THE US HAS ended its search for debris from an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon it shot down earlier this month as well as two other objects downed near Alaska and on Lake Huron, according to the military’s Northern Command.

“Recovery operations concluded 16 February off the coast of South Carolina, after US Navy assets assigned to US Northern Command successfully located and retrieved debris from the high-altitude PRC surveillance balloon,” NORTHCOM said in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

“Final pieces of debris are being transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in Virginia for counterintelligence exploitation.”

The Chinese balloon traveled across much of the United States before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean by a US F-22 Raptor on 4 February.

China insisted the device was for weather surveillance and had gone astray, while the US described it as a sophisticated high-altitude spying vehicle.

Relations between China and the United States have grown increasingly tense over the balloon incident.

Late yesterday, NORTHCOM announced in another statement that it was ending searches for two other objects shot down — one off Alaska’s northern coast on 10 February and the other over Lake Huron on 12 February.

“The US military, federal agencies, and Canadian partners conducted systematic searches of each area using a variety of capabilities, including airborne imagery and sensors, surface sensors and inspections, and subsurface scans, and did not locate debris,” the statement said.

US President Joe Biden in a press conference this week about the aerial objects said that preliminary evidence suggested the Alaska and Lake Huron incidents were not related to a broader Chinese spy program.

© AFP 2023