Biden expected to publicly address Chinese spy balloon, unidentified objects on Thursday

Protest balloons at Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

President Biden will make public remarks as early as Thursday about the Chinese surveillance balloon and three other objects shot down over the U.S. and Canada in the past two weeks, The Washington Post reports. Biden is also expected to discuss the new guidelines on handling unmanned, unidentified airborne objects the White House is developing.

The U.S. is still examining debris recovered from what it says was a Chinese spy balloon that a U.S. F-22 shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, and U.S. and Canadian teams are still searching for the remains of three aerial objects shot down over the U.S. and Canada Feb. 10-12. U.S. officials told The New York Times on Wednesday that they now believe the three objects were benign weather or research balloons that had stopped working — floating junk — and the Chinese spy balloon blew off course from its mission to spy on U.S. military installations in Guam and Hawaii.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.