The U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon on Saturday, but high-altitude balloons are part of a broader Chinese spying program, and such devices have also been spotted during Donald Trump’s presidency.

“The balloon spotted this week over Montana was not the first time the US has detected Chinese balloons on its soil — previous incursions took place during the Trump administration,” Bloomberg reported.

“Incidents of this type of balloon activity have been seen before over the past several years,” Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said in a statement posted online on Feb. 2.

The balloon discovered this week appeared deliberately provocative, said Ding Cheng, senior adviser for the China program at the US Institute of Peace.

“It’s a way to see how the other side reacts, not in a military sense. But politically, what do you do about it? Keep silent? If in fact there were more of them and this is not the first time, then an interesting question arises. What happened to the previous ones? Did we shoot them down?” he said, according to CNN.

What the former Trump administration says about spy balloons from years past

Well, a senior national security official in former President Donald Trump’s administration said none of the Chinese spy bullets were near any classified sites.

Other senior national security officials in the Trump administration have said they were not personally aware of any Chinese surveillance balloons over the United States during Trump’s four years in office and do not believe Trump was briefed.

Unlike previous cases, this bubble persisted in the continental United States. The balloon initially left US airspace on Monday, only to be spotted again on Tuesday over northern Idaho. President Joe Biden was briefed that day and asked his military commanders to develop response options.

One that was spotted this week lingered over Idaho and Montana, home to sensitive US nuclear missile sites and research facilities.

The US also believes the Chinese have tried to buy property near the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, where the government conducts important military research and development.

Officials believe that Chinese balloons can photograph objects from different angles than satellites, providing a unique advantage.

Spy balloons have reportedly been spotted near sensitive US sites over the past 5 years

While former Trump administration officials deny that they knew about the existence of any spy balloons or, if they did, that they were not near sensitive infrastructure, the Associated Press reports, citing a defense expert, that China’s spy balloons were discovered. near important facilities in Hawaii, where there is a significant US military presence, for the past five years.

“Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that over the past five years, Chinese surveillance balloons have been seen several times in various parts of the Pacific Ocean, including over sensitive US military facilities in Hawaii,” he said. Associated Press, Forbes reports.

The Chinese government used the balloon to “surveill strategic targets” in the United States

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the balloon shot down by the US over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday was being used by the Chinese government “to monitor strategic locations in the continental United States”, according to CNN.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday authorized the Pentagon to shoot down the surveillance balloon “as soon as the mission can be accomplished without undue risk to American lives,” Austin said after the military shot down the plane on Saturday.

“The Department of Defense developed options to safely descend the balloon over our territorial waters while we closely monitored its route and intelligence gathering,” Austin continued, adding that military leadership was coordinating the mission with the Canadian government.

“Today’s deliberate and lawful actions demonstrate that President Biden and his national security team will always put the safety and security of the American people first by responding effectively to (the People’s Republic of China’s) unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Austin said.

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