The White House has said there is no indication that the three flying objects shot down by the US military over the weekend are linked to alleged Chinese espionage.
Spokesman John Kirby said the items “may be linked to commercial or research establishments and are therefore benign”.
American and Canadian authorities have not yet located or recovered any debris from the three downed planes.
Beijing had earlier accused the US of “overreacting”.
China has denied one of its balloons, which was shot down by a US fighter jet near South Carolina earlier this month, was being used for spying, saying it was merely a weather monitoring aircraft. There was a plane that flew out of the way.
At Tuesday’s daily news conference, Mr. Kirby said it would be difficult to determine the purpose or origin of three other objects that crashed in Alaska, Canada and Michigan until the wreckage was found and analyzed. .
“We have seen no indication or anything that specifically points to the idea that these three items were part of a PRC [People’s Republic of China] espionage program,” the White House’s National Security Council told reporters. “, the White House National Security Council told reporters, “or that they certainly were. Involved in foreign intelligence gathering efforts”.
He added that a “major explanation” considered by US intelligence was that “these could be balloons that were merely connected to commercial or research establishments and are therefore benign”.
But he noted that no company, organization or government has yet laid claim to these items.
In the most recent attack – over Lake Huron – the first Sidewinder missile fired by a US F-16 fighter jet missed its target, a top US general has confirmed.
“First shot missed. Second shot hit,” Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a visit to Brussels on Tuesday.
“We try very hard to make sure that the airspace is clear and the background is clear to the maximum effective range of the missile. And in this case, the missile lands on the ground, or the missile, in the water of Lake Huron. fell unharmed.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry criticized the US response.
“Many people in the U.S. are asking, ‘How can such an expensive operation possibly benefit the U.S. and its taxpayers?'” Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday.
Sensors from an alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down over the United States on February 4 were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, and are being analyzed by the FBI.
The US Northern Command said search crews found “significant debris from the site, with all priority sensor and electronics pieces identified” off the coast of South Carolina.
According to US media reports, the Chinese balloon had been tracked by US intelligence since it took off from a base on Hainan Island, off China’s southern coast, earlier this month.
US officials told JEE News that shortly after takeoff, the balloon drifted toward the US islands of Guam and Hawaii and headed north toward Alaska.
Its route suggests it could have been blown up by weather, but it was back under Chinese control by the time it reached the continental United States, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The entire US Senate received a secret briefing on the matter from military leaders on Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber would launch an investigation into why the plane was not detected earlier.
“That’s a good question,” Mr. Schumer told reporters. “We have to answer that.”
Meanwhile, Romania scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday to investigate an aerial object that entered European airspace.
But the country’s defense ministry said the pilots failed to find it and abandoned the mission after half an hour.
