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The Independent UK

National

Alex Woodward and Andrew Feinberg

Balloons, missiles and planes: What we know about the objects shot down by the US this month

United States Joe Biden Missile America Chad Fish Pentagon White House China Roswell Espionage

Getty/AP

Before President Joe Biden ordered the US military to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina earlier this month, the last time an errant balloon occupied such a dominant place in America’s public discourse was 8 July 1947, when officials at a US Army airfield in Roswell, New Mexico issued a press release claiming to have recovered a crashed “flying disc”.

Amid hysteria about a potential alien invasion, the Army quickly reversed course and said the craft they’d recovered was nothing more than a weather balloon.

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