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U.S. Military Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon; U.S. Official: Recovery Effort Of Chinese Spy Balloon Underway; Biden Ordered Balloon Shot Down "As Soon As Possible" When Briefed Wednesday; What Was China's Point With Spy Balloon In Age Of Advanced Technology?; How Ground Stop Affected Commercial Air Traffic Amid Effort To Shoot Down Chinese Spy Balloon. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 04, 2023 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[16:00:43]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta. We are following breaking news at this hour. The President declaring moments ago that he ordered the Pentagon to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon as soon as possible. The U.S. is now involved in a recovery effort off of the East Coast after a U.S. fighter jet launched a precision strike on that Chinese spy balloon.

The strike comes after a few days of anxiously watching the balloon float over the United States from Montana to Missouri to the Carolinas. Here's another video of that strike. It bears emphasizing this is a tense moment in U.S.-China relations and the world will be watching in the hours and days ahead.

Let's get straight to CNN's Oren Liebermann over at the Pentagon. Oren, what more are you learning? I understand you were just listening to officials explaining how all of this went out. What more can you tell us?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, the planning for this moment that played out just an hour and a half ago that we saw on our screen started on Wednesday, when President Joe Biden gave the authorization to shoot down this Chinese balloon as soon as possible.

Defense Department officials immediately got to work and determined there was too greater risk of people in property to shoot it down over the continental United States. So they waited as the wind took it out over the ocean when it was decided that that was the opportunity to shoot this down. And that's what we saw.

The U.S. Air Force launched F-22s out of Langley supported by F-15s from another location, as well as other aircraft such as tankers to shoot this down. It was an F-22 that fired an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, a single shot at the Chinese balloon that took it down. The aircraft itself was flying at about 58,000 feet, according to a senior defense official.

The balloon varying between 60,000 feet and 65,000 feet, so at incredibly high altitude. That one shot took the balloon down, and it crashed into the waters below, as we saw some of the videos coming out from eyewitnesses.

This was an operation which we saw building up to it, the shutdown of U.S. airspace for several hours before this, as well as the ground stop on airports right along the coast there. So the U.S. working in coordination with the FAA and other agencies to make this happen. The culmination of the Chinese balloon at the Pentagon says was a spy balloon that they tracked across the country until it was shot down.

Worth noting, the Pentagon believes, according to a senior defense official, that they effectively mitigated the ability of the surveillance balloon to gather intel as it made its way across the country. Crucially, that same official says the U.S. was able to do the reverse to gather intel about the balloon itself, that technologies that has, the surveillance capabilities, what Intel it can pick up as it made its way across the country.

So there was essentially the U.S. gathering Intel on the balloon itself. Although they couldn't get into all that much more detail. Jim?

ACOSTA: And Oren, I guess one of the big questions at this hour is, can they scoop it up out of the water and learn more about this balloon by retrieving it? What more do we know about the recovery efforts that are underway right now?

LIEBERMANN: Absolutely. As you pointed out, those efforts are already underway. Navy and Coast Guard assets were standing by already knowing that this was the outcome the military was going for. The payload, the object hanging below that balloon, about three school buses long. We have reported crashed in about 47 feet of water, the senior defense official said.

So pretty shallow, making it fairly easy to recover, in terms of what shape it's in, what did the impact with the water due to it? That's a question we're waiting to find out, that will go a long way in determining what can be picked up.

But a Salvage Vessel is on the way to begin what will be the recovery effort and then the effort to learn what sort of Intel -- what more Intel -- what more can be gathered about the Chinese technology that was on board this. Also, worth noting that the officials we spoke with pointed out the Chinese explanation for this, the weather balloon and flatly rejected it again, saying it had no credibility.

ACOSTA: All right, Oren Liebermann, thank you very much.

Let's get straight to the White House CNN's Arlette Saenz. Arlette, we heard from the President just a short while ago and he was very emphatic that he ordered this balloon to be shot down. What more can you tell us?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He was, Jim. And President Biden was actually on Air Force One traveling from Syracuse, New York to Hagerstown, Maryland, when the military undertook this operation to take down that Chinese spy balloon.

