we'll start our coverage today with cnn's natasha bertrand and cnn's manu raju. the commander said today the delay in shooting the balloon was useful in collecting intelligence on the balloon. what kind of information are they hoping to collect? >> jake, officials have been very vague on this. what they have said over the last few days is they were able to collect intelligence about the way the balloon was transmitting information, for example, and other ways about how it maneuvered. ultimately we're told that the administration doesn't believe it was able to gather that much intelligence at all because the specifications were not all that sophisticated, no more sophisticated than the satellites the chinese have hovering in orbit as we speak. the issue with the satellites is they do not stay in one place for as long as a balloon can. a balloon can loiter for a much longer period of time as it did over montana, for example. the officials we spoke to said there are with steps taken to cover up certain areas, to make sure no unencrypted communications were happening

let's go to natasha bertrand. there's certainly a difference in the reaction from the white house and the military to this high-altitude object as it's described and the chinese balloon several days ago. the explanation we received from john kirby is that this one is not maneuverable, so that in part justifies, also the height at which it was flying, 40,000 feet, the threat to civilian aircraft. >> yeah, victor. it's also unclear whether they would have been able to track the path of this particular object as they have been with the surveillance balloons. as we reported earlier, the u.s. has developed a method to track the chinese surveillance balloons but unclear whether they have the same kind of system for an object like this. it doesn't even sound like they are completely sure what the object is. also this object, according to john kirby, was at the mercy of prevailing winds so it was very unpredictable and unclear where it was actually going to go. interestingly he also mentioned that it had a very small payl

cnn's natasha bertrand has more on what the findings mean. >> what we're now seeing is the departmentas collected some new information according to our sources that has led them to come to a conclusion that the lab leak theory is plausible and that it likely did come from a lab. now that major caveat noted that is low confidence is very important. because a low confidence assessment generally means that the information that has been obtained by the intel community is not reliable enough or too fragmented to make a definitive judgment, or there is not enough information to draw a more pro bust conclusion about the origins of this pandemic. but bottom line here is that this really adds to the divide in the u.s. government over whether the pandemic began in china in 2019 as a result of a lab leak, or whether it emerged naturally. >> natasha bertrand there. some republican lawmakers feel the report is enough to demand accountability from beijing. but one democrat says there is nothing earth-shattering about the findings. >> i'm not entirely surprised. the chinese have mishandled covid eve

natasha bertrand joins us now with more. natasha, good to see you.n the path of the chinese spy balloon and how weather may have played into that. can you walk us through what we know now? >> reporter: we're learning that u.s. intelligence officials are now scrutinizing the possibility that this was just an accident. that the weather had essentially diverted this balloon off its original path towards the continental united states. so just to take a step back here, the u.s. was monitoring this balloon from the time that it actually took off from china. what had happened was it settled into a path that the u.s. believed would take the balloon potentially over guam, where it would monitor sensitive military installations. however, the balloon then took an unexpected path north towards alaska and then into canada and of course as we know down south into the lower 48 into the continental united states. now, originally the u.s. had said that this was intentional, that they believed that the chinese wanted to surveil sensitive military sites inside the unit

we go to natasha bertrand with more on this. natasha, what are we learning about at the latest objects shot down, and i am curious why they are seeing more of them or are they looking more closely? >> well, that is the biggest question, and in fact, the defense department said that they have broadened the aperture of what they are looking at, and after the chinese balloon did pass last week, and there was a political uproar of why the u.s. had not spotted it earlier, and now norad has opened up the filters, and it is seeing more objects slower-moving and higher altitude. >> smaller. >> smaller, and that is why they are seeing the uptick in the objects that they are noticing now, and over the weekend, they did shootdown these objects over alaska, northern canada and lake canada and lake michigan. we are told that they were balloon-like, and similar features to the balloon, and small cylinder-type features. the one shot down over lake michigan in huron, i t was as textte hextagonal and so we will see what other types of information

natasha bertrand joins us on the phone. what was norad's role, what's the latest in terms of what you can tell us? there's a lot of unanswered questions this hour. >> reporter: yeah, jim. that's for sure. so according to the pentagon, this was a joint action that was authorized by president biden and by the prime minister of canada, justin trudeau, who authorized u.s. fighter aircraft assigned to norad to work with canada to take down that high-altitude airborne object over northern canada today, over the yukon. and what we're told by the pentagon is that norad had detected the object over alaska actually late friday evening, and then two f-22 fighter jets from alaska monitored the object over u.s. airspace, and then tracked it as it went into canada. now this was obviously the u.s. and canada working very closely together because obviously we have seen these kinds of objects floating around in the area over the last several days. just yesterday the president authorized the shoot-down of yet another object that was flying o

