WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is tracking a Chinese surveillance balloon that’s lingering at high altitude over the western U.S., home to sensitive sites including nuclear-missile silos, Defense Department officials said Thursday.
The Chinese balloon, spotted earlier this week, was loitering over Montana for a short time and briefly caused the grounding of planes in Billings as a precaution, a senior official told reporters on customary condition of anonymity. Officials said it poses no intelligence threat and a decision was made not to shoot it down because of the possible risk of falling debris.
“The U.S. has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now,” Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. “It is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.”
