White House gives update on takedowns of unidentified objects

We were able to determine that China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that's connected to the People's Liberation Army. It was operating during the previous administration, but they did not detect it. We detected it. We tracked it. And we have been carefully studying it to learn as much as we can. We know that these PRC surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries on multiple continents around the world, including some of our closest allies and partners. We assessed that at this time, these balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the PRC's other intelligence platforms used over the United States.

Slow-moving objects at high altitude with a small radar cross-section are difficult to detect on radar. Even objects the size of the Chinese spy balloon, which had a payload the size of roughly three school buses, were not picked up by previous administrations or other countries. We also know that a range of entities, including countries, companies, research, and academic organizations operate objects at these altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious at all, including scientific research. That said, because we have not yet been able to definitively assess what these most recent objects are, we acted out of an abundance of caution to protect the security – our security. Even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we couldn't rule that out. And so there – you want to air on the side of safety here in terms of protecting our national security interests and the fact that these objects could have and likely did at some point in their path transit over potential military sites of ours or sensitive sites. So again, out of an abundance of caution for those two reasons, the president, with the recommendation of his military leaders, directed them to be taken down.

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