Unnamed officials told the Washington Post they believed such balloons were used to collect intelligence on strategically relevant territories. Quoting an unnamed senior Biden administration official, CBS News confirmed that the US intelligence community believed the balloon was part, in its words, of an "aerial surveillance program run by the People's Liberation Army out of Hainan". And according to US officials, the balloon shot down had flown over Alaska and Canada before appearing in the US state of Montana, which is home to a number of sensitive nuclear missile sites