International

No, This is not the Chinese spy balloon.

The video does not show the wreckage of Chinese spy balloon. The video dates back to 2017 and showing a satellite crash in Brazil.

A large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance drifted across a huge swath of the U.S from Montana to the Carolinas, in early February. A fighter jet flying at about 58,000 feet fired a single air-to-air missile and hit the balloon on 4 February. On social media, people have been sharing photos and videos of the balloon.Amidst this, we have noticed a video showing the wreckage of what looks like an artificial satellite with a damaged balloon attached to it. Around six to seven feet in length, inside a forest area is widely circulating on social media.

The caption of the video states, “First video of the downed Chinese Spy Balloon!! #ChineseSpyBalloon #ChinaSpyBalloon #Balloon #spyballoon”

Archive Link

Fact Check– 

We began our investigation by conducting a reverse image search on Google, which led us to a space blog that provided satellite information. The page showed a link to the same viral video uploaded on YouTube on 2 July 2017. When translated to English the caption of the video states “Unknown satellite crashes in Brazil”. In the description they assume “The object seen in the sky over Natal was the Chinese satellite FSW-3 2, responsible for taking photographs of the Earth. NORAD, the North American service responsible for monitoring satellites around the planet, confirmed that the object was a satellite and not a meteorite. 

In further search we found the same video was uploaded in another YouTube channel on 1 July 2017 with the caption “Satellite crashes in Brazil”

Further search led us to the website Metabunk.org, which investigates conspiracy theories. According to a 1July, 2017 article, a piece of paper glued to the back of the wreckage had the words “CONTACT PROJECT LOON RECOVERY TEAM” written on it. The article mentioned that a satellite had landed on 15 May, 2017.

Next we looked for news reports in English and Portuguese from around that time period to confirm this, but we couldn’t find any. We did, however, come across several news reports mentioning similar crashes of balloon “satellites” as part of Project Loon. 

Project Loon began as a research and development project by X (formerly Google X) in 2011, but later spun out into a separate company in July 2018.In January 2021, it was announced that the company would be shut down due to lack of profitability.

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be False. The video dates back to 2017 and showing a satellite crash in Brazil 2017 and has nothing to do with the spy balloon incident.

Title:No, This is not the Chinese spy balloon.

Fact Check By: Usha Manoj

Result: False

Usha Manoj

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