Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said on Thursday that the US was “aware that [the balloon] had intelligence collection capabilities”.
But “it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or over flying the United States”.
He said the efforts the US took to mitigate any intelligence gathering “contributed” to the balloon’s failure to gather sensitive information.
Gen Ryder did not confirm a Wall Street Journal report that American-made equipment was part of the balloon, but he said that Chinese drones in the past have used off-the-shelf US equipment.
Regardless, it was a airspace violation and shot down rightfully, its not hard to just ask.
So either it wasn’t collecting data, which seems odd, what is its purpose otherwise?
Or the US prevented it from doing so. Do they mean they prevented it by blowing it the fuck up or other means prior?
Seeing how America reacts to an invasion of airspace is more than enough info.
I think “it didn’t collect data” meant no data of military Pertinence rather than no data at all, it was likely just a actual weather Balon collecting weather data and sending it to a lab.
And it was shot down because it flew over the area where usa has their ICBM Silos and was suspected to collect data about these.