Staff Writer
Michael Volpicelli
The United States military is in the process of recovering the debris after shooting down a supposed Chinese spy balloon over South Carolina. This event has caught the attention of people from all over the world as two of the major military powers are involved.
After shooting the balloon down it has been made a top priority by the United States government to recover the debris from this balloon as it could give an insight as to what the balloon was doing over American soil. The Navy divers started the recovery process on Sunday, February 5th but it is expected to take multiple days to locate and retrieve all the debris. This Chinese spy balloon is said to have been the size of three school buses.
The Chinese government has stated that they do not believe shooting down the balloon was necessary and even “excessive”. Furthermore, the Chinese government has insisted that the balloon is only a weather balloon that went off course and the Chinese were unable to stop it from drifting away. The United States government has known about the existence of this balloon since January 28th when it drifted over Alaska.
Because the balloon came from China the United States government took careful steps on how to deal with the balloon to ensure the best possible outcome from taking it down.
Some of these steps included thinking of ways to bring the balloon down back to earth without destroying it or damaging it but for public safety reasons the decision was made to shoot it down.
A United States official came out on Sunday and stated that it was possible for the United States to feed this balloon false information which would make anything it gathered useless, but they failed to state if this process was done or not.
Since this event is involving two of the world’s major powers it has blown up into a major incident involving governments across the world.
The Chinese spy balloon was shot down over the coast of South Carolina and it is believed to have landed in shallow waters which will help with the recovery process. Upon the balloon being shot down a Navy salvage ship was put into motion to recover the debris.
The balloon has also caused a stir within the political world of The United States with people wanting answers as to why we did not act earlier.
The Navy salvage ship has gear that can allow divers to go down 50 feet in the water and can allow people to search under water for about an hour at a time.
As this situation is recent to the timelines there has been no other news on what has been recovered or if anything has been found at all. As time passes more information will come out to the public but for now it is a waiting game regarding the balloon’s debris and the situation as a whole between China and The United States.