President Biden spoke to reporters just in the last hour where he tried to clearly lay out the timeline of when he gave that order, saying, he told his military officials he wanted to shoot down that plane as soon as possible Take a listen to what the President had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[16:05:09]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I order the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible. They decided -- without doing damage to anyone on the ground. They decided that the best time to do that was as it got over water, outside -- within our -- within the 12-mile limit.

They successfully took it down. And I want to complement our aviators who did it. And we'll have more to report on this a little later.

Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what does this say about China? What's your message to China?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were saying the recommendation from your -- was from your national security --

BIDEN: I told them to shoot it down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Wednesday?

BIDEN: On Wednesday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the recommendation from them --

BIDEN: They said to me, "Let's wait until the safest place to do it."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: So the President quite emphatic there that he did give that order on Wednesday. Of course, he had been facing a slew of criticism from Republicans up on Capitol Hill who had slammed the President for not taking action sooner. We've heard from Republicans today praising the decision to shoot down that balloon. But they did say that they wish that he had taken these steps much sooner.

Of course, there have also been Democrats who have major questions for the White House about how exactly this has all played out. Senator Mark Warner, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier in the week said that China itself wouldn't have allowed a balloon like this to fly over their heartland. We know that Senator Jon Tester, who is the chair of a subcommittee for appropriations that deals with defense, he's has said that he wants to hold hearings relating to this matter. But certainly, the President has faced a lot of political pressure. Of course, I will note he was asked there what kind of message this sends to China. He did not answer that question. But this certainly serves as a major tension point in that relationship with China.

ACOSTA: Well, I think the United States has sent that message. Arlette Saenz, thank you very much.

With me now on the phone is CNN's Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. Jim, to that point, I mean, I guess we're reaching a new, I guess, moment in the relationship, tense relationship between the United States and China and President Biden making it very clear on Wednesday, he wanted to shoot this thing down.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's a critical moment, Jim, and the relationship between two superpowers which was already tense, and is now more tense. Of course, the first hostile act, China floating this highly capable surveillance balloon over the continental U.S. including overflying several sensitive installations.

And now, U.S. President making a decision to fire weapons, fire a missile from an F-22 fighter jet to destroy that surveillance balloon, but also critically take it down in U.S. territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina, with ships on the surface there, as we're told, going to make an attempt at least to collect what it can from here that they can further learn exactly what Chinese capabilities are.

I think it's also critical to know to, Jim, as Oren was saying that the USS they were able to block the surveillance balloons ability to gather intelligence, while it was over the U.S., while at the same time in effect, turning the tables to gather intelligence on that balloons capabilities. That's critical.

But I think big picture, this is a tense moment, it was already tense. We had a U.S. Air Force General within the last week or so warning his forces under his command to be prepared for the prospect of war with China as soon the year 2025. That's not the consensus assessment from the U.S.

But it's not far off from the urgency that U.S. officials feel about the prospect for escalation with China in the coming years. And now you have a very tangible instance of that with missiles fired in anger in response to a Chinese provocation. It's a tense time.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. We might see more provocations to come. Jim Sciutto, thanks for that expertise as always. We appreciate it.

I want to go now to CNN's Tom Foreman for more on the spy balloon, who's been watching this all day. Tom, a very dramatic conclusion to what has been a tense few days over the United States with --

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

ACOSTA: -- this balloon making its way across the country. FOREMAN: Yes, we're actually coming up on three full days of this being part of the game here. It's believed that it took off from China here, came up over the Aleutian Islands past Alaska, Canada down this way, and then ended up down in here. That would be roughly an 8,500- mile trip or a third of the distance around the world.

Let's look at what it came over though on the way here. When we had the spottings here, we -- it gave us an idea of the path it was following through the United States here. There's these reports that maybe it was guided to some degree, but this also matches up pretty well with what the jet stream would do with any balloon out there.

