The Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States earlier this year gathered intelligence from multiple sensitive American military sites, according to a new report from NBC News.  

The report, which cites two current American officials and one former administration official, says the balloon was controlled by China, who maneuvered it to make several passes over certain military sites, sometimes in a figure-eight pattern – all while transmitting the gathered data back to Beijing in “real time.” The three officials say the data obtained by China was primarily electronic signals that could be collected from weapons systems or base communications. 

When the National Security Council was pressed for comment from NBC, the news outlet was directed to remarks made in February by the Department of Defense, where officials claimed the balloon had “limited additive value” to the Chinese “over and above what [China] is likely able to collect through things like satellites in low earth orbit.”

While the balloon was able to traverse the country for a week in late January and early February before being shot down, the officials cited said the communist nation could have gathered even more intelligence if the Biden administration hadn’t taken actions to move potential targets around to disrupt intelligence gathering. 

The State Department previously acknowledged the spy balloon had intelligence-gathering capabilities. The balloon flew over Montana, the home of a nuclear missile silo field at Malmstrom Air Force Base. It took a flight path that could have allowed it to collect intelligence at several other sensitive military sites. China claimed it was a civilian airship.

The spy balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on February 4 when the U.S. military used an F-22 Raptor to down the object with a single air-to-air AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.

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General Glen VanHerck, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), said that the balloon was up to 200 feet tall and weighed “in excess of a couple thousand pounds.”

After the balloon was shot down, the U.S. subsequently downed three more unidentified objects over Alaska, Lake Huron, and Canada.

Ryan Saavedra contributed to this report. 

Actor Dennis Quaid warned on Friday that a big enough power grid failure would make the COVID pandemic “look like a kids’ show.”

Quaid explained just how problematic such a failure could be during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters – and he pointed out how it could quickly impact nearly every aspect of human society.

WATCH:

Actor Dennis Quaid sits down with Primetime to talk Hollywood, politics and the vulnerability of U.S. power grids #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/WeTyxJ9EzO

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) March 29, 2023

Quaid, who recently voiced the documentary “Grid Down, Power Up,” suggested that the United States was making a mistake in not doing more to prepare for a potentially catastrophic failure of the power grid.

Referencing his own 2004 climate disaster movie, Quaid explained, “There have been several attacks on substations. I heard about one a couple of months ago. This is not ‘Day After Tomorrow’ by the way, this is tomorrow, I think. It could happen.”

“Just 30 days without electricity, it would take us back to 1880. You wouldn’t be able to get gas. You wouldn’t be able to get food,” Quaid continued, adding that even law enforcement would be severely limited as police officers were forced to stay home and care for their own families.

Watters pointed out the fact that a lack of power would impact people’s ability to find clean water to drink as well.

“This is something that if it does happen, it’s going to make COVID look like a kids show,” Quaid said. “We keep talking about it, but nothing ever gets done.”

Later on in the segment, Watters pressed Quaid on his politics and asked whether he found it difficult to speak his mind in Hollywood. The “Midway” actor said he hadn’t really felt pressure not to speak up — largely because he was an independent who had, at times, voted for both major parties.

“Depending on which way the pendulum goes,” Quaid explained, adding with a laugh, “I’m not really happy with the way the pendulum is right now.”

He argued that Republicans and Democrats needed each other in order to find the best possible balance — but he worried that people were more divided than they had been at any time in his life.

“It usually takes some kind of big thing like World War II really brought — you know we really got our act together when that came up,” Quaid remarked, and Watters asked whether he thought something like that would happen if there was a major power failure.

“Oh yeah. For sure. It’ll be — we’ll be back to tribal law by that time,” he said.