Apparently, the Chinese spy balloon wasn’t spying or that’s at least what that’s what the Department of Defense has reported.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said, “we were aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities” that was designed to take pictures of the USA and send them back to Beijing.
But don’t you worry your little heart.
“It has been our assessment now that [the balloon] did not collect while it was transiting the United States… And as we said at the time, we also took steps to mitigate the potential efforts of that balloon,” Ryder said.
I hope those that made the assessment weren’t the same guys that told Biden to launch the attack in Afghanistan after the attack at the airport because all that did was killed 29 people, seven of them children.
The DOD is reporting that the balloon may have malfunctioned and it’s transmitting abilities did not work.
What the Pentagon didn’t talk about was what occurred around the same time in Hawaii.
The initial report of the lasers over Hawaii was on January 30, 2023.
On Jan 28, 2023, HST, Subaru-Asahi Star Camera captured green laser lights in the cloudy sky over Maunakea, Hawai`i. The lights are thought to be from a remote-sensing altimeter satellite ICESAT-2/43613.
Watch the video:https://t.co/xqoJvSa24s#SubaruTelescope pic.twitter.com/5hhIsewuNp— Subaru Telescope Eng (@SubaruTel_Eng) January 31, 2023
While the satellite is supposedly an atmospheric environment monitoring spacecraft, the discovery has caused many to worry that China could be using space-based or high-altitude surveillance equipment to monitor the US and its allies.
On February 6, 2023, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan reported that the laser beams weren’t from US spacecraft but that the “Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite” was the culprit.
“According to Dr. Martino, Anthony J., a NASA scientist working on ICESat-2 ATLAS, it is not by their instrument but by others,” a correction note on the YouTube video explains.
“His colleagues, Dr. Alvaro Ivanoff et al., did a simulation of the trajectory of satellites that have a similar instrument and found a most likely candidate as the ACDL instrument by the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite.
“We really appreciate their efforts in the identification of the light. We are sorry about our confusion related to this event and its potential impact on the ICESat-2 team.”
The Daqi–1 satellite is supposedly an atmospheric environment monitoring spacecraft. However, shortly after the lasers appeared a spy balloon traversed the continental United States.
This isn’t the only time it’s been reported the Chinese have been using lasers.
“The United States stands with our Philippine allies in the face of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Coast Guard’s reported use of laser devices against the crew of a Philippine Coast Guard ship on February 6 in the South China Sea,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.
The Philippines on Monday accused a Chinese coast guard ship of hitting a Philippine coast guard vessel with a military-grade laser and temporarily blinding some of its crew in the disputed South China Sea, calling it a “blatant” violation of Manila’s sovereign rights.
The Chinese ship also maneuvered dangerously close, about 137 meters (449 feet), to block the Philippine patrol vessel BRP Malapascua from approaching Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef that has been occupied by Philippine forces, on Feb. 6, the Philippine coast guard said in a statement.