What did it pass over? Close to a dozen nuclear facilities, missile facilities, somewhere around five or six large military facilities along the way here. And of course, some fairly big towns, it got reasonably close to Kansas City, St Louis, Nashville and some others before coming into its finished here at the end.

[16:10:14]

Oren said a moment ago, something very interesting when you pair it with what Jim was saying there, they said that this is in 47 feet of water. We had already looked at the ocean shelf out here, up to about 35 miles before you go out, it can go up to 600 feet and 700 feet.

So if it's in 47 feet, that is a very precise, excellent depth for them to recover it in. It also means they know precisely where it came down that it didn't get lost in the fall and they're out there looking for it. They know where it is. Really important.

The question now is, what are they going to find? One of the questions that military analysts will have about this is, was the information that was being collected, the stuff they couldn't block or whatever they were trying to block, was that native to this hardware? Did it live here in some fashion on some kind of drive, some kind of chip, some sort of something? Or was it being streamed to China, and is all the memory here empty?

It doesn't mean it's useless. Even if you don't have that, you at least have the hardware to give you some idea of what it was supposed to do along the way, some of what it might have been looking at. Those are key things they have to look at when they look to this technology once they're able to fish it out of the water, which they hope they can do down here. And that has not been damaged too terribly in the fall. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right, Tom, for we know the Pentagon wants to get his hands on that balloon and all of the equipment coming with it. Tom, thanks so much.

Joining us now on the phone is Joey Lopes. He was visiting Myrtle Beach when he saw the spy balloon and when it was shot down. Joey, we're looking at your video right now, and it looks as though you got the money shot here. What more can you tell us? What did you see?

JOEY LOPES, SAW SPY BALLOON SHOT DOWN: Hey, Jim. I've seen a lot of crazy stuff in Myrtle Beach over the last few years. This was by far the craziest. We were at lunch. And we were kind of like joking around like, you know, what, if we see it, what if it's right here? What if like, obviously, them shutting it down as reports indicated was imminent?

So we went outside and we saw the fighter jets circling around, there were about three or four of them. And then after that, we heard a bang and the balloon was gone.

ACOSTA: And about how long did all of this take? Like a couple of minutes? How much time went by as you watch this?

LOPES: About 15 minutes from when we walked out of the restaurant to when we -- when the balloon was gone.

ACOSTA: And were there people around you watching this? What was that like?

LOPES: It was actually pretty cool. We looked around at all the stores and restaurants and people were outside just, you know, staring at the sky. It was, you know, it was a good -- it was a great moment to see everybody watching -- united watching this happen.

ACOSTA: And I guess where you were at, it makes sense that they shot this out over the water, because it's -- I mean, were you're at Myrtle Beach., that's a pretty populated area. That's a busy area.

LOPES: Oh, absolutely. We were worried at first that they were going to shoot it down over the land. But luckily, they waited until it was out to sea.

ACOSTA: And how did you get this image? I'm just curious. I mean, did you just aim your phone in the sky and zoom in, what you do there?

LOPES: Yes, I do have to give credit to my fiancee because she did tell me. She said I think the fighter jets are coming in. So I took out my phone and I, you know, pointed out the sky and just in time watched it happen.

ACOSTA: All right, very interesting. And as you were saying a lot of things go down in Myrtle Beach, but this one is going to be something that we talked about for some time, I guess.

LOPES: Absolutely. And as a high school social studies teacher, shout out to my students. I can't wait to talk about it on Monday with them.

ACOSTA: That will be an exciting class. All right, very good. Joey Lopes, thanks so much. Say hi to the students for us. We appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

LOPES: Thanks, Jim. Have a good day.

ACOSTA: All right, you too. And we continue to follow the latest as the U.S. military -- our breaking news that we're following at this hour, the U.S. military has shot down that Chinese spy balloon that has been crossing the country over the last few days. Up next, we'll talk to Congressman Adam Smith, he's the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. He'll join us in just a few moments. And later, this balloon is far from the first time China has tried to spy on the United States. We'll talk about some recent examples of its espionage efforts, that's coming up.

