Recovery of Chinese Spy Balloon Completed by U.S. Military, Who Are Now Analyzing its “Guts”

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WASHINGTON — The United States said on Friday it had successfully concluded recovery efforts off South Carolina to collect sensors and other debris from a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a U.S. fighter jet on Feb. 4, and investigators are now analyzing its “guts.”

According to the U.S. military’s Northern Command, the last debris from the Chinese balloon that was hit by a Sidewinder missile is now headed to Virginia for analysis.

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Reuters first reported that the recovery efforts had been completed. They were halted on Thursday.

“It’s a significant amount (of recovered material), including the payload structure as well as some of the electronics and the optics, and all that’s now at the FBI laboratory in Quantico,” John Kirby, spokesperson National Security Council

Kirby stated that the United States had already learned much about the balloon from watching it fly over the United States.

“We’re going to learn even more, we believe, by getting a look at the guts inside it and seeing how it worked and what it was capable of,” He spoke at a White House news conference.

The U.S. military stated that Navy and Coast Guard vessels, which had been in the area for nearly two weeks, have left the area.

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“Air and maritime safety perimeters have been lifted,” Northern Command made the statement in a statement.

According to the U.S. military, it believes that it has collected all priority electronics and sensors from the Chinese balloon. It also has large sections of its structure. These elements could be used by counterintelligence officials to determine how Beijing might have been transmitting and collecting surveillance information.

Beijing denied that the Chinese balloon was a spy vessel for the government. The Chinese balloon flew over the United States and Canada for a week before being ordered by President Joe Biden to be shot down off the Atlantic Coast.

Washington became agitated after the incident and the military began to search the skies looking for objects that weren’t being captured by radar. The Northern Command of the military conducted unprecedented three shootdowns on unidentified targets. “objects” Between Friday and Sunday.

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Biden’s administration tried to temper expectations regarding recovery efforts for the three objects that fell on difficult terrain and in one instance, the deep waters of Lake Huron.

“We all have to accept the possibility that we may not be able to recover it,” Kirby stated that it would be difficult to identify these objects without debris.

The Chinese balloon incident has also caused Antony Blinken (U.S. Secretary Of State) to postpone his planned visit to Beijing earlier this month. It has further soured already frayed relations between Washington and Beijing.

The Blinken trip would have marked the fifth visit of a U.S. secretary-of-state to China and was seen by both countries as a chance to strengthen already fragile ties.

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Officials from the United States have been considering the possibility of Blinken and Wang Yi meeting on the sidelines to the Munich Security Conference, which began Friday.

Kamala Harris from the U.S. Vice Presidential has also been in Munich to attend the conference and has spoken out about the handling of the balloon incident, as well the shooting down of three other objects.

Chinese balloon “needed to be shot down because we were confident that it was used by China to spy on American people,” Harris stated this to MSNBC.

“We will maintain the perspective that we have in terms of what should be the relationship between China and the United States,” She spoke. “That is not going to change, but surely and certainly that balloon was not helpful.” (Reporting from Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal. Steve Holland, Susan Heavey. Susan Heavey. Trevor Hunnicutt. Munich. Trevor Hunnicutt.