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The Biden administration was caught unawares regarding a Chinese spy balloon that breached US airspace earlier this month. It was detected over Montana and floated for days before being shot down off the Carolina coast. It was a device launched from Central China, and there were multiple opportunities to shoot down this surveillance vehicle. It was not seen as a threat, so everyone moved like molasses. Also, I’m betting that the Biden administration felt no one would care, which was a gross miscalculation. When the White House press pool is all wondering the same thing, like how could this spy...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg copped bipartisan heat Monday when he failed to address the catastrophic Ohio train derailment which released toxic chemicals into the air this month — but joked about Chinese spy balloons and moaned about a lack of diversity in the construction industry. ... “It’s had its challenges. I mean, if you look at what the American transportation systems have faced in the last two or three years partly because of the pandemic, we’ve faced issues from container shipping to airline cancellations … Now we got balloons,” the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, awkwardly joked. But the...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is forming an interagency group to address the recent spate of objects in the skies above North America, the White House announced Monday. "The president, through his national security adviser, has today directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a White House briefing. "Every element of the government will redouble their efforts to understand and mitigate these events," he said. Kirby said the national security team's task is...

Feb. 12: Lake Huron Location and altitude: The object was around 20,000 feet, soaring near the eastern portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was shot down over Lake Huron, "about 15 nautical miles east of the Upper Peninsula," VanHerck said. Size and shape: "It presented as an octagonal structure with strings hanging off but no discernable payload," a senior Biden administration official said. What shot it down: An F-16, firing an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. Reason given: "We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground," the North American Aerospace Defense Command said, "but...

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul revealed Sunday that the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States "did a lot of damage." Speaking on CBS News' "Face the Nation," the Texas Republican explained that by not preemptively downing the balloon, the Biden administration essentially allowed China to gather intelligence on areas sensitive to national security. The noteworthy revelation came after host Margaret Brennan asked McCaul about new restrictions enacted on six Chinese companies whose technology was used in the spy balloon's construction. "It will be one of my number-one priorities, as the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee...

Let’s start with the balloon whose story is the most clear, i.e. the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the US this month. That balloon was shot down over the ocean off the coast of South Carolina. You may have seen photos of portions of the balloon being pulled into a boat. These images were taken last week.The DoD has released photos of the recovery operation off the coast of South Carolina to gather the CCP spy balloon debris.Credit: Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Thompsonpic.twitter.com/ODRoS8I3iu— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 13, 2023Today the DOD released even more photos of the ongoing...

China’s intelligence capability may be even greater than we’ve feared.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed that the spy balloon that crossed the continental United States this month was redundant from an intelligence perspective, speaking on ABC News’ This Week Sunday. (snip)If Schumer is incorrect, or being deliberately deceitful

The U.S. intelligence community claims that they jammed the spy balloon’s signals, mitigating any damage as it flew over sensitive sites.In appearances on two Sunday talk shows, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) said that China sending a high-altitude spy balloon across the continental United States “was an act of espionage in plain sight” and revealed that the balloon had a greater capability than satellites to gather and collect imagery, and left open the possibility that these signals and images were still transmitted to Beijing even though US intelligence officials claim that they “mitigated” the damage.On “Sunday...

The Federal Aviation Administration has declared a "national defense airspace" over part of Lake Michigan, the organization announced Sunday. The FAA has not clarified why it has banned civilian air traffic from the area. The FAA last established a national defense airspace over Montana this weekend in reaction to an unidentified flying object. This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.

An employee at the marine development authority of Qingdao’s Jimo district said the “relevant authorities” are preparing to bring down the object, the report said. The employee was not informed what the object was. The person said fishermen in the area have been told to be careful about safety, the report added. The United States and Canada brought down three high-altitude airborne objects in February, including one that Washington said was sent deliberately by China for surveillance. Beijing countered that it was a harmless weather-monitoring device that blew off course.

CNN: US Pilots approaching object shot down over Alaska said the aircraft interfered with their plane’s sensors, another said they ‘could identify no identifiable propulsion system and they did not know how it was actually staying in the air

Once more, the sad reality that America regularly builds up its own enemies demonstrates that our greatest enemy comes from within. Republican Senators Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) put pressure on the Biden administration after officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the State Department would not dismiss the possibility that the recent Chinese surveillance balloon that flew over the United States was made with the help of U.S. manufacturing. Members of the Senate on Thursday participated in a briefing with officials from the three agencies. During the...

The alleged Chinese spy balloon that U.S. fighter jets shot down Saturday was likely capable of listening in on Americans’ communications and pinpointing the location of those conversing on the ground, according to the U.S. State Department. As the massive white balloon traversed the continental U.S. last week, drifting over several sensitive military sites along the way, it carried equipment that was designed to intercept sensitive communications, said a State Department official, who provided a statement on the condition anonymity to discuss the information. “It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” the...

Green laser scan, 1-28-23 (Credit: Subaru-Asahi Star Camera/YouTube) I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this one. First, in all the kerfuffle over China’s wandering weather spy balloon which, coincidentally (or not), initially entered US airspace on January 28th, I (we?) missed out on the news that on that same date, bright green lasers shot over the night sky in Hawaii. No, really. Initially, the lasers were thought to have come from a NASA spacecraft:A camera attached to a telescope on Hawaii’s tallest peak recently captured footage of a series of eerie, bright green lines that shot across...

A senior State Department official with the Biden administration to CNN that the Chinese surveillance balloon, which was shot down by an F-22 Raptor on Saturday, was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of ‘monitoring’ US communications. The balloon “was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations” and was part of a fleet that had flown over “more than 40 countries across five continents.”

The media report of a Chinese-sponsored high-altitude balloon, the follow-up reports of its flight path over U.S. geography, and the "shoot-down" event that followed are all subject to factual testing, but on its face, the story represents one overwhelmingly incoherent assertion: that a slow-moving midlevel atmospheric balloon could violate U.S. airspace. How could a Chinese (or any other) foreign object enter U.S. national airspace (the "NAS" or national airspace system, controlled by the DOD and the civilian FAA) without its presence known far beforehand, and its flight path not tracked and projected? And if a very slow-moving balloon, let alone...

Sailors of EOD Group 2 retrieve wreckage of Chinese spy balloon. Public Domain image. CREDIT EOD GRU 2 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/EODGRU2/. Tuesday, sailors from the US Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2, based a Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story and working from aboard the dock landing ship USS Carter Page, started recovery operations at the site of the downing of a Chinese spy balloon about six miles off the coast of Myrtle Beach, SC in less than 50-feet of water.It was brought down by a flight of F-22 Raptors, using the callsigns FRANK01 and FRANK02 in honor of...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who serves on House Foreign Affairs Committee, was, to say the least, unimpressed by the Biden administration’s classified briefing on the China spy balloon and blasted the briefing as “unspecific, insufficient, and backward-looking.” Senior administration officials conducted the briefing in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF). Not only did the briefing fail to provide adequate information on the spy balloon that was shot down, but no evidence of Chinese spy balloons taking place during the Trump administration was presented. “What I took away from this briefing confirmed that this administration and not the previous one had...

Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD, takes questions on Chinese spy balloon. Was asked about previous balloons administration says crossed US in Trump years. Has very little to say. Then asked: If you didn't know about them then, how do you know now? Has even less to say. pic.twitter.com/fA4Ri2Q1Up— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 6, 2023------------------------

Brand new video | Turn up the volume fran henig @FranHenig · Follow 🚨Breaking: Just now in Vero Beach, FL General Mattis denies having any knowledge of CCP balloon flying over continental US on his watch. VIDEO AT LINK..............