Taiwan’s military detected a balloon in the north of the country on Friday, the Air Force said in a statement, without indicating whether the balloon came from China.

The object was determined to be a weather balloon, but an Air Force aircraft was still diverted mid-mission to observe the balloon until it left Taiwan’s airspace, according to the statement.

The military also informed the Civil Aeronautics Administration of the balloon to ensure it posed no risk to civilian aircraft, it added.

This is not the first time Taiwan’s military has detected a weather balloon believed to come from China.

On Feb. 16, the Army’s Dongyin Area Command, which is responsible for guarding Dongyin islet, part of the Matsu archipelago governed by Lienchiang County in the Republic of China (Taiwan), and approximately 40km from China, said soldiers found the wreckage of a suspected weather balloon believed to have originated in China.

The Ministry of National Defense later made public a photograph of the wreckage, saying that the balloon did not contain any audio/video recording or storage equipment.

Also, on Feb. 14, after the Financial Times reported a day earlier that dozens of Chinese military balloons have been spotted flying through Taiwan’s airspace over the past few years, the military said that all Chinese balloons detected in Taiwan’s airspace to date have been weather balloons and did not pose a sufficient security threat to shoot them down.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel