AFTER months of claiming that China has used a balloon to spy on the United States with the US corporate media hyping up the hysteria, America’s highest military official has now admitted the balloon is not on a spying mission but was most probably blown off-course as China had said all along.
In several news articles that has started to appear in the US mainstream media including an interview by ABC News last September 18, 2023 and shared by Big News Network.com, General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chief of Staff, admitted the balloon has not collected any intelligence data and may have been blown off-course.
“The intelligence community, their assessment – and it’s a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon,” Milley was quoted as saying.
Milley’s revelation came after months of close scrutiny of the balloon’s debris by the intelligence community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
He added strong winds could have caused the balloon to float of its course towards the US mainland.
“Those winds are very high. The particular motor on that aircraft can’t go against those winds at that altitude.”
A report by the BBC last June 30, 2023, quoting Pentagon spokesperson, BGen. Pat Ryder already conceded that the wayward balloon did not collect any intelligence information while passing thru the US East Coast.
Not surprisingly, most corporate media in the United States did not highlight the Pentagon admission until Milley was interviewed last September 18, 2023.
Milley’s confirmation had proven China to be stating the truth and the facts of the incident but which was simply dismissed by the United States.
The balloon was shot down off the Atlantic coast by the US Air Force using a Sidewinder missile from an F-22 ‘Raptor’ last February 4, 2023, an action that was vehemently protested by China over America’s use of excessive force against a civilian craft.
The incident was also used by US State Secretary Anthony Blinken to cancel his visit to Beijing at the time. The Chinese Foreign Ministry noted however that there was no formal invitation for Blinken to visit China.
With its own arrays of satellites, critics wonder why China would resort to the old-fashioned use of an air balloon for surveillance and spying.
In an Editorial, Pinoy Exposé had also ridiculed the US version but warned that it was another way of American war preparations against China by conditioning the minds of Americans to get on board should an actual shooting war between the United States and China happens.