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[16:18:29]

ACOSTA: And we are back with our breaking news at this hour. The U.S. military shooting down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. This is brand new video that we are getting in just a few moments ago. And we should note, a recovery efforts are now underway to collect the balloon debris from the ocean.

Let's bring in Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's a CNN Military Analyst and former Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and the Seventh Army. General, good to see you. Your sense of how this went down.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Jim, it's interesting because there's been a lot of breathless flurry over the last couple of days. What I would suggest -- and I don't know how right I am on this, but I would guess this all started probably last weekend with an Intel comment in the President's daily briefing that said China had a balloon somewhere over the Bering Sea heading toward the Aleutians in Alaska.

The Pentagon and others track that over the next couple of days, track it through Canada as part of the North American Air Defense Command. You know, and I'll remind everybody that NORAD is not just a U.S. organization, they also track things in Canada with Canadian military as well into the U.S.

So for the first couple of days of the week long before anybody said shoot it down, the President was probably getting increasingly good intel on a daily basis with the staff of a lot of different agencies working through courses of actions.

Now, Senator Clayton was on a little while ago and he talked about the coordination necessary. You're talking about first getting the information from NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command. The same folks that tracks Santa Claus at Christmas and any kind of incoming missiles toward gain (ph) of the United States.

[16:20:08]

They shared with Homeland Security, DIA, CIA, Department of Defense, the State Department. There was probably some demarches to the Chinese government about this balloon as it was passing through both Canada and the United States, then the coordination between the Army Navy Coast Guard, Cyber Command, and the Northern Command aircraft finally shot it down.

So you can kind of see how there was probably a whole lot of work going into this throughout this week. And as you said, a minute ago, the President finally gave the order on first opportunity, shoot the thing down, when it doesn't pose a risk to the population of falling debris.

ACOSTA: And that's what I was just going to ask you, because the President was saying just a short while ago, that on Wednesday, he ordered the balloon to be shot down as soon as it was safe to do so. And of course, you were just alluding to this, there were folks here in Washington, saying, oh, let's shoot it down as soon as possible.

I mean, let's talk about, had that been done, what kind of unintended consequences we might be dealing with? And I guess juxtapose that with waiting until it gets over the water?

HERTLING: Well, it's not only the intended consequences of the debris, perhaps, Jim. I'm going to give something -- I'm going to say something that I haven't heard anybody yet say in some of this reporting. And that is, yes, the Chinese are collecting intelligence, potentially, or trying to collect intelligence on us.

But you know what? Once you notice something like this flying over your territory, the U.S. and Canada was also collecting intelligence on this balloon. What the heck is going on? How are they doing things? What kind of things can we intercept? How can we jam this piece of equipment to ensure it doesn't take pictures? Who do we notify on all those bases that it may pass over? How do we get an alert out so the least amount of damage is done?

And, by the way, you know, there's -- like I said before, the State Department is interacting with others in the Chinese government and other allies and partners, telling them what's going on. So there's a lot of intelligence collection going on both ways on this. And what I would guess truthfully, Jim, if I were a betting man, that much of the intelligence capability of this balloon was jammed, and could not conduct operations.

By the way, I'll add one more organization to that long list I gave you earlier, and that's Cyber Command.

ACOSTA: Right.

HERTLING: They are very interested in these kinds of things as well.

ACOSTA: I have to imagine that, I mean, there were multiple assets being brought to bear on this whole situation. But let me ask you this, General, because you were just talking about this, and this has been a question that's stood out, in my mind is what do we mean when we hear that there were mitigation efforts being made or efforts to jam the equipment of the surveillance balloon? What might that be?

HERTLING: Well, you know, I don't want to go into the details, Jim, first of all --

ACOSTA: Yes.

HERTLING: -- because I don't know all of them. I mean, we're -- ACOSTA: Yes.

HERTLING: I'm not privy to classified information anymore since I retired. But I will tell you, I do know there is the capability for jamming aerial pieces of equipment, the kinds of things that pass overhead. It's much harder to do against the satellite. But you certainly can do it from what's called an air breather, anything that's below the atmosphere.

