What are spy balloons and why could they play a key role in the future of aerial reconnaissance?
In an era of orbital satellites so advanced that they are able to make out objects half the size of cars from space, a spy balloon might seem like a bit of a relic.
They were a prominent tool for reconnaissance during the Cold War and were even used in a more basic form for intelligence gathering in the Napoleonic Wars more than 200 years ago.
But security experts say the balloons are just the “tip of a revolution” in the development and use of new high-altitude surveillance craft, with the UK even investing millions in a project to develop spy balloons last year.
It comes as the US military on Friday said it was tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon, described as being the size of three buses, that has been flying over northwestern America in recent days.
A high-altitude balloon floats over Billings in Montana
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Chinese spy balloon flying over US airspace, says Pentagon
Spy balloon over US is actually a ‘civilian airship’, says China
A senior defence official said the US has “very high confidence” it is a Chinese high-altitude balloon and was flying over sensitive sites to collect information, while China has not immediately denied the balloon belonged to them.
Beijing admitted that the balloon had come from China, but insisted it was a “civilian airship” that had strayed into American airspace and that it was for meteorological and other scientific research.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is postponing a high-profile visit to China which had been due to begin on Sunday.
What are spy balloons?
The devices are lightweight balloons, filled with gas, usually helium, and attached to a piece of spying equipment such as a long-range camera.
They can be launched from the ground and are sent up into the air where they can reach heights of between 60,000ft (18,000m) and 150,000ft (45,000m), above the flight paths of commercial aircraft in an area known as “near space”.
Once in the air, they travel using a mixture of air currents and pressurised air pockets, which can act as a form of steering.
Why are they still useful in the satellite era?
According to defence and security analyst Professor Michael Clarke, the biggest advantage of spy balloons over satellites are that they can study an area over a longer period of time.
Professor Michael Clarke
“The advantage is they can stay in one place for a long time,” he told Sky News.
“Because of the way the Earth rotates, unless a satellite is over the Equator, you need three to five satellites going all the time to track the same spot.
“These balloons are also relatively cheap, and much easier to launch than a satellite.”
Will balloons continue to be used in future for spying?
Very much so, according to Professor Clarke.
Despite the wide use of satellite technology, countries including the UK are also focusing on the development and use of spycraft to operate in the upper atmosphere.
In August, it was announced the Ministry of Defence had agreed a £100m deal with US defence company Sierra Nevada to provide high-altitude unmanned balloons to be used for surveillance and reconnaissance.
Professor Clarke said: “(These balloons) are the very tip of the revolution for passive upper atmosphere aircraft.”
He said other defence firms, such as BAE, were working on ultralight solar-powered drones which are able to operate in the upper atmosphere and stay in place for up to 20 months.
Why have China used them now?
According to Professor Clarke, the use of these balloons, if indeed they were launched by China, will likely have been a message to the US following its decision to open new military bases in the Philippines.
“I think it’s a challenge,” he said.
“They (China) are signalling that if the US is going to come closer to them then they will be more aggressive with their surveillance.
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Could there be a US-China war?
Watch: Future Wars: Could there ever be a conflict between the US and China?
“It is also caused a political issue in the US now, because it will be seen as a sign of weakness not to shoot it down.
“This causes some embarrassment, but the US doesn’t need to respond.”
The balloon was spotted over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday – close to one of the US’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
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Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, says that those involved should be ‘cool-headed’
Military and defence leaders said they considered shooting the balloon out of the sky but decided against it due to the safety risk from falling debris.
Professor Clarke added: “I think the debris issue is a bit of an excuse. It was over one of the least densely populated areas of the US and if they needed to they could have asked everyone to stay inside.
“I don’t think they wanted to make it a bigger issue, because China are daring them to shoot it down and make it an international issue.”
Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters and the publication’s owner, News Corp.
The US president has accused the named individuals of defamation, claiming they acted with malicious intent and caused him overwhelming financial and reputational harm.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Miami, seeks at least $10bn (£7.5bn) in damages.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump called the lawsuit “historic legal action” which was filed on behalf of himself and all Americans who he said will “no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media”.
“I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case,” he wrote.
It comes after Mr Trump claimed that a letter he allegedly wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “fake” and said he would sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which first published the story.
The publication had said Mr Trump wrote the letter as part of a collection Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, planned to give him as a 50th birthday present in 2003.
