The alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down over the Atlantic was taller than the Statue of Liberty.

The Department of Defense on Monday revealed the size of an alleged Chinese spy balloon that the US shot down over the Atlantic Ocean this weekend and it turned out to be larger than the Statue of Liberty. The balloon is believed to have been up to 200 feet tall, officials said, taller than the iconic New York City monument, which measures just over 151 feet tall from the top of the base to the torch.

The balloon, which officials said carried surveillance equipment the size of two to three school buses, was shot down over the weekend after being seen flying over the US for several days. It was removed from airspace around 2:30 p.m. Saturday by a single air-to-air missile over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina, officials told CBS News.

Air Force General Glen VanHerk, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the US Northern Command, said on Monday that the real balloon was 200 feet high and that it carried a payload the size of a jet airliner.

“[It] probably weighs over a couple of thousand pounds,” he said. “So I would — from a safety point of view — imagine myself with large pieces of debris weighing hundreds, if not thousands of pounds, falling from the sky. That’s really what we’re kind of talking about.”

VanHerke said the huge debris field left behind by the destroyed balloon is about 4,921 by 4,921 feet – “more than 15 football fields by 15 football fields.”

He told CBS News’ David Martin that officials had already “picked up most of the debris that fell into the ocean and elsewhere.” He also told Martin that the rocket that brought down the balloon “absolutely” contained a warhead.

“There was a warhead in the missile,” he said. “You can see this explosion on TV as it goes through the bottom of the balloon and right there through the superstructure.”

VanHerke added that officials chose not to shoot down the balloon earlier because it was initially believed that it “poses no physical military threat to North America.”

“I couldn’t take immediate action because it didn’t show hostile action or hostile intent,” he said.

China claimed the balloon was a meteorological device and said the US “overreacted” to it. But VanHerke said officials on Monday “had good indications from the outset that it was an observation balloon.”

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