cnn's natasha bertrand you here for us. more about just how valuable that debris could be. what are you hearing? >> that's exactly right. so the commander of northcom briefed reporters and saying the delay in shooting down the balloon allowed the u.s. to collect very significant intelligence about what was actually inside of it, and the reason they were able to do that, actually, is because they were granted -- the military was granted specific authorizations by the u.s. government to collect intelligence on this object which is not something they would normally be able to do on something within the united states. they were granted specific and special authorizations to do so. in that kind of two-day, three-day delay as it transited over the continental u.s. they were able to collect important information about how this balloon works. interestingly, we're learning more about what the debris field actually looks like from this balloon that was shot down on saturday, and we are told that "uss path find are" a survey ship, is

. >> cnn national security reporter natasha bertrand joins us now. natasha, thanks for being here.entified objects that clearly these senators are still saying, we need more information about them? >> i think everyone wants more information about these objects, including the biden administration, right? even they don't seem to know what these things actually are. look, john kirby who is the spokesperson for the national security council, he did give us new information this morning, telling reporters that the intelligence community is considering as a leading explanation that these could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose. that is the furthest that the administration has gone in recent days in saying that these objects may not be tied to a nation state and they might just be commercial. now, obviously, that is -- it still remains unclear why these objects were shot down. if they're just commercial, if they're considered benign. the official explanation has been that they posed a potential risk to civilian aircraft because of the altitude each one of them were

cnn's natasha bertrand has been following the latest. e, this is a low-confidence intelligence assessment, but it did change at the d.o.e. they cited new intelligence. do we know why their assessment changed? >> we don't, jim. all we know is that they appear to have gathered some new intelligence that made them shift their opinion from undecided to now believing that the most likely explanation for how this pandemic began was that it originated in that lab in wuhan. now, we should note, of course, as you did, that this is a low-confidence assessment, which means that even though they did conclude that this is perhaps the most likely explanation, they cannot say that with utter certainty, because the intelligence that they gathered, perhaps, is too fragmented, the sources are not solid enough, and essentially, they just cannot come to a more definitive conclusion, based on the evidence that they have gathered. however, of all the theories that they have examined, they believe that this is the most compelling one. now, that intelligence, of

cnn's natasha bertrand joins us now. natasha, the pentagon just held a briefing a short time ago.eah. we are learning more details about the purpose of this balloon that was shot down on saturday, and what we are told, and what u.s. officials have since acknowledged, is that they believe that this balloon was part of a broader chinese surveillance program that has conducted about two dozen missions over at least five continents in recent years, and roughly half of those flights have actually been within u.s. airspace, so pentagon press secretary brigadier general patrick ryder he actually did just address this with reporters earlier confirming that the u.s. has been tracking this surveillance program for quite some time now and does believe that it's part of a larger mission, a larger operation being carried out by the chinese government. take a listen. >> this is what we assess as part of a larger chinese surveillance balloon program. you've heard us talk of us talk about the fact that this is a program that's been operated for several years, and this last week provided the unite

cnn's natasha bertrand is in washington with details. what are you learning? >> yeah, victor. so we are learning more about the balloon's actual capabilities here. according to a senior state department official who briefed lawmakers earlier today, that balloon that was shot down on saturday was actually capable of collecting signals intelligence, which essentially means that it was potentially able to collect intelligence about conversations. and also that these balloons were actually part of a fleet that were flown over more than 40 countries across five continents. learning more there about the actual capabilities that the balloon had and just how large this fleet actually was. in briefings today, u.s. officials did emphasize that ultimately, the u.s. has protocols to protect its sensitive information and we are told by a senior administration official that the balloon actually was not very sophisticated in terms of what it could pick up, and that the u.s. tried to avoid unencrypted communications in the vicinity of the balloon. also, the balloon did not necessarily transmi

cnn's natasha bertrand has been covering. so this appears to be a pattern here.arning more, i should say, about what degree of intelligence china was or we believe china was able to collect with these things? >> u.s. officials have been extremely vague about that, but what we know from this intelligence report that my colleague zach cohen obtained was that the administration was aware of these chinese balloons well before this incident of this past weekend, right? so what this report said was that in 2019 while donald trump was president there was a chinese surveillance balloon that made its way past hawaii, floated towards florida and then transited the continental u.s. that way and exited our air space. this balloon floated at around 65,000 people so similar to what we saw over the weekend. but i think, you know, this really just drives home this idea that there are clearly gaps here in what the united states can detect in our air pace space because general van kirk, overseeing all the united states air space for us, he said that there are domain gaps that the

