washington has accused beijing of acting irresponsibly after a chinese surveillance balloon was detected over the united states. the us secretary of state, antony blinken, has postponed a much anticipated trip to beijing over the incident. china says the balloon is a civilian airship which had deviated from its planned route. however, us defence officials argue the balloon, seen above sensitive areas in recent days in the western us, was a high altitude surveillance device. our security correspondent, gordon correra reports. i.have no idea what this thing is. a strange object in the sky, filmed by a member of the public in rural montana. and for those of you who think this mightjust be the moon, it is not the moon, the moon is off to my right, i can see it. it s not the moon, nor a ufo, but, us officials claim, a chinese spy balloon. it seemed so brazen and just so insane to me, it wasjust, like, this thing is so visible. and it s now sparked a major diplomatic row. the chine
this weekend to china. so, where did the balloon come from? a us meteorologist has tracked the route it may have taken using a model normally used to look at the spread of pollutants. the bbc s data analysts and weather teams say this model takes account of things like wind patterns and shows a trajectory from china across the pacific, crossing alaska, then canada before entering the us. it was then spotted, supposedly first by civilians on a plane, over rural montana. here, us officials claim, the balloon lingered. why? well, one possible reason we can see from this satellite imagery is malmstrom air force base nearby, an important base that houses intercontinental missiles. the us air force scrambled two fighter jets from nevada s nellis air force base, but the decision was taken not to shoot the balloon down because of the risk of debris
the bbc s data analysts and weather teams say this model takes account of things like wind patterns and shows a trajectory from china across the pacific, crossing alaska, then canada before entering the us. it was then spotted, supposedly first by civilians on a plane, over rural montana. here, us officials claimed, the balloon lingered. why? well, one possible reason we can see from this satellite imagery is malmstrom air force base nearby, an important base that houses intercontinental missiles. the us air force scrambled two fighter jets from nevada s nellis air force base, but the decision was taken not to shoot the balloon down because of the risk of debris causing harm below. so what do we know about the balloon itself? here s what scientific experts we ve spoken to think that it s likely filled with helium, with solar panels to provide power,