IN the latest development on the Balloon-Saga chapter the Chinese balloon was able to gather intelligence and send it in real-time back to Beijing while it was flown over sensitive military sites in the US, NBC news reported on Monday.

The report revealed that two current senior US officials and one former high-level administration cited that China had succeeded in flying balloon multiple times over sensitive military sites in the US.

According to the Guardian newspaper, it was the size of three school buses and has capabilities to collect intelligence before it was shot down on Feb 4 by the US air force from an F-22 plane.

“The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images”, NBC’s cited the officials as saying.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2023