and Canada between Friday and Sunday. Unlike the balloon shot down on February 4, their origin is unknown and the US government has so far not put forward any hypotheses about their possible purpose. One was shot down in northern Alaska, in a sparsely inhabited region; another in the northwestern region of Yukon, Canada, in a joint operation between the Americans and Canadians; and the third on Lake Huron, between Canada and the United States.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the three objects were very different in shape and much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon, which they were shot down mainly because they flew at very low altitudes and could have posed hazards to civilian aircraft.
– Read also: What are these flying objects shot down between the United States and Canada?