cnn's jeremy diamond, natasha bertrand is here. jeremy, we'll start with you, there are plenty of questions but what we learned from the white house about these objects. >> yeah. i think what's important to note, this is a clear effort from the white house to try to address the public's concerns after we saw three a additional foreign objects shot down. and the united states was not caught flat footed on. and john kirby made that point repeatedly going back to 2020, the u.s. discovered this program by the chinese. and also the president had received a briefing back in june 2021, about his broader phenomenon of unidentified objects. what happen we got today, is a sense of why president biden chose to shoot down the objects over the weekend. making clear that public safety was a top concern here. john kirby denied there were any political pressures, when asked the question by our phil mattingly, he said it was a question of safety. and he also said, one of the reasons that the u.s. is perhaps discovering these objects they're also lo

let's get the latest with natasha bertrand. there's a lot we don't know. what do we know? >> we still don't know where these objects came from or what they are, but what we are told is the first and second objects shot down over alaska and northern canada over the weekend, those did have some balloon-like features. and they also had a small metal cylinder underneath them. now, it is unclear, of course, whether those were actual supply balloons or what their purpose was, but those are the preliminary details from officials. those objects were also flying at about 40,000 feet, so they posed a risk to civilian aircraft. we're also told sunday's object, the one shot down over lake huron in michigan, that was flying around 20,000 feet and described by officials as octagonal and had strings hanging off it, and it did, importantly, according to the pentagon, potentially have surveillance capabilities. unclear at this point what these objects actually are or if they were deployed by a nation state or if they were deployed by private companies, but the military officials that we sp

territory over the last few days. >> natasha bertrand, thank you so much.te muntean. so, pete, a little bit more on the jet and the accuracy natasha was just telling us, one jet from langley air force base was able to fire at this balloon and take it down with incredible accuracy. help people understand what we're talking about with this accuracy, with this balloon 60,000 feet up, the speed in which the jet would be going and then with one strike be able to pierce it, not destroy it, but pierce it enough for it to descend and intelligence gathering, hopefully, will be rich. >>, you know, what we're seeing here in this video really tells the story, especially combined, with all of those new details from natasha, that this was shot down by an air-to-air missile officially from the pentagon from a jet from langley air force base. this likely put some more predictions that this was going to be a mission by the f-22 raptor. there's a squadron of them based out of fort eustice in virginia. this is a fifth generation fighter. it's a replacement of the f-15 and f-1

. >> natasha bertrand is with us now. looked like putin was trying to embarrass president biden, ended up maybe embarrassing himself. what are you learning? >> reporter: could be, victor, so what we are learn something that u.s. officials do believe that russia attempted to carry out this intercontinental ballistic missile test on saturday about two days before president biden, of course, entered kyiv on that secret trip and that they believe that that test did ultimately fail and the reason they believe that is because, of course, president putin did give his state of the nation address to the russian people on tuesday and he made no mention of this test. now, the last time that russia carried out a test like this a year ago, april of 2022, a few months after russia invaded ukraine putin boasted of it and did describe the successful test of the missile at the time and say missile president putin said would make anyone who wanted to threaten russia think twice. now, not so boastful, the u.s. says it is a major clue that p

i want to bring in cnn's natasha bertrand because earlier we heard a posting from the president when he was spontaneously asked -- i mean, these are live pictures right now. he's been in syracuse, new york, and he is momentarily going to be departing. but it wasn't that long ago that the white house press pool asked him what are you going to do about this balloon, and he says, we'll take care of it, if i'm quoting properly. and now, not long after that, we're hearing about this temporary flight restriction in place, 20,000 square miles impacted. what can you tell us about the information, the tidbit of information that the president was allowed to get out when asked that question, and even still we're waiting for details about what is going to happen? >> reporter: so the president has been weighing, along with his military advisers, for the last couple of days since they found out about this balloon, what to do about it. do you let it float away, shoot it down, take it apart and see what kind of equipment it has inside of it. this has been the subject of all of the calls and meetings

natasha bertrand joins us now. what can you tell us about the latest object? we have to keep underlining and highlighting the point this is not what we were talking about yelled off the coast of alaska. this is a new object that we're talking about. >> this is a new object that norad has apparently detected over northern canada, and justin trudeau tweeted that he ordered the take down of that unidentified object that he says had sviolated canadian airspac it was a u.s. f-22 that successfully fired at this object. again, we are just getting in right now that norad and working with the canadian government, they have identified yet another high altitude object, unclear what it is, is it a balloon, a drone, over northern canada, and of course this comes just one day after we learned that the u.s. did shoot down yet another high altitude object over alaska. so clearly, you know, the policy now seems to be that when one of these things is entering u.s. or canadian airspace, they are going to weigh whether or not to take action here. in both instances, they have shot

