Map: Here's how close the Chinese spy balloon flew to the U.S. nuclear arsenal

U.S. Navy sailors recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C. on  Feb. 5, 2023.

It was a troubling claim made by a key member of Congress with access to top secret information: If you plotted the trajectory of the Chinese spy balloon , it’d mirror where the nation's most sensitive and powerful weapons are stored.

“If you ask somebody to draw an X at every place where our sensitive missile defense sites, our nuclear weapons infrastructure, our nuclear weapon sites are, you would put them all along this path,” Rep. Mike Turner, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on NBC News' “Meet the Press.”

In some ways, Turner appears to be correct, according to the experts who keep tabs on where those weapons are stored.

The high-altitude surveillance balloon was spotted lingering near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana , where the U.S. stores a portion of its land-based nuclear weapons in more than 150 missile silos, according to the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

The balloon also made its way close to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, according to sightings. Offutt is the home of U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of the country’s nuclear forces.

It also came close to Missouri's Whiteman Air Force Base, according to Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo . The base is home to the B-2 stealth bomber, which can drop conventional as well as thermonuclear weapons.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the balloon did fly over some sensitive bases, but the U.S. believes it did not have the ability to collect information beyond what China already does through its sophisticated spy satellites. 

Even civilian satellites can provide a fairly good image of the country's nuclear sites, according to Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project.

"We can sit on Google Earth and go over very high-resolution imagery of every single missile silo in Montana and the status of construction at Offutt Air Force Base and all that stuff,” he said. “There’s so much information already in the public domain that it would have to be something extraordinarily unique for them to glean anything visual.”

The balloon didn't appear to visit all of the nation's known nuclear arsenals.

It did not seem to venture close to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota or Warren Air Force Base, which stretches through Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska. It appeared to have threaded a fairly wide geographic needle between those two military bases that each boast more than 150 missile silos for the U.S. nuclear stockpile, according to the Nuclear Information Project.

It remains unclear what the balloon could have gleaned that the Chinese could not have uncovered with traditional satellite imagery, experts said, or what surveillance capabilities the balloon may have had. The U.S. military is working to recover the remnants of the balloon in the Atlantic Ocean after an American F-22 Raptor shot it down Saturday afternoon with a missile.

U.S. Navy sailors recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C. on Sunday.

Kristensen speculated that the balloon, because of its large size, could have carried special surveillance equipment that would pick up details and frequencies that are off the visual spectrum, but he emphasized that it is unknown whether the balloon had those capabilities.

China has insisted the balloon was not meant for spying, but instead intended to collect weather information and got blown off course. The U.S. has dismissed that assertion.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a briefing Monday that the U.S. had “taken practical steps since the time this high-altitude surveillance balloon was detected to mitigate its ability to collect intelligence against sensitive sites, to mitigate any threat it can pose to the American people.”

As the remnants of the balloon are collected from the Atlantic, Price said the episode has allowed the U.S. to learn quite a bit about the technology that it carried, as well as China's surveillance practices. That sentiment was shared by Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command, who told reporters Monday that the U.S. waited to destroy the balloon because they were gathering intelligence on the inflatable's capabilities.

"This gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilities existed on the balloon, what kind of transmission capabilities existed," he said, "and I think you’ll see in the future that the time frame was well worth its value to collect over."

Still, lawmakers have demanded answers. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding a security briefing from the administration, given the balloon's sighting near Malmstrom Air Force Base.

“The fact that this balloon was occupying Montana airspace creates significant concern that Malmstrom Air Force Base (AFB) and the United States’ intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fields are the target of this intelligence gathering mission,” Daines wrote.

The nuclear bases also are known to have their own defenses to ensure necessary secrecy, which would undermine most surveillance efforts, Kristensen said.

"When it comes to these nuclear bases, they're designed to be very difficult to pick up information from in terms of their operation and communications," he said. "They operate on secure systems."

spy balloon travel path

Phil McCausland is an NBC News reporter.

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The Chinese Spy Balloon's Path Across North America

Chinese balloon.

The debris of a Chinese surveillance balloon is being collected after it was shot down by U.S. military jets off the coast of South Carolina Saturday afternoon. The object had first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska on January 28 and then again over the continental U.S. on Tuesday, Jan. 31. A sighting over Montana on Wednesday afternoon kicked off what became a media frenzy over the weekend as the balloon made its way across the United States.

According to public information collected by open-source intelligence accounts TheIntelFrog and TieDyeIntel, the balloon was sighted in Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina and finally South Carolina, but also likely made its way across the states of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kentucky. It is less likely but also possible that it traveled across Colorado, Iowa or Georgia. Due to the weather on location as well as the very high altitude that the balloon was traveling at – 50,000 to 70,000 feet compared to an airplane at usually 30,000-40,000 feet – it was not always spotted.

Pentagon officials said last week that they decided against shooting the balloon down over land after weighing the possibility of hurting someone with falling debris against any military threat the balloon could inflict by its information gathering, which was put at none. It is therefore still unclear what led to the balloon’s voyage across the United States. Both the U.S. and China have for many years gathered aerial footage of each other’s countries via satellite, a technology that is capable of delivering increasingly high-resolution imagery.

Chinese officials have meanwhile stated that the balloon’s journey was an accident and that is was in fact a piece of meteorological equipment. However, CNN reports that U.S. official have said the they are sure the balloon was designed as a surveillance tool. A second balloon spotted last week by Colombian and Costa Rican aviation authorities is allegedly of the same type, but according to the Chinese was on another accidental flight.