And this balloon was at 60,000 feet or below it sometimes. So you can jam those kinds of things with aircraft, with ground mounted systems. Won't go any further than that. But again, you know, it -- just because this thing is passing overhead, doesn't mean it's collecting information, because it can be prevented from doing that. We do have the capability to prevent that.

ACOSTA: All right, very interesting. I'm sure we'll hear more about all of this in the days to come. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, we'll get back to you as soon as we can. But great insights, as always. Thanks so much.

HERTLING: You got it. Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: And joining me now is Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington. He's the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, I mean, what is your reaction to the U.S. military shooting down this balloon out over the water this afternoon? Where do you come in on this? Do you wish it had been shot down sooner? Do you think that the right precautions were taken to wait until it got over the water so it didn't come down in a populated area, that sort of thing?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D), WASHINGTON: Well, I think President Biden handled the whole situation exactly right. And as your previous guests was describing, there's a lot of reasons not to shoot it down over the land. We don't know for sure. I have not yet received a classified briefing on this what -- how we were monitoring it as it flew across the country. But better to be safe, shoot it down over water.

Also good to clearly expose China for what they're doing. And that's a piece of this that I don't think enough people think about. You know, we're looking for allies and friends across the world as we try to figure out how to deal with the threat that China is increasingly posing. We don't want to look like we're the shoot first ask questions later approach.

[16:25:06]

So I think the President handled this correctly. He protected the interests of the U.S. and we're in a position to gather that intelligence from the balloon. I think it was the right decision.

ACOSTA: And you have, I mean, you have multiple Republican lawmakers, I don't need to tell you, Congressman, saying that this should have been shot down much sooner.

SMITH: Yes.

ACOSTA: What about the notion that this could have been shot down over a remote stretch of Montana or something like that?

SMITH: I mean, it could have been, I suppose. But when it's coming down from, you know, 60,000 miles up in the air, and you don't know exactly where it's going to fall, or how it's going to land, there is a risk involved. And again, I'm quite certain that our security personnel at the Pentagon and in the intel community, you know, judge the risk of whatever China may have been gathering with this to be relatively low, and took the appropriate action.

So I think it's the right decision at this point. And there are a lot of other issues now how we deal with China going forward. And that, I think, is the most important thing.

ACOSTA: Well, and before I get to that, when I asked you about that, but before I get to that, how critical is it that the U.S. at this point, that the Navy or Coast Guard, whoever -- whichever assets we have out there, perhaps it's all of them that they retrieved this equipment so it can be examined --

SMITH: It's very --

ACOSTA: -- as soon as possible? Yes.

SMITH: Yes. Yes, no, it's very important. And then I am optimistic that we will get that done.

ACOSTA: Let me ask you about the China question, because right before the Secretary of State, Tony Blinken is supposed to go over to China for a very high stakes, high level meeting with Chinese officials. China is flying a surveillance balloon over the United States.

What kind of message do you think that they're trying to send? And what kind of message should the United States be sending back to them? Perhaps it's the shooting down of this balloon, but this is pretty brazen stuff.

SMITH: Yes. Well, look, I think, you know, I don't know what message they're trying to send. But the message that China has been sending now for the last several several years, is they are reckless bully in many different areas, not just in the way they treat the U.S. You know, they went after Australia launching a trade war against Australia, when Australia dared to suggest that China could be more open and transparent on COVID.

You know, I was in Indonesia last year. Indonesia is doing some exploration in their territorial waters, looking for natural gas. China moved in and push them back off of that claiming territory that isn't theirs. You know, they're -- they've now trapped numerous countries in the developing world and in a debt trap, by loaning the money and running up the bill on that.

China is behaving like a reckless bully. And what we need to do is work with the rest of the world to rein that in, in a way that deters them without launching a full out war with China. And that's what I hope people understand. China is a big powerful country. They're going to be a big powerful country, for the U.N., for as long as I can see.

We need to find some way to rein in their worst behavior while finding a way to, you know, for the world to be big enough for the both of us. So it's a difficult challenge. But I think the President's taking the right approach.

