so that s essentially what they re doing here, telling people, if you see it and you feel the need, post your own pictures, take pictures of it. but there s nothing for people on the ground to do except for essentially look up in the sky and see it pass. we re seeing a lot of interest, a lot of posts on social media. people were walking by a little bit ago talking about how they saw it earlier this morning and wondering what the united states is going to do as it gets closer to the coastline in the carolinas. dianne gallagher, thank you so much, there in charlotte, north carolina. i want to bring in general wesley clark, a cnn military analyst and former nato supreme allied commander. good to see you. obviously, this has been very important and very serious from the very start, from the first spotting of this mysterious spy balloon in montana. but now that it is possibly encroaching on space over water, talk to us about the seriousness
vantage point? because this is one of the cities where you are now where people spotted that balloon some 60,000 feet above. reporter: that s right, fred. and geographically, especially by driving distance, we re closing to myrtle beach and other airports that have the ground stop along the carolina coastline. here in charlotte, late this morning is when people started to spot the balloon in the sky. earlier in the morning, around in the 8:00 a.m. hour, we started seeing people tracking it as it came into the air space here in north carolina in asheville and we sort of watched it as it has gone toward the east, down into the south carolina area. look, we ve seen a lot of people posting it online. it s a very clear day here so they ve been able to get very good pictures, some bad little iphone pictures, but also some very clear pictures of the balloon, of any sort of planes that people have spotted around
it as well. we ve actually had people who have been sending me photos from south carolina near the coastline there, in conway, south carolina, saying they re starting to see it in their sky as well. we ve also had law enforcement, of course, some of these are tongue-in-cheek posts, but asking people, we know there s a lot of attention, people are surprised, please don t call 911 and clog up emergency services. they know it. no need to alert authorities locally. and also, again, tongue-in-cheek, but it s real, please do not try and take matters into your own hand. several different sheriff s departments and police departments, gastonia, boone, north carolina, asking people please do not shoot at the balloon. it is far too high for you to reach it and it could become dangerous for anybody on the ground. because what goes up must come down, including your bullets.
coastline, and of course, what, generally about 14 miles of waterways along the coastline, which is, you know, u.s. territory before hitting international waters. a lot of the airplane activity is flying a along the coast. it s using that space to navigate. this is a really critical spot for the national airspace system, because as flights traverse north and south along the coast from florida up to large metro areas in the northeast, this is an area that s really critical for them. this is where a lot of those routes go through north and south that will be highly utilized. florida is a big destination for any airline. so this is going to have an impact beyond just these three airports. this will impact flights going up and down the coast. but this looks to me, and i m just looking at the depiction now, that this goes well beyond the borders of international
0 effort to take this balloon down, that would pose a risk to these airplanes down below. so we re seeing this sort of take place to make it so that the area below is clear and safe for this to possibly happen. we will see exactly when that takes place. we know from the ground stop that was published by the faa, that is in place until 2:45 eastern standard time, so another 45 minutes. and this is also impacting, you know, flights that are going into other places. so this might mean that commercial flights on the ground are being told to stay on the ground so the trickle effect, the trickle-down effect goes beyond this area. it s a huge area, but it goes well beyond that and it s including places that have commercial planes flying into the three airports impacted. let s zero in on that. a huge area, 20,000 square miles, and that includes the coastline, and of course, what, generally about 14 miles of waterways along the coastline, which is, you know, u.s. territory before hitting inte