South Carolina cops order locals to steer clear of debris from Chinese spy balloon

South Carolina officials warned residents to stay away from fallen Chinese spy balloon debris that is expected to wash to ashore after it was blown out of the sky by an F22 missile.

A Top Gun fighter jet pilot used a Langley Air Force base raptor to knock down the balloon off of Myrtle Beach coast Saturday at 2.38pm. Footage showed the balloon plummeting toward the ground as it separated from its surveillance payload.

President Joe Biden requested the balloon be shot down on Wednesday as it hovered over Montana, but Pentagon officials insisted to wait until it reached a body of water to avoid civilian injuries.

Officials rushed to retrieve any debris before it sank into the ocean but warned some may be left over.

‘Pieces of this balloon are being collected by the US military, however, it is possible that some of those pieces may wash ashore,’ Sunset Beach Police Department announced Saturday.

Officials warned residents to call police about fallen Chinese spy balloon debris. The balloon was seen bursting at 2.38pm on Saturday and its payload – the metal structure carrying its cameras – appeared to have been separated as it plummeted towards the Atlantic off Myrtle Beach

Attendants were seen retrieving debris from the balloon on Saturday night hours after it had been shot down. Officials warned resident to not touch, remove or move the debris as the remains of the balloon are apart of a federal investigation

Officials warned residents to not touch, remove or move the debris as the remains of the balloon are a part of a federal investigation. They estimated the balloon was about the size of three buses.

Biden applauded the mission while heading to Maryland on Saturday. Earlier last week, officials feared the Chinese government attempted to target intercontinental ballistic missile fields in Montana.

‘They successfully took it down it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,’ the President said as he stepped off Air Force One en route to Camp David at Hagerstown Regional Airport, Maryland.

The Pentagon confirmed: ‘The balloon, which was being used by the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters.’

Attendants were seen walking along Myrtle Beach at night searching for debris. The balloon was estimated to be about the size of three buses

 Attendants were then seen taking a closer look at the sand with their flashlights

Biden (boarding Air Force One on Saturday morning in Syracuse, NY). He told reporters, ‘I told them to shoot it down on Wednesday. They said to me let’s wait for the safest place to do it’

On Friday it emerged that a Chinese spy balloon had been spotted over Latin America, passing over the Panama Canal and moving southeast over Venezuela. 

‘We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,’ chief Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said. 

The emergence of the spy aircraft comes on the heels of a classified report to Congress that outlined advanced new technology that US adversaries were harnessing to spy on the country.  

The report last month mentioned at least two incidents of a rival power conducting aerial surveillance with what appeared to be unknown cutting-edge technology, sources told The New York Times.

Although the report did not single out any country, two US officials familiar with the research named China.

The two sites where the unusual surveillance was detected included a military base in the US and another overseas. 

Since 2021, the Pentagon has studied 366 unexplained incidents and determined that 163 were balloons. 

A handful of these were advanced surveillance balloons, a US official told the Times.

A high-altitude Chinese balloon that was spotted flying over Missouri and sensitive areas of Montana – where nuclear warheads are siloed – yesterday, prompting the military to take actions to prevent it from collecting intelligence

The Pentagon said the balloon was floating at around 60,000 feet on Friday afternoon

China insisted the balloon is an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds. 

However, the US rejected that out of hand and Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his trip to Beijing, telling a senior Chinese diplomat that sending the balloon over the US was ‘an irresponsible act’.

Blinken’s insisted he had a meeting with  claimed he told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon over the US was ‘an irresponsible act and that (China’s) decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have’. 

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement: ‘In actuality, the US and China have never announced any visit. The US making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that.’

According to Beijing, Wang said China ‘has always strictly followed international law, we do not accept any groundless speculation and hype. Faced with unexpected situations, both parties need to keep calm, communicate in a timely manner, avoid misjudgments and manage differences.’