The White House says it’s unlikely the three objects blasted out of the sky over the weekend are linked to a Chinese surveillance program

 
Spokesperson John Kirby says officials now believe they were tied “to commercial or research entities and therefore benign”.

U.S. and Canadian officials are yet to locate or recover any wreckage from these three downed aircrafts.

It follows Beijing accusing Washington of being “trigger-happy”.

China continues to deny one of its balloons, which was destroyed earlier this month off South Carolina, was being used for espionage.

While Kirby says it will be difficult to determine the purpose or origin of the three other objects until the debris is found and analysed.

But there’s no indication these objects were part of the PRC’s spying programme.