cnn's natasha bertrand is with us now. tell us more about what to expect this evening. >> yeah. so this is really the first primetime hearing that a gop-led committee has had since the republican party took over the house in january. and they really want this to be a bipartisan look at the threats they say that china poses to the united states. and it is really going to touch upon a broad range of topics because, of course, we have seen a number of irritants in the u.s./china relationship over the last several weeks, including, of course, the chinese spy balloon that is definitely going to be a subject of discussion during this hearing, as well as china's ties to russia. we had senior u.s. officials warn repeatedly in recent weeks that china is considering providing lethal aid to russia for the war in ukraine. just this week, president biden issued a memorandum to federal agencies ordering them ban the chinese app tiktok from federal devices within 30 days. and, of course, now just this week as well we learned that there are new questions about the origins of covid-19 and where

so let's bring in national security reporter natasha bertrand. good morning to you.he white house is on the record that these were definitely not aliens. okay. so what's the latest? >> yeah, don. the white house clearly trying to tamp down on conspiracy theories here. the nature of these objects remain unclear. u.s. officials struggling to explain what exactly the u.s. military has been shooting out of the sky. >> we're going to confirm what they are once we have collected -- >> reporter: appearing to know more about what the so-called objects are not. >> we assessed whether they posed any ka nettic threat to people on the ground. they did not. we assessed whether they were sending any communication signals. we detected none. we looked to see whether they were maneuvering or had any propulsion capabilities. we saw no signs of that. >> reporter: the pentagon confirming for the first time in a memo to lawmakers on monday that the object shot down over northern canada was a small metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it. but it's purpose and origin and that of

. >> cnn white house reporter natasha bertrand has more on this stour. >> reporter: the white house and pentagon said president biden ordered a still unidentified object shot down near alaska on friday afternoon mark ing the second time in under a week that american fighter jets have taken town ab object flying over u.s. air space. the object flying near alaska was first detected on thursday, at which point fighter jets were sent up to investigate and it was determined it was flying at around 40,000 feet and did not appear to have the ability to maneuver on its own it was essentially float ing with the wind and the president determined it did pose a risk to civilian aircraft because of the altitude. unlike the kentucky these supply balloon, this did not have s surveillance equipment on it, according to a u.s. official it's also unclear still where the object actually came from, but it was heading in a northeasterly direction when it was shot down on friday. it was also much smaller than the chinese balloon. it was about the size of a small car, whereas the balloon's payload alone was ab

and republican lisa murkowski also commended them and said -- cnn's natasha bertrand is in washington with more on this developing story. >> reporter: president bind and canadian prime minister justin trudeau agreed to the shoot-down. it was the third time in a week it was to shoot down an object in u.s. airspace. it had fft been spotted over alaska on friday night according to the pentagon and it was ultimately shot down by u.s. fighter jets over canada after being observed for 24 hours. u.s. and canadian officials say it's still not clear what the object is, but the incident comes one day after the white house and pentagon revealed president biden ordered another unidentified flying object shot down friday off the coast of alaska. sources tell cnn for that object, some pilots sent up to investigate it reported that their aircraft sensor had been impacted and it was not clear how it was propelling itself. the incident comes exactly one week after the u.s. military also on biden's orders shot down a chinese spy balloon off the coast of north carolina. it's not clear whether the object

we go to natasha bertrand who has more. >> yes, we are told that two objects shot down over alaska and northern canada friday and saturday, they had balloon-like features with small cylindrical objects in them, and we are not sure where they came from or where they are. and we are also told that the object that was shot down over michigan is around 20,000 feet, where the other two were 40,000 feet, and this is described hextagonal and it has strings coming down from it, and that is why they were being shot down, because they could be potentially surveilling the area, and this is unprecedented. the pentagon acknowledged that saying that these type of shootdowns in rapid succession or at all in american airspace has never happened. >> thank you, natasha. we go to the white house where we could all learn more today on why these objects were shot down. m.j. is there. what are you learning today? >> well, there is growing pressure for president biden to be addressing this issue given that they were shot from the sky in as many days. we have heard from the pentagon officials, and nsc officia

