The Chinese spy balloon found was part of a large-scale operation to spy on other countries that were paid for by the Chinese military, according to several US government officials who accessed the information.
Biden administration officials said that Hainan, a tiny Chinese province, partly runs the monitoring operation using identical balloons. The United States remains in the dark about how many Chinese surveillance balloons are in operation, but reliable sources said the program had flown at least two dozen flights over five continents in the last several years, according to CNN.
One individual with knowledge of the information estimates that perhaps half a dozen of the China spy balloon flights have occurred inside US airspace, but not necessarily over US territory.
A senior source in the Biden administration acknowledged that the United States informed 40 friendly nations on Monday about the suspected spying.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman also announced in the briefing that one balloon had circumnavigated the globe in 2019, flying over Hawaii and Florida, per a China spy balloon update.
The Pentagon reported that another China Spy Balloon was reportedly observed last week above Costa Rica and Venezuela, per an update from the BBC.
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Chinese Spy Balloons Reportedly Seek US Sophisticated Weaponry
The Biden administration source said the Gang of Eight, a panel of US Congressional leaders who oversee national intelligence, would be briefed on Wednesday and Congress on Thursday.
One senior member of Congress with access to top-secret information, actively plotting the China spy balloon course, would disclose the locations of the United States' most lethal and secret weaponry, per a previous HNGN report.
According to the China spy balloon update based on publicly accessible documents recently authored by Chinese military academics, balloons and airships should be developed further and used for a variety of tasks, according to Reuters.
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