The obnoxious giant Chinese balloons that have emerged above the western hemisphere continue to appear. The balloon that entered US airspace on the west coast and proceeded across the country was shot down as it passed over the South Carolina shoreline. Navy ships have started rescuing fragments of the airship that crashed into the ocean last week while people gathered along the Carolina coast watched. Balloons have been observed above South America and the Atlantic Ocean. An unidentified object of unknown origin was shot down in northern Alaska on Friday. An unidentified object was shot down over Canada on Saturday.
Montana Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale tweeted on Saturday evening that a “object” had been sighted above Montana. He worries that it may interfere with commercial aviation traffic.
I am in direct contact with NORCOM and monitoring the latest issue over Havre and the northern border. Airspace is closed due to an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic — the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning.
— Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) February 12, 2023
After the ban was lifted, Rosendale stated that he “will continue to communicate with defense authorities and offer additional information as it becomes available” because “Montanans deserve answers.” According to Slay News, Rosendale stated that he was informed by the Department of Defense while attending a Lincoln Reagan dinner.
On Saturday, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that air restrictions were in place after a “fourth balloon” was spotted in the skies above Montana and that restrictions were due to “Department of Defense activities”. “The FAA closed some airspace in Montana to support Department of Defense activities,” the FAA confirmed in a statement.
Fighter jets were scrambled and airspace above Havre, Montana, a town of 10,000 people, 30 miles south of the Canadian border, was shut at 7:50 pm before being reopened about 50 minutes later.
The airspace was closed down in the area around Havre not far from the U.S. border with Canada. The FAA said the directive was “effective immediately until further notice,” Slay News reported. Shortly after that announcement, the FAA said the airspace has been reopened but did not provide further details. Rosendale later issued a statement saying DOD officials have confirmed that the “unidentified object” above Montana is “the fourth balloon.”
In a statement issued Saturday night, US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) stated that they “detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate.” However, the planes “did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.”
The following is how Rosendale described the episode to Slay News:
“I’m at an event, a Lincoln Reagan dinner in Columbus, Montana right now,” Rosendale told Fox News. “And DOD called me as I have been sitting here and started giving me briefings to tell me what was going on. I clarified with them that this is actually the fourth balloon, OK.”
“The first we shot down over the Atlantic. One was shot down before it entered into Alaska’s airspace. A third was shot down, Trudeau ordered over Canada. So now we’re talking about a fourth incident.”
Rosendale further stated that the US military has been unable to bring the item down, and that the situation will continue until Sunday. “DOD told me that they are going to be tracking the object – they can’t even say exactly what it is – they are going to track the object until it gets light again,” Rosendale stated. “They don’t have the capacity to put any more eyes on it with planes until it’s light again.
According to some sources, an explosion was seen on camera over the city of billings, where the balloon was first sighted, a day after it was originally detected in Montana. Dolly Mills-Moore, a local, claimed she “saw a jet go by so fast and then explosion in the sky.”
“Ok, so here’s what I just caught I few minutes ago out my window. I saw a jet go by so fast and then explosion in the sky. Holy crap! Billings MT,” she said.
Ok, so here’s what I just caught I few minutes ago out my window. I saw a jet go by so fast and then explosion in the sky. Holy crap! Billings MT. pic.twitter.com/swr8ERC6pf
— Dolly Mills-Moore (@MMtTreasures) February 4, 2023
According to KULR8, a local law enforcement officer remarked on the video later, and Sheriff Mike Linder said the sheriff’s office has made contact with the woman who uploaded the video of the item over Billings late Friday afternoon. Linder claims that while they believe the video is genuine, it is impossible to identify what exactly is shown in it. He goes on to state that there is no indication that an aircraft crashed or that an explosion occurred above Billings.
Concerning the balloon, Beijing has claimed that it veered off track and could not be adjusted, but the Pentagon has denied this. “The balloon is maneuverable,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters last week. “It violated the law. We communicated that to China.” “The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry admitted at the time. “Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.”