Theories to what the balloon could have been doing over the country include China testing U.S. counter-surveillance capabilities and reactions, as brought forward by ANI and Nikkei Asia. Through the balloon’s flight, China could have found out how and how fast the U.S. is detecting intrusions to its airspace and what its reaction to it is. The second part of this tactic could also include a psychological component. Chinese military planes are also known to repeatedly intrude into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone , soliciting reactions from Taiwan. Russian also has a long history of similar behavior of fighter planes around NATO countries.

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This chart shows the approximate path of Chinese surveillance balloon across the United States and Canada between Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, 2023.

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Chinese spy balloon timeline: Where it was spotted before being shot down

Sightings started popping up on social media on Wednesday.

Government officials closely tracked a massive surveillance balloon believed to be from China as it traveled across the U.S. for several days.

The white balloon, which China's foreign ministry has claimed to be used for meteorological purposes, traveled at an altitude of around 60,000 feet with a vessel described as the size of three buses, officials said. It was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean Saturday afternoon.

Chinese spy balloon sightings

Here is a timeline of where the balloon was spotted in the U.S.:

The balloon entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28 north of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, according to a senior military official.

It then entered Canadian airspace over the Northwest Territories on Jan. 30, the senior military official said.

MORE: Large Chinese reconnaissance balloon spotted over the US, officials say

The balloon then traveled south and reentered U.S. airspace over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, according to a senior military official.

4:21 p.m. ET : One of the earliest sightings confirmed by ABC News was Wednesday in Reed Point, Montana.

6:46 p.m. ET : More than two hours later, it was filmed east of Reed Point, in Billings, Montana. Other footage captured it over Billings over the next hour, as civilians wondered what the object was.

From Montana, the balloon traveled southeast through South Dakota and Nebraska, according to U.S. officials.

9:41 a.m. ET : Social media sightings popped up as the balloon moved southeastwardly across the continental U.S. ABC News confirmed another sighting of the balloon around 9:41 a.m. ET on Friday, when it was filmed over Sabetha, Kansas.

11 a.m. ET : Over an hour later, it appeared farther east over Saint Joseph, Missouri, where it was filmed.

Between 11:56 a.m. and 12:28 p.m. ET L Video footage captured the balloon farther east, over Cameron, Missouri.

About 30 minutes later : It was seen farther south within the Kansas City metro area, in Lee's Summit, Missouri.

The balloon appeared to be heading toward North Carolina, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with the situation.

MORE: Chinese balloon live updates

ABC News confirmed several sightings of the balloon in North Carolina by Saturday morning.

8:40 a.m. ET : The balloon was filmed over Biltmore Park in Asheville, North Carolina.

10:22 a.m. ET : The balloon continued to move southeastwardly, with sightings over the Hendersonville and Saluda areas, before being captured over the Eagle Lake neighborhood in Charlotte.

11:15 a.m. : The balloon was captured over South Carolina, in Lancaster, as it continued moving southeastward toward the coast.

1:30 p.m. ET : The balloon was seen over the coastal city of Myrtle, along with U.S. fighter aircraft close by.

2:39 p.m. ET : Its voyage came to an end. Footage captured the balloon being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.

The balloon was ultimately downed in U.S. airspace over U.S. territorial waters by fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command, according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

The balloon was struck by an F-22 firing a missile roughly six nautical miles off the South Carolina coast, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

ABC News' Victoria Beaule, Layla Ferris, Cheryl Gendron, Julia Jacobo, Kerem Inal, Chris Looft, Josh Margolin and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

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China’s spy balloon drifted for 7 days across the U.S.: A Timeline

The balloon brought Americans out to squint at the sky, caused a diplomatic visit to be canceled and opened a political debate.

A woman sits in the trunk of a silver S.U.V. as another person holds a phone up to the sky to catch a glimpse of the balloon. A third man looks down at the ground near the vehicle.

By Helene Cooper and Edward Wong

  • Feb. 4, 2023

The president had been discussing military options with the Pentagon since Tuesday, when he was alerted by the Pentagon that a spy balloon had entered the continental American airspace near Idaho. By Wednesday, the balloon was hovering over Montana, and a full-blown diplomatic crisis was underway.

The arrival — and extended stay — of the balloon over American territory prompted furious calls from senior U.S. officials to their Chinese counterparts, and the cancellation of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s planned visit to China.

Here's a day-by-day timeline of the balloon’s flight and decision-making in Washington:

Saturday, Jan. 28

The spy balloon starts a controlled drift into American territory, entering Alaskan airspace near the Aleutian Islands. At first it appears to trackers at United States Northern Command to be just another one of China’s light probes around the edges of America’s defensive borders.

Monday, Jan. 30

By the end of the day, it has exited American territory and is over Canada, officials say, carrying its solar panels that power its propulsion and its cameras and surveillance equipment.

Tuesday, Jan. 31

The balloon re-enters the United States over Idaho, to the surprise of officials at Northern Command as well as at the Pentagon.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, alerts President Biden. The president asks for military options, including the immediate destruction of the aircraft. Mr. Biden also orders that no activities or sensitive unencrypted communications would be conducted in the path of the balloon.

Wednesday, Feb. 1

The balloon makes its way to the skies above Billings, Mont., which alarmed Pentagon officials because the state is home to the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of three U.S. Air Force bases that operate and maintain intercontinental ballistic missiles. One Pentagon official calls the balloon a blatant, and poorly concealed, effort at spying.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, in the Philippines at the time, calls a meeting of senior military and defense officials to review options, per Mr. Biden’s order. General Milley and Mr. Austin advise against shooting down the balloon, which has an undercarriage roughly the size of three buses, while it is over land because of the possibility of debris harming civilians and infrastructure.

U.S. officials convey to Chinese officials several times that the U.S. military might shoot down the spy balloon. Mr. Blinken tells a Chinese diplomat in Washington in the evening that the American government has the right to take any actions to protect its interests.

