Suspicious Balloon That China Says Is For ‘Weather’ Takes Path Across Illinois

This past Wednesday afternoon (2/1) a friend of mine from Billings, Montana posted a video on his Facebook page showing a strange white orb floating in the sky.

He also added in the post that the local airport had announced they had halted all flights but didn't explain the reason so naturally the rumors of what this unidentified flying object was started to surface.

By the following morning, more details began to surface about this suspected China spy balloon floating over Big Sky country when confirmation came from the Pentagon about the "high altitude surveillance balloon" being tracked.

NOAA has been tracking the location of the balloon as the U.S. government monitors its path and considers shooting it down.

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Around 3 pm this afternoon (Friday) the balloon began to make its way into the midwest and was seen from areas around Kansas City, Missouri, and in southern Illinois by St. Louis.

The tracking map of the China spy balloon posted by NOAA showed a path that went across downstate Illinois before it clipped the southwestern tip of Indiana and entered Kentucky with a trajectory that will eventually reach Tennessee and the Carolinas.

A second balloon that is reportedly from China is confimred over South America, according to the Deccan Herald's Twitter page.

China did respond and confirmed the balloons are from their country but deny accusations that they're used specifically for surveilence and spying.

During a live show with comedian Bill Maher on Friday night (2/3), he joked about China sending a balloon over Montana to get intelligence from us. "Now they know where the cows are."

And Maher said that balloons should be the least of our concerns, because "China doesn't need a spy balloon to infiltrate and monitor America – that's what TikTok is for!"

This story is continuing to develop and will be updated as more information is released.