The Chinese spy balloon which Team Biden allowed to transit a large area of the United States before finally deciding to shoot it down was able to collect intelligence on several sensitive American military sites, a report said.
The balloon gathered intelligence for the communist regime in Beijing from “several” military sites, despite Biden administration officials insisting that measures were taken to prevent that from happening, NBC News reported on Monday, citing two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.
Communist operatives were able to control the balloon's flight and transmit intelligence back to China. At times, the balloon was doing figure eight formations to hover over certain sites, the report said.
The balloon first entered U.S. airspace over the Aleutian island chain in Alaska on Jan. 28. It re-entered the U.S. over Idaho on Jan. 31 and then flew over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, home to U.S. nuclear assets.
The communist nation's spy balloon was not shot down until Feb. 4 — after it had made a several day journey across the states and potentially over other sensitive military sites and exited over South Carolina to the Atlantic Ocean.
Bloomberg reported on Feb. 4 that Team Biden had hoped to hide the baloon's existence from the public so as not to ruin Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned trip to Beijing.
The balloon had a self-destruct mechanism, but officials are unsure why it was not used, the NBC report said.
China had claimed the balloon had gone astray. Once it was made public, the balloon reportedly sped up in an attempt to get out of U.S. airspace, according to the report.
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