With these images, the company was able to trace a path of the balloon’s trajectory over the United States. Ms. Xiao contacted Synthetaic’s founder, Corey Jaskolski, that night to learn more ...

He first saw the balloon in the satellite data over the Atlantic about two hours before an Air Force fighter jet took it down Feb. 4. “We then started tracing backwards across the United States ...

Dots on the map indicate the locations of satellite images identifying the spy balloon. A dotted orange line connects these dots, showing the approximate path of the balloon as it traveled eastward.