The administration of President Joe Biden, over the weekend, revealed that the Chinese spy balloon that it shot down is not the only balloon of its kind. The revelation was made by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) on Saturday in the press briefing that it gave after the balloon was shot down.
It’s not the only one
After providing an overview of the situation, a senior defense official revealed that the Chinese spy balloon that was allowed to cross the United States was not alone.
“This is not the only PRC surveillance balloon operating in the Western Hemisphere,” the official said. “We assess that a balloon was observed transiting Central and South America, and that that is another PRC surveillance balloon.”
Columbian officials confirmed this on Friday.
They put out a statement writing:
On February 3, 2023, in the morning, the National Air Defense System , detected an object over 55,000 feet high, which entered Colombian airspace in the northern sector of the country, moving at an average speed of 25 knots, identifying characteristics similar to those of a balloon.
There’s still more
According to the DOD official, this still doesn’t account for all of Communist China’s spy balloons.
The official revealed:
Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia, and Europe.
The DOD official explained that “these balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries.”
The activities, according to the official, are “often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA.”
A fact check
The Biden administration revealed on Sunday that there were at least three situations in which a Chinese spy balloon entered U.S. airspace under the administration of former President Donald Trump.
“PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental U.S. briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time,” a senior Biden administration official told Fox.
Trump and members of his administration have disputed this claim. And, it turns out that the balloons actually “went undetected” and were not discovered until “after” Trump left the White House.
Accordingly, the narrative that Trump did exactly what Biden has done – namely allow Chinese spy balloons to float across the U.S. unimpeded – is false.