China’s Spy Balloon Spotted by Air Canada Pilots: Declassified Records

Recently declassified Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) documents show that two Air Canada flights had spotted a suspected Chinese spy balloon in January 2023 before news broke that it had breached North American airspace and then was shot down days later. The two heavily redacted “secret” documents associated with the sightings were obtained by independent private investigator Ryan Stacey through access-to-information requests and provided to CTV News. One was a daily log from Jan. 31, 2023, and the other a report of the sighting produced according to procedures known as “Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings” (CIRVIS). The documents referred to the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as a “TOI,” or “track of interest,” and later “Object Charlie.” Air Canada flights from both Vancouver to Montreal and Vancouver to Winnipeg reported their sightings of the unidentified flying object about half an hour apart while flying over southeastern British Columbia....