natasha bertrand, cnn, washington. >>> iain boyd is at the center of initiatives at the university ofolorado and he joins me now. thanks so much for being here. first of all, what do you make of these new unidentified objects? any idea what they could be and how different they are from the first balloon that was shot down? >> well, from the reports that have been released so far, it sounds like these balloons, number two and three, are much smaller than the first one, so the first one was described as being the size of three buss in terms of the payload that's underneath the balloon itself. and then these newer more recent balloons are being described as the size of a small car. so that's -- maybe they're ten times smaller, so certainly they're going to be doing something very different with such different size, and it also sounds like they were flying, the newer ones, at lower altitude, at 14,000 feet instead of 60, 65,000 feet. there's clearly some differences in terrells of the size and how they're being operated. but that's about as much as we know for now. >> teen fact that they'

natasha bertrand from the pentagon, thank you. >>> and now, there are allegations of what the u.s.hina for taking down the balloon, and the right for china to act similarly, and the u.s. flies crude and uncrude surveillance around the chinese air space which is the global hawk aircraft which can fly on high altitude, and also, the poe sigh -- poseidon which is capable to fire missiles, and i had a chance to be there when the chinese angrily confronted that aircraft. >> this is the chinese navy. >> and so the question is if the u.s. did not heed that warning, and i asked brigadier general patrick ryder about the veiled threats of some sort of retaliation of thoat balloon being shot down, and i was told that we do not conduct any surveillance over the u.s., and so there is no such threat. we do not fly where international space does not allow, and we take the conduct of our surveillance seriously. we always take the safety and security of our service members seriously, no matter where they may be serving as released from the defense department press secretary. >> and also, thjoining

cnn's natasha bertrand is here to break it all down for us. natasha, there is so much to talk about here. so let's start at the beginning. what do we know about this balloon? >> yeah. so here, just to get a sense for the scale of this thing, this is the balloon, and what we know about it is that it is the size of about three busses. it is very, very large. you can see it with the naked eye. people have actually been taking photos of it and posting them on social media. this is not exactly a subtle intelligence component that the chinese have allegedly deployed here. and we also know that it's significant enough in terms of its size and in terms of just how obvious it might be to aircraft, that flights were actually diverted coming into billings airport in montana just because the u.s. wanted to get a better sense of whether this thing might pose a threat to civilian aircraft. now the sense that we've gotten so far is that it does not because it is actually about 60,000 feet in the air, about twice, a little under twice the altitude, of course,

cnn's national security reporter natasha bertrand is joining us with details. ctually answering a burning question that i have had which is how soon did they realize that they could track these, and you have judges in your reporting -- answers in your reporting. >> reporter: there was a chinese balloon that crossed over into the united states early on in the biden administration. and with that happened the u.s. -- when that happened the u.s. was able to detect particular signals emanating from that balloon. when they did that, they said i wonder if these signals have popped up anywhere before. and so when they did that, when they put these signals kind of through the u.s. intelligence community's holdings and cross checked it with other data, they were able to detect those signals and, therefore, those spy balloons transmitting over the u.s. in other instances including at least three times during the trump administration. now this method is very important because without it it is very difficult if not impossible for the touted keep track of these balloons becau

we'll start our coverage today with cnn's natasha bertrand and cnn's manu raju.the balloon was useful in collecting intelligence on the balloon. what kind of information are they hoping to collect? >> jake, officials

they were discovered after president biden took office and this is reporting coming from our natasha bertrandly over the u.s., and they were not discovered until after president biden took office? >> it is a remarkable thing, because when you are thinking about it, it is hard to imagine that you could miss anything this big. now, maybe they thought that there was a domestic cause for it, and maybe they thought that they were weather balloons or failed to pick it up, but it is going to raise an interesting question. it also says that when the biden administration saw this thing coming over the aleutians, why didn't they make a bigger deal of it both to the chinese and the public? so they undercommunicated this in the beginning of it, and so they were playing catchup after it was seen by the public. >> all great points, david. it is going to be interesting to see how president biden chooses to handle this. >> and to see how president xi does, too. >> very true. >> and how president xi handles it. >> yes, david sanger, thank you so much. >>> so the judge is about to make a key decision in the mu

white house reporter natasha bertrand is joining me live for more insight behind the operation of this the sh shoot-down. walk us through the process. it was very intricate. >> this started earlier this week when biden's military and national security advisers noticed that this balloon was coming down across canada towards the united states and in a way that was very unusual. now of course these balloons have been spotted over the united states if the past. as many as three times during the trump administration according to a senior defense official. but the trajectory was odd and so the military decided to brief the president about this on wednesday of last week. and the president's initial instinct was to shoot it down. however the military's advice was to not do so until it was over water. not only because of the risk the balloon could pose to civilians on the ground and over water would give the u.s. government higher chances of being able to recover that pay load completely in tack. and the u.s. wants to see what is inside in the balloon and what the chinese government has in term

