In early February 2023, the United States military shot down a Chinese balloon that had reportedly drifted across Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, Canada, and the central United States. U.S. officials have since stated that they believe the balloon was blown off course by prevailing winds, preventing it from passing over Guam and Hawaii as originally intended.
U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tyler Thompson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The incident has escalated tensions between the U.S. and China, with Washington accusing Beijing of using the balloon for surveillance and China maintaining that it was a civilian research vessel. Despite the destruction of the balloon, the U.S. military has recovered important equipment and electronics from the vessel, which is currently under investigation.
Additional reporting from the Washington Post suggest that the U.S. military had been observing the ballon once it took off from Hainan Island, south of mainland China. The newspaper did a computer model trajectory of air currents originating from Hainan, China on Jan. 20. It was to predict up to eight days ahead for the air flowing at 60,000ft. Sometime around Jan. 24, a strong cold front over northern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan forced the jet stream and high altitude steering currents to dip south and force the ballon northwards. It then entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 31.
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