Spying and camera equipment, listening and tracking devices on Chinese spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina

WASHINGTON, DC: Highly placed US Navy sources searching for debris of the Chinese spy balloon, as it was shot down on Saturday by an Air Force F-22 Raptor, off the coast of South Carolina, revealed that the payload of the balloon included spying and camera equipment, including long-distance, high resolution video recording equipment and other listening and tracking devices that could ‘listen’ in to military radio and satellite communications.

The recorded and tracked information was stored in highly encrypted format on digital storage devices that were water and fire proof and could be retrieved and read/used even from the bottom of the ocean.

According to media reports, the US Navy has recovered some parts of the high-altitude Chinese spy balloon including its payload, that was shot down on Saturday by an Air Force F-22 Raptor off the coast of South Carolina.

Earlier media reports said, Navy warships, service divers and the FBI are on the hunt for the wreckage of a high-altitude Chinese spy balloon as soon as it was shot down on Saturday by an Air Force F-22 Raptor off the coast of South Carolina, Defense Department officials told reporters Saturday.

“The balloon, which was being used by the PRC in an attempt to spy on strategic sites and locations in the continental United States, was brought down above U.S. territorial waters,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a Saturday briefing.

“On Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued orders to take down the surveillance spy balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives below the balloon’s flight path.”

The F-22 Raptor from the 149 Fighter Squadron, based at the Langley Air Force Base, used a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, fired from 58,000 feet in the air, to shoot down the balloon that was flying at 62,000 feet at the time it was shot down, a senior military official told media persons on Saturday afternoon.

The remains of the surveillance balloon, about the size of three school buses, is spread over a seven-mile debris field in shallow waters about 14 to 17 meters deep in the Atlantic, a senior military official told reporters.

Guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin (DDG-79), guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) and amphibious warship USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) are on scene near the crash site.

Coast Guard cutters and boats are also on the scene to assist in the recovery, while Navy divers are currently embarked aboard the warships off the coast, a Navy official confirmed to USNI News.

FBI counter-intelligence agents are also part of the investigation, Pentagon officials said Saturday.

“We have… capable Navy divers to go down if needed. We’ll also have unmanned vessels that can go down to get the structure and lift it back up on the recovery ship,” the senior military official said.

“We’ll have the FBI on board as well, under the counterintelligence authorities for categorizing and assessing the platform itself.” (Read more here)