The Chinese balloon shot down over the weekend “had multiple antennas” and used equipment which was “clearly for intelligence surveillance”, according to the US government.
The device was “capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations” and has been deployed over “more than 40 countries across five continents”, a senior State Department official told a background briefing on Thursday.
New details have emerged after Navy sailors recovered debris from the downed vessel in water off the US coast.
Images showed white material from the balloon and a metal frame being lowered into a rescue boat after it was taken out of the sky by a fighter jet.
Beijing has described the White House decision to shoot it down as an “obvious overreaction” and maintains the 200 foot balloon was a weather monitoring device.