Thursday, Feb. 2

Republican lawmakers and politicians begin criticizing Mr. Biden, after news of the balloon became widespread, for not taking harder action against the balloon and against China, and some demand that Mr. Blinken cancel his trip.

There are reports of a second Chinese balloon traveling across Central America that is headed toward South America.

Friday, Feb. 3

The Chinese Foreign Ministry says that the machine was a civilian weather balloon that had strayed far — very far — off course and entered U.S. airspace by accident. But Mr. Blinken calls it a “clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law.”

Mr. Blinken reiterates his message to Chinese officials in a call to the top Chinese foreign policy official, Wang Yi.

Later that evening, Mr. Biden is briefed about how the Air Force plans to destroy the balloon on Saturday.

Saturday, Feb. 4

The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily pauses departures and arrivals at airports in Wilmington, N.C., and in Myrtle Beach and Charleston in South Carolina, which the agency said was meant to “support the Department of Defense in a national security effort.”

One of two F-22 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base fires a Sidewinder air-to-air missile, downing the balloon, which was flying at an altitude of between 60,000 and 65,000 feet. The military then starts recovery efforts.

By the time it was shot down on Saturday off the shore Myrtle Beach, S.C., the Chinese spy balloon had traversed the country, bringing Americans out into their yards to squint at the sky, causing a diplomatic visit to be canceled and opening a political debate.

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent, and was part of the team awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for its coverage of the Ebola epidemic. More about Helene Cooper

Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent who has reported for The Times for more than 22 years, based in New York, Baghdad, Beijing and Washington. He received a Livingston Award and was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists for Iraq War coverage. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a visiting professor of journalism at Princeton and U.C. Berkeley. More about Edward Wong

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

Timeline: A suspected Chinese spy balloon’s eight-day journey

spy balloon travel path

The United States’ dramatic takedown of what it has called a Chinese surveillance balloon started with a few civilian sightings in America’s heartland and ended with a missile explosion over South Carolina so loud that it rattled homes below.

Although it’s not the first time a spy balloon has been spotted by U.S. officials, this latest one has become the center of a diplomatic dispute that could set back dialogue between Washington and Beijing, said John Delury, a professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in South Korea who recently wrote a book about Cold War-era U.S. espionage in China.

“It’s hard to know how long this is going to play out diplomatically,” he said, noting that Pentagon officials have indicated the balloon would not be more effective for information gathering than a satellite. “But now that this has gotten so big, whatever the intention, the effect is that this pushes the issue of surveillance to the forefront of U.S.-China relations.”

Here’s a timeline of what happened.

spy balloon travel path

The balloon’s journey

Strategic U.S. nuclear forces bases and other facilities

Approximate

flow of the

The airship came from China, the country's foreign ministry confirmed Friday, but claimed it was a weather balloon that drifted off course.

The balloon was spotted over the Aleutian Islands along the southern tip of Alaska.

It was sighted Wednesday over south-western Montana, going over Minuteman III launch facilities.

On Friday it was seen flying near St.Louis according to local news reports.

On Saturday the U.S. military downed the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean near the coast of the Carolinas.

Sources: China’s Foreign Ministry, NOAA,

The United Nations

spy balloon travel path

The balloon was spotted over the Aleutian Islands along the southern tip of Alaska early in the week.

On Wednesday it was seen above southwestern Montana, over Minuteman III launch facilities.

On Friday it was seen flying near St. Louis, Missouri.

Sources: China’s Foreign Ministry, NOAA, The United Nations

spy balloon travel path

The airship came from China, the country's Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday, but claimed it was a weather balloon that

drifted off course.

Early this week

The balloon was spotted over the southern tip of

Seen above southwestern Montana, over Minuteman III launch facilities.

Seen flying near St. Louis, Missouri.

Approximate flow

of the jet stream

The U.S. military downed the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean near the coast of the Carolinas.

Sources: China’s Foreign Ministry, NOAA, United Nations

Saturday, Jan. 28: The balloon entered American airspace, flying in around the southern tip of Alaska. It then crossed north of the Aleutian Islands and over the state’s mainland. At this point, U.S. officials had not publicly acknowledged the balloon or its presence in the United States.

Monday, Jan. 30: The balloon entered Canadian airspace.

Tuesday, Jan. 31: The balloon floated back into U.S. airspace over northern Idaho. U.S. officials considered shooting it down, The Washington Post reported , but planners couldn’t mitigate the risk to people on the ground.

Wednesday, Feb. 1: The balloon flew over Montana, near Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to several nuclear missile silos. It was spotted by civilians and recorded by Chase Doak, who captured on video from his driveway what he later described as a “big, round disc in the sky” around 5:30 p.m. Billings Logan International Airport temporarily shut down over the balloon, grounding several flights.

President Biden authorized a takedown “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would later say in a statement. Secretary of State Antony Blinken summoned the senior-most official at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Thursday, Feb. 2: U.S. officials disclosed to the public that the balloon had been flying over the mainland United States for several days. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters it was traveling at an altitude “well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.”

Friday, Feb. 3: The balloon was spotted by civilians as it flew over Kansas and Missouri. China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the “airship” was a weather balloon that had strayed from its intended course into the United States “due to the influence of westerly winds and its limited control capacity,” adding that “China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States by mistake.”

Blinken postponed his visit to Beijing hours before he was scheduled to depart, telling China’s foreign affairs chief that the “surveillance balloon” had “undermined” the purpose of the trip, according to State Department spokesman Ned Price.

In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused some politicians and media organizations of having “hyped” the incident to “smear China.”

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said on Friday that it was tracking a balloon in Canada that was thought to be of Chinese origin. Another Chinese spy balloon was also spotted over Latin America on Friday, the Pentagon confirmed .