ACOSTA: And so the Secretary of State reschedule this trip, go to China, confront the Chinese in person?

SMITH: Yes, that's the one thing actually, that I strongly disagree with. I think Secretary Biden -- sorry, Secretary Blinken should have gone. I don't think he should have canceled the trip. And one of the things I'm really worried about with both China and Russia, is the lack of regular dialogue between senior officials in all three governments.

Sorry, Russia and China may well be talking together regularly. But we need to talk more to Russia, we need to talk more to China. I think that's a missed opportunity. I don't support, you know, we're mad at you so we're not going to talk to you anymore approach to diplomacy. I think we should seek out those opportunities to get this dialogue going in a more constructive direction.

ACOSTA: And what about the notion, and I'm sure you've heard some of this yourself, that this happens all the time, that nation spy on one another. We fly surveillance satellites, and all sorts of things over countries and they do it to us, I would assume, from time to time. And what about the possibility --

SMITH: Yes. If --

ACOSTA: -- that China has done this in the past? Do we know that for a fact that this has been done in the past, we just didn't know about it?

SMITH: Well, I can't reveal anything in that regard except to say I would be stunned if China hadn't done similar things in the past. But again, it's more about the overall behavior of China than it is about this one incident. It is the brazen and reckless behavior as they've trying to throw -- tried to throw their weight around in Asia and across the world.

But look, when you're talking about the efforts of countries to spy on each other, I mean, people know enough of the history to know that that goes on a lot.

[16:30:00]

But now flying something directly over U.S. air space, that I think, is a far more rare event. I don't, off the top of my head, know a precedent.

So again, it speaks to the increasingly reckless behavior China is engaged in and the importance of us working with the rest of the world to try to get them to stop and be a more productive partner in the world.

ACOSTA: All right, Congressman Adam Smith, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

SMITH: Thanks, Jim. Appreciate the chance.

ACOSTA: Thank you.

Coming up, in the days of satellites, spy planes and drones, a spy balloon designed to be secret seems rather archaic. What was the point on the part of the Chinese? We'll talk about that next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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ACOSTA: We're following the latest developments on the Chinese spy balloon that crossed into the United States before being shot down by the U.S. military just this afternoon off the coast of South Carolina.

The FAA ground stop now affecting three airports in that vicinity, we should not, has now been canceled.

[16:35:06]

And with me now to talk about this is Arthur Holland Michel. He's a journalist and the author of "Eyes in the Sky, The Secret Rise of Gordon Stare and How it Will Watch All."

Arthur, thank you very much for lending your expertise.

Let me ask you this. In a recent "Washington Post" opinion piece, you wrote this: "It's hard to believe that the balloon was meant to chart its course in secrecy. After all, it's a giant balloon. If anything, it was more likely dispatched precisely for the purpose of being seen."

I mean, the entire country watched this, it seemed, for days now. And we were just talking to an eyewitness a few moments ago, who was saying they're on Myrtle Beach, they were all in the parking lot watching this go down.

What did you mean by that?

ARTHUR HOLLAND MICHEL, JOURNALIST & AUTHOR: Well, it's hard to believe that, when Chinese officials launched the balloon, they thought it would go unseen. They knew there would be a very high probability that it would be detected.

What we also know about balloons, in addition to all the other facts that have been revealed, is that they're really frightening. They have this ghost-like entity that floats through the sky.

So in that sense, they're very effective for capturing the public's imagination, which is exactly what's happened. So in that sense, it feels like more of a provocation than necessarily

a genuine ploy to collect valuable intelligence, which, as we know and the Pentagon said, China could have already collected by other means.

ACOSTA: That's what I was going to ask you about. What do we think this balloon was doing? What kind of images do you think it was collecting? And how common is this?

MICHEL: Well, it might not have actually been images. There are other things that can be collected from the sky, one being electronic intelligence.

So basically, you're collecting the electronic emissions, they're called, that come off all sorts of things, radar, aircraft, military installations. And that can provide a lot of information when you analyze it about the characteristics of those military assets.

