Feb 5 (Reuters) – A day before a U.S. military jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the country’s Atlantic Coast on Saturday, Colombia’s military confirmed a sighting of an airborne object similar to a balloon flying over its territory.
Colombia’s air force issued a statement on Saturday providing limited details concerning a possible balloon its air defense system had located Friday morning.
U.S. military officials on Friday said another Chinese balloon was spotted somewhere over Latin America but did not specify its location.
According to the Colombian air force statement, an “object” was detected over its territory at an altitude of 55,000 feet that had entered the South American country’s airspace to the north moving at an average speed of 25 knots, or roughly 29 miles per hour.
The statement added that the object exhibited “characteristics similar to those of a balloon,” and that the air force monitored it until if left the country’s airspace.
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“It was determined that it did not represent a threat to national security,” the statement added.
No other official confirmation of unidentified balloons flying over other Latin American countries has been issued as of Sunday.
In recent days, however, balloon sightings have been made in Venezuela and Costa Rica by multiple social media users.
The saga of the downed Chinese spy balloon off the U.S. coast captivated public attention for days, and was widely seen as worsening U.S.-Chinese relations.
Reporting by Diego Ore and David Alire Garcia; Editing by Mark Porter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
