The U.S. Department of (DoD) confirmed Monday it is following the path of a mystery high-altitude balloon crossing over American territory.
Just who owns it and where it is destined remains a mystery.
Fox News reports the DoD and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) first detected and tracked the unmanned balloon off the coast of Hawaii on April 28.
It was floating at about 36,000 feet, a DoD spokesman said.
When the balloon crossed into U.S. airspace over Hawaii, it did not transit over critical infrastructure used for defense or any other U.S. government sensitive sites, the spokesman said, nor did it pose a threat to the military or those on the ground.
“Although it was flying at an altitude used by civil aviation, it posed no threat to civil aviation over Hawaii,” the spokesman said. “Based on these observations, the Secretary of Defense concurred with the recommendation of his military commanders that no action need be taken against the balloon.”
The balloon has since departed Hawaii’s airspace and the DoD will continue to track its movement with the FAA.
As Breitbart News reported, the balloon sighting over Hawaii follows a Chinese surveillance balloon that was detected hovering over Montana in February.
The Pentagon said the Chinese spy balloon is currently over the center of the U.S. and is expected to continue floating for a “few days.” https://t.co/dIhWxCVvFt
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 4, 2023
The balloon traversed the entire continental U.S. before the Biden administration issued the order to shoot the spy craft out of the sky off the coast of South Carolina.
The White House delay in acting was later criticised as too little, too late.
Beijing later claimed the balloon was a civilian craft gone adrift but U.S. officials insisted it was a surveillance vessel.
The balloon gathered intelligence from “several” military sites, despite the Biden administration insisting that measures were taken to prevent that from happening, NBC News reported.