latest on the chinese spy balloon, jessica dean is on capitol hill, national security reporter natasha bertrand also with us with reporting. lawmakers, of course, wrapping up this classified briefing. what more do we know about what they may have learned? >> i was just down there jim and er erica, i talked to dan crenshaw of texas, a republican, asked what he could share. he said he didn't feel like he learned anything new from the briefing. there were nuances he learned. and i asked if it changed his thinking on this, he said no, his thinking remains the same. but that is just starting to break up so we'll hear from lawmakers more. but they have been getting the believing this morning. the first of several big things on the capitol hill surrounding the topic. the full senate gets their briefing later this morning. so expecting to hear more from them once they learn more. and keeping an eye on a couple of hearings that will be happening in the foreign relations committee and subcommittee, the appropriations committee, looking at the spy balloon itself and u.s./china relations. you know lawmaker

cnn's natasha bertrand has been reporting on all of this and joins us on the phone.ious intel agencies have been split on this issue for years now. this is from the department of energy, low confidence. what does all this mean? >> reporter: this is essentially another data point. the intel community has been examining this really closely for the last two years, ever since president biden tasked them with investigating the origins of the covid-19 pandemic shortly after he first got into of office. back in 2021 the intel agencies, roughly 58 of them, couldn't come to a decision about where it came from. what we're seeing is the department of energy has collected some new intelligence, according to our sources, that has led them to come to the conclusion that the lab leak theory is plausible and it likely did come from a lab. the major caveat that it is low confidence is very important. low confidence generally means the information obtained by the intel community isn't reliable enough or there's simply not enough information available to draw a more robust conclusion a

so, what is coming out of the senate briefing, natasha bertrand?t has been politicized to a large degree, and some of the senators are saying to the large part, they are not learning anything new according to tom cotton coming out of the briefing, and other senators are saying that they are confident of how it is handled by the biden administration and not knowing much more than they knew yesterday and from the democrats and the republicans coming out of that hearing, they want to hear from president biden directly, and they believe that he should address the american people directly of why these objects are deemed necessary to be shot out of the sky. i want to note that john kirby, the spokesman for the white house national security council did say that the leading theory of the telecommunications officials say that the balloons were for benign purposes and likely commercial, but this is what the lawmakers said about the need to hear from president biden. >> the american people need and deserve to know more. that there is a need for greater transp

natasha bertrand joins us now. what are you learning about this balloon?btained a military report outlining details about these kinds of balloons. not this balloon exactly, because that one was shot down on saturday and we're waiting to see what intel officials and military officials can glean from the wreckage there. in terms of what the administration and the u.s. at large knows about these balloons, an air force report says over the last several years, china deployed multiple balloons across the world that can fly as high as 328,000 feet. it's circumnavigated the globe in 2019, a specific balloon the air force covered, and went over hawaii and florida undetected by the tragump administration at t time. this raises questions about the united states' ability to track these balloons over the united states. we heard from the commander of norad yesterday who told us that there was a domain awareness gap in what the u.s. has been able to detect in terms of where these balloons actually are. that's why this balloon in particular that we saw travel over montana

abby phillips, natasha bertrand and kim dozier, military analyst cedric leighton.k with us is cnn white house correspondent, jeremy diamond. let me start with you, colonel lateen. were you satisfied with the president's explanation that these were likely benign objects that were shot down especially since we have yet to find and retrieve these objects? >> i'm not really am. you hinted at it, because we have not been able to retrieve objects from the crash sites of these downed objects. so, we really don't know very much about them. it could be possible that the president is right about these objects and the intel community is right about them, but we have to not mirror image the way we do things with what other countries are doing because the distinction between the private sector and the public sector in other countries is not as profound as it is here in the united states. so, i want to be very cautious, that these may be from a different entity, something completely different or benign, but i'm not convinced that they're not some kind of surveillance craft of on

this new report coming in from cnn national security reporter natasha bertrand. this is interesting. this is kind of unusual that these pilots saw different things and that is sort of, i guess, adding to the mystery of all of this. >> not even the pilots were able to identify what they saw. just to take you back for a sec. on thursday the u.s. defense officials sent f-35 fighter jets to try to figure out what this object was flying around near alaska. those pilots have given very conflicting accounts of what they experienced with some pilots saying the object interfered with the plane's sensors. other pilots saying they didn't experience that. other pilots saying when they looked at the object they could identify no identifiable propulsion system and they did not know how it was actually staying in the air cruising at that altitude of about 40,000 feet. this has all added to the pentagon's weariness of describing in more detail what this object actually is until they can get more information through the debris that they are recovering right now. >> what do we kno

