Summary

  • The US military's downing of strange objects in the sky has prompted fevered speculation

  • As the mystery deepens, our experts in the US and UK are answering your questions

  • The White House says three of the objects shot down over the weekend posed a possible threat to commercial flights

  • They were detected after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was destroyed off the coast of South Carolina

  • Sensors from the balloon have now been recovered and are being investigated

  • China has insisted it was merely a weather-monitoring airship that had blown astray

Live Reporting

Edited by Marianna Brady

  1. Your Questions Answered

    Gordon Corera
    Security correspondent

    Maggie, the spy balloons likely contain lots of sensitive technology and the US may not want to reveal everything they know about what it was doing or what is possible.

    This is normal in the world of technical intelligence gathering which tends to be highly secret.

    However, they are finding they need to balance the traditional sensitivities around intelligence with the need to reassure the public who are worried about something flying over-head and which has become so visible.

  2. Your Questions Answered

    Is there transparency?

    Barbara Plett Usher
    US State Department correspondent

    Maggie Long is in the US and says she's concerned over recent reports about balloons and unidentified objects and wonders about the consequences.

    She asks: "Is there transparency regarding the origins and purpose of the objects? It feels scary and frustrating to be left in the dark."

    A lot of other people feel the same way, and Republican lawmakers in Washington have criticised the administration for being slow to take action and share information.

    That may be one reason the White House moved more quickly to shoot down the three unidentified flying objects, although there are others: officials say they posed a threat to civilian air traffic because they were flying much lower than the balloon.

    We’ve also been told they’re much smaller than the balloon, there’s no evidence they had surveillance equipment, and they were likely spotted because the military was more actively searching the skies.

    As for the alleged spy balloon, the administration has been declassifying and sharing information with Congress and with allies. In brief, officials say it was part of a wider spy balloon programme developed to complement China’s surveillance satellites, but that they made sure it wasn’t able to collect sensitive US data. China continues to insist it was a weather research airship.

  3. Who's answering your questions?

    You've heard from a few of them now - so let's introduce our experts properly. On our page today we're joined by BBC colleagues who know quite a bit about the various facets of this story.

    They are:

    • State Department correspondent Barbara Plett-Usher, in Washington
    • Security Correspondent Gordon Corera, in London
    • BBC Monitoring's China media analyst Kerry Allen, in London

    And we're also joined by some outside experts who will be taking your questions:

    • Scott Anderson, formerly a lawyer at the US State Department
    • and Gail Helt, a professor and former CIA analyst
  4. Your Questions Answered

    Could these objects be sinister?

    Gordon Corera
    Security correspondent

    Paul Sanders in Penzance has the next question, asking is it possible that these unidentified objects may have a sinister aspect, in other words being used to spread airborne biological or germ warfare infections?

    There is no evidence for this from what we have seen.

    That would also be effectively an act of war. The dispersal from the high altitude also may not make it an effective mechanism even if that was the intention.

  5. Your Questions Answered

    How is China reporting this story?

    Kerry Allen
    China Media Analyst, BBC Monitoring

    Satirical cartoon showing Uncle Sam (a metaphor for the US government) hiding under a desk, calling for military help from a red phone as a US fighter jet attacks a weather balloon.Global Times

    Nationalist Chinese newspapers have run cartoons mocking the US response

    Chinese media have sought to stress that Western rhetoric on to the alleged spy balloons over the last week has been nothing short of “hysteria”.

    The national Global Times newspaper has carried many critical commentaries, accusing the US of stoking Sinophobia and whipping the country up into a frenzy.

    It says that the idea of China using spy balloons has been “a deliberately orchestrated act of political drama by the US” to stoke fear, paranoia and hysteria with the end goal of “discrediting China”.

    Global Times has run satirical cartoons (see pictures above and below) of Western actors with clapper boards and cameras suggesting the story is all for show.

    Satirical cartoon depicting Uncle Sam holding a clapper and directing a film called "China Threat". The background features two men labelled the UK and Canada stanbding in front of a green screen of a weather balloon, with Canada pointing at it and saying "Spy Balloon!".Global Times

    Papers have noted that reports about TikTok being a cybersecurity threat have also circulated in the West in recent weeks, and have criticised US governors signing orders banning TikTok on government devices as “an excuse to suppress relevant Chinese companies”.

    Some Chinese media have been suggesting today that the US has sought to create hype in order to divert attention on China away from problems at home, after a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in the US state of Ohio earlier this month.

  6. Your Questions Answered

    Isn't it dangerous to shoot the objects down?

    Barbara Plett Usher
    US State Department correspondent

    The Chinese balloon is show down over the AtlanticReuters

    HRB Johnson has the first question: Isn't it a bit dangerous to just shoot the objects down until we are certain that that they are safe?

    The Americans and Canadians did seem to act quickly with the mysterious flying objects – shooting them down in rapid succession three days in a row.

    It’s not clear how much the joint military command knew about them before unleashing missiles, but it could have got a reasonably good picture because they were flying lower than the Chinese balloon.

    At any rate, the safety issues cited were about the dangers of letting them continue to fly – because they posed a threat to civilian air traffic.

    Also, they were relatively small and downed over water or sparsely populated areas, so less chance of injuring people with falling debris.

    In contrast, the US military and White House were very cautious with the Chinese balloon, studying its leisurely flight over several states and only shooting it down when it reached the Atlantic coast.

  7. What's the latest?

    Material recovered in the Atlantic Ocean from the high-altitude balloonReuters

    The US Navy has released images of the material recovered from the high-altitude balloon shot down earlier this month

    There remain many outstanding questions about what the three objects shot down by the US over the weekend were for and who owned them. So what exactly do we know so far?

    • There is no evidence the three unidentified flying objects destroyed in recent days were part of a spying programme run by China, the White House has said
    • But the sensors from the first suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down over the US earlier in the month have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean for examiniation, the US military says
    • The US maintains that the first object, which has been identified as a balloon, was part of a spying programme run by China and was monitoring US military sites
    • China maintains its denial that it was for surveillance, stating that it is a weather balloon which blew off course
    • It has also accused the US of using its own balloons to spy on China, as part of a deepening diplomatic row, which the White House has refuted
    • The latest three objects were much smaller, flying at a lower altitude and were not being actively controlled remotely, like the initial balloon
    • The White House has defended the decision to destroy them, despite knowing very little about them, as their low-flying altitude posed a threat to commercial planes
    • The harsh (or underwater) conditions of the isolated areas where the objects were shot down continues to hamper recovery efforts to find debris for expert analysis on the final three objects

  8. Submit your questions

    Our experts are joining us shortly to answer your questions.

    Submit your question at the bottom of our main story here or send via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.

    Note: In some cases your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.

  9. Your Questions Answered: Balloons, surveillance and UFOs

    With allegations of high-altitude spying, rumours of extra-terrestrial visitations and the use of cutting-edge fighter jets to bring down unidentified flying objects, it's been a strange week in North American security news.

    If you've found the events and explanations surrounding the shooting down of an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon and three mysterious objects by the US military confusing or concerning, you're not alone.

    Experts are joining our page shortly to answer your questions.

    Stick with us.