China said the balloon went off course and accidentally crossed US airspace, saying it is "sorry" about the incident and that the balloon was used for climate research
The wide sky in Montana makes stargazing commonplace. However, on a Wednesday after work, Chase Doak turned to look up at the sky on a chilly winter day and noticed a weird round, white object that was obviously neither the moon nor a star.
He started to record scenes that seemed like they belonged in a science fiction Western. Within 48 hours, it was discovered that the mysterious object that had been perplexing Billings people was really a possible Chinese spy balloon.
Not going to lie, Doak tweeted as his video gained popularity. "At first, I believed this to be a #ufo. Then, I believed it to be @elonmusk dressed as the Wizard of Oz. However, it was merely a routine.
President Joe Biden had already received a briefing when the object first became apparent in Montana, and the White House was rushing to decide whether to shoot it out of the sky.
The fact that Montana is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, which holds a sizable fraction of the US's Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles, only served to heighten the seriousness of the issue.
The Biden administration was well aware that it had to proceed with the utmost prudence, particularly given the tense political climate that existed in the run-up to the 2024 elections, when Republicans were bickering over which party might take a firmer or stricter stance against China.
On Wednesday, as the balloon lingered over the Big Sky state, Biden convened with his national security staff to get a thorough briefing. The president argued that he should shoot the thing down, but his most trusted military advisors strongly advised against it.
Both the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark A. Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin argued that doing so would endanger civilians.
Off-Guard; caught
The US sought clarification from the Chinese embassy in Washington, but they struggled to get adequate answers, so the president ultimately opted to let the balloon continue on its course. US authorities claimed to be perplexed by China, which also seemed surprised by the strange incident.
The White House decided not to inform the American people for the time being. But eventually, circumstances compelled Biden to act.
It was just a matter of time before the Biden administration would have to answer questions after a local Montana newspaper, the Billings Gazette, published a picture of the balloon on Thursday afternoon.
Discussions at the White House picked up speed.
On Thursday at 5:15 p.m., the administration made its first public statement. A rush to brief senators on Capitol Hill resulted from that. The "Gang of Eight," a group of politicians made up of the heads and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, would get a briefing from the Biden administration the following week.
Republican Outcry
In an effort to keep things calm, administration officials stressed this was not the first such incident and that similar activities had been observed over the past several years, including during the prior administration.
The Pentagon's announcement prompted an outcry from Republicans. Former President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social website to "shoot down the balloon." Others, from former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, framed the decision not to shoot down the balloon as a sign of weakness by Biden.
The biggest question was how would China respond to all the furore that was unfolding at a rapid pace as Asia was asleep.
After earlier calling on the US to refrain from "hyping" the incident, China finally commented on the balloon directly in a statement Friday morning Washington time, attributing it to a "force majeure" for which it was not responsible.
China said the balloon blew off course and entered US airspace by accident, adding that it is "regretful" over the incident and that the balloon's purpose was climate research.
Privately, administration officials and retired American intelligence professionals reject Beijing's justification. The official Chinese justification was a well-known justification for airborne espionage.
Dennis Wilder, a former deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific at the Central Intelligence Agency, remarked, "I do not know of anyone who builds a meteorological balloon the size of three school buses."
Not a Choice
The first high-level US visit to China in five years had to be postponed as US officials debated whether Blinken should cancel a long-planned trip to Beijing for hours. An interruption wasn't a cancellation. It conveyed that the US had no wish to aggravate the situation.
People in the meeting felt that the trip wasn't worthwhile given the probable domestic political consequences of travelling, especially since Blinken's discussions in China weren't anticipated to produce much in the first place.
Biden's team was concerned that the incident would give Republicans who thought the administration was soft on China more material to use against them, particularly if the balloon crashed and injured someone when Blinken was in Beijing.
Ryan Hass, a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution and a former Director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia on the National Security Council, stated that having a split-screen of a spy satellite above the United States while Secretary Blinken lands in Beijing would not have been tenable.
While everything was going on, the balloon resumed its journey eastward across the US, toward Washington. The balloon won't go away, according to Wilder, a former CIA agent.
Because China "had no way to take it back," he claimed, "it will drift above the continental US for an unknown period of time before falling down."
By Saturday afternoon, when the balloon was already far from the ground, the US made it abundantly obvious that it was taking the situation into its own hands. According to Biden, "We're going to take care of it."
A few hours later, it was brought down by US fighter fighters off the coast of South Carolina.
The US had stated it reserved the right to take measures, according to the officials. Although the US was optimistic that both countries would find a good reason to put the incident behind them, the relationship with China was not going to exactly grow much better.
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