The White House said that the three recent encounters with unidentified flying objects in the US Airspace showed no relation with the alleged Chinese spying. The talks surrounding Chinese spying started when US Defense officials observed a Chinese floating balloon over sensitive areas in Montana state. The balloon was later shot down and collected for further in-depth analysis, to make sure whether the balloon was spying as suspected or not. After this incident, three other flying objects were observed in the US Airspace which earlier was suspected to have a relation with the first Chinese weather balloon. But after shooting down these three objects and analyzing them thoroughly, the White House has announced that these objects indeed shared nothing with the Chinese balloon that was observed over Montana. Instead, John Kirby, spokesperson of the White House, said that these objects were related to commercial and research operations.
The Chinese weather balloon fiasco further deepened the tension between the US and China, souring their already broken relations even more. The weather balloon located over the state of Montana was addressed by the Chinese officials as their own. After this address, authorities from both countries were in constant talk regarding their views on this balloon. The US suspected that this was indeed a Chinese weather balloon sent to spy on sensitive locations in the country. Their suspicions were strengthened by this weather balloon roaming over Montana state, which is home to one of the US nuclear missiles. However, China kept saying that this was indeed a simple weather balloon and that the US Defense officials and the local media is just exaggerating the situation.
John Kirby expressed the findings of the last three sightings of flying objects on Tuesday in a press conference. He said that the authorities are still locating the debris of these objects shot down in Alaska, Canada, and Michigan, and it will be difficult to determine the actual purpose behind them till then. He made it clear that so far, the US Defense agency has not found anything regarding these three flying objects which highlights its relations with China and its spying operations. As of now, the US Defense agency has considered these flying objects to have a commercial or research purpose. But no company or any research organization has yet claimed them.
The US Defence officials have taken these threats extremely seriously. One of the main reasons behind this seriousness is China’s growing spying operations in many countries. Recently, taking the situation in the US account, Australia banned the use of Chinese CCTV cameras in the country. This was due to similar spying threats which have caused the US to be on alert. China has reacted rather aggressively to all these developments surrounding its weather balloon. Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China, asked the US about the outcomes of such high-cost actions and the use of taxpayers' money to carry them out. It is indeed logical as the US used its F22 fighter jets and expensive missiles to shoot down the alleged Chinese spy balloon. Similar missiles were also used in other operations of shooting down flying objects. The missiles used in these operations had a collective cost of millions, which were used on shooting down some balloons.