What to know about the suspected Chinese spy balloon

Saturday, Feb. 4: The U.S. military shot down the balloon as it hovered over the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast, using a missile fired from an F-22 Raptor. The balloon had been flying about 60,000 to 65,000 feet high. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops for flights in parts of North Carolina and South Carolina shortly before shooting down the balloon.

The same day, U.S. officials disclosed that the balloon’s path had taken it over several U.S. military installations, The Post reported, and that the administration had taken steps to stop it from collecting information that could undermine national security.

China blames U.S. politics for ‘overreaction’ to suspected spy balloon

Video of the takedown shows the missile approaching the balloon in clear blue skies as spectators cheer and shout, “Get it!”

Ellen Nakashima, Alex Horton, Dan Lamothe and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

spy balloon travel path

All the Places Suspected Chinese Spy Balloons May Have Been Spotted

T he alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down after traversing the continental U.S. has raised questions about whether other airships like it have floated into other countries’ airspace in the past.

At least four other governments have reported additional instances of possible surveillance balloons. U.S. Defense officials also reported multiple previous sightings of these devices in recent years.

But, few details are publicly known about many of these sightings. These balloons typically fly much higher than aircraft; the most recent balloon in the U.S. was hovering at an altitude of 60,000 ft.—nearly twice the altitude of most commercial aircraft.

Experts note that it can be hard to detect these kinds of balloons if you’re not looking for them. Unlike missiles and airplanes, military radar operators like the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) aren’t as attuned to picking up inflatable airships.

Other Balloon Sightings

Here’s what we know about the other possible spy balloon sightings.

Other U.S. incursions

General Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), confirmed Monday the Chinese government previously sent surveillance balloons above the U.S. that went undetected. “Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America,” he said at a briefing. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.”

Despite acknowledging that there were other possible incursions, the Pentagon has released few details, including specifics of when they happened.

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Post that lawmakers and military officials spoke on Saturday to discuss previous instances of similar surveillance balloons in the U.S. During the Trump Administration, a Chinese spy balloon reportedly made its way to Texas and Florida, military officials said Sunday. Another such balloon made it to Guam. One crashed off the coast of Hawaii four months ago, Fox News reported .

Balloon reported over Latin America

U.S. officials also said Friday that a Chinese balloon had been spotted somewhere over Latin America but did not specify an exact location.

Colombia’s military said Feb. 4 that it had spotted a balloon-like object in its airspace. Local media in Costa Rica reported that hundreds of people had spotted a balloon in the sky on Feb. 2 that was similar to the one the U.S. identified over Montana.

Over Canada

Canada flagged on Feb. 2 that it was tracking a “ potential second incident .” The balloon shot down by the U.S. had previously been in Canadian airspace before arriving in the U.S.

In the most recent incident in the U.S., a Chinese spy balloon was spotted about 60,000 feet over Billings, Montana on Feb. 1. It passed through Alaska and Canada, as well as parts of Idaho and Missouri, before the military shot it down above the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast.

Balloons reported in Asia

The balloon controversy in the U.S. has raised the alarm in Taiwan, which has been under increasing pressure from flights by Chinese People’s Liberation Army aircraft . Taiwan is a self-ruled island that China claims as its own territory. Some Taiwanese lawmakers are calling for official investigations into whether Chinese spy balloons could be used to surveil Taiwan.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau Director-General Cheng Ming-dean has said that they saw a similar balloon in Taipei in September 2021 and possibly in March 2022, too, according to the Taipei Times .

In Japan, officials are looking into whether reports of a flying object in June 2020 was a spy balloon, a government spokesman said Monday, Kyodo News reported .

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The Chinese surveillance balloon traveled across Alaska, but questions about its exact path remain unanswered

spy balloon travel path

The high altitude balloon floats over Billings, Mont., on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. . (Larry Mayer/The Billings Gazette via AP)

WASHINGTON — A week after a Chinese surveillance balloon was first spotted over Alaska at the start of its journey across North America, questions remain about its path over the state and the U.S. military response.

The balloon first entered the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone north of the Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28 and entered Canadian airspace on Jan. 30, according to the Department of Defense.

According to a media briefing transcript published by the Defense Department, a senior military official told reporters Saturday that once the balloon entered Alaska it stayed over the state’s physical territory, moved east across the northern part of Alaska and then into the Northwest Territories of Canada.

But the balloon’s specific path across Alaska remained a mystery on Sunday, including where it was initially spotted north of the Aleutians and its trajectory once it reached the mainland.

A senior defense official, also on the Saturday call with reporters, said officials’ primary consideration was whether the balloon presented a threat to civilian aviation and people on the ground.

Asked why the U.S. military did not down the balloon when it crossed into Alaska, the senior military official said “it really didn’t go back out over the water.”

“So there was not really a specific water shot there, opportunity at that point,” the official said after outlining the flight path.

[ Pentagon reports past Chinese surveillance balloons near Florida, Texas]

A Defense Department spokesperson declined to provide additional details about the balloon’s path over Alaska on Sunday. Representatives of military commands in Alaska could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, who was briefed on the balloon Sunday, said it traveled from the Aleutians toward the Seward Peninsula, across the state and into Canada.

Sullivan, a Republican, said military personnel in Alaska tracked the balloon as it traversed the state.

“My point is it was not at all like the men and women up here were asleep at the switch,” Sullivan said in an interview Sunday. “To the contrary, they did an exceptional job of tracking and alerting senior leadership at an early stage.”

Asked about the specifics of the U.S. military response in Alaska, Sullivan deferred to the Defense Department.

The Defense Department spokesperson did not provide additional details about the initial military response to the balloon entering Alaska, saying, “At this time we have nothing further beyond what has already been said on this issue.”

