The White House is trying to put the best spin on the Chinese spy balloon events by claiming the U.S. military jammed the electronics attached rendering the ability of the surveillance equipment incapable of transmission to relays (satellites) or mainland China.
Additionally, according to the White House strategic communications spokesperson John Kirby, the main structure of the electronics, optics and surveillance system has been recovered by the U.S. military and the equipment is now being studied and reverse engineered. WATCH (05:18 Prompted):
(Via Reuters) – The United States said on Friday it had successfully concluded recovery efforts off South Carolina to collect sensors and other debris from a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a U.S. fighter jet on Feb. 4, and investigators are now analyzing its “guts.”
The last of the debris fro the Chinese balloon, which was downed by a Sidewinder missile, is heading to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for analysis, the U.S. military’s Northern Command said in a statement.
Reuters was first to report the conclusion of the recovery efforts, which were halted on Thursday.
“It’s a significant amount (of recovered material), including the payload structure as well as some of the electronics and the optics, and all that’s now at the FBI laboratory in Quantico,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
Kirby said the United States had already learned a lot about the balloon by observing it as it flew over the United States.
“We’re going to learn even more, we believe, by getting a look at the guts inside it and seeing how it worked and what it was capable of,” he told a White House news briefing.
The U.S. military said Navy and Coast Guard vessels that had been scouring the sea for nearly two weeks have departed the area.
“Air and maritime safety perimeters have been lifted,” Northern Command said in a statement.
The U.S. military has said it believes it has collected all of the Chinese balloon’s priority sensors and electronics as well as large sections of its structure, elements that could help counterintelligence officials determine how Beijing may have been collecting and transmitting surveillance information. (read more)