• New Cold War The Chinese father of spy balloons (and fighter jets)

  • Crisis The spy-balloon crisis: a Chinese miscalculation?

  • International This was the operation to demolish the Chinese spy balloon in the United States

A pilot of a U-2 plane flying above the

Chinese spy balloon

on February 3 snapped a

close-up photo

of the large white orb just a day before the Air Force shot it down off the coast of South Carolina. .

The photo shows the top of the pilot's helmet inside the cockpit of the U-2 with the balloon flying below.

It was taken on February 3

as the balloon was "flying over the central continental United States,"

according to the caption provided by the Department of Defense.

The Pentagon released the image on Wednesday, more than two weeks after the balloon made international headlines as it transited through the United States.

The balloon was shot down on February 4 by an

F-22 fighter that fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile

.

The attack occurred when the balloon was no longer over land, but within the territorial waters of the United States.

The

U-2 Dragon Lady

is an American high-altitude spy plane that has been in service since the 1950s.

The Pentagon announced last Friday that Navy ships and submersibles had completed the recovery of the huge balloon and its payload, which fell to pieces in the Atlantic Ocean.

The payload has been recovered from the ocean floor and

is being analyzed by the FBI

, Pentagon spokeswoman

Sabrina Singh

said Wednesday .

The shootdown led to

three other smaller objects also being shot down

by Air Force aircraft in a period of eight days: one over Alaska, one over Canada and one over Lake Huron.

The search for the Alaska and Lake Huron artifacts is over.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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