[ Timeline: A suspected Chinese spy balloon’s eight-day journey ]

The New York Times reported that the balloon first appeared “to trackers at United States Northern Command to be just another one of China’s light probes around the edges of America’s defensive borders.”

Sullivan said he has lingering questions about the balloon and intends to press the administration for answers.

“One of which is, you know, why didn’t we shoot down this aircraft earlier?” Sullivan said.

The Biden administration shot down the balloon on Saturday once it reached the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina. Military officials said downing the balloon over land would have posed “an undue risk of debris causing harm to civilians.”

“You know, I take that at face value right now until we see more details,” Sullivan said.

A Department of Defense statement said Chinese surveillance balloons have previously entered U.S. airspace . Sullivan said the subject needs to be looked into.

“What needs to happen in my view is a deep dive on this, an understanding, and an assessment and then transparency on what the answer is,” Sullivan said

All three members of the Alaska congressional delegation commended the military for ultimately downing the balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, but are seeking further clarity on the situation.

“I think it’s important not to be alarmist. I don’t want to say much more until I’ve learned more,” Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola said in a statement Sunday. “At this point, with the limited information we have, speculation would be irresponsible.”

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Reporter riley rogerson is a full-time reporter for the adn based in washington, d.c. her position is supported by report for america, which is working to fill gaps in reporting across america and to place a new generation of journalists in community news organizations around the country. report for america , funded by both private and public donors, covers up to 50% of a reporter’s salary. it’s up to anchorage daily news to find the other half, through local community donors, benefactors, grants or other fundraising activities. if you would like to make a personal, tax-deductible contribution to her position, you can make a one-time donation or a recurring monthly donation via adn.com/rfa . you can also donate by check, payable to “the groundtruth project.” send it to report for america/anchorage daily news, c/o the groundtruth project, 10 guest street, boston, ma 02135. please put anchorage daily news/report for america in the check memo line., donate today, riley rogerson.

Riley Rogerson is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News based in Washington, D.C., and is a fellow with Report for America. Contact her at [email protected].

Sailors recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Iain Boyd, The Conversation Iain Boyd, The Conversation

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  • Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/analysis-how-spy-balloons-work-and-what-information-they-can-gather

Analysis: How spy balloons work, and what information they can gather

The U.S. military shot down what U.S. officials called a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2023. Officials said that the U.S. Navy planned to recover the debris , which is in shallow water.

The U.S. and Canada tracked the balloon as it crossed the Aleutian Islands, passed over Western Canada and entered U.S. airspace over Idaho. Officials of the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed on Feb. 2, 2023, that the military was tracking the balloon as it flew over the continental U.S. at an altitude of about 60,000 feet, including over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. The base houses the 341st Missile Wing, which operates nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.

READ MORE: China says will ‘safeguard interests’ after shooting of alleged spy balloon

The next day, Chinese officials acknowledged that the balloon was theirs but denied it was intended for spying or meant to enter U.S. airspace. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the balloon’s incursion led him to cancel his trip to Beijing . He had been scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Feb. 5 and 6.

The Pentagon has reported that a second suspected Chinese balloon was seen over Latin America. On Feb. 4, officials told reporters that a third Chinese surveillance balloon was operating somewhere else in the world, and that the balloons are part of a Chinese military surveillance program .

Monitoring an adversary from a balloon dates back to 1794, when the French used a hot air balloon to track Austrian and Dutch troops in the Battle of Fleurus. We asked aerospace engineer Iain Boyd of the University of Colorado Boulder to explain how spy balloons work and why anyone would use one in the 21st century.

What is a spy balloon?

A spy balloon is literally a gas-filled balloon that is flying quite high in the sky, more or less where we fly commercial airplanes. It has some sophisticated cameras and imaging technology on it, and it’s pointing all of those instruments down at the ground. It’s collecting information through photography and other imaging of whatever is going on down on the ground below it.

Why would someone want to use a spy balloon instead of just using spy satellites?

Satellites are the preferred method of spying from overhead. Spy satellites are above us today, typically at one of two different types of orbit .

The first is called low Earth orbit , and, as the name suggests, those satellites are relatively close to the ground. But they’re still several hundred miles above us. For imaging and taking photographs, the closer you are to something, the more clearly you can see it, and this applies to spying as well. The satellites that are in low Earth orbit have the advantage that they’re closer to the Earth so they’re able to see things more clearly than satellites that are farther away.

The disadvantage these low Earth orbit satellites have is that they are continually moving around the Earth. It takes them about 90 minutes to do one orbit around the Earth. That turns out to be pretty fast in terms of taking clear photographs of what’s going on below.

The second type of satellite orbit is called geosynchronous orbit , and that’s much farther away. It has the disadvantage that it’s harder to see things clearly when you’re very, very far away. But they have the advantage of what we call persistence, allowing satellites to capture images continuously . In those orbits, you’re essentially overlooking the exact same piece of ground on the Earth’s surface all the time because the satellite moves in exactly the same way the earth rotates – it rotates at the exact same speed.

a black-and-white view from high above a seaport showing a submarine

A U.S. satellite photo showing a Soviet submarine in port in 1982. Image credit: National Reconnaissance Office

A balloon in some ways gets the best of those. These balloons are much, much closer to the ground than any of the satellites, so they can see even more clearly. And then, of course, balloons are moving, but they’re moving relatively slowly, so they also have a degree of persistence. However, spying is not usually done these days with balloons because they are a relatively easy target and are not completely controllable.

What types of surveillance are spy balloons capable of?

I don’t know what’s on this particular spy balloon, but it’s likely to be different kinds of cameras collecting different types of information.

