Chinese reconnaissance balloons communicate with mainland via US internet provider: report

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Written by Houston Keene, FOX News

A new report has revealed that a Chinese spy plane that flew over the United States earlier this year was communicating with mainland China through American internet providers.

Two current and one former Biden administration official told NBC News in a report Thursday that the plane primarily used a U.S. internet provider to receive navigation communications.

NBC News did not name the internet provider in its report.

The company denies that Chinese espionage has used its services, saying it reached that conclusion through its own investigation and consultation with U.S. officials.

One official said the spy plane shot down by the U.S. military off the coast of South Carolina on February 4 was using high-bandwidth data collection known as burst transmission to transmit information.

The report also said the Biden administration has requested a secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect information on aircraft flying over multiple states.

Officials said the order would allow the government to monitor spy ships’ communications while they are underway.

Officials said in the report that China has secretly used commercial internet providers in various countries as backup communications networks in the past.

Encrypted networks are often sought after for their security.

Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told NBC News that the ship was a weather balloon that drifted off course.

“As we previously disclosed, the airship used for the weather survey unintentionally drifted ashore in the United States due to westerly winds and limited autopilot capabilities,” Liu said.

“The facts are clear.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined comment to Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and the Chinese Embassy for comment.

Despite Biden administration officials assuring Americans that Chinese spy balloons were not collecting or transmitting data, previously unreported phone calls showed senior officials withholding information about the balloons. Another situation has come to light:

A Jan. 27 phone call between President Biden’s top military adviser, Gen. Mark Milley, and NORAD Director Gen. Glenn VanHerck shed new light on China’s surveillance balloons, according to NBC News.

The network also reported, citing multiple former and current administration and Congressional officials, that the administration initially wanted to keep the balloon’s existence a secret from Congress and the public.

“Before it was publicly discovered, the intention was to study it and overlook it and not tell anyone,” one former senior U.S. official told NBC.

Biden administration officials denied allegations of trying to cover up the incident, saying the decision was made to protect sensitive intelligence capabilities.

Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.