United States Department of Defense said it is directing efforts toward recovering the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon and is expecting to gather "valuable intelligence" from it. The US military shot down the balloon once it left the coast and its fall no longer posed a security threat. The Navy and Coast Guard are now searching for debris in the Atlantic Ocean, where it crashed.
"While we took all necessary steps to protect against the surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of US territory was of intelligence value to us," a Pentagon official said. China protested the use of force against what it claims is a piece of scientific equipment that accidentally strayed into the US airspace.
