China continues to employ balloons to carry out reconnaissance over Taiwan and likely the United States (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
There has been a fresh wave of balloon sightings across several states this year, and these events have earned comparisons to the infamous 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident, in which the balloon crossed the United States until it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina by a United States Air Force F-22 Raptor.
However, not all of the balloons are from China.
One that floated over Colorado earlier this month was quickly identified as a “Stratollite” balloon owned by a New Mexico company that launches high-altitude balloons for research.
“That is one of our Stratollites, which is a fancy name we give to one of our stratospheric high-altitude balloon systems. Some people label these as weather balloons because that’s what’s familiar,” Phil Wocken, vice president of World View Enterprises, told FOX31 TV via an email. “But the technology and capabilities are so much more advanced.”
Similar objects were spotted in Wisconsin in June and then in Alaska in August.
Both were also determined to research balloons, launched by another American company. Yet, as Americans look to the skies and spot a balloon, the immediate assumption has been that these are Chinese in origin, even as Beijing publicly claimed to have halted its balloon program in 2023.
Chinese Balloons Still Flying
China clearly hasn’t grounded all of its balloons, as there have been launches of the lighter-than-air craft over Taiwan, the self-ruling island nation that Beijing maintains is a breakaway province that will be returned to mainland control by force if necessary. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense detected more than four balloons on eight separate days between December 2023 and April 2024.
Balloons are part of ongoing surveillance and reconnaissance efforts by the People’s Liberation Army over Taiwan, but the technology could also be used to spy on America.
“These balloons are marvels of modern dual-use engineering. They carry high-definition cameras, RF collection arrays, and adaptive telemetry packages built from commercial components,” explained geopolitical analyst Irina Tsukerman, president of threat assessment firm Scarab Rising.
In the era of spy satellites and increasingly advanced drones, the question is why China continues to employ balloons. One simple reason is that “spy balloons” can also operate at sixty thousand feet, above civil air traffic, yet still low enough to capture ground-level details.
“The payloads are cheap enough to lose and sophisticated enough to matter,” Tsukerman added. “Each one can collect signal patterns, measure response latency, and record the exact tempo of American air defense. They serve Beijing’s need for redundancy in surveillance. If satellites are blinded or jammed in wartime, a network of steerable, high-altitude balloons could still feed targeting and communications data to the PLA’s command systems.”
China’s advantage in balloons lies in its industrial base.
“The same factories that churn out telecom equipment and drones also produce balloon films, star trackers, and pressure valves,” added Tsukerman. “Export restrictions and sanctions on a single company are theater, not deterrence.”
A Time-Tested Technology
Balloons are a proven tool that has been used for military surveillance for more than two centuries. Even in the era of drones, balloons remain effective; in part because they are a low-cost solution that can map an adversary’s vulnerabilities in real time, and often without the fear of detection.
“The vehicles are slow, silent, and maddeningly ambiguous, flying just below the altitude where air defense radars are designed to track fast, hot targets. They gather data that satellites cannot. They loiter long enough to observe habits, infrastructure patterns, and electromagnetic signatures. They turn the air above American cities into a floating laboratory for foreign intelligence,” warned Tsukerman.
Countering spy balloons is also more complicated than it may seem. For every balloon that is spotted, many more aren’t. High-altitude balloons are made of soft, non-metallic materials, making them difficult to track, especially as they can produce a radar signature similar to that of a small bird.
Moreover, balloons lack engines and create virtually no infrared signature. Their slow, but deliberate movement can also cause them to be filtered out by modern radar systems that were designed to detect fast-moving threats like missiles.
“Detection architectures must be tuned for slow, cold targets at high altitude. Multi-static radar networks, passive RF grids, and optical tracking systems can fill the gap that traditional radars ignore,” Tsukerman continued. “Non-kinetic defenses such as directed energy or jamming should disable command links and sensors without creating hazardous debris. Recovery teams should be trained and equipped for safe captures that preserve payloads for forensic exploitation. Most of all, engagement thresholds should be pre-authorized. The worst time to debate legalities is when a foreign platform is already over continental territory.
She added that the legal framework remains outdated. The current “rules of engagement” for unidentified high-altitude platforms are vague and heavily classified, resulting in delayed decisions until the political cost becomes unbearable. A public, tiered system of response would restore deterrence.
“It would make clear that any foreign object entering U.S. airspace without clearance is subject to disruption, recovery, or destruction based on altitude, behavior, and proximity to critical infrastructure,” Tsukerman noted. “Such clarity would also reduce the temptation for adversaries to exploit ambiguity as cover for espionage.”