FBI only able to gather little evidence from suspected Chinese spy balloon

• The FBI has only been able to recover a small amount of evidence suspected Chinese spy balloon.
• The majority of the balloon’s “payload,” is still not accessible to the FBI.
• The FBI has started extracting salt and seawater to decontaminate some of the bones.

Senior FBI officials familiar with the operation said on Thursday that the FBI has only been able to recover a very small amount of physical evidence from a suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot into the ocean on Saturday and has not yet been able to gather enough information to evaluate its capabilities.

In a briefing regarding its role in assessing the balloon’s debris, one of the officials said, “It’s very early for us in this process, and the evidence that has been recovered and brought to the FBI is extremely limited.”

The majority of the balloon’s “payload,” which is where the majority of the onboard electronics were likely transported, is still not accessible to the FBI, according to officials.

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The FBI claimed that much of the evidence is still submerged and that it has started extracting salt and seawater to decontaminate some of the bones.

When asked if any bombs or other dangerous elements had been found in the balloon, an FBI official responded, “We have not identified any sort of any energetic or offensive material.”

Prior to this, the State Department stated that it was confident that the balloon’s manufacturer had a “direct relationship” with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and that the United States is considering taking action against entities associated with the Chinese military that supported the balloon’s entry into American airspace.

The FBI officers claimed that although they did not yet know the location of some of the balloon’s manufacturing, they may utilize this information once it was located for intelligence gathering or potential criminal prosecution.

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