What if a giant Chinese language balloon flew proper over Nebraska — and hardly anybody seen?

That’s apparently what occurred final week, when an alleged spy balloon measuring the dimensions of three college buses floated over the nation, from Alaska to Idaho to South Carolina.

The Cornhusker State sits squarely within the path between Billings, Montana, the place the large balloon was first noticed Feb. 1, and Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, the place it was seen two days later. Eyewitnesses later noticed it over Tennessee and the Carolinas earlier than an Air Power F-22 shot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean close to Myrtle Seaside, South Carolina, Saturday afternoon.

A number of southeast Nebraska information shops carried reviews of potential sightings, however U.S. navy officers have revealed few particulars in regards to the balloon’s precise path throughout the nation. Possible routes calculated by intelligence analysts and meteorologists present the balloon most likely crossed into Nebraska from South Dakota someplace within the Panhandle and exited close to Falls Metropolis, within the state’s southeast nook.

The crossing would most probably have taken place late Thursday or early Friday.

“It offers a brand new definition to Nebraska being ‘flyover nation,’ ” stated Tyler White, director of the Nationwide Safety Program on the College of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The balloon was reported at altitudes from 50,000 to 65,000 ft, nicely above the place industrial airliners fly.

Utilizing meteorological estimates of the balloon’s route in addition to line-of-sight and horizon calculations from open sources, a former navy intelligence analyst who makes use of the Twitter deal with @TheIntelFrog estimated in a publish Sunday that sensors aboard the balloon may doubtlessly have eavesdropped over a large swath of the nation.

“Just about all the pieces in Nebraska was in its line of sight,” he stated in an interview.

White stated that might embrace Minuteman ICBM silos and launch-control amenities (greater than 70 websites) in western Nebraska, and Offutt Air Power Base close to Omaha — the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command, the keepers of the nuclear arsenal.

“These missiles out west, StratCom right here within the east. Are there issues (the Chinese language) wish to try?” White stated. “Positive.”

However Robert Hopkins III, a former fifty fifth Wing RC-135 pilot who has written a number of books on post-World Conflict II navy reconnaissance flights, doubts the Chinese language would significantly attempt to spy utilizing a big, slow-moving balloon when it has so many higher methods — together with satellites — to assemble invaluable intelligence.

“There’s nothing a balloon may acquire that might not be gathered by different means,” Hopkins stated. “What’s it getting that isn’t already out there by means of industrial imagery? A Chinese language man with a digicam standing exterior the gate at Offutt may get extra invaluable info.”

He believes the balloon might have been launched as a provocation within the midst of rising tensions between the U.S. and China.

China is quickly increasing its personal nuclear arsenal, and asserting its presence within the South China Sea. It has cracked down on democracy in Hong Kong and stepped up flights round Taiwan, resulting in predictions that it’s going to attempt to invade the island the place nationalist Chinese language took refuge after the 1949 Communist revolution.

Final month, shortly earlier than the Chinese language balloon was launched, the U.S. signed an settlement to share navy amenities within the Philippines, a neighbor to China.

“I believe there’s loads of knee-jerk response,” Hopkins stated. “I don’t see this because the disaster that persons are making it out to be.”

President Joe Biden has been attacked by Republicans for permitting the balloon to fly over the nation earlier than lastly ordering the Air Power to shoot it down.

“They knew the CCP spy balloon was coming, they knew it was right here,” Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer stated Friday in a tweet. “It’s probably already handed over NE, which is house to various necessary navy property. By failing to neutralize this earlier, the Biden admin. additional sophisticated this egregious incursion into our airspace.”

However White and Hopkins each imagine the U.S. gained invaluable intelligence of its personal by monitoring the balloon. American U-2 spy planes — among the many few able to flying at altitudes increased than the balloon — adopted it throughout a part of its journey, based on reporting in The Conflict Zone, a navy information website.

“We’ve got a ton of platforms that will have the ability to collect ELINT (electronics intelligence),” White stated. “Is it speaking with folks in China, and what sort of intelligence is it sending?”

Hopkins stated Offutt’s personal fifty fifth Wing has an plane well-configured to scoop up that form of information: the RC-135U Fight Despatched, which is designed to assemble digital communication.

“Fight Despatched is the right platform to evaluate any emissions due to its particular ELINT-collection talents,” he stated.

IntelFrog famous in a Twitter publish {that a} Fight Despatched took off from Offutt about 2 p.m. Central Time Friday and flew an 11 ½-hour mission primarily over Missouri and Tennessee at about the identical time the Chinese language balloon was passing over the world. It flew at about 35,000 ft, safely under the balloon’s altitude.

A fifty fifth Wing spokesman declined to touch upon the balloon or the Fight Despatched mission.

IntelFrog stated the flight wasn’t in an space the place the fifty fifth Wing generally conducts coaching missions, and the flight patterns had been considerably uncommon.

“It’s all hypothesis, however the timing was a little bit too coincidental,” he stated. “It was positively a bizarre sortie.”

Hopkins was at first skeptical, however he got here to imagine it was a minimum of believable that the Offutt-based jet was monitoring the balloon. And he thinks the navy got here out forward by monitoring the balloon as an alternative of capturing it down earlier.

“That they had loads of potential intelligence windfall by letting it proceed,” he stated.

White stated he hopes the Pentagon will ultimately make public what it learns from the wreckage of the balloon.

“It’s only a curious case,” he stated. “I’m excited to listen to extra.”