The US military has shot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, a US official said Saturday.
The spy balloon was first spotted in the sky over Montana earlier this week and traveled across the middle of the country following weather patterns before it exited the continental United States on Saturday.
Prior to the balloon being shot down, the Federal Aviation Administration had issued a ground stop for airports in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The FAA also restricted airspace near Myrtle Beach “to support the Defense Department in a national security effort.”