After Billings Gazette photos published Feb. 1 forced President Joe Biden to acknowledge the Chinese spy balloon drifting over Montana, he said that he had earlier ordered it shot down.
What he didn’t say is that the Pentagon’s attempt to down the balloon over the Beartooth Mountains in Eastern Montana had failed.
The map above displays the location of the Beartooth Mountains. Click on the icon for more details.
Earlier in the day on Feb. 1, several F-22 fighter jets along with two refueling air tankers and long-range surveillance AWACS aircraft flew a sortie over the Beartooth Mountains.
The plan was for the jets to use their guns to pierce the 200-foot balloon, with its equipment package the size of two school buses, so that it would fall gradually into the sparsely populated mountains where it could be relatively easily recovered. The Air Force preferred using guns rather than a missile over land.
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But the mission failed because the balloon was traveling above 65,000 feet, which is too high for the jets to reach, according to conversations the Gazette has had with several Montana and U.S. military officials.
The F-22 Raptor has a published service ceiling of 50,000 feet.
Video shot by Chase Doak of Chinese spy satellite hovering over Billings Wednesday
After the Beartooth attempt failed, Biden said he consulted with Pentagon officials who for public safety reasons cautioned against shooting it down over land.
“Without doing any damage to anyone on the ground, (the Pentagon) decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water,” Biden told reporters. Three days after it was spotted over Billings, the balloon was downed by a missile just as it drifted offshore from South Carolina.
Keeping the balloon secret
Biden didn’t want to acknowledge the spy balloon at all, in light of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned diplomatic trip to China. As the Gazette’s photos of the spy balloon went viral, the highly-anticipated Blinken trip was quickly called off.
A huge, high-altitude Chinese balloon is sailing across the U.S. The spectacle is drawing severe Pentagon accusations of spying on Friday — while sending excited or alarmed Americans outside with binoculars. Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceled a high-stakes Beijing trip aimed at easing U.S.-China tensions, and the Biden administration weighed a broader response to the discovery of the Chinese balloon over sensitive sites in the western United States. Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee says China has apologized for the balloon making its way into U.S. territory, but despite that, the Biden administration responded by postponing Secretary Blinken's visit. "That, however, was not enough to change the administration's mind that this is still a blatant violation of U.S. airspace, of U.S. sovereignty, and of international law, and that it had to be met with some kind of a response. And so, the postponement of this trip is the response that we're seeing, and it's not clear at all when it might be rescheduled," Lee said. The development marked a new blow to already strained U.S.-Chinese relations that have been in a downward spiral for years over numerous issues. Still, U.S. officials maintained that diplomatic channels remain open and that Blinken was willing to travel to China at "an appropriate time."
The spy balloon was first reported publicly Feb. 1 by two Billings journalists who spotted it in the sky above Billings after learning earlier in the day of the military incursion over the Beartooth Mountains and the closed airspace in the area.
Photographs and video of the balloon captured by Billings Gazette photographer Larry Mayer and former Gazette editor Chase Doak were published and then shared by media outlets around the world.
Montana officials were especially alarmed about the balloon’s passage over the eastern part of the state where three of the nation’s nuclear silo missile fields are managed by Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls.
The balloon was finally downed by a missile fired from a fighter jet just off the coast of South Carolina. Since then, three other flying objects have been shot down by the U.S. military, one over Alaska and another over the Yukon Territory of Canada, both flying at 40,000 feet, and a fourth object flying over Lake Huron at 20,000 feet. All of the shoot downs occurred when the objects were well within F-22 range.
China initially insisted the balloon was a harmless weather research project that had simply blown off course. Since then, Chinese military leaders have revved up their rhetoric, hinting at retaliation and saying the shoot down “seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice.”
U.S. intelligence officials have described the Chinese balloon as one in a fleet of balloons launched by the Chinese military to test American defenses, according to CNN. The balloons have conducted at least two dozen missions over five continents in recent years, the news network said.
Shoot downs unprecedented
The nature of the three most recent flying objects, or where they originated from, hasn’t yet been made public.
Whatever they are, the four shoot-downs are the first time within U.S airspace that NORAD, or the United States Northern Command, has "taken kinetic action against an airborne object," said Gen. Glenn VanHerck, who is commander of both NORAD and U.S. Northern Command.
Although still vague, VanHerck has come closest to describing the last three flying objects to be shot down.
Gen. Glenn VanHerck
“I’m not going to categorize them as balloons,” he told reporters in one recent press briefing. “We’re calling them objects for a reason.”
And, although they may be the first to be shot down, they’re not the first foreign objects to pass over U.S. territory. Three balloons were detected during Donald Trump’s administration, and one early in Biden’s term, the Pentagon has said.
Despite calls for more openness by Montana’s Congressional delegation, and other national political leaders, Biden has stayed mostly mum about the flying objects.
In the week after the Chinese balloon was downed, Democratic Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who is chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, held a hearing demanding answers from the Biden administration about his response to the spy balloon.
