From January 28 to February 4, 2023, a high-altitude balloon originating from China flew across North American airspace, including Alaska, western Canada, and the contiguous United States.

[10] American officials later disclosed that they had been tracking the balloon since it was launched from Hainan and its original destinations were likely Guam and Hawaii,[a] but prevailing winds blew it off course and across North America.

[17] In December 2023, NBC news reported that according to US intelligence officials, the balloon had made use of a commercially available American internet service provider to communicate, and that it was "primarily for navigation".

[23] During the Cold War, the United States sent hundreds of high-altitude balloons, ostensibly for "meteorological survey" under Project Genetrix, over China and other Eastern Bloc countries to gain intelligence on their nuclear capabilities, drawing their protests.

[26][27] By 2019, the Pentagon had invested millions in COLD STAR (Covert Long Dwell Stratospheric Architecture), a project for stealthy balloons that are now being transitioned from narcotics surveillance into military service.

[61] The U.S. Department of Defense said the balloon did not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground while it remained in the air, and that shooting it down over water would be safer and increased the opportunity to study the wreckage for intelligence purposes.

[46] Former U.S. Air Force Lt. General Charles "Tuna" Moore said that the surveillance technology aboard was inconsistent with meteorological missions and hypothesized that the Chinese would be interested in finding vulnerabilities and "building a picture of our radar, weapon system and communication capabilities".

[62] American defense officials considered shooting the balloon down but initially decided not to due to the risk of debris injuring civilians on the ground.

[84] Meteorologist Dan Satterfield calculated a possible trajectory along this path using the HYSPLIT atmospheric model, consistent with data on prevailing westerlies from China to Montana.

[82] The balloon was spotted above northwest Missouri, near Kansas City, on February 3, and subsequently passed near Whiteman Air Force Base, which houses nuclear-capable Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirits.

[43] In early April, unnamed U.S. officials told NBC that the balloon was able to gather electronic intelligence from the military sites it overflew and transmit it back to China.

[8][14][15] The White House did not want to announce the balloon's incursion to protect Blinken's visit, but press and social media interest made Pentagon officials comment.

[64][130] Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer added: "The bottom line here is that shooting down the balloon over water wasn't just the safest option, but it was the one that maximized our intel gain.

[135] Officials are communicating separately with countries where they say there have been at least two dozen such overflights since 2018, including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines in addition to North and South America.

[135][116] The U.S. House Armed Services Committee held a February 7 hearing on wide-ranging Chinese military and intelligence threats including the balloon incursions.

[138][139] Trump called reports of intrusions during his administration "fake disinformation";[140] and his ex-top national security officials said they were unaware of any balloon incursions during their tenure.

[149][150] On February 16, President Biden gave his first formal remarks on the incident saying, "We're not looking for a new Cold War, but I make no apologies, we will compete and we will responsibly manage that competition so that it doesn't veer into conflict."

He further directed his team to develop "sharper rules on how to address these unidentified objects in the future so that the government can distinguish between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not.

[152] At a June fundraising event, Biden compared his Chinese counterpart to a dictator and said that Xi was upset about not knowing the location of the balloon, which carried "two box cars" of spy equipment.

[160] On February 13, Chinese Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that U.S. high-altitude balloons had "illegally crossed China's airspace" more than ten times since 2022.

[164] NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the balloon "confirms a pattern of Chinese behavior where we see that China has invested heavily in new capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms", and that it presents security challenges for the members of the alliance.

[179] On the shooting of the balloon, Christopher Twomey, a security scholar, said that any Chinese response would be restrained and that China would want to "sweep this under the rug" and emphasize senior-level visits within months.

[181] Gregory Falco, an aerospace security expert at the Johns Hopkins University, said that the balloon's large solar panels and antenna indicated surveillance technology.

After the balloon was seen by the public, in part because of its large size, political pressure prompted the Biden administration to make a show of force, even though trying to lower the objects' altitude more slowly might have preserved more of their payload compared with destroying them using advanced missiles.

[185] In the sketch, performer Bowen Yang portrayed an anthropomorphized depiction of the downed balloon being interviewed by MSNBC journalist Katy Tur (played by Chloe Fineman).

[193] On February 6, Mao Ning, the spokeswoman for the Chinese government, confirmed the balloon belongs to China, but said that it was used for "flight tests" and was blown off-course in much the same manner as the one spotted over North America.

"[204] Following the April 2023 Pentagon document leaks, The Washington Post uncovered additional information from a trove of classified files on Discord that had previously not been reported.

U.S. intelligence had been aware of four other similar balloons, one of which had flown over a Nimitz carrier strike group in western Pacific, while another had crashed in the South China Sea.

The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation.

"[208][209] According to US intelligence officials as reported by NBC News on December 28, 2023, the balloon utilized a commercially available internet service provider based in the US primarily for navigation guidance.