(ReclaimingAmerca.net) – The US military is tracking a high-altitude balloon traveling between Hawaii and Mexico. In February, a Chinese spying airship hovered from Alaska to Montana and South Carolina before being shot down.
The Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) detected the new unmanned flying apparatus on April 28, a Pentagon spokesman has announced, as cited by Fox News.
It has been floating over the Pacific toward Mexico at 36,000 feet.
According to the Defense Department, who owns or operates the balloon remains unclear.
The spokesman revealed there was no indication as to whether the airship was being “maneuvered or controlled by a foreign or adversarial actor,” for instance, Communist China.
The Pentagon official also noted that after it entered American airspace over Hawaii, the balloon didn’t pass over vital US defense infrastructure or sensitive government sites.
It also didn’t pose any danger to US military personnel or residents 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 stated.
“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,” he added.
The flying apparatus is no longer in US air space over Hawaii. However, the Defense Department official said its tracking would continue in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The issue of balloons used for surveillance by Communist China came to the fore in early February when the Chinese airship traversed much of the continental United States and Canada.
The US Air Force shot it down on February 4 on President Joe Biden’s orders, but only after it had reached the Atlantic Coast and was no longer over US residential areas.
The People’s Republic of China has maintained the airship was a civilian weather balloon that had gone off course and even accused the United States of breaking international law by shooting it down.
A report in early April quoted several current and former US government officials alleging that the Biden administration had substantial difficulties blocking the espionage operations of the Chinese spy balloon, which managed to transmit information back to Beijing in real-time.
