It turns out that there were at least four additional Chinese spy balloons other than the Chinese spy balloon that President Joe Biden allowed to fly across the United States.
According to the Washington Examiner, this information comes from the recent leak of classified Pentagon documents.
One of the major news headlines this week is that the FBI managed to track down the alleged leaker, who has been identified as Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixiera.
The 21-year-old Teixeira was arrested at his home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, on Thursday. According to Fox News, he has been charged with the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.
Teixeira made his first court appearance on Friday. He did not enter a plea.
Meanwhile, the information in the Pentagon documents leaked by Teixeira continues to feature in the news.
Some of the leaked information regard the Chinese spy balloon situation.
The reader may remember that Biden, in late January, allowed a Chinese spy balloon to fly across the entire United States - including over sensitive military locations - before deciding to finally shoot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean. By then, of course, China had already managed to gather the intel that it desired.
At the time, the extent of the threat from China was not revealed by the Biden administration.
But now, the leaked information shows that there were at least four other Chinese spy balloons that U.S. intelligence knew about.
The New York Post has reported on the leaked information about the four other balloons.
Per the outlet:
One of the previously undisclosed balloons flew over a US carrier strike group in the Pacific . . . Another Chinese craft, code-named Bulger-21 by US officials, circumnavigated the Earth from December 2021 until May 2022 . . . A third balloon named Accardo-21 is mentioned in the documents and a fourth is referenced to have crashed in the South China Sea . . .
These are all in addition to the balloon which traversed the U.S. before being shot down, which was code-named Killeen-23. The reader may notice that the balloons have all been named after notorious criminals.
The Post further reports, "a US official told the outlet that the naming convention for such balloons is alphabetical, which suggests there may be even more incidents of Chinese spy balloons being identified."
