Chinese spy balloon – US government tried to hide it

The United States government knew about the Chinese spy balloon when it first appeared, in January of 2023. But they deliberately sought to conceal that from the general public. That, according to NBC News, which issued a report last night describing the balloon and efforts to track it.

The Chinese spy balloon becomes a scandal

According to the NBC report, Gen. Glen D. VanHerck USAF, assigned as CINC-NORAD, called Gen. Mark Milley USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on January 27, 2023. His message: NORAD had been tracking a strange object for ten days. The object was now over Alaska, and Gen. VanHerck planned to scramble jets to reconnoiter it. That call took place three days earlier than what was thought to be its first sighting. The object – the Chinese spy balloon – overflew Alaska, then the Yukon, then Alberta and Saskatchewan. A civilian spotted it over Billings, Montana on Thursday, February 2. Only then did a Pentagon spokesman say anything to the American people. We also know that NORAD sent recon jets out of Nellis AFB to track and observe the balloon. They also scrambled jets from Alaska on the same mission – on the day VanHerck notified Milley.

Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit posted a scathing commentary this morning. According to him, the Biden administration chose to tell no one about the Chinese spy balloon. They didn’t even notify their “Gang” of eight sympathetic House and Senate leaders that the balloon even existed. That Gang consisted of the then:

• Chairman and Ranking Member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
• Chairman and Vice-Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
• Speaker and Minority Leader of the House, and
• Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate.

Latest developments

Instead, the government was going to let the Chinese spy balloon fly over head, while “studying” it, without saying anything. But of course the sighting of the balloon over Montana quashed that plan.

Even before these reports came out, Candidate Tim Sheehy, intending to challenge Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in next fall’s election, was fundraising about the Chinese spy balloon yesterday afternoon. Sheehy cited an interview Tester gave to CNN in April of 2023. He said then that, according to his classified briefing, the balloon posed no national-security threat. Sheehy, of course, disputes that and cited it as further evidence of a “soft on China” policy from Tester.

General VanHerck laments that the U.S. military has no over-the-horizon radar capability to let them spot such balloons sooner. As for the administration, no one seems to want to talk about it. Not to the Chinese, who sent it (and reacted in outrage when the Air Force shot it down over Myrtle Beach). Nor, apparently, to the American people.