These days, imaging is conducted across different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum . Humans see in a certain range of this spectrum, the visible spectrum. And so if you have a camera and you take a photograph of your dog, that’s a visible photograph. That’s one of the things spy aircraft do. They take regular photographs, although they have very good zoom capabilities to be able to magnify what they’re seeing quite a lot.

READ MORE: China decries U.S. decision to shoot down suspected spy balloon

But you can also gather different kinds of information in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Another fairly well-known one is infrared. If it’s nighttime, a camera operating in the visible part of the spectrum is not going to show you anything. It’s all going to be dark. But an infrared camera can pick up things from heat in the dark.

How do these balloons navigate?

Most of these balloons literally go where the wind blows. There can be a little bit of navigation, but there are certainly not people aboard them. They are at the mercy of whatever the weather is. They sometimes have guiding apparatus on them that change a balloon’s altitude to catch winds going in particular directions. According to reports, U.S. officials said the Chinese surveillance balloon had propellers to help steer it . If this is confirmed, it means that its operator would have much more control over the path of the balloon.

What are the limits to a nation’s airspace? At what altitude does it become space and anybody’s right to be there?

There is an internationally accepted boundary called the Kármán Line at 62 miles (100 kilometers) altitude. This balloon is well below that, so it is absolutely, definitely in U.S. airspace.

Which countries are known to be using spy balloons?

The Pentagon has had programs over the last few decades studying what can be done with balloons that couldn’t be done in the past. Maybe they’re bigger, maybe they can go higher in the atmosphere so they’re more difficult to shoot down or disable. Maybe they could be more persistent.

The broad interest in this incident illustrates its unusual nature. Few people would expect any country to be actively using spy balloons these days.

The U.S. flew many balloons over the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 1950s, and those were eventually replaced by the high-altitude spy airplanes, the U-2s , and they were subsequently replaced by satellites.

a black and white photograph of a group of men holding ropes attached to a large balloon being inflated from the back of a truck in a desert

Project Moby Dick was an early Cold War-era effort by the U.S. to monitor the Soviet Union using high-altitude balloons. Image credit: United States Air Force Public Affairs

I’m sure a number of countries around the world have periodically gone back to reevaluate: Are there other things we could do now with balloons that we couldn’t do before? Do they close some gaps we have from satellites and airplanes?

What does that say about the nature of this balloon, which China confirmed is theirs?

China has complained for many years about the U.S. spying on China through satellites, through ships. And China is also well known for engaging in somewhat provocative behavior , like in the South China Sea, sailing close to other nations’ boundaries and saber-rattling. I think it falls into that category.

The balloon doesn’t pose any real threat to the U.S. I think sometimes China is just experimenting to see how far they can push things. This isn’t really very advanced technology. It’s not serving any real military purpose. I think it’s much more likely some kind of political message.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Iain Boyd is a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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spy balloon travel path

Chinese surveillance balloon over U.S. raises tensions in already strained relationship

World Feb 03

US officials investigating a 'large balloon' discovered in Alaska won't call it a 'spy balloon'

spy balloon travel path

Military officials are investigating a "large balloon and payload" discovered by fishermen off the coast of Alaska last week, the Department of Defense confirmed on Friday.

"A U.S. commercial fishing vessel recovered portions of … what appears to be a large balloon and payload caught in their nets while fishing off the coast of Alaska," Sue Gough, a spokesperson for the Defense Department, said in an email.

The agency would not characterize the balloon as a spy or surveillance device.

The fishermen first reported the discovery to the Coast Guard, who asked them to hold the materiel on board until it could be collected by officials upon the boat's return to port, Gough said.

In a statement, the FBI said it was aware of debris found off the coast of Alaska by a commercial fishing vessel and assisted partners in debris recovery.

They had no further comment as of Friday afternoon.

The balloon is currently being analyzed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, around 9 miles northeast of Anchorage. Officials do not know what the balloon was doing off the coast of Alaska, but hope to learn more through an analysis of the materiel, which will be carried out by multiple agencies, Gough said.

More: Military officials say small balloon spotted over Western U.S. poses no security risk

Chinese balloon shot down last year triggered diplomatic rift with China

The appearance and takedown of a Chinese spy balloon drifting over the U.S. last year propelled the issue to international attention.

The balloon was first spotted floating over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska in late January of last year, according to the Pentagon. It drifted through Canada before entering U.S. airspace in Idaho and continuing eastward . At 11 miles above ground , it flew high enough to avoid interfering with commercial air traffic, defense officials said.

It was finally shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4 by a missile fired from an F-22, the military's most sophisticated warplane. President Biden first gave the order to shoot it out of the sky three days earlier while the balloon was above land, but Pentagon officials feared the debris could endanger people on the ground.

The balloon triggered a diplomatic rift with China that prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a planned trip to Beijing . The balloon had passed over some sensitive military sites, including facilities holding nuclear weapons and missiles in Montana, according to the State Department. U-2 spy planes sent to examine the balloon in mid-air found that it was equipped with devices to collect "signals intelligence," officials said.

China denied that the balloon had espionage capabilities, calling it a "civilian airship" that had been blown off course over the U.S. while conducting weather research, and apologized for its "unintentional entry" into U.S. airspace.

The military launched a major operation led by the Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 to collect the balloon from the water after it was downed. Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck said the balloon was 200 feet tall and weighed around 2,000 pounds – the size of around three buses .

Military officials revealed that the Pentagon was aware that suspected Chinese spy balloons had entered U.S. airspace three times during the Trump administration and once afterwards.

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her on email at [email protected]. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.