It claimed the message, allegedly from Mr Trump, featured several lines of typewritten text, concluding with: “May every day be another wonderful secret.”
The text was framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, the WSJ claimed. The letter is also said to have featured the signature “Donald”.
Mr Trump immediately denied writing the letter when the WSJ report was published on Thursday night.
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Memes of Epstein undermine victims, says lawyer
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.”
Mr Trump ignored questions about Epstein as he signed a cryptocurrency bill at the White House earlier on Friday.
The president’s lawsuit comes as the US government filed a motion to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial in 2019.
In a Manhattan federal court filing, the Department of Justice said the criminal cases against Epstein and Maxwell are a matter of public interest, justifying the release of associated grand jury transcripts.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump said attorney general Pam Bondi had been asked to release the transcripts because of “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein”.
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The justice department previously said it had around 200 documents relating to Epstein and that the FBI had thousands more.
It is unknown how much of this is grand jury testimony, which is typically kept secret under US law.
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All we know about the ‘friendship’
Trump denies writing birthday letter to Epstein
The president has faced increased scrutiny over his alleged friendship with Epstein since his administration’s U-turn on the so-called ‘Epstein files’.
Mr Trump pledged to release files on Epstein during his presidential campaign, as his MAGA movement accused the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in his child sex trafficking operation.
But after a review of the evidence the US government has, the Justice Department recently determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted”.
Venezuela releases jailed Americans in prisoner swap
The Trump administration said on Friday that it had negotiated an exchange with Venezuela, resulting in the release of 10 jailed Americans.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the prisoners, who had been held in the South American country, were “on their way to freedom”.
Men in the CECOT jail in EL Salvador. Pic: Reuters
In return, 252 Venezuelan migrants being held in El Salvador have been freed, the Venezuelan government said.
They had been held in the notorious maximum security CECOT prison after being deported by the US.
US
Trump denies claim he wrote birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein – and says he has ordered release of more case files
Donald Trump has called an alleged letter he wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “fake” and said he will sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the paper that first published the claim.
In multiple posts on Truth Social, the US president accused The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of fabricating the letter that it claimed was written by Mr Trump as part of a collection of letters addressed to Epstein that his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell planned to give him as a birthday present in 2003.
According to documents seen by the WSJ, Mr Trump’s letter featured several lines of typewritten text framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman.
The paper said the letter concludes “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret”, and featured the signature “Donald”, allegedly drawn across the woman’s waist, meant to mimic the appearance of pubic hair.
Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019. Pic: AP
Responding to the WSJ’s claims, Mr Trump wrote: “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.
“I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT.”
He said earlier he would also sue the WSJ and News Corp, which Mr Murdoch owns. The WSJ is published by News Corp subsidiary company, Dow Jones & Co.
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From 16 July: Trump: Epstein case is ‘a boring story’
The Justice Department has not responded to the WSJ and the FBI declined to comment.
In a separate post, Mr Trump said he has asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release “any and all pertinent grand jury testimony” in the case of the paedophile financier who was found dead in his Manhattan cell in August 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.
The release of any documents, Mr Trump said, would be subject to approval by a court.
The justice department has previously said it had around 200 documents relating to Epstein and that the FBI had thousands more. It is unknown how much of this is grand jury testimony – which is typically kept secret under US law.
Ms Bondi responded to the president on X, writing: “President Trump-we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
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Elon Musk, who claimed last month that Mr Trump appears in the Epstein files, was surprisingly among the first to come to the president’s defence over the WSJ claims.
“It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say tbh,” the tech billionaire wrote on X, before going on to ask where the evidence against Epstein allegedly held by the FBI had gone.
The Trump administration has come under criticism after the president appeared to U-turn on his own promise to release more information about the Epstein case publicly.
In the run-up to the US election last year, Mr Trump drew on rumours and conspiracy theories that appeared to accuse the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in a child sex trafficking operation.
Ms Bondi fuelled these rumours in February by telling Fox News that the alleged Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review”.
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In the same month, the justice department released some government documents regarding the case, but there were no new revelations.
After a months-long review of additional evidence, the department earlier this month released a video meant to prove that Epstein killed himself, but said no other files related to the case would be made public.
The decision was criticised by many in Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, who Mr Trump later called “weaklings”.
Sky News has contacted the White House for further comment.
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