China urged calm Friday and said that it was looking into reports of a high-altitude surveillance balloon suspected of belonging to Beijing hovering over the United States, while Canadasaid it was monitoring a “potential second incident.”
U.S. officials said Thursday the military was monitoring the balloon, which flew over the Aleutian Islands and through Canada before being spotted Wednesday over Billings, Montana. A senior defense official said the U.S. was confident that the balloon belonged to China, which has flown stratospheric balloons over the country before but not usually for this long.