. >> to talk more about this, with very natasha bertrand. good morning to you. >> good morning. yeah. so this is coming, of course, after a lot of speculation about what these objects might actually be given that the u.s. did shoot down a chinese suspected chinese spy balloon a few days before the three objects appeared in u.s. airspace. the president saying that the u.s. intelligence community's current assessment that these are likely objects being used for research or recreational reasons or scientific reasons and they had no obvious ties to any other country's surveillance program. the president tamping down any speculation they could be extraterrestrial which the u.s. has gone out of their way to shoot down. they said they were shot down out of han abundance of caution. the u.s. public at large is going to have a lot of questions about why the u.s. fighter jets shot down objects for recreational experience with very expensive missiles. >> you can see we're very high on alert. there is also the northern illinois bottle cap balloon brigade. yep, that is a reference to the mov

cnn's natasha bertrand has this reporting. it starts out as a tipper. it's not flagged as urgent.that mean about how officials found out about this? >> taking a step back here, this was the day before the balloon entered u.s. airspace over alaska. the defense intelligence agency did send a tipper, a essentially a report that flags foreign objects to government channels. this was disseminated across classified channels. anyone who wanted to read it had access. because it was in the urgent, it was not briefed to the highest level the u.s. has seen balloons like this before. we have learned a lot in the last several days about what the u.s. actually knows about this fleet of balloons and the surveillance program that they are apparently a part of and they believed at the time that even though it was probably headed towards alaska, it was not an urgent threat. it did not pose a military or a physical threat to the united states and, therefore, it seemed like the best course of action would just be to monitor it and potentially collect intelligence about it. but it did enter alaskan ai

it's worth noting our colleagues oren lieberman and natasha bertrand are reporting that russia engaged in an intercontinental ballistic missile test yesterday while president biden was in kyiv, according to sources, that test, u.s. officials believe, failed. it was not considered an anomaly. nor was it considered an escalation. something that russia has tested before in the past. but it was expected to have been mentioned in president putin's remarks earlier today had it been successful, you'll notice it was absent from those remarks. they believe it failed, kate. >> so interesting. and as phil mentioned, biden mentioned putin by name ten names, putin did not mention biden once in his lengthy address in moscow. matthew chance is "outfront." ♪ [ applause ] >> reporter: with a fanfare, the russian president takes to the stage for a long-awaited state of the nation address. nearly a year since his invasion of ukraine, no sign of remorse or regret. only bitterness towards the west. >> translator: the responsibility for fueling the ukrainian conflict for its escalation, for the number of vi

to the pentagon and natasha bertrand joins us there. just what the united states is learning and what happened in the early days. >> reporter: interesting detail we are told with sources familiar with the house intelligence committee briefing by the administration on this, an interesting subject is, you know, the u.s. believes that the order to send the balloon was actually dispatched by a part of the chinese government without xi jinping's knowledge and that could go some way in easing tensions between president biden and president xi jinping if that is true but we are learning that the u.s. is making the argument they did not move faster to shoot down this balloon because they were concerned that it could cause escalations in tensions with the chinese and so they wanted to wait for as long as possible, not only because it could, of course, provoke some kind of conflict with the chinese but also the argument we've seen because it could pose a risk to civilians on the ground there. in addition to this, the u.s. says that they have been

cnn's natasha bertrand is here breaking this reporting.and a new tracking way? >> reporter: in a way. so this balloon went over the u.s. territory in kind of the first year of the biden administration. and at that point they realized, wow, we don't really have a consistent way of tracking these balloons. and so at that point what they were able to do is they were able to collect snaignals from that balloon and put them through the intelligence community's holdings essentially and see where they had popped up in the past. it was a very technical method that they used there, but they did discover it only in the last year. and that has allowed them to not only discover where those balloons have popped up in the past over the continental united states or elsewhere in the world, but also has begin them the capability to track them in real time. so this is a really useful tool that they have now to see where these balloons are, how big the fleet is, and of course whether these balloons are crossing over any particularly sensitive areas. i should