INSIDER

Potential spy balloon found by fishermen off the coast of Alaska is being delivered to the FBI for examination

  • Commercial fishermen found an unusual object off Alaska's coast and are bringing it to the FBI, per CNN.
  • Photos of the object show similarities with past surveillance balloons, the outlet reported.
  • The object is expected to be further examined once the ship reaches port this weekend.

A group of commercial fishermen are en route to deliver an object discovered off the coast of Alaska to the FBI, CNN reported.

The outlet, citing three sources, said the object — which intelligence experts suspect could be another spy balloon — is expected to be analyzed at an FBI lab in Quantico after the ship reaches port sometime this weekend.

Although it is yet to be determined exactly what the fishermen found, the FBI believed after viewing photographs of the object that it was similar enough to past surveillance balloons to warrant further observation, CNN reported.

An FBI spokesperson told Business Insider the agency is aware of debris found off the coast of Alaska by a commercial fishing vessel and will assist with the logistics of the debris recovery.

A Department of Defense official referred BI to the FBI.

On February 24, a hobbyist's balloon had defense officials on alert after it was spotted over the Western US, CBS reported. Before the balloon was identified, CBS noted, some military officials suspected it could be a surveillance device.

Early last year, after a week adrift over the continental United States , the military shot down a high-altitude balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

It was later determined that the device was a Chinese spy balloon that may have been equipped with a feature called "synthetic aperture radar," which would have enabled it to observe objects in the dark or through clouds.

Additional balloons were spotted flying over Latin America last February, as well as drifting over Hawaii in May.

During last year's incidents, intelligence officials stressed that the balloons did not pose "a military or physical threat to people on the ground," BI previously reported.

Potential spy balloon found by fishermen off the coast of Alaska is being delivered to the FBI for examination

2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

spy balloon travel path

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

spy balloon travel path

Buying Tickets

  • Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
  • You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
  • There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
  • Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
  • If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
  • You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
  • You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

spy balloon travel path

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

spy balloon travel path

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

spy balloon travel path

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

spy balloon travel path

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

spy balloon travel path

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

spy balloon travel path

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

spy balloon travel path

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

spy balloon travel path

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

spy balloon travel path

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

spy balloon travel path

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

spy balloon travel path

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21 Things to Know Before You Go to Moscow

Featured city guides.

Download audio sample

E07 is the English language mode of the Russian 7 operator.

Null format:

Traffic format, single message:

Traffic format, two messages:

In case of an unexpected interruption during the transmission, the station restarts with the intro, repeated for one minute, followed by the current message continued from some groups before the failure; the preamble is omitted.

All E07 schedules are twice weekly and consist of 3 identical transmissions 20 minutes apart. Each successive transmission is 1-2 MHz lower or higher in frequency. The third transmission does not take place in case of a null message. The frequencies are typically changed on a monthly basis.

There exists a female E07 voice, as heard below from test transmissions on October 2nd, 2021:

Download audio recording

Put-in tours

Original tour agency in moscow and st petersburg..

Onboard a Soviet van!

Welcome to Russia!

We are Sergey and Simon, a Russian and a Frenchman, both  passionate about Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and classic cars. Together, we have created Put-in tours. Our goal is to help you experience Russian culture off the beaten path. Join us onboard our classic Soviet van and let’s get rolling!

In Moscow we offer you a city tour to discover most of the city in an original way as well as a night tour to admire the lights. Our pubcrawl is ideal to explore Moscow’s night-life and have fun. If you are craving to discover Russian culture, come impress your senses during our monastery diner or join our 100% Russian Banya Excursion . The latest will also bring you to Sergiyev Posad and it’s famous monastery!

For the most extreme travellers, our shooting tour will deliver your daily dose of adrenaline whereas our tank excursion will let you ride a real tank and shoot a bazooka.

We also offer help to receive your visa , safe and multilingual airport transfers , as well as organisation services for team-building events or bachelor parties .

All our excursions (but the monastery diner) happen onboard our Soviet military vans and can be covered by our  professionnal photographer or videographer.

In Saint Petersburg

We welcome you in Saint Petersburg onboard our Soviet van to discover the imperial city with our city tour and night tour .

Continue your discovery in style! The adrenaline lovers will like our shooting tour  which brings 3 Russian weapons to the tip of your trigger finger.

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© Copyright 2021 - Put-in tours Designed by SD Marketing & Design

At Put-in tours, we put you in our classic Soviet vans to go explore Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Russian culture off the beaten path. Discover our Moscow city guided tour, visit Moscow by night, join our banya & Sergiyev Posad excursion, visit and dine in one of Moscow's oldest monastery or even Luzhniki stadium, before you party on our famous pubcrawl! Original and atypical tours : Shoot AK47 and a bazooka after riding on a tank with our tank & bazooka excursion ! Extreme tours: Fly a fighter jet in Moscow onboard a L-29 or L-39 aircraft!

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IMAGES

  1. Chart: The Chinese Spy Balloon's Path Across North America

    spy balloon travel path

  2. Another Chinese spy balloon spotted over Latin America, Pentagon says

    spy balloon travel path

  3. What's the Chinese spy balloon's path?

    spy balloon travel path

  4. Busting the Chinese Spy Balloon

    spy balloon travel path

  5. Photos: US Navy recovers Chinese balloon in Atlantic ocean

    spy balloon travel path

  6. How to track spy balloons?

    spy balloon travel path

COMMENTS

  1. Map: Here's how close the Chinese spy balloon flew to the U.S. nukes

    It did not seem to venture close to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota or Warren Air Force Base, which stretches through Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.

  2. Chinese Surveillance Balloon Tracker: Path, Map & Location

    The Chinese surveillance balloon that was floating across the United States, with meteorologists monitoring its path, has been shot down by the U.S. government on February 4, 2023, according to...