So, to me, that's actually potentially a more plausible explanation of what the balloon was doing. Because, as we know, you know, taking pictures from the sky is already pretty, you know, common place using satellites alone.

(CROSSTALK)

MICHEL: As to your question about how common it is, I think it's much more common than anybody realized until this thing appeared over Montana.

The, you know, recent reporting from the intelligence community says that there have been over 160 cases of balloon or balloon-like sightings in recent memory over the U.S. I think there's a good chance that some of those were Chinese systems.

So, you know, it's not that they've never been there before. It's that now we're forced to confront the reality that the sky is perhaps a little bit more crowded with these things than we would like to think.

ACOSTA: And what does this say about, you know, this brazen move that the Chinese have taken here to send a balloon over the United States like this, knowing the reaction that they would get?

I mean, you saw the secretary of state delaying his trip to China as a result of this. This was a brazen move.

Why would they want to be provocative in this way? Why not, I guess?

MICHEL: Well, to me, what's fascinating about the balloon is it operates in an ambiguous space in terms of being a provocation. You know? It's not as provocative as sending an inhabited, crewed spy plane into the U.S. and potentially provoking sort of a Gary Powers- style situation.

You know, it's a fairly harmless seeming balloon that flies at, what, 18 miles an hour. Nevertheless, it's a pretty serious provocation they knew was going to create a response, but not so disproportionate a response it would get way out of hand. So in that sense, the balloon is a pretty interesting choice and it

actually, you know, is kind of unchartered waters in the sort of theory of escalation between powers, right?

Because this hasn't really happened before. And it's a really interesting experiment of sort of how far you can push the envelope and kind of ruffling feathers without putting yourself, airmen, more broadly, at immediate risk.

[16:40:03]

ACOSTA: All right. Arthur Holland Michel, thank you very much for your time. We're all going to be keeping our eyes on this. Thanks for your insights. We appreciate it.

MICHEL: Great to be here.

ACOSTA: Coming up next, as I just mentioned, the ground stop issued while the U.S. military shot down the Chinese spy balloon has been lifted. The latest on how this affected commercial air traffic. That's next.

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ACOSTA: Commercial and private planes are now back in the air all along the Carolina coast. The FAA closed the air space and grounded planes for a short time just ahead of the military's efforts to shoot down the balloon, which occurred a short while ago. We've been following that all afternoon.

CNN aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean, joins us now.

Pete, when the FAA put out that notification, that was a pretty clear indication as to where this was heading.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, the FAA really sort of gave off the signals with arrows in red, pointing towards exactly what was going to happen here, the shootdown that took place not far off the coast of the Carolinas.

[16:45:07]

You can see in the video there the contrails of the F-22 and the missile as it goes for that Chinese spy balloon. The dot in the center there apparently the envelope of that balloon.

And we've seen in other videos the impact of the AIM 9 Sidewinder missile into the balloon and the instrument array below it falling to the ground glimmering in the light as it floats down back to earth. There's the envelope once more.

There was a huge restricted piece of air space put in place by the FAA, what I think is likely the largest piece of restricted air space ever put in place by the FAA. We're talking about 150 miles by 150 miles. To put this into context, that's about five times the size of the

restricted air space over Washington, D.C., twice the size of the state of Massachusetts. Because these military fighters were essentially circling like sharks waiting for the right moment to strike here.

We have found out from President Biden, he said, getting off of Air Force one in Hagerstown, Maryland, earlier today, that he ordered a shootdown of this Chinese spy balloon on Wednesday.

But the Department of Defense wanted to wait until the balloon was out over the Atlantic Ocean and not putting any risk to those on the ground below it.

The other really critical thing here that really tipped us off from this temporary flight restriction when it was put into place around 1:30 this afternoon is that it went up to 60,000 feet, which is the cruising altitude that this balloon has been at, according to the Pentagon.

And the idea was for the FAA to clear out the air space at the request of the Department of Defense to try and make it so that anything below it, including airplanes, would not be in the debris field of all of this.