. >> natasha bertrand, what happens in terms of the investigation and the debris that exists? >> reporter: what we were told by the white house and by the pentagon just then is that debris is kind of sitting on frozen waters in u.s. territorial waters and just kind of waiting to be picked up now. u.s. army helicopters have been launched as parts of this recovery effort. and ultimately when they are able to kind of pick up that debris, it will likely go through very much the same process that we are seeing taking place now with the chinese balloon. it will likely go to an fbi lab in quantico, virginia, to be analyzed, and they will have to see whether there is anything significant in terms of an intelligence capability that the u.s. could potentially gather on. you know, it remains unclear, of course, whether or not this is actually something that is significant in terms of the u.s.' capability to collect intelligence on it because it apparently was not transmitting at the time that it was shot down. but ultimately, you know, the u.s. decided that this was the right call becaus

natasha bertrand, thank you. let's bring in cnn white house reporter jasmine wright.attered from the-- heard fr president he gave that order days before the action was carried out. what is he saying? >> the president said, was adamant that he gave that order really as soon as he learned about it. the president said he gave the order to the military on wednesday. he was briefed on tuesday. and he said he wanted it shot down as soon as possible. now the military advised that the president wait as by that time the balloon had drifted over the more densely populated areas and could have damaged property or potentially american lives. so the president took that recommendation and then the military hatched the plan to wait until it was over open water to shoot that balloon down. really waiting a full seven days after the balloon entered u.s. airspace. you're right. the president is now facing criticism for that extended period of the wait really from republicans and democrats and the white house is for the last like 12, 13, 14 hours defending the president on the decision t

a senior administration official providing some new details to myself and natasha bertrand and phil mattinglying what exactly this unidentified object looked like. now, it was flying at about 20,000 feet when it was shot down. it had been flying over part of michigan's upper peninsula and was nearing lake huron when it was taken down by fighter aircraft. and what a senior administration official described is that it had an octagonal shape and there were strings hanging from it, but with no discernible payload. another source that was briefed on the matter also shared that description. and while the u.s. has said that they can't -- haven't determined whether there was any intelligence collection capabilities to this object, they are simply not ruling that out at this moment. now, this object was first detected by norad and nor kam just last night. there were some radar contact that was made in the u.s. sent some fighter aircraft to try to take a look and see if there were anything out there. last night, they did not see an object and ultimately believed it was an anomaly, a radar anomaly. toda

let's bring in natasha bertrand. this operation was days in the making.alk us through the details of what it took to shoot down this balloon. >> reporter: yeah, boris. so yesterday 2:39 p.m. two advanced fighter jets, f-22 fighter jets, struck a single -- launched a single missile that struck that balloon and brought it down. this was the result of many days of planning, intense planning between president biden and his military advisors and his national security team to try to figure out when the best time to shoot down this balloon would actually be. what they decided, apart from the president wanting so shoot it down pretty much immediately after he was briefed on it, it would be better to shoot it down over the ocean because it would provide less of a risk to civilians on the ground and also because it would give the u.s. higher chances of recovering the payload of that balloon completely intact. that is important according to defense officials because they want to snow exactly what is inside that balloon. and u.s. officials who were briefing reporters

good morning to you, natasha be bertrand. is it more of them or just shooting them down because of first one? >> the u.s. military said they have changed their detection filters and made it easier to detect the objects traveling above a certain altitude and at a certain speed. but, look this is an unprecedented series of events. the military doesn't know what the objects actually are. >> reporter: the u.s. on edge dispatching fighter jets to shoot down another mysterious object in michigan on sunday. the incident is the third time that the u.s. military has shot down an unidentified object that was assessed to pose a threat to si civilian aircraft. >> this is the first time within the united states or america airspace that norad or the united states northern command taken action against an airborne object. >> reporter: on friday and saturday, u.s. jets shot down two more objects near alaska and over northern canada. they were flying at around 40,000 feet and have balloon like features with a small metal cylinder underneath. s

. >> joining us now cnn national security correspondent tasha bertrand. natasha, not a major breach, consistent with the pentagon, saying that this balloon had surveillance capabilities but not significantly greater than satellites that are flying over. we're learning new details about its capabilities. what are officials telling you about how seriously they're taking this? >> essentially what we're learning is that the balloon was capable of intercepting communications, right, it had the signals collection capability, but officials also don't believe that that was all that sophisticated, especially because united states actually did take steps to try to prevent the balloon from being able to intercept any communications by, for example, avoiding unencrypted coms in the area of the balloon, so they believe that this balloon even though it had the ability to take photos in the form of 360-degree views that it was not able to see or hear very much. now, we are also learning that the u2 spy planes sent up were able to gather quite a bit of intelligence about what th