And last Wednesday, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution condemning the Chinese balloon.
“Any effort by China to interfere with Americans’ freedom and privacy will be met with a united front in the Senate, and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure they fail in their effort to replace us as the world’s leading superpower,” Tester said.
He called China’s attempt “to surveil some of our most sensitive military assets a brazen act.”
Susan Collins, a Republican Senator from Maine who is vice chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said the American public should not have had to learn about the spy balloon by having it spotted in the sky by journalists.
What appears to be a high altitude balloon hovers almost stationary over Billings after the airspace was closed last week. It was later confirmed by the U.S. military that the object was a Chinese spy balloon.
Biden finally speaks
On Thursday, more than two weeks after the attempted shoot down of the balloon over Montana, Biden finally addressed the nation making clear that future parameters for taking down unknown objects will remain classified, but shared with Congress, according to the New York Times.
Biden said the rules would not be public so as not to give a “roadmap to our enemies to try to evade our defenses,” the Times reported.
The president also confirmed that the U.S. military has loosened its radar filters, leading to the military spotting more objects. There is no evidence there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the U.S. airspace, Biden said.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday said "we did the right thing" following fresh criticism by China following the shooting down of its balloon. China said Tuesday it will “resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests” over the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the United States, as relations between the two countries deteriorate further. The balloon prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a highly-anticipated visit to Beijing this week that had offered slight hopes for an improvement in relations. China claims it was a civilian balloon used for meteorological research but has refused to say to which government department or company it belongs. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday reiterated that the “unmanned airship” posed no threat and entered U.S. airspace accidentally. Mao again criticized the U.S. for overreacting rather than adopting a “calm, professional" manner, and for using force in bringing the balloon down Saturday in the Atlantic Ocean just off the U.S. coast. Asked if China wanted the debris returned, she only reasserted that the balloon “belongs to China." President Biden, on Monday said that he wanted to have the balloon shot down "as soon as it was appropriate," and that the U.S. Defense Department" concluded we should not shoot it down over land, it was not a serious threat. And we should wait till it got across the water."
The Beartooth incursion
The Chinese balloon had first entered U.S. airspace Saturday, Jan. 28 north of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. NORAD began tracking it saying it did not pose a threat. The balloon then soared into Canadian airspace and re-entered the U.S. Jan. 31 over northern Idaho. That’s when the Defense Department briefed Biden, who ordered the military to shoot it down as soon as safely possible. The Pentagon feared debris from the balloon could spread over a seven-mile radius.
As the balloon continued over the Beartooth Mountains, jet fighters were scrambled along with two refueling air tankers and long-range surveillance AWACS aircraft.
The air tankers ran a racetrack pattern over the mountains to refuel the fighters as they made several attempts to reach the target. The tankers could be tracked on the open source program Flight Aware.
At the same time, Billings Logan International Airport was closed to all arriving and departing flights during what military officials were only calling an "ongoing military operation." Pilots were warned of an "impending TFR" (temporary flight restriction) from the Beartooth Mountain Range to Billings.
Military aircraft form contrails as they circle an area southwest of Billings on Wednesday.
Days later in South Carolina, the jet fighters, tankers and nearby airport closures ahead of the balloon being shot down looked identical to those in place earlier in Montana.
When questioned by The Gazette about the Billings airport ground stop and the air traffic over the Beartooth Mountains, officials with the regional FAA office would only say, "Those are military assets."
Response from Montana leaders
Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke mocked Biden for not taking a shot at the balloon while it was over Montana, apparently unaware of the Beartooth attempt.
“In Montana we do not bow. We shoot it down. Take the shot,” the Republican tweeted. He also said he’d pull the trigger himself if they’d let him.
Republican Sen. Steve Daines said Biden’s letting the balloon drift across the country made the nation look weak.
“The problem I see with President Biden and the White House is they've empowered and emboldened our enemies through a show of weakness and indecision,” Daines said. “It's a dangerous place to be when our adversaries, I believe, feel bolder now about doing something so brazen as flying a spy balloon over our nuclear weapons.”
The Gazette asked each member of the state Congressional delegation, and Gov. Greg Gianforte, if they were aware of the failed downing over the Beartooth Mountains.
Daines declined to respond. Zinke’s office said the Representative “is unable to discuss any information shared within classified briefings.”
Rosendale said, “The latest news of the military operation over the Beartooth Mountains further demonstrates the lack of transparency my constituents and I have faced from the Biden Administration.”
He criticized Biden for having “no intention of publicly acknowledging the Chinese spy balloon until Montanans spotted it.”
A statement from Gianforte’s office said: “On Feb. 1, the governor was first briefed on the existence of the CCP spy balloon only after it traveled hundreds of miles into Montana and hovered over Billings,” the statement read. “At that informational briefing, the governor was notified the U.S. Armed Forces was prepared to take down the CCP spy balloon that afternoon.”
Sen. Mike Lee tweet mentioning Gazette photographer Larry Mayer.
