A U.S. Air Force pilot has a unique keepsake from the Chinese spy balloon crisis -- a selfie snapped with the device in the background ... before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean.
The Pentagon released new images Wednesday, showing the balloon in flight on Feb. 3 -- the USAF eventually fired a missile on Feb. 4 to take it down. The photos were taken from the cockpit of a U-2 spy plane, which is capable of flying at an altitude of up to 70,000 feet.
The spy balloon was reportedly floating around 40,000 feet when it was destroyed. Interestingly, the new photos show it was still over land on Feb. 3, and that the U.S. military was keeping a close eye on the balloon.
U.S. officials said China's super snooper was about the size of 3 school buses, and you can see in the pics ... it had huge solar panels attached to the spying equipment.
President Biden said he gave the order to shoot it down on Feb. 1, but military advisors said it would be best to wait until it was over open water.
It eventually came to rest in U.S. territorial water off the coast of South Carolina, where our military collected the wreckage.