U.S. officials said the intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images.
that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.
On Monday, a Defense Department spokesperson reiterated that any intelligence collected had "limited additive value" for China and said she could not confirm that the balloon had transmitted any information back to China in "real time." Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said, "We have consistently learned more from press reports about the Chinese surveillance balloon than we have from administration officials. ... I intend to hold this administration accountable."
The balloon had a self-destruct mechanism that could have been activated remotely by China, but the officials said it’s not clear if that didn’t happen because the mechanism malfunctioned or because China decided not to trigger it.
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