U.S. “still assessing” recovered parts of the Chinese Spy Balloon according to Pentagon

After being shot down off the coast near Surfside Beach, the alleged Chinese spy balloon drifted to the ocean. Its contents are still under investigation as per the Pentagon.

According to Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh during a press briefing on Monday, the US is still reviewing the components that were recovered from the balloon, and precautions were taken in time to reduce the potential value of the intelligence that may be gathered.

The US took precautions to safeguard its own military installations from foreign intelligence collection, she said in an answer  to the media about whether the balloon may carry data back to China.

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“So, on the balloon itself, right now, the FBI is leading, still assessing the parts that we were able to recover from the balloon. As we mentioned early on when we first started tracking the balloon, we do know that the balloon was able to be maneuvered and was purposely driven along its track but not going to get into specific sites it was able to hover over,” the Pentagon Spokeswoman revealed.

But what we did do is take precautionary steps to limit the intelligence value that it would be able to collect and, you know, again, we — we took steps to protect our own military installations from foreign intelligence collection,” Pentagon Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said during the press briefing.

Speaking further, the Pentagon spokesperson said that due to the immediate steps the US took at that point in time, “we were able to prevent transmission of certain aspects of our sites to be transmitted.”

On transmission back to the PRC and what was able to be transmitted back, she said, “I just don’t have further information for you at this time. As of right now, we’re still doing an assessment of what exactly the intel was that China was able to gather, but we do know that the steps that we took provided little additive value for what they’ve been able to collect on from satellites before.”

The suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon hovered in the country’s airspace for a few days before being shot down by US forces.

Before being shot down on February 4 after entering American territory on January 28 and passing over US nuclear missile bases, notably the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

China, though, has refuted claims that it is being used for surveillance. The balloon in the United States is a civilian airship utilised for research, especially meteorological research, according to earlier claims made by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

China’s Foreign Ministry stated in a statement on the unintended entry of a Chinese unmanned airship into US Airspace, “The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.”