The U.S. military has decided to call off its search for objects that were shot down last week over Deadhorse, Alaska, and Lake Huron.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command released a statement late Friday evening confirming that search operations have ended for debris from the objects that were shot down on Feb. 10 and Feb. 12 over northeast Alaska and Lake Huron.
The decision to end the search came after the U.S. military and Canada “conducted systematic searches of each area using a variety of capabilities including airborne imagery and sensors, surface sensors and inspections, and subsurface scans, and did not locate debris,” according to the U.S. Northern Command.
The U.S. Northern Command said that the recovery operations had ended on Thursday, according to The Associated Press. They also said that the final pieces are heading to the FBI lab in Virginia for further analysis.
[ High-altitude object shot down over Lake Huron, Pentagon officials confirm ]
The U.S. Northern Command, according to the AP, confirmed that air and maritime restrictions off the coast of South Carolina have since been lifted. They have also been lifted for Alaska and Lake Huron.
The U.S. military said that the navy and coast guard have been “scouring the seat for nearly two weeks have departed the area,” according to Reuters.
According to Reuters, the U.S. military said that they have collected all of the priority sensors and electronics of the Chinese balloons along with structures and elements that could be used for further analysis. The U.S. military believes these things can help counterintelligence officials figure out how China “may have been collecting as well as transmitting surveillance information.”