Chinese spy balloon may have collected and sent US data in real time

However, US officials said they could restrict the balloon's capacity for gathering information while flying over the nation but did not elaborate on how. A spokesperson for the defense department stated on Monday that the FBI was still looking over the balloon wreckage.

"We do know that the balloon was able to be maneuvered and purposely driven along its track," said spokesperson Sabrina Singh. She has also declined to say which military installations the balloon could hover over.

A US fighter aircraft shot down the balloon on February 4th

"We're still [assessing] what the intel was that China was able to gather, but we do know that the steps that we took provided little additive value to what they've been able to collect on from satellites before," she added.

Before it re-entered American airspace in February, the U.S. authorities claimed to have tracked the balloon over Alaska and Canada. Days of monitoring, sky-watching, and speculation began when it was publicly acknowledged that the balloon was flying over the US mainland. On February 4th, off the coast of South Carolina, a US fighter aircraft finally shot down the craft, which stood about 200 feet (60 meters) tall.

Later, American authorities claimed to have found the balloon. Chinese authorities claim that the U.S. overreacted by shooting it down and that it was a civilian weather balloon. According to officials quoted by US media, China was able to control the balloon so that it could fly numerous figure-eight loops and make multiple passes over military installations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to China due to the event, which started a diplomatic dispute. US fighter aircraft shot down several other balloons in the weeks that followed the first one, all of which they believed to have come from China, but this is yet to be officially confirmed.