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Intelligence officials have revealed that a Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US allegedly used an American internet service provider to communicate.
A new report claims the balloon was connected to a US-based company and was communicating with China about its navigation.
The unnamed internet service provider company has denied all such claims.
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Intelligence officials have revealed that a Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States for a week in February used an American Internet service provider to communicate.
The balloon had moved east and entered U.S. airspace over Alaska on Jan. 28 and was tracked as it flew over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, where nuclear assets are stored.
On February 4, the Air Force sent an F-22 fighter jet armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to shoot down the balloon over the water.
In a new report from NBCThe outlet cited two current and one former US official familiar with the report as sources.
The report claimed that the balloon was connected to a US-based company and communicated with China about its navigation.
The spy balloon is seen drifting over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, with a fighter jet and its wake beneath it.
The Chinese spy balloon after being shot down by an F-22 on Saturday over the South Carolina coast.
He further stated that the connection “allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions or high-bandwidth data collections over short periods of time” to its base in China.
The channel has not revealed the name of the company.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said it was a weather balloon that accidentally entered US airspace.
They told NBC in a statement: ‘As we had made clear before, the airship, used for meteorological research, inadvertently headed towards the US due to westerly winds and its limited self-steering capabilities. The facts are clear.’
The unnamed internet service provider company has denied all such claims.
This comes days after it was revealed that Biden administration officials had planned to keep the Chinese spy balloon secret, and a top Air Force commander admitted that the balloon exposed gaps in their intelligence gathering.
A source told NBC: “Before it was publicly discovered, there was an intention to study it and let it go and never tell anyone about it.”
The Biden administration has insisted that the balloon that Beijing previously denied was a government ship did not collect or transmit data.
The F-22 Raptor is seen taking off from Joint Base Langley-Eustis to shoot down the balloon.
President Joe Biden downplayed the recent Chinese spy balloon that crossed the United States, saying he believes Chinese leaders may not have been aware of it.
A U.S. Air Force U-2 pilot watches the Chinese surveillance balloon as it flies over Central America.
A senior Biden administration official denied there was an attempt to keep the balloon secret until departure.
They said: ‘To the extent that all of this was kept secret, it was largely to protect intelligence values related to searching and tracking. “There was no intention to hide this from Congress at any time.”
NBC also revealed that during a phone call on January 27, General Mark Milley and NORAD Chief General Glen VanHerck said the Pentagon planned to send between 5 and 22 aircraft to evaluate their characteristics.
Shortly after that call, the planes used locator pods to determine that the object was actually a balloon that was about the size of three school buses and was equipped with a surveillance payload.
President Biden was not informed about the balloon until February 1, and the public found out later after NBC broke the story.
VanHerck has since said the balloon exposed loopholes in intelligence agencies and warned that the Chinese balloon program is still underway.