The U.S. Military released a selfie taken by the pilot of a U-2 spy plane that was monitoring the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month off the coast of South Carolina.
The spy balloon was first detected over U.S. airspace on January 28 and was shot down a week later after President Joe Biden allowed it to travel across the entire country, flying over sensitive military sites.
The photo was taken as it hovered over the Central Continental United States February 3, 2023, the Pentagon said.
The spy balloon was finally shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on February 4th when the U.S. military used an F-22 Raptor to down the object with a single air-to-air AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.
VanHerck, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), said that the balloon was up to 200 feet tall and weighed “in excess of a couple thousand pounds.”
After the spy balloon was shot down, the U.S. subsequently downed three more unidentified objects over Alaska, Lake Huron, and Canada.
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