G20 Meeting Takes Place In Bali

President Xi Jinping of China attends a working session on food and energy security during the G20 Summit on November 15, 2022 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images,)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This report was updated 2/3/23 at 9:00 am ET to include comments from the Chinese Foreign Ministry about what it called a “civilian” research balloon having flown off course.

WASHINGTON — A high-altitude surveillance balloon, suspected to be from China, is currently floating above the northern United States, the Pentagon said in a stunning admission today.

“The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Pentagon Spokesman Brig Gen Patrick Ryder told reporters. He noted that the US government and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), are closely tracking the balloon’s flight path.

A senior defense official subsequently told reporters that Washington believes this surveillance balloon, which flew over Montana Wednesday, is from China and said Washington has been in contact with Beijing through “multiple channels,” including the embassy here.

RELATED: US tops China but will need to use everything in the cupboard, Marine commandant says

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry acknowledged the balloon was Chinese, but called it a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes.”

“Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” the spokesperson said. “The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure.”

On Thursday, the senior US official indicated it wasn’t the first time the US has responded to balloon incidents.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years,” the official said. “Once the balloon was detected, the US government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

The US has moved to shield sites from the “collection of sensitive information” and on Wednesday mobilized assets including F-22 stealth fighters in case the decision was made to shoot the balloon down. But the that senior defense official said the Pentagon does not currently intend to blast it out of the sky and risk falling debris hitting civilians on the ground. 

“We had been looking at whether there was an option yesterday over some sparsely populated areas in Montana, but we just couldn’t buy down the risk enough to feel comfortable recommending shooting it down yesterday,” the senior defense official added. 

As for the balloon’s payload, that official said it is not “revolutionary” but declined to go into detail. What is different from past instances is the altitude it is flying at and the “extended” period of time it has been over the continental United States. 

The official also didn’t describe the previous incidents of balloon sightings, but today’s ordeal recalls an incident from last February when Indo-Pacific Command “detected a high-altitude object floating in air in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands” and the military launched fighter aircraft to identify it.

Beijing is hardly be alone in exploring the upper regions of the atmosphere for surveillance purposes. Last July the CEO of World View Enterprises, which makes stratospheric balloons for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, told Breaking Defense his firm was “having discussions” with the US Army’s Pacific Command about its need for “operationalizing the stratosphere.”

The Army has also experimented with ultra-high-altitude unmanned drones for surveillance, like the spindly Zephyr made by Airbus. That craft set endurance flight records — partly because the Army couldn’t bring it down — before it apparently crash landed in August 2022.

And last month French military officials revealed that they, too, are looking to exploit the “higher airspace.” At some extreme heights, one French official said, engines have issues, “but today technology allows sensor-carrying balloons, for example, to use this space. Do we really want a balloon sent up by a hostile force sitting above Paris and watching our every move and be unable to deal with it?”

It appears the White House and the Pentagon have been forced to entertain a similar a thought today.