The balloon's path takes it over 'a number of sensitive sites', a senior Pentagon official said when asked about the presence of nuclear missile silos in Montana. The balloon is large enough that destroying it would rain down debris, risking the safety of people on the ground, US officials said. One model suggests it's likely to drift further into the Midwest and over Missouri by Saturday, but the nature of the device and changing weather makes an accurate prediction difficult. It is believed to have flown over the Aleutian Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean, and then crossed Canadian airspace into the United States. The balloon currently floating over the US is about the size of three buses. But technological advancements mean modern models are harder to detect and have much greater surveillance capabilities. The detection of the suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States triggered speculation that Beijing was mounting a concerted surveillance effort near sensitive military sites.Ĭhina has claimed the balloon is a civilian airship that blew off course, but analysts have said the balloon could be a Cold War-era espionage technique deployed in US airspace.īalloons have been used as a spying technique - including by the US - since the 1950s. No one was entirely sure if the systems would work properly.Įven so, the first Minuteman was brought to 'alert' on October 27, 1962. He imposed a naval blockade of the island and ordered Montana's Minuteman I missile to be put on alert.īut they were so new that engineers had only just finished building their launch control facilities. When an American U–2 surveillance plane spotted Soviet military personnel deploying medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles throughout Cuba in 1962, President John F. The closest it has come to doing that was during the Cuban missile crisis. The silos in Montana are run by the 341st Missile Wing, whose mission is to provide ' lethal combat capability by delivering long-range precision nuclear strikes within a moment's notice.' It is one three bases that together house the country's arsenal of 400 Minuteman III missiles. 'We are the guardians of doomsday,' wrote a commander in 2013. It lies about seven miles from the Great Falls and is home to the 341st Missile Wing Malmstrom Air Force Base is located in Cascade County in the state of Montana, in the US.
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