al jazeera washington. let's get the latest now from mike hannah, who joins us live from washington day. same mike, certainly lots of speculation around this alone, but spying is not unusual. is it not at all, all sides in all conflicts or in all diplomatic initiatives? are generally spying on each other, but the form that this took, according to us officials, is somewhat unusual. given the highly visible nature of the method of spying, which the u. s. claims the chinese were doing a balloon even at high altitudes, was visible to the naked eye. so that is hardly a cobar type operation, particularly as the balloon has been used before by china. several times since balloons over time one, whether or not those were spy balloons or a weather balloons, as china contends that's open to contention. but the important fact now is that the balloon came down in some 40 feet of water off the carolina coast, which makes it easier to get the debrief from that particular craft, even though it spread over some 9 nautical miles. so it is fairly widely dispersed . however, getting the remnants of the crop