One of the Chinese balloons that flew over the United States has gathered intelligence from multiple US military sites and transmitted the same back to Beijing in real-time before being shot down, a report by NBC news suggested.
NBC said that the balloon was flying in a figure 8 formation at times and was able to pass information. The news agency cited two senior US officials and one former senior administration official.
According to the NBC report, the officials said that the intelligence collected by China was mostly electronic signals, picked up from weapon systems or communications from base personnel, but not images.
Reuters reports that the US officials played down the impact on national security caused by the balloon. Beijing had denied that the balloon was its spy vessel, which spent a week flying over US and Canada last February before US defence shot it down off Atlantic Coast.
The balloon incident has strained relations between China and US, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his visit to Beijing.
The balloon incident prompted severe condemnation from Washington, and the US military searched their skies for other objects that were not being captured on radar.
On February 17, the US revealed that it had recovered the remnants of the shot-down balloon and is running examinations on the debris.