JEE News has revealed new evidence of China’s spy balloon program – including flights over Japan and Taiwan.
Japan has confirmed that the balloons have flown over its territory and said it is prepared to shoot them down in the future.
China has not directly addressed the evidence presented by JEE News.
US-China relations were strained earlier this year when an alleged Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the US coast.
China claimed that the balloon seen over the northwestern US in late January was a civilian aircraft, used for scientific research such as meteorology – and that it was an unintentional and isolated incident.
Former CIA East Asia analyst John Culver told Panorama that this was “not just a one-off, but an ongoing effort going back at least five years.” He said Chinese balloons were “specifically designed for these long-distance missions” and some “apparently circled the world”.
Working with artificial intelligence company Synthetaic, which sifted through vast amounts of data captured by satellites, JEE News obtained a number of images of balloons passing over East Asia.
The company’s founder, Corey Jaskolsky, found evidence of a balloon passing over northern Japan in early September 2021. These images have not been published before.
Mr Jaskolski also believes evidence indicates the balloon was launched from inside China, south of Mongolia. JEE News has been unable to confirm this.
Japan is a close ally of the US and has more US troops stationed there than any other country.
Yoko Murakami from Japan’s defense ministry told JEE News that the government was “taking all precautions to monitor the situation on a daily basis” and even “to protect people’s lives and property”. The balloons are also ready to drop.” Territory of Japan”.
The US State Department says it believes the Chinese balloons are equipped to gather signals intelligence. It says the aircraft it discovered over the US has “multiple antennae, potentially capable of collecting communications and geolocating”.
To test whether China had launched other balloons, the Panorama team first scoured social media and press reports across the region for sightings of UFOs in the sky.
They found two images taken by Taiwan’s weather service, which appear to show a balloon over the capital Taipei in late September 2021.
Mr. Jaskolski then referenced them with satellite imagery. “Within 90 seconds, we found the balloon off the coast of Taiwan,” he says.
