China Says It’s Preparing To Shoot Down Unidentified Flying Object Near Yellow Sea

Authorities in China are preparing to shoot down an unidentified flying object currently over Shandong Province, according to Chinese state media. And while it’s not immediately clear who the flying object might belong to, every country is now looking to the skies with more skepticism, ever since the U.S. military shot down a Chinese spy balloon a little over a week ago.

“Local maritime authorities in East China’s Shandong Province announced on Sunday that they had spotted an unidentified flying object in waters near the coastal city of Rizhao in the province and were preparing to shoot it down, reminding fishermen to be safe via messages,” China’s state-controlled Global Times said in a tweet Sunday morning.

The city of Rizhao in Shandong Province is a port city on the Yellow Sea roughly halfway in between Beijing to the northwest and Shanghai to the southeast. Directly to the east is South Korea.

The U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon on Feb. 4, after a week of the balloon crossing the country. That balloon, which was up to 200 feet tall, was first spotted near Alaska before it traveled through Canada and down into Montana. It was spotted by civilians near Billings before it spent the rest of the week crossing over the continental U.S., floating across North and South Carolina before the U.S. military shot it down when it finally drifted over the Atlantic Ocean.

That balloon’s journey set off a huge debate within the U.S. about why it wasn’t shot down earlier, with Republicans arguing President Donald Trump never would’ve allowed such a thing to happen. Except that it did, many times, including over sensitive military facilities in Virginia and California…