It is pretty incredible when you see the video here that these fighter jets were up so high. The F-22 Raptor can fly up to 65,000 feet. That's very high, so right at the altitude of this balloon.

A bit of overkill though. You know. Pilots, they have helmet-mounted heads-up displays. This jet can go Mach 2.25. That's more than twice the speed of sound, 1,500 miles an hour.

It's an incredible airplane to watch at an air show. It can fly incredibly slow as well, which enables it to be able to be used in this mission today.

But we see the layers that went into place to simply make it so this shootdown could take place with relative ease for the military.

One missile only, Jim, making contact with that Chinese spy balloon as it is now floating down to earth and will be recovered, we're told, by the military.

ACOSTA: All right. It certainly was mission accomplished.

Pete Muntean, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Coming up, the spy balloon is just the latest in the dramatic escalation and brazen Chinese spying on U.S. soil in the past decade. We'll tackle that subject next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[16:52:38]

ACOSTA: And we are learning more about the Chinese spy balloon the U.S. military just shot out of the sky of South Carolina.

The equipment from the balloon, we're told, will be taken to the FBI lab in Quantico as soon as it's recovered to be analyzed by experts from both the bureau and intelligence agencies.

The Defense Department and the FBI will be working together, again, we're told, with other counterintelligence authorities in assessing the balloon and what it can be done and so on.

China insists the spy balloon drifted over the U.S. accidentally. It's foreign ministry also says its purpose was purely scientific, mostly weather-related research. Take that for what you can.

But if recent history is a guide, that explanation may not be at all credible.

CNN's Jim Sciutto explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEON PANETTA, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I think that would be wise to remember they will say whatever needs to be said in order to cover what they're trying to do.

JIM SCUITTO, CNN ANCHOR & CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Security officials say there's been a dramatic escalation in brazen Chinese spying on U.S. soil over the past decade.

REP. DARIN LAHOOD (R-IL): If you look at China's track record of being deceitful, not being honest, playing by a different set of rules, I have real concerns.

SCIUTTO: In 2017, a plan for China to build an ornate $100 million Chinese garden in Washington, D.C.,, complete with temples and a pagoda, was scrapped after counterintelligence officials raised red flags.

The pagoda, they said, would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points in Washington, D.C., just two miles from the U.S. capitol. A perfect spot for signals intelligence collection.

China also wanted to use materials shipped to the U.S. in diplomatic containers, which customs officials are banned from examining.

ROBERT O'BRIEN, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We want to continue to work with the Brits. We'll use carrier pigeons or couriers with locked brief cases or something if we have to. We will not let the Chinese have access, unfettered access to our state secrets. That's for sure.

SCIUTTO: Concern also rose in 2019 over cellular towers with Chinese- made Huawei hardware atop them near military bases in the Midwest, and in the same area in Montana where the surveillance balloon was supported over a military base that houses intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Huawei is a company that has drawn intense scrutiny from the U.S. government for its ties to the Chinese government. But the company has strongly denied any efforts to spy on the U.S.

[16:54:59]

It said, in a statement to CNN, that its equipment is not capable of operating in any communication spectrum allocated to the Defense Department.

And in North Dakota, near Grand Forks Air Force Base, a plan for a Chinese company to build a corn mill was halted just days ago because of security concerns.

MAYOR BRANDON BOCHENSKI (R-GRAND FORKS, ND): I had a brief conversation with a link commander and we talked how interesting the timing was. Just on the national level, what was going on here with the corn mill here and that coming to an end. And two days later, this balloon being spotted.

SCIUTTO: And now the balloon that is only adding to already-tense relations between the U.S. and China.

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Just again speaks volumes to this situation with respect to China. They are our greatest geopolitical threat. They are a threat economically, they are a threat militarily, and we need to take it serious.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: That was Jim Sciutto reporting.

And right now, as we've been reporting for the last several hours, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships are securing the perimeter near the area of the downed Chinese spy balloon. We'll have new reporting coming up in just a few moments. Stay with us.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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