What We Know About the Balloon Over Hawaii

Department of Defense (DoD) officials are tracking another mysterious balloon that was spotted off the coast of Hawaii a few days ago, according to a DoD spokesman.

The unmanned, high-altitude object was detected on Friday and ownership of the balloon is currently unknown, the spokesman said in an email to Newsweek. Defense officials said there was no indication of the object being controlled "by a foreign or adversarial actor."

"The balloon did not transit directly over defense critical infrastructure or other U.S. Government sensitive sites, nor did it pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground," read the DoD's statement. "Although it was flying at an altitude used by civil aviation, it posed no threat to civil aviation over Hawaii."

"Based on these observations, the Secretary of Defense concurred with the recommendation of his military commanders that no action need be taken against the balloon," the spokesman added.

As of Monday, the balloon had floated out of Hawaii's airspace and territorial waters. NBC News, which first reported on the high-altitude object, said it is moving toward Mexico. The DoD spokesman told Newsweek that the balloon will continue to be tracked by defense officials and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The object is one of several unmanned balloons detected by U.S. officials this year. In early February, a Chinese surveillance balloon flew over the continental U.S. for several days before President Joe Biden ordered it shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

Three other unidentified objects floating over North America were also destroyed within a week after the downing of the Chinese balloon. One, described as the size of a small car, was shot down after it was spotted over Alaska, and a U.S. fighter jet took down another small object spotted over Yukon in northwest Canada. An octagonal structure was also seen and shot down over Lake Huron a few days later.

Chinese officials claimed that the first object, which is the only object that has known origins, was nothing more than a weather balloon. A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry also asserted shortly after the balloon was downed that the U.S. government had released its own balloons over China's airspace "more than 10 times" since May 2022. U.S. officials have denied the accusations.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington, D.C., have continued to escalate since the discovery of the spy balloon, paired with China's support for Russia since the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine and U.S. support for Taiwan among growing Chinese military exercises in the Pacific region.

NBC News reported that officials do not believe the object recently spotted over Hawaii belongs to China. When asked about NBC News' report during a press conference Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred reporters to the DoD.