Alright,
the balloon is gone in february.
The U.
S.
Shot down a suspected chinese spy balloon and three unidentified flying objects over north
american airspace.
Though these airborne objects might seem like they came out of nowhere,
surveillance balloons have actually been around for centuries.
Here's a look at the history of spy balloons,
What's been used in the past and why countries are still using them today.
The first recorded use of balloons for spying dates back to 1794 when the French
experimented with hydrogen filled balloons during the French revolutionary wars.
The Battle of Larousse was the first battle assisted by aerial observation.
About 60 years later,
balloons made their debut in the U.
S.
Where the Union and confederate armies used them for aerial reconnaissance during the american civil
war.
These would normally be tethered to the ground.
The technology was essentially the human eye possibly aided with some binoculars.
One of the primary uses early in the war was just to see where enemy camps were.
Where were they concentrating troops?
How many troops were they moving?
This is thomas Paone,
he's an exhibit curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington,
D.
C.
A.
K.
A spy balloon expert,
that technology that idea did continue and especially leading up to World War One
where pretty much all of the combatants on both sides
used observation balloons.
These balloons were linked to the ground by tell wires which allowed them to direct artillery
in real time.
They became highly prized to be shot down.
Also as a result became very heavily protected.
Both sides tended to ring their observation balloons with multiple anti aircraft gun
positions.
They often would have fighters that were located nearby to be sent up to protect them if
enemy planes were coming to attack,
rigid airships,
commonly referred to as dirigibles or zeppelins were introduced as a weapon of war.
In World War One,
they were powered by engines but steered with elevators and rudders.
These stretched over 500 ft long and could carry around 20 people,
their equipment,
machine guns and up to two tons of bombs.
In World War Two,
the US Navy unleashed a new weapon for anti submarine warfare.
The ship,
the blimp Patrol death two submarines.
They looked like a blimp and they had a large control car underneath.
And what these case ships did was they helped alert the convoys to any
enemy submarine that may be operating in the area.
And although they did have some weapons on them,
they mainly were used to help call in reinforcements.
They would call in other ships.
Ship sinkings have reached an all time low and the Navy salutes.
Its up to this point,
most U.
S.
Spy balloons were not high altitude.
Generally when when people say high altitude,
you're talking about the stratosphere.
Most of the balloons were talking about,
especially during the Civil War and World War One,
they flew no higher than 2000 ft.
It wasn't until after World War Two that the U.
S.
Began exploring high altitude spy balloons.
During the Cold War the U.
S.
Military launched a series of large scale missions in which balloons carrying cameras floated
over soviet territory.
And when the U.
S.
Sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan in this century,
it brought balloons loaded with video cameras,
sensors and thermal imaging capabilities to watch over remote bases.
They could send these up and have surveillance 24 7.
With these they could be used to monitor critical road intersections and also
monitor areas to ensure that nobody was say planting I.
E.
D.
S.
Or setting up for an attack.
Today.
The U.
S.
Customs and Border Patrol uses surveillance balloons to monitor the southern border.
But with more advanced technology like planes and satellites,
why still use balloons.
The long loiter time that balloons offer have been kind of one of their top
benefits throughout the ages satellites because they are in orbit,
you have shorter windows of time that you can use their sensors on them
over a specific area once it passes over you have to wait for it to kind of come back around,
balloons are also less reliant on fuel than aircraft.
These advantages help explain why the pentagon has shifted to increase funding for high
altitude inflatables.
According to a national security expert.
The latest high tech balloons have the potential to track hypersonic weapons which are being
developed by china and Russia