last week. that s what led really to these two things being treated very, very differently. now the biggest difference when you talk to officials say is where this object was flying. it was flying about 40,000 feet up in the air. now that s about the top range of where commercial airlines will fly. last week s chinese supply balloon was 60,000. so they said there was a great risk to commercial aircrafts, even though that area doesn t have a lot of planes going through it, there s still a great risk to civilian aircrafts and they believed it needed to be down ed. now there were other major differences including the size of it. this object was the size of the small car compared to last week s supply balloon, which the payload was the size of three buss. and the maneuverability. the white house said that they could see it had maneu maneuverability. so all those factors led to that
unusual, but this does seem unique, right? because of the lack of maneuverability, maybe it was, you know, powered by wind, that it is the size of a small car, it s being described versus the other one, which is the length of three buses, or is this unique? is this a way in which to spy? how unique in your view is this? well, we don t know. i mean hopefully they will recover what s left of this object, and be in a better position to identify what its actual purpose is and capabilities. and it does show though, that the chinese will push the envelope on collecting intelligence, whether it s stealing intellectual property, spies buying property near expensive installations, offering a sophisticated
answers at this point. this is really kind of a real mystery. what we know is that on thursday evening, the u.s. military observed this unknown object, in u.s. air space, off the coast of alaska, they send up some military aircraft to take a visual look at it, and the pilots who go up there, they aren t able to learn a whole lot. we re told that they were able to determine that it was unmanned, and that it was flying at about 40,000 feet, which raised some concerns for interference with civilian air traffic. which ultimately of course is what we understand led the president to order the military to shoot this item down. but at this point we re still being told by the ppg that they re still referring to this as an object. we ve been told it is about the size of a small car, and that it had, it appeared to have no maneuverability, it was kind of riding the winds and the air wave, which made its movements fairly unpredictable. cnn is told by a u.s. official that it did not appear to have
whole lot. they could see it was flying at about 40,000 feet, which raised concerns for civilian air traffic, which is part of the reason president biden ordered the military to shoot this thing down yesterday. and they could tell it was unmanned. beyond that, they re still using the word object to describe this. they re not even ready to take the step to call it a drone or a balloon. we have been told it is a different size and shape than the chinese balloon that traversed the u.s. last week. we are told it is about the size of a small car and it doesn t appear to have any maneuverability. beyond that, we re going to have to wait and see once the military has recovered this object what they re able to learn about what it is, who might own it, whether it s owned by a nation state or a private entity and how it got there.
admiral kirby, on the latest object, you said it did not appear to have the maneuverability capabilities that the chinese spy balloon had, did it have any maneuverability or was it flying on its own? at this time all i can tell you is it did not appear to have the ability to independently maneuver. we ll attempt recovery and see what we can learn more from. reporter: sorry, just one more on the chinese spy balloon, we re reporting that the u.s. is about to impose export controls on chinese companies that are believed to have been involved in the balloon surveillance program. can you confirm that and say when the administration might impose those export controls? i m not in a position to confirm those reports right now, and i would refer you to the department of treasury. reporter: i believe you said this was shot down or at least landed in the waters or the frozen waters off the coast of alaska, correct? that is our initial assessment. reporter: is the policy still consider