A picture released by the U.S. military on February 7, 2023 shows U.S. Navy sailors recovering the wreckage of a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. (Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Thompson/US Navy via Getty Images)
[The Epoch Times, February 16, 2023](Reported by English Epoch Times reporters Tiffany Meier and Venus Upadhayaya/Compiled by Takasugi) Author, former director of cyber security policy, strategy and international affairs of the Ministry of Defense, and retired Colonel Mills said that the CCP spy balloon It has mobility and is very similar to Google’s balloon project “Project Loon”. The latter utilizes artificial intelligence analytics in its operations.
In an interview recorded on February 9th on NTD TV (the sister media of The Epoch Times) “China in Focus”, John Mills said: “It is very interesting that in 2012, When I was at Google, Google introduced me to ‘Project Loon’, their balloon project. And they used advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics to raise and lower the balloon, and by raising and lowering the balloon, they could keep The position of the balloon.”
He said that throughout the “spy balloon” incident, the U.S. Department of Defense has made it very clear that the CCP’s balloons have maneuverability.
The Chinese regime insists it was an out-of-control weather balloon. But the U.S. government has disputed that claim.
“This is a surveillance balloon of the People’s Republic of China. The surveillance balloon purposely traveled through the United States and Canada and, we believe, sought to monitor sensitive military locations,” a senior defense official said in a statement on February 4. .This shows that the balloon can steer itself over the United States.”
Mills said that when Google introduced Project Loon to him a decade ago, he was struck by its similarity to a previous CIA balloon project.
He said: “It looks a lot like a CIA project in the 50s and 60s. It has about 10 different code names – Skyhook, AshCan (etc.). Google’s program manager … he has left NASA and is working on Works for Google. He said to me: ‘Yeah, we actually made a request to the CIA under the FOA[Freedom of Information Act]and they gave us all the plans’.”
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is using “Project Loon” to explore the possibility of using fleets of balloons to deliver high-speed internet in remote parts of the world. Google reportedly shut down the project after nine years due to its inability to find a sustainable business model and partnership.
However, the outside world is not very clear about the real reason for its closure. Tech Crunch, a news site that focuses on information technology companies, said it was “surprised” that the project had been shut down. Because just a year ago, it had been approved by the Kenyan government to provide commercial connectivity services.
Mills said that in the “Project Loon” project, Google copied the technical information it obtained from the CIA through the “Freedom of Information Act”, but the difference is that Google added its advanced artificial intelligence and big data analysis technology to analyze The balloon is manipulated.
“It’s interesting that China’s spy balloons are also steerable. So, did the Chinese steal Google, which borrowed CIA technology? That’s a curious question!” he said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Google for comment.
China conducts surveillance on strategic U.S. locations
Mills believes that the CCP is clearly conducting surveillance on specific strategic locations in the United States.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re over the three … existing missile wings,” Mills said. “The U.S. has about 450 Minuteman III missiles on alert in three different missile wings. So, in the Malmstrom Montana Air Force Base, Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota – which also has a bomber base – and Francis-E -Francis E. Warren, about 150 missiles each.”
According to the U.S. Department of Defense website, the Minuteman missile system is a strategic weapon system with intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. Since 1959, the U.S. ICBM force has been on continuous 24-hour alert. The Minuteman III missiles form the most responsive link in the nuclear triad.
“China (the CCP) is obviously spying on this,” Mills said. “They’re trying to fill in the holes and gaps in the aerial surveillance, the aerial imagery. They’re obviously doing that, and they’re obviously gathering information. And it looks like, it The track also passed Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.”
He suspects that the CCP’s launch of the balloon was an espionage operation. When it was over Nebraska, Beijing was monitoring underground facilities.
“They’re obviously doing electronic signal collection, maybe imagery, maybe survey intelligence — all forms of intelligence,” Mills said. “Believe me, they’ve probably also put in all kinds of different little sensors and sub-sensors to collect everything. So there’s no Doubt; they could call it a weather balloon at will.”
Responsible Editor: Ye Ziwei#