The U.S. military was tracking a high-altitude balloon over the Western part of the country after it was spotted over Colorado on Friday afternoon, according to multiple reports.
CBS News reported it had spoken to U.S. military officials who relayed that, while the purpose and origin of the balloon were not yet known, they did not view it as a threat to the public.
An investigation is underway.
News of the balloon went viral on the social media platform X Friday.
JUST IN: The U.S. military is tracking a high-altitude ballon over Colorado according to U.S. officials who spoke with CBS News.
Military aircraft spotted the balloon and claim it is “not a threat.”
Officials are looking into the purpose of balloon. The U.S. has sent military… pic.twitter.com/Ib3iZQ7MuJ
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 23, 2024
The high-altitude air balloon that has entered U.S. airspace was over Colorado earlier in the day.
Fighter jets were scrambled to investigate but the balloon hasn’t been shot down. pic.twitter.com/hx855rLXPu
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 23, 2024
Some connected it to Thursday’s widespread mobile phone service outage:
JUST IN: High altitude balloon spotted over Colorado just one day after a “software update” shut down phone service for hours across the country…
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 23, 2024
Yesterday it was a ‘Solar Flare’ and Cellular Outages…and today it’s the U.S. military tracking a high-altitude Balloon over Colorado which Military aircraft spotted.
America is so weak right now. pic.twitter.com/JvZX8FwKRS
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) February 23, 2024
Back to balloons the day after outages. https://t.co/2CvDudcrOf
— JuliansRum (@ItsJuliansRum) February 23, 2024
The balloon spotted Friday comes just a year after a Chinese balloon traversed the country last January and February for nearly a week.
The Chinese government claimed the balloon was rogue and was intended to monitor the weather.
That balloon was shot down after it left land off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4 of last year.
Is China using high-altitude balloons to spy on the United States?
Remnants of it were later collected and analyzed and found to have contained equipment meant to gather intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The following week, other mysterious aerial objects were sighted in the Northern U.S., the Midwest and Canada.
Those balloons were also shot down by U.S. military fighter jets.
President Joe Biden said at the time he ordered the balloons to be eliminated on the advice of officials at NORAD.
“At their recommendation, I gave the order to take down these three objects due to hazards to civilian commercial air traffic and because we could not rule out the surveillance risk of sensitive facilities,” Biden said in a statement.
“We acted in consultation with the Canadian government. I spoke personally with Prime Minister Trudeau … from Canada,” Biden added.
