may not have appeared in our airspace. we re learning a lot more about that. reporter: the fact that the u.s. military didn t know about these until recently, is that an intelligence failure was it a military failure? no, it s how you use your radar they recently made some adjustments on their radars and opened up the aperture, and they were analyzing the data a bit differently. we typically are focused on things that are moving fast, and so it s a bit more difficult to collect on slow-moving objects like a balloon. reporter: china today again insisting that its balloon flew over the u.s. accidentally and that in response to new u.s. sanctions, it will, quote, take countermeasures against relevant u.s. entities austin acknowledged recent tensions with china have halted communications with his military counterpart. when something happens, they somehow tend to shut down their military channels of communication. i think it s dangerous, but it won t stop me from continuing to encou
military didn t know about these until recently, is that an intelligence failure? was it a military failure? no. it s how you use your radars. we typically are focused on things that are moving fast. so it s a bit more difficult to collect on slow-moving objects like a balloon. as they made adjustments, they were able to see some of that. and joining me now is pentagon correspondent, my colleague courtney kube. courtney, let s talk about the aerial objects and what the pentagon knows. what more do they know, especially about these three others that were clearly not spy balloons, not attributed to any state actors and were probably balloons, not objects. right. and the reality is the u.s. is still not saying much more about them, the u.s. government. they do believe they re leaning towards this theory that they were benign, that they didn t present any kind of a threat.
them in the recent past. i asked him what that means for the american public, is that an intelligence failure. here s what he had to say? the fact that the u.s. military didn t know about these until recently, is than an intelligence failure, a military failure? no, it s how you use your radars. we typically are focused on things that are moving fast, and so it s a bit more difficult to collect on slow moving objects like a balloon. and as they made adjustments, they were able to see some of that. reporter: keep in mind that, you know, these radar differences, these radar changes they have made, they will mean they will detect more of these going forward. they re going to take each one on a case by case, not a blanket policy to take out small i think so. i have to add the relationship with the chinese, he acknowledged for the first time on camera, he tried calling his chinese counter part before they