  3. Timeline: A Chinese spy balloon's trip across the United States

    The balloon is first detected over U.S. airspace high over Alaska, north of the Aleutian Islands. The military's North American Aerospace Defense Command closely tracks the balloon, assessing...

  4. The Chinese Spy Balloon's Path Across North America

    Feb 6, 2023 The debris of a Chinese surveillance balloon is being collected after it was shot down by U.S. military jets off the coast of South Carolina Saturday afternoon. The object had first...

  5. Chinese Spy Balloon Path: Where It's Headed in U.S.

    February 3, 2023 3:40 PM EST T he alleged Chinese spy balloon was first spotted over Billings, Montana on Feb. 1, but it has traveled a long way since then—and the military, meteorologists, and...

  6. Tracking the Chinese Balloon From Space

    An exclusive analysis of millions of square miles of satellite imagery traces the balloon hours after its launch in China, across the Philippine Sea and then to North America. It also reveals...

  7. Chinese spy balloon timeline: Where it was spotted before being shot

    From Montana, the balloon traveled southeast through South Dakota and Nebraska, according to U.S. officials. Feb. 3 9:41 a.m. ET: Social media sightings popped up as the balloon moved southeastwardly across the continental U.S. ABC News confirmed another sighting of the balloon around 9:41 a.m. ET on Friday, when it was filmed over Sabetha, Kansas.

  8. See path the suspected spy balloon may have taken

    As a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon continues to float over the US, CNN's Alex Marquardt explains the possible origin of the balloon, what it's equipped with, and its suspected...

  9. U.S. tracked China spy balloon from launch on Hainan island along

    The balloon floated over Alaska's Aleutian Islands thousands of miles away from Guam, then drifted over Canada, where it encountered strong winds that appear to have pushed the balloon south...

  10. China's spy balloon drifted for 7 days across the U.S.: A Timeline

    Monday, Jan. 30 By the end of the day, it has exited American territory and is over Canada, officials say, carrying its solar panels that power its propulsion and its cameras and surveillance...

  11. Timeline: A suspected Chinese spy balloon's eight-day journey

    The United States' dramatic takedown of what it has called a Chinese surveillance balloon started with a few civilian sightings in America's heartland and ended with a missile explosion over...

  12. Chinese Balloon Map: All the Places Objects Spotted

    By Sanya Mansoor February 6, 2023 4:46 PM EST T he alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down after traversing the continental U.S. has raised questions about whether other airships like it...

  13. February 3, 2023 Suspected Chinese spy balloon flies over the US

    The latest projections show a path through Kentucky, Tennessee into North Carolina over the next 24 hours. Going by the last reported CNN known position of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the current...

  14. Chinese Spy Balloon Forecast to Fly Over These States in the ...

    A map of the predicted flight path of the suspected spy balloon according to HYSPLIT modelling, assuming a height of 20,000 meters over Montana as of 7 a.m. on February 2, 2023. Under this...

  15. US intel assessing possibility that Chinese spy balloon's path ...

    Washington CNN — US intelligence officials are assessing the possibility that the suspected Chinese spy balloon was not deliberately maneuvered into the continental US by the Chinese...

  16. 2023 Chinese balloon incident

    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. On February 4, the U.S. Air Force shot down the balloon over U.S. territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina.Debris from the wreckage was recovered and sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico ...

  17. The Chinese surveillance balloon traveled across Alaska, but questions

    The balloon, shot down Saturday off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, entered U.S. Air Defense Zone off the Aleutians on Jan. 28 and moved over Canada two days later, according to the ...

  18. Why Chinese Spy Balloon's Flight Path Was Not An Accident

    Why Chinese Spy Balloon's Flight Path Was Not An Accident - And What It May Have Been Doing More From Forbes Mar 1, 2024,04:45pm EST With A Million Shells About To Ship, Ukraine's Artillery...

  19. Analysis: How spy balloons work, and what information they can gather

    Officials of the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed on Feb. 2, 2023, that the military was tracking the balloon as it flew over the continental U.S. at an altitude of about 60,000 feet,...

  20. 'Large balloon' found in Alaska under investigation by Department of

    1:03. Military officials are investigating a "large balloon and payload" discovered by fishermen off the coast of Alaska last week, the Department of Defense confirmed on Friday. "A U.S ...

  21. Suspected spy balloon found off Alaska

    The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast of South Carolina in February, 2023 Credit: Randall HIll/Reuters A suspected spy balloon has been found by ...

  22. Moscow, from 100 km away. The white lines are balloon lines

    Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games ...

  23. Potential spy balloon found by fishermen off the coast of Alaska is

    In early February 2023, sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recovered a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (pictured above).

  24. Defense Department analyzing possible spy balloon discovered off ...

    The Defense Department is analyzing a balloon discovered by fishermen off the coast of Alaska last week to determine whether it was a spy balloon, a spokesperson told CNN. CNN values your feedback 1.

  25. How to get around Moscow using the underground metro

    The sweet spot for Moscow Metro travel — especially if you're there to see the stations and not just carried on a sea of people through them — is between 11 a.m. and 3. p.m. An emptier Metro is not just more pleasant, but gives you a better view of the stations, not to mention better photos. During rush hour, push or be pushed.

  26. E07 › Priyom.org

    E07 is the English language mode of the Russian 7 operator. In case of an unexpected interruption during the transmission, the station restarts with the intro, repeated for one minute, followed by the current message continued from some groups before the failure; the preamble is omitted.

  27. Tours in Moscow and St Petersburg

    Welcome to Russia! We are Sergey and Simon, a Russian and a Frenchman, both passionate about Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and classic cars. Together, we have created Put-in tours. Our goal is to help you experience Russian culture off the beaten path. Join us onboard our classic Soviet van and let's get rolling!