Officials with the U.S. Military have released a selfie taken by the pilot of one U-2 spy plane that was keeping an eye on the Chinese spy balloon which ended up being shot down earlier this past month just off the coast of South Caroline.
The spy balloon was first spotted floating in the air over the U.S. back on the 28th of January and was taken down after a week after President Joe Biden let the balloon travel all over the country, even getting close to a number of sensitive military sites.
The picture recently revealed was taken as the balloon hovered just above the Central Continental United States on the 3rd of February, 2023, stated the Pentagon.
CNN was the first group to report on the release of the photo.
News: DoD has released a selfie taken in the cockpit of a U-2 spy plane, as an airman flew above the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by the US military earlier this month.
CNN first reported the existence of the selfie. pic.twitter.com/4TBsBnFdk4
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) February 22, 2023
The U.S. Department of Defense just released this photo of the Chinese government spy balloon that was taken by the pilot of a U-2 spy plane. pic.twitter.com/gxXn4RiZTO
— Yashar Ali š ŪŲ§Ų“Ų§Ų± (@yashar) February 22, 2023
The spy balloon was officially taken down over the Atlantic Ocean back on the 4th of February when the U.S. military made use of an F-22 Raptor to take down the object by utilizing a single air-to-air AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.
As the Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), VanHerck stated that the balloon was close to 200 feet tall and weighed “in excess of a couple thousand pounds.”
In the wake of the spy balloon being taken down, the U.S. subsequently took down an additional three unidentified objects as they flew through Alaska, Lake Huron, and Canada.
“It is also common for U.S. balloons to illegally enter the airspace of other countries,” expressed Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, with no evidence. “Since last year, U.S. high-altitude balloons have illegally flown over Chinaās airspace more than 10 times without the approval of Chinese authorities.”
Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, stated that the claims from the communist nation were entirely a lie and that China was just attempting to deflect the international incident they have instigated.
“It is China that has a high-altitude surveillance balloon program for intelligence collection, connected to the Peopleās Liberation Army, that it has used to violate the sovereignty of the United States and over 40 countries across five continents,” posted Watson on social media.
“This is the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control,” she went on. “It has repeatedly and wrongly claimed the surveillance balloon it sent over the United States was a weather balloon and to this day has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into our airspace and the airspace of others.”
