The US Fleet Forces Command released several photos showing large debris of the balloon being hauled into a boat.
The balloon was retrieved off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a day after being shot down by a fighter jet.
The military shot down the balloon Saturday with a missile fired from an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet. The Pentagon waited several days before shooting it down to avoid possibly injuring people on the ground with falling debris.
The navy said the debris was spread over seven miles (11km) of the Atlantic Ocean, and two naval ships – including one with a heavy crane for recovery – were sent to the area.
US officials have described the balloon as being about 200 ft (60m) tall, with the payload portion comparable in size to regional airliners and weighing hundreds – or potentially thousands – of pounds.
Colombia’s Air Force says an identified object – believed to be a balloon – was detected on 3 February in the country’s airspace at above 55,000ft.
The Chinese balloon had been flying at about 60,000 feet over parts of the U.S., including Montana, Idaho and Missouri. U.S. officials said that it did not pose a military threat but did acknowledge that its flight path “carried it over a number of sensitive sites.” Montana—for example—is home to the U.S. military’s land-based, nuclear-tipped Minuteman III missile fields.
The discovery of the balloon set off a diplomatic crisis, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately calling off a weekend trip to China – the first such high level US-China meeting there in years – over